Arsene Wenger’s comments about Real Madrid on Sunday should have sent a cold shudder through the bones of any right-minded Arsenal fan, while those who question the position of the manager should be very, very careful what they wish for...
Wenger appeared to indulge in a spot of flirting with the Spanish giants over the weekend, claiming that if Florentino Perez won the club’s election then the Real job would be ‘strongly interesting’ as he pointedly refused to deny having had contact with the man who coined the term ‘galacticos’.
That particular squad-building philosophy – which advocated paying world record transfer fees for the biggest names in world football including Luis Figo and Zinedine Zidane – seems to directly contradict Wenger’s sharply-formed football ethics so his refusal to offer an immediate rebuttal should be very worrying indeed.
Worrying because if he does decide to leave Emirates Stadium, then Arsenal will be waving goodbye to arguably the greatest manager in the club’s history and a man whose status in world football is virtually unrivalled.
Yes this has been a difficult season for Gunners fans. Five defeats before Christmas spelt an early end to their title challenge, chances were drying up before the arrival of Andrei Arshavin and losing two semi-finals to key rivals will always hurt.
But for those Arsenal fans calling for Wenger’s head, and unbelievably it seems that there are some, an urgent sense of perspective is needed.
I would urge these fans that next time they visit Emirates Stadium, if indeed they do at all, then they take a quick look at the space between the tiers where all the honours that the club accumulated before moving to the stadium are listed.
Wenger has of course contributed three Premier League titles and four FA Cups, but the most eye-catching feature of the banner that spans the circumference of the arena is the cavernous gap between 1953 and 1971. That, for the uninitiated or the fan whose memory does not extend past The Premier League, is the amount of time Arsenal had to wait between league titles.
Eighteen whole years. The current trophy drought extends to just four.
But it is true that animosity to Wenger is growing, demonstrated by the frosty reception that some shareholders gave him at a Q&A session last week. It is equally true that the Frenchman has made some real errors in recent months.
The failure to sufficiently replace Mathieu Flamini and Gilberto Silva this summer was his most critical and directly undermined the club’s title challenge from the start. The decision to allow Lassana Diarra to join Portsmouth on a permanent deal, rather than a loan, also looks particularly bad in this context.
It further seems at times as though Wenger is using Arsenal, the conduit by which hundreds of thousands of fans live out their dreams and aspirations, as the vehicle for his own moral crusade against football’s ills – particularly the ‘financial doping’ that he has accused Chelsea of.
Similarly the reluctance to spend money in order to avoid ‘killing’ players such as Denilson and Nicklas Bendtner – who are not yet at the level required by the club – is a stubborn trait and one exposed as faulty when the club record signing of Arshavin in January brought a brilliant new aspect to Arsenal’s play.
But the case against is well-established and these complaints have been made against the Frenchman for the last few years. What of the case for?...
In terms of infrastructure, Wenger has guaranteed that Arsenal will be a great club for years to come. Playing a key role in constructing a training ground that England use on a regular basis and a stadium that Brazil have made their second home may have restricted the club’s spending power temporarily but, more importantly, it has decisively taken the club out of the ranks of the Evertons and Aston Villas of this world and into the elite smattering of global giants.
In fact, there is no doubt that Wenger is the most influential and inspirational Arsenal manager have had since Herbert Chapman – not only in his impact at the club itself but for the wider game as a whole.
While Chapman, appointed in 1925 and winner of a two league titles and one FA Cup, helped modernise football by advocating the use of floodlights and shirt numbers, amongst other innovations, Wenger helped drag The Premier League into the modern era with his new dietary regimes and fitness programmes.
Such mundane, long-lasting and vital structural concerns are not what capture the imagination of many supporters though, we all know that. But what does is the way a team plays and there are few who would deny that in terms of artistic impression, Arsenal have swept the board in the past 13 years.
I don’t think it would be too much of a stretch to say that those Arsenal fans questioning Wenger have been horribly spoilt by the delightful football produced by the likes of Thierry Henry and Robert Pires . Spoilt to the extent that they now apparently want rid of the man who brought such stellar talents to England.
This season has been difficult, but it can be argued that it has been one of progress. Yes The Gunners fell away in the league but reaching the semi-finals of the Champions League and FA Cup cannot be sniffed at and they surpass last season's achievements.
In Chelsea and Manchester United, Wenger has two financial juggernaughts to contend with and it is not just Arsenal who are struggling to keep pace. The likes of Milan, Inter, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid all appear helpless in the face of Premier League dominance. Barcelona may yet prove the exception.
Wenger's utopia of a level financial playing field is not an achievable one at present and in the current conditions, remaining in the top four year on year is an achievement in itself.
It is still my contention that the vast majority of real Arsenal fans do not want Wenger to leave. On numerous visits to Emirates Stadium this season I am yet to hear one person call for his head, even if dissatisfaction has noticeably grown.
Misplaced passes are met with a chorus of groans – the ‘slaughtering’ of the team that Wenger referred to last week – but those supporters with a sense of perspective surely remain behind the manager.
Those who do want a change, be careful what you wish for. Wenger’s departure would hardly convince Cesc Fabregas et all that their long term future remains at Emirates Stadium, and anyway, who would you want to replace the current manager?
Arsene still knows, and his past achievements demand that the supporters believe that.