Just how does Mr Wenger’s 20 years compare with the 20 years before him?

8 Replies to “Just how does Mr Wenger’s 20 years compare with the 20 years before him?”

1. I actually think that Arsene’s heir – if picked carefully, that is – shouldn’t have problems.

   Wenger’s heir won’t have to make a new stadium or to think about off-the-pitch issues of important players.

   Wenger’s heir will have a healthy core consisted of players like Cech, Bellerin, Monreal, Koscielny, Gabriel, Mertesacker, Chambers, Coquelin, Ramsey, Cazorla, Welbeck, Giroud, Wilshere, Ozil, Alexis…and talents like Bielik, Iwobi, Akpom. If you think I have missed a few notable players, it’s not a coincidence, for various reasons.

   Also, Wenger’s heir will have a club brought from a three-star hotel lobby to the five-star hotel penthouse. He won’t have to sell best players to survive. He won’t have to watch rivals overpaying players he wanted to sign first (Mata, Hazard, Cristiano Ronaldo).

   Actually, I think it will be an easy ride for Wenger’s heir as he won’t have to drive a stick – Wenger has turned the vehicle to automatic.

   So, Wenger’s heir, whoever you will be, shift it to “D” and enjoy the ride in a vehicle someone else had prepared for you.

2. Thank you. HIs record is astonishing. I also remember the times he was blatantly robbed of getting a few extra trophies over the years by some curious decisions. But going by the facts only- his record is incredible.

3. But why can’t Wenger shift it to “D” already? It has been years. I actually think he has shifted to “D” already, only issue is that he hits the same pothole and gets a puncture while on his way to the casino to get his jackpot. He then REFUSES to patch the pothole sufficiently or change to better tyres or steer clear of the damn pothole.

4. I don’t think it is quite so clear cut that Wenger is better than Graham.

   If you look at the trophies won per year of tenure, Graham was more successful than Wenger. Graham also won a European trophy (and a Nayim lob away from winning 2) and a higher proportion of Graham’s wins were the league itself, i.e. arguably more difficult. Moreover, when Graham took over, Arsenal were a moribund mid-table team. Whilst that is also arguably true of Wenger, he also inherited the famous back 4, Ian Wright and (arguably) Denis Bergkamp (although Wenger may have had something to do with that purchase). If Wenger had that lot available this year the PL would be almost sewn up by now!

   Wenger wins in other respects – consistent top 4 / CL, rebuilding the stadium, no ‘bungs’, and of course the visual feast that much of the football has been over the last 20 years. Both are great managers, of their time.

5. Wenger has gotten us into the Champions League every year since 1998-99.

   Graham got us into its predecessor, the European Cup, exactly once, and bottled it at home against an easily takeable Benfica side.

   Granted, he was denied other chances: Only the League Champions from the previous year got in, and the first time Graham did that, UEFA overreacted to Heysel and kept all English teams out for something that was as much the fault of Juventus fans’ stupidity as it was Liverpool fans’ aggression.

   In 1990-91, Graham missing going unbeaten by 1 game and the Double due to losing a Semifinal to Spurs. Wenger has won the Double twice, in 1997-98 and 2001-02; and went unbeaten in 2003-04.

   True, Wenger has never won a European trophy. But he’s had seasons in which he’s won more games in Europe than Graham did in his entire career. The Cup Winners’ Cup was the 3rd-most important trophy in Europe, of so little consequence that UEFA folded it into the UEFA Cup/Europa League, so that it doesn’t even exist anymore.

   Don’t tell me about Graham’s back 4, or back 5 if you want to include Seaman in goal. When Wenger came in, those guys were on their last legs. Wenger rejuvenated them, and did more with them than Graham did. Furthermore, he replaced every one of them with a player of at least similar, in some cases better, ability: Seaman with Lehmann, Dixon with Lauren, Winterburn with Cole, Adams with Campbell, Bould/Keown with Kolo Toure.

   “When Graham took over, Arsenal were a moribund mid-table team.” And when Graham left, Arsenal were an even worse team. In the last 4 season Graham began as Arsenal manager, Arsenal finished 4th, 10th (behind Spurs), 4th and 12th (behind Spurs), and 5th in the Rioch interregnum. If Wenger had ever finished below 4th, or behind Spurs, the Graham fanboys would want him sacked, slapped, shot, hanged, decapitated, drawn and quartered — not necessarily in that order.

   And, let’s not forget, Graham truly embarrassed us with the reason he had to leave — which had nothing to do with our reduced level of competitiveness.

   Yet, somehow, Graham gets a free pass for doing things that are, both literally and figuratively, beneath Wenger’s record.

   Maybe it’s because Wenger is French, while Graham is English.

   He’s not. He’s a proud Scot. Something the yobs tend to forget.

   The bottom line is this: When Graham took over, Arsenal were one of several clubs in England with a nice history, but not really relevant at the time, such as Aston Villa, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Leeds United, Sunderland, Everton. When he left, Arsenal had bolstered that history, but were actually in more trouble than when he arrived.

   When Wenger took over, Arsenal were still in that trouble. Today, Arsenal are one of the most respected football clubs on the planet, with the best stadium in the country, achievements won the right way, which Manchester Unite and Chelsea cannot truthfully claim, and that one achievement that no one else can claim.

   None of this means that Wenger is the right manager to have next season. But is there a manager out there who can keep Arsenal going even at the level it’s at now? Pep Guardiola has managed 2 teams: Barcelona and Bayern. When he starts at Manchester City, we will, for the first time, see him manage a team for whom diving and dirty tackles are actually punished, rather than encouraged. He will get exposed as a fraud. Jurgen Klopp will have his first off-season to spend big, and we’ll see which is the real Klopp: The guy who got Dortmund to the CL Final, or the guy who nearly got them relegated just 2 years later.

   As the old song goes, Wenger may be right, he may be wrong, but you know you’re going to miss him when he’s gone.

6. “The bottom line is this: When Graham took over, Arsenal were one of several clubs in England with a nice history, but not really relevant at the time, such as Aston Villa, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Leeds United, Sunderland, Everton. When he left, Arsenal had bolstered that history, but were actually in more trouble than when he arrived….”

   Graham did a great job in turning Arsenal round although a fair percentage of that was with players that had been brought on in the youth team under Don Howe but he used the resources he had and produced a winning team. We were just treading water before, regularly finishing below Spurs, West Ham, QPR and miles away from being champions. The gates where at a post war low (below Spurs in 1981,1982,1983 and fairly equal in 1985). He took over of a club of fairly limited ambition and lacking focus. That he managed to win the league twice and provide the greatest end to a season in football history stands him up as a great Arsenal manager.

   “… but were actually in more trouble than when he arrived….”

   I just don’t get that at all?

7. We were in more trouble than when he arrived = Graham was sacked suddenly for corruption.

8. I am aware of that 🙂 and I remember how poor his last side was but Arsenal as a club “in more trouble than when he arrived” I don’t buy that. GG was vital in turning Arsenal round otherwise we could have just drifted like Villa, Wolves,Spurs or Everton. I think it also almost as difficult to compare Wenger to Graham and it is to compare Graham to Chapman. The way football has moved on is huge. I rememeber the first time I saw Limpar play and it was so memorable as overseas players we so rare at the time. I never saw Vladimir Petrovic as I was too young (I did repaint the hair on my Subbuteo team) but I remember Allan Simonsen at Charlton and going to see him play as it was something so odd at the time.