Time for Arsene to go... and the clock is ticking on Kroenke as well
TODAY is the start of a huge fortnight for Arsenal fans. Will we fall out of the Champions League for the first time in 21 years? Will we win the FA Cup? Who will the club’s owner be? And most importantly of all, will Arsene Wenger remain as manager?
Clearly results from the season’s final matches will go a long way to answering these questions. But if the board listen to the fans, the decision on Wenger is straightforward. It is time for change.
In a survey by the Arsenal Supporters’ Trust, 78 per cent of fans said it was time for Wenger to leave. The last time this question was posed, in 2015, 84 per cent agreed he was ‘the right person to manage Arsenal’. It is an extraordinary swing in sentiment.
Wenger has given us, and the English game, some of the best football we have witnessed. But time catches up with everyone. The facts speak for themselves. We haven’t gone beyond the round of 16 in the Champions League for seven years. Similarly we can only be said to have genuinely competed for the league title once in the last 12 years.
It is hard to imagine any other big European club tolerating this. But this is part of the problem.
Arsenal are no longer owned by custodian fans. Instead under Stan Kroenke we are an investment vehicle. As long as financial results are healthy the football ones matter much less to a man who bought Arsenal to make money rather than win trophies.
But there are glimmers of light. Finally the need for change is getting through to some. In a discussion with chief executive Ivan Gazidis last month, he told me the situation ‘was not good enough and Arsenal are not where we want us to be’.
He promised to be a ‘catalyst of change’ and said that a major review was underway into the club’s football infrastructure.
This is welcome and such a review needs to address all the areas where Arsenal have fallen behind. This means broadening the footballing workload from just one man to a senior team, probably best consolidated under a director of football type role. Most crucially it means having structures that can close out on deals rapidly rather than the dithering that has harmed so many transfer windows.
We also have renewed speculation about the club’s ownership. A change would be warmly embraced.
The next fortnight will reveal how much and how quickly Arsenal want to return to the top table. If they have the appetite to do so it means that change is needed. It needs to start in the dugout but must also extend to the boardroom.