WENGER FIGHT
Manager to battle curbs on his power
ARSENE WENGER will fiercely stand his ground at tomorrow’s Arsenal board meeting amid pressure to make significant changes to the way he runs the club.
Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke is expected to endorse a new two-year contract for the manager. But Wenger will fight the club’s attempts to enforce changes to his backroom team in a stand- off that could yet lead to the manager leaving the club. Saturday’s FA Cup final win has reinforced the US businessman’s belief that Wenger is the right man to lead the club forward.
That should pave the way for Wenger to continue, with the 67-year-old determined to stay on as boss. But part of tomorrow’s meeting will concern proposed changes to the club’s footballing operation. The board believe the backroom team needs modernising.
Wenger is willing to make certain changes, but will challenge any adjustments he does not like, particularly the appointment of a sporting director, which he has always opposed.
And on it goes. The grand saga of Arsenal. Everything’s a saga at Arsenal, haven’t you noticed? Arsene Wenger’s future, will Alexis Sanchez stay or go, whither Mesut Ozil, will Alisher Usmanov depose Stan Kroenke? Just about every other major club in Europe works with a director of football but, at Arsenal, the very mention induces months of agonised uncertainty.
Yet here’s the strange thing. Where’s the plot? Where’s the beef? Peel it all away and where is the tension in this story? We know that, deep down, Wenger wants to stay. We know, similarly, that the club want to keep him. There is no market, right now, for Ozil. Kroenke won’t sell.
And the director of football would serve Wenger, not the other way around. It is incredible that Arsenal seem to exist in a permanent state of crisis when open the window and all you hear is the chirping of crickets. Why do they do this to themselves? If there was even the remotest chance of a P45 being handed across the table, it helped Wenger that on Saturday Arsenal gave one of those performances that raises the question: who better?
Who is out there capable of extracting more from the players than Wenger did in 90 minutes at Wembley? True, a few coaches would fancy their chances of getting Arsenal higher than fifth this season, and ahead of Leicester a year ago — Roberto Mancini has been angling for Arsenal all season. Yet a one-off game and a trophy at the end of it can mask a number of shortcomings. Ask Jose Mourinho.
Even so, it was impossible to begrudge Wenger his place in the history books as the winner of a seventh FA Cup, and his third in four years.
despite the luck afforded by referee Anthony Taylor’s mistakes for the first goal — Sanchez handled and Aaron Ramsey was offside — Arsenal were worthy winners. They were the better team, never behind, and could have been coasting before halftime with better finishing.
Asked whether he would be brandishing his winners’ medal or giving a presentation when the board convene tomorrow, Wenger was cool. ‘The best presentation,’ he said. ‘Watch the game and there can be no doubt.’
Yet there it is again, the saga. Tuesday. Why Tuesday? Plenty of people work at weekends or on bank holidays. Why can Arsenal’s directors convene only like nine-to-five clerks?
Manchester City have already signed one of Monaco’s finest players, Bernardo Silva, yet Arsenal still cannot say with absolute certainty who the manager will be next season. Executives insist, rather smugly, that this is the Arsenal way; they conduct business in their own time and will not be rushed. And that’s fine if there is no negative effect. Yet Wenger admits the ambiguity around his future has harmed the players this season and Saturday’s display suggests that, with less distracting speculation, Arsenal were surely one of the top four teams in the Premier League. They have made a mess of it, Wenger and his employers, introducing doubt where there should have been none. It may not cost them Wenger, but it certainly cost the Champions League and could still cost Sanchez; in the form he showed against this season’s champions that would be a giant loss. Sanchez ran and stretched a surprisingly lacklustre Chelsea in the way Antonio Conte’s forwards did not sufficiently test Per Mertesacker, returning for his first start since April 30 last year. Sanchez got the man of the match but, in the circumstances, it was hard to see past Mertesacker — outstanding against diego Costa, marshalling from the heart of Arsenal’s defence. ‘He has an unbelievable attitude, he is a fantastic example for any young professional football player,’ Wenger said. ‘When he was not selected he worked even harder. That’s why I pay a special tribute to him.’ And it is easy to see why players respond to Wenger, too. He made Mertesacker his captain, even though he knew he would hardly play this season; he stuck with david Ospina as his Cup final goalkeeper even though he is to be sold to Fenerbahce for £5m, and Petr Cech clearly expected to be given the call. Why stay loyal to a player who will not be with you next season, at the risk of alienating one on whom you rely? Wenger will argue he gave his word, and then stuck to it. There are worse failings for a manager than honesty. Perhaps this explains why Wenger is so resistant to the control of a sporting director. Any interference, however well meant, will disrupt his unique style. ‘I don’t change my commitment,’ he said. ‘I worked until the last day of my contract, which is basically today. I’m not a young man. Well, I feel a very young man, but I don’t look very young. That’s the difference. I have the desire. I love my job. I love to win, I love to build, I love to get people going. I love what I do; it’s as simple as that.
‘We live in a society that always wants change. There’s a kind of violence in our society now where everybody has opinions and we have to live with it, but football and every company is about making the right decision. That’s why I say it’s not about popularity, it’s about competence.’
Arsenal’s competence was not in doubt at Wembley on an afternoon when they were defensively tighter and more potent on the counter-attack than Chelsea, and when Granit Xhaka dominated n’Golo Kante in midfield. Perhaps it was simply harder for Conte to keep the momentum going 15 days after Chelsea clinched the title.
The last two teams to let the double slip also had long lead-ins to the FA Cup final: 13 days for Manchester United in 2007, 21 for Liverpool in 1988. Conte had given a wider group a chance against Watford, he had indulged John Terry’s ceremony against Sunderland.
Chelsea did not look themselves; they looked like they had knocked off. Ramsey’s winner came 21 minutes later than any goal of significance — a match-winner or equaliser — that had been scored against Chelsea in the league all season.
Yet Chelsea’s failings do not diminish Wenger’s glory. He has transformed Arsenal’s shape and form in the final stages of the season; too late to give them what they needed in the league, but in time to win one of only five trophies available to English clubs. That should be enough to secure two more years, even if all he is signing up for is another saga.