This week D3D4 Columnist Darren Young takes a look at the record of a man who is not getting the credit he deserves…
Arsenal Wenger – A Specialist Who Deserves To Be Called Special
Apart from changing the philosophy of English football, the habits of the ‘drinking culture’ players, going a whole season without losing, winning twenty-four FA Cups, qualifying for the Champions League for a million consecutive seasons, introducing an attractive style to a team called ‘boring, boring Arsenal’ and who had a song about them that was called ‘one-nil’, bringing a whole host of about-to-become-World Cup winning French talent to the Premier League, bringing the best out of an aviophobic (sic) Dutchman at the same time and giving us endless hours of duvet jacket zip-fastening viewing; what has Arsene Wenger ever done for us?
‘Stayed too long and ruined his legacy’ tens of thousands of Gooners will be screaming from their seats (or sofas) and maybe they’re right but it does seem a shame that someone who has done so much to enhance the game in this country and none more so than at the club that has been his home (and seemingly, own) for the last twenty-odd years, should be given such a negative bon voyage.
Another lesser-known bit of trivia is that Mr Wenger was the apparent target of Sir Alex Ferguson’s now famous and oft-repeated ‘squeaky bum time’ comment in 2003. He was referring to Arsenal’s cup replay with Chelsea and how a win for them would mean playing a semi-final a few days before meeting Manchester United in a virtual title-decider.
So, after Monsieur Wenger’s last Old Trafford game as Arsenal’s manager – when Surallex joined the current incumbent, ‘self-proclaimed Special One’ Jose Mourinho – who’d previously described Wenger as a ‘specialist in failure’ – to pay a special tribute to the outgoing Frenchman, it seemed as fitting a time as any to not only also pay tribute but take a look back at his achievements.
So, whilst hardly specialising in failure, was he a specialist in free-flowing football, not knowing when to quit, revolutionising the game in England, winding up other managers, stubbornness or, after 2004, simply winning FA Cups?
He certainly never quite mastered sitting still. ‘It’s squeaky bum time’ said specialist in mind games, Fergie, back in 2003, ‘and we’ve got the experience now to cope’; the first bit was an expression I am led to believe that refers to the nervousness that makes one create a noise as they squirm in their seat while watching their team; although how Arsene could make any sound through all that padding remains unanswered.
My – albeit brief – research also came across a really dull Cambridge Dictionary meaning and a dubious claim that it is an old Glaswegian phrase for ‘nearly shitting yourself’ but when I asked, I couldn’t understand anyone well enough to know if that had any basis in truth.
Whatever, it worked back then, as United won the league with Arsenal and their squeaky bums a close second, as was to become a feature in those pre-Abu Dhabi days, but not the following season, as Wenger was to not only reverse that order but do so in style as his ‘Invincibles’ went all thirty-eight games unbeaten, although even that has been derided by some, with Talksport’s resident Arsenal-hater, Adrian Durham once saying that you could draw every match, be invincible and still get relegated, so it wasn’t really as impressive as it sounded.
It was and is, of course, and that’s proved by how infrequently it happens in England with Preston North End, in 1888/9, being the last team to do it, although they also won the cup that season as well whilst, as specialist in wind ups, Durham, likes to mention, Arsenal lost to Middlesbrough (twice), Manchester United, Dynamo Kiev, Inter Milan and Chelsea in the various knock-out competitions. So, they weren’t all that invincible would be the accusation.
Arsene would surely respond by reminding us that ‘ove-wall, Preston only played 27 matches in total’ while his team won more than that (28) and drew the remaining dozen league games, one of them, memorably at Old Trafford when a Ruud van Nistelrooy penalty could have made a rude dent in the unbeaten run very early on, had it not cannoned off the bar.
But I wonder if he regrets now, not hanging up his puffer-jacket then? At the end of that season or shortly afterwards when he was on highest of highs?
The second half of his tenure, coinciding with the 2006/7 move to The Emirates Stadium hasn’t been as kind in terms of silverware, with only all those devalued FA Cups to placate fans, as well as one Champions League that got away when Jens Lehman’s early red card in the Paris final scuppered them, and the later ‘trophy’ of a Champions League finish often being held up as an alternative form of success,
But that wore thinner with each passing season. If you’re going to qualify every year that’s fine, said the fans, but don’t consider it a success if we get bombed out by Bayern Munich or Barcelona as soon as the knockout phase comes a knocking.
Eventually, even that stopped. After missing out in season when the Leicester City miracle happened, coming second in a two-horse race despite not being one of the two horses, they’ve not even qualified for Europe’s premier competition this season and look unlikely to do so again unless they can win in Madrid this week.
The home leg semi-final typified Arsenal’s problems. With seemingly everything in their favour, Atleti down to ten men and with an angry manager sent from the touchline, they still grabbed a draw from the jaws of victory, missing a hatful along the way and turning what would have been a great result into one that Wenger described as the ‘worst possible’ – thus clearly having forgotten what happened against Bayern.
His sixty-eight years might have dimmed his memory, and his eyesight – ‘I didn’t see it’ – has always seemed a little suspect, but there is no doubting the dedication to his club and his job, and the brilliance he has brought with it at times during his 22-year reign.
And although it’s true that Arsenal’s transformation from a 1980’s mid-table team had begun well before Arsene took over, with George Graham’s league title wins, cup double and Cup-Winners- Cup, but the Frenchman took success to a whole new level.
If Graham’s teams had ground out wins, built around an impenetrable back-five, then Wenger added style, athleticism and speed. His teams began ripping opposition defences apart and the likes of Thierry Henry, Marc Overmars, Robert Pires and for a short time, Nicolas Anelka made Highbury, and later the Emirates, a place where football was enjoyed as much as lifting the trophies. In his own way, he was as much a game-changer as Herbert Chapman had been in the mid-20s, other than not changing the colour of the sleeves or tube stations. Hopefully, it won’t be long before a Google search for ‘Arsene Wenger bust’ will arrive at pictures of a bronze one rather than append the word’ up’ to your search bar.
Whatever it was that made him refuse to bow out gracefully, it has unfortunately tarnished some of what went before. To have placards wanting him out isn’t how it should have ended. Twenty-two years’ service deserves better than that.
That kind of longevity won’t happen again – Jose Mourinho himself admits that although he knows that Wenger’s tenure cannot be repeated, he would like to make his job the longest of his managerial career – which won’t be too hard as long as he doesn’t throw a strop at the start of next season if Pep is racing away with the league again.
But that’s one of the problems Arsene has faced – or even made for himself. As the Manchester clubs have kept spending more, along with Chelsea, it’s taken until the winter gone for Arsenal to really splash the cash and even then, only when it became obvious that they were in danger of being stripped bare by want-away stars, and too late to save their domestic season.
Later this week, Arsenal and Arsene have a chance to leave an altogether more positive legacy with a win in Madrid that would mean his final game was the Europa League Final – in France – and probably against the Marseille team that helped to fuel his hunger for success back when it all started at Nancy and then Monaco.
Would anyone (other than Atletico Madrid and Marseille) begrudge him that?
I wouldn’t but I hope that whatever happens in the Wanda Metropolitano, the Gooners remember the good times, thank him accordingly for just how much he has done for the club and remember his ove-wall stewardship in that way too.
Out of interest, whilst researching I also found out that aerophobia was a term used for the fear of flying although it is also used to describe the fear of drafts.
Which brings us back to squeaky bum time. I bet Dennis Bergkamp didn’t know if he was coming or going some days.