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Should he stay or should he go? The great debate over the future of Arsenal’s manager Arsène Wenger took a new twist in Bahrain at the weekend when one of the English Premier League club’s legendary players stepped into the furore expressing his sympathy for protesting fans.
Ian Wright, now a leading TV and radio football pundit, said that although, as one of Wenger’s former players, he had the greatest of respect for the Frenchman who has been at the club for 20 years, he can fully understand fan frustration.
Wenger has been heavily criticised during a campaign in which Arsenal led the table at the start of the year and, with their traditional rivals struggling, appeared to have their best chance of winning the league for the first time since 2004. Instead it went to shock outsiders, Leicester City.
Wright was attending as the star guest at an event organised by Sports Speaker MENA at The Diplomat Radisson Blu Hotel Residence & Spa on Friday night. He took the opportunity to blast the club’s current crop of players.
“Too many players have been coasting. Arsène is not the kind of manager that deals with confrontation very well and is also someone who comes out and protects his players should anyone criticise them. They are not answerable to anyone, like he’s not, so what’s happened is that it has bred a kind of atmosphere where they are satisfied with their lot,” claimed Wright.
“If you look at Arsenal at this moment of time it doesn’t look good. We’ve seen that it’s not about spending millions – Leicester have proved that – it’s about being able to motivate the players. I’m not sure that Arsène can, despite how much I’d like to see it happen.
“I’m not saying ‘get Wenger out’. I have too much respect for him to say that. I just don’t think you will hear any ex-player say it. But I do not think Arsenal at the moment are going in the right direction, so I have a lot of sympathy with the fans.”
Many supporters of the North London Club can still remember the glory days and players with arguably more heart and many remain unhappy despite gaining the summer bragging rights over fans of their bitter rivals Tottenham Hotspur by Arsenal leapfrogging over their neighbours to secure second spot in the table.
Wright signed for Arsenal from Crystal Palace in September 1991 for £2.5m, which was at the time a club record fee. He scored on his debut against Leicester City in a League Cup tie and then notched a hat-trick on his league debut against Southampton.
He went on to be the club’s top scorer for six seasons in a row and played a major part in the club’s success during the 1990s, winning an FA Cup and League Cup double in 1993.
By the time Wenger arrived at Arsenal in September 1996, Wright was nearly 33. Despite his age, he continued to score regularly – being the second-highest Premier League scorer in 1996–97 with 23 goals – and in 1997 broke Cliff Bastin’s Arsenal goal-scoring record with a hat-trick against Bolton Wanderers.
It was a record since surpassed by striker Thierry Henry, a member of an illustrious Arsenal side nicknamed ‘The Invincibles’. In the 2003–04 season, Arsenal regained the Premier League without a single defeat. Over the 38 games played, their league record stood at 26 wins and 12 draws.
Wright said: “Arsenal are a club in transition. We are going through a period where our manager – one of the greatest managers the club has ever had – is going through a period where the fans are not happy.
“I’m hearing now that they are looking to offer him a new two-year deal. I’m not sure that is going to work out simply because I think there are a lot of players at this great club at the moment needing to be moved on.
“When you look at what’s going to happen at Chelsea next season – they’re going to have a new manager and they’re not even in the Champions League, so they’ll be going all out for the Premier League title. Manchester City have Pep Guardiola coming in, and you’ve got Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool looking like they are really going to kick on. I think there’s going to be a lot of questions … and then there’s Tottenham’s re-emergence too.
“When you consider how great Arsenal have been, the fans have every right to be as angry as they have been because they’ve seen, arguably, with The Invincibles, one of the greatest teams ever assembled.
“So I have got a lot of sympathy with Arsenal fans about what’s going on, and it’s going to be interesting to see what happens. If he (Wenger) does sign a new contract it’s going to be interesting to see how the fans take that.”
At one stage bitter rivals Spurs looked like the only side capable of catching Leicester but the players lost their heads in a 2-2 draw at Chelsea and stunned coach Mauricio Pochettino watched his side slump to a shocking 5-1 defeat at relegated Newcastle United in their final match of the season to slip to third in the Premier League.
Arsenal jumped above them with a last game 4-0 victory at home against another already-relegated side, Aston Villa.
Despite ‘Time for Change’ protests at the Emirates stadium during a trophy-less season the Arsenal manager remains convinced of his continuing success after ensuring qualifying for a 19th consecutive season of Champions League football.
He has admitted his ‘hurt’ at the virulence of criticism. Wenger’s current contract runs to the end of next season. But one English national newspaper backed Wright’s understanding of the issue, suggesting another two-year extension is on the cards, with majority shareholder Stan Kroenke pushing for his manager to stay on at the club.
But Wenger, 66, is not yet willing to commit his future beyond the summer of 2017. He wants next season to determine his future. “My appetite is stronger than ever,” he told reporters. “I believe I am a professional man who respects his contract and stays until the end, whether it is one year or two years or three years – that doesn’t change. Even if I decide in January that I will not extend my contract, that will not affect my attitude.”
“You have to say Leicester have had an exceptional year,” Wenger later added. “It is not only us who are behind Leicester. We have beaten them twice. We are not happy about being second but then there are 18 other teams behind us.
“Our aim was to be first and for a while we believed we could do it. We don’t start the season and think we want to finish above Tottenham but we played with the only target we had. The aim before the game was to finish second. We achieved it, for a while our supporters were not going home very happy and at least they had some satisfaction.”
The question remains, will it be enough to stop the dissent?
