Wenger finished if Robin flies nest
A cluster of them are grouped in the doorway next to our commentary position, peeking back into the stadium, forlornly hoping for a miracle equaliser. The whistle goes, they turn for the door, pausing only to screech “F**K OFF WENGER!!”
A little while later a group of a couple of hundred Arsenal fans are outside waving scarves and chanting “One Arsene Wenger!” That even hardcore fans would sing the coach’s name after a 2-1 defeat to major rivals is unusual, and tells you how precarious Wenger’s position now is.
The match had turned on Wenger’s decision to replace Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain with Andrei Arshavin. Oxlade-Chamberlain had, minutes earlier, created the equaliser for Robin van Persie, and his performance had filled the hearts of the Arsenal crowd with hope, whereas the only thing Arshavin fills is his extra-large shorts. The crowd booed the substitution and the TV camera zoomed in on Van Persie as he appeared to mouth “no!” Within minutes, the outstanding Antonio Valencia glided past the feeble challenge of Arshavin, swapped passes with Park and crossed for Welbeck to crack the winning goal past Szczesny.
Afterwards, Wenger tried to reverse the perspective. “I can understand that the fans are upset about the substitution. That means first that I made the right decision at the start of the game.”
Pressed further on why he had made the substitution, he retreated into bluster. “He started to fatigue,” he began, rather unconvincingly, before changing tack.
“I am 30 years in this job, I make 50,000 substitutions. I do not have to justify to you every decision.”
There are two groups among the Arsenal support. The first see Wenger as a fraud who has lost his way, whose long-term strategy has condemned Arsenal to also-ran status, who cannot react to situations on the pitch and cannot accept that his own mistakes are making a dwarf of the biggest club in the biggest city in Europe. Football is meant to be fun and Arsenal are no fun any more.
The second group, the Wenger loyalists, regard the first group of fans as fools, turncoats and ingrates. How can anyone question the man who led the club to the Emirates, who has kept the club in the Champions League while making a profit on transfers, and who presided over the golden age of Henry-Pires-Bergkamp-Vieira? To support a football team means to suffer and now is Arsenal’s time to suffer.
There are enough of the second group about to ensure that the stadium never turns fully against Wenger. But it’s not the fans who will ultimately decide his fate. The players are the ones who decide the destiny of every manager, and in Arsenal’s case the only player left who matters is Robin van Persie.
After the final whistle Van Persie stood in the centre circle long after his team-mates had departed, lost in thought, until the Manchester United players strolled past after saluting their own fans, and the Arsenal captain walked off with Wayne Rooney’s arm around his shoulder. Rooney is two years younger than Van Persie, and in the eight years since the Dutchman joined Arsenal, Rooney has won 11 major trophies to his one.
Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri handed in their verdicts on Wenger in the summer, but in each case there was an easy rationalisation. Cesc wanted to go home to Barcelona, nobody could compete with the draw of home, Messi and the best team in the world. As for Nasri, he was a selfish mercenary who only wanted to look after number one.
Van Persie is different. A world-class player at the peak of his career, who has grown up at Arsenal and has genuine feeling for the team; you get the feeling that he would stay with them if there was even an outside chance he could one day win something big with them.
If he decides he’s had enough, it signals that Wenger is done.
There can be no more talk of building a team for the future. He’s been doing that since 2005: seven years, or half a footballing lifetime. Van Persie was the future then, now he’s 28. The future has been and gone.
