If you’re a friend of my hubby Mike Njiru on facebook then you will be very familiar with the phrase: Win or lose, Wenger Out!
He has been posting that after nearly every game this season because like me he is fed up; and gathering by the responses, so are very many Arsenal fans.
I get a little irritated after matches where Arsenal has scraped through a win; when some annoying fan asks me on twitter whether I still want manager Arsene Wenger to go despite the win.
My answer for the past five years and until Wenger shows intent to win the Premier league or Champions League, will always be Wenger Out.
The reason I say “intent” and not actually to win it; is that the old Frenchman continues to make mistakes that won’t see the club go anywhere.
It’s a standing joke now that Alexis Sanchez is a one man show but it seems Wenger is satisfied with having just one outstanding player at the club at a time.
Since the bulk of the “Invincibles” left around 2006, we have barely had one outstanding player at a time. When Cesc Fabregas was shining for us; Robin Van Persie was spending most of his time in the sick room.
By the time RVP stepped up, Fabregas was fed up and left; and so did other rising superstars like Alexander Song.
It irks me when I look at teams in the premier league or beyond and imagine what the Arsenal squad should have looked like, had Wenger and his bosses not refused to pay decent salaries, or showed commitment by offering talented players over 30 more than a one year contract.
And if Wenger hadn’t destroyed the careers of certain players who have gone on to shine at other clubs; for example Gervinho.
RVP, Fabregas, Nasri, Song, coupled with the likes of Theo Walcott; who for some reason Wenger won’t play despite him being back from injury for several weeks, and other talent that we do have in the squad, could have followed in the footsteps of the Invincibles had they all stayed together at Arsenal.
I watch someone like Philippe Senderos when he’s out performing for Aston Villa and think that he should have been one of our senior defenders had he stayed at Emirates.
As someone said recently, buying Danny Welbeck as your star striker does not show any intent to win meaningful silverware. In the West Ham game on Sunday as with the QPR match on 26th and the Liverpool game about two weeks ago, Wenger tried to defend his slim lead by packing the team the defensive players.
Now if the game is in the dying minutes or if you have a two goal lead then there is nothing wrong with that.
But with more than 10 minutes to play you can’t expect to defend a slim lead because that entire ten minutes will be played in your box.
It JUST worked against West Ham and QPR but backfired against Liverpool. I have watched the last couple of minutes of Arsenal’s last three games, with my heart in my mouth.
I know that bringing in attacking players can also be dangerous because you expose your defense, but Wenger needs to find a balance.
He should have brought in Walcott early on, on Sunday or against Liverpool and got a third goal, giving us a cushion to work with.
January is here and I don’t expect much in terms of transfers from Wenger; but because I want a team that is better than 4th, I say “win or lose, Wenger out!”
Talk to me on @CarolRadull on twitter or www.facebook.com/CarolRadull