AFTER signing his latest two-year contract in the midst of an Arsenal civil war, Arsene Wenger said his progress would be reviewed by the board at the end of this season.
So, what do you think of it so far, ‘Silent’ Stan Kroenke, John Linley Chippendale ‘Sir Chips’ Keswick, the Right Honourable Lord Harris Baron of Peckham and your fellow directors?
Because at the halfway stage it’s looking likely that, for the first time in two decades, Arsenal will fail to either win an actual trophy or the imaginary trophy Wenger used to award himself for Champions League qualification.
It’s looking like Arsenal’s gamble on running down the contracts of their two world-class stars, Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil, has led to a divided dressing room and a squad in limbo relying on semi-detached players.
It’s looking, on the evidence of the shambolic FA Cup defeat at Nottingham Forest, as though Arsenal’s inability to defend has morphed into some sort of weird contemporary dance routine.
It’s looking as though the development of young players at Arsenal during the second half of Wenger’s reign has become virtually non-existent — with Theo Walcott set to join Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Kieran Gibbs, Wojciech Szczesny and Carl Jenkinson in the out-tray.
It’s looking as though Wenger, who once revolutionised the off-field culture of English football, has lost his grip on discipline, judging by Alex Iwobi’s late-night partying 36 hours before playing in the Forest debacle.
And it is sounding as though, far from being the ‘catalyst for change’ the board had promised, Wenger seems uncomfortable with the new recruitment structure built around him, featuring former Borussia Dortmund chief scout Sven Mislintat and ex-Barcelona sporting director Raul Sanllehi.
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Invited yesterday to offer praise for the new hierarchy as the set-up experiences its first January, Wenger instead answered: “The transfer window should be banned.”
The sort of head-in-the-sand thinking you would hardly expect from a £9million-per-year frontman for a multi-national company at a key trading time.
Yet as we know, Arsenal Football Club is no ordinary multi-national company. It has become a vanity project to indulge one man’s idealism.
If this sounds like some sort of anti-Wenger diatribe, it is nothing personal.
Speak to him away from the immediate aftermath of a poor result and he remains amusing and hugely likeable.
Yesterday’s revelation that his salary pays for an estate so vast he had never met his own gardener until he sat next to him while banished from the touchline at Stamford Bridge, was a wonderful line in self-deprecation about his own well-known dottiness.
But players take advantage of Wenger’s decency and excessive loyalty.
Anyone in contact with Premier League players will tell you his regime is regarded as a holiday camp compared to any top-six rival.
As for the Forest defeat, well it is not so much that Wenger made nine changes on Sunday.
He had to deal with injuries and fatigue after a packed Christmas period and has sent out similarly-weakened teams in the past on the way to winning the Cup a record seven times.
It’s more that his squad players seem less motivated than those asked to do similar stand-in jobs for other clubs.
Now, tonight’s League Cup semi-final against Chelsea takes on added significance, with Wenger ready to field an unusually strong side in a competition that he became the first manager to seriously undermine.
Yes, Arsenal could still feasibly pull off the ‘Mourinho double’ of League Cup and Europa League, although Europe’s second-tier competition is unusually strong.
And would you fancy them to defeat Chelsea over two legs?
With Sanchez desperate to leave, with Ozil unlikely to be far behind him, with the defence in disarray and with the kids going backwards?
Apart from that, though, everything’s going swimmingly.
Pass the cigars and sherry, Sir Chips. Another £9m for young Wenger next season, what?
BAME GAME
WE’VE come a long way since Kenny Dalglish’s witless decision to send his Liverpool players out to warm up in Luis Suarez tribute T-shirts during an investigation into his racist remark at Patrice Evra in 2011.
Now Liverpool’s Rhian Brewster feels able to speak out about the abuse he has suffered while representing England, Mason Holgate has voiced an allegation of a racist remark from Roberto Firmino and Newcastle kids have reported Under-23s boss Peter Beardsley over claims of bullying and racism.
We are talking about pretty basic human freedoms here.
But we’re also talking about a game which is barely emerging from the Stone Age.
Which is why the FA’s decision to introduce the Rooney Rule — an NFL initiative insisting a black, Asian or minority ethnic candidate should be interviewed for any managerial or coaching role — is a positive one.
The under-representation of BAME managers in English football is a long-running scandal.
And while positive discrimination is always undertaken with a heavy heart, at least the FA have acknowledged they have a problem.
There is a long way to go but this is a start.
REPLAYS AGAIN?
THOSE who cling to the tradition of maintaining FA Cup replays, despite a jammed fixture list, claim they are speaking in favour of more pay days for smaller clubs.
Yet when Shrewsbury boss Paul Hurst was asked how delighted he was to get a replay after their 0-0 draw at home to West Ham, he said he would rather Sunday’s tie had gone to extra-time and penalties.
That’s because replays make giantkillings less likely, not more, and scrapping them would mean more prize money reaching further down the league pyramid.
This ought to be a no-brainer.
VAR-Y GOOD IDEA
EVEN fuddy-duddy old Luddites like me were largely impressed with the first use of a Video Assistant Referee at Monday’s Brighton v Crystal Palace Cup tie.
That’s because, at present, the stated aim of the system is just to eliminate cast-iron howlers. Stick with that and VAR could be a positive.
Yet the clamour for absolute ‘justice’ in every instance will grow louder — and VAR will become ever more intrusive, until the world’s most popular game is altered beyond recognition.
JOSE VS CONTE
JOSE MOURINHO and Antonio Conte are not expected to be managing in the Premier League next season.
So we won’t have to bear much more of their tiresome Punch and Judy nonsense.
‘You’re a clown’, ‘you’re senile’, ‘you’re a match-fixer’, ‘you’re little’.
But when Mourinho began this latest spat, he actually made a valid point — the idea that unless a manager goes berserk on the touchline, he is not showing ‘passion’ is the biggest load of tosh in a game awash with it.
CRICKET
SO England’s head coach Trevor Bayliss will stay on for another 18 months despite presiding over a sharp decline in standards — on and off the field.
And the most abject Ashes flops James Vince, Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes and Stuart Broad will all keep their places for the tour of New Zealand.
Still it’s not as if anything bad happened. England only lost 4-0 to Australia. As you were, lads.
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