Is the Wenger reign nearing its end?

IT’s the great unsaid at Arsenal, the last taboo.

But is this the time to finally ask: Has Arsene Wenger taken the club as far as he can?

It feels wrong to even think it, heresy almost; especially at a time when despite Saturday’s immensely frustrating goalless draw against Blackburn, Arsenal still have a chance of winning the title.

But in a post-match interview that was as baffling and confusing as his side’s performance, even the great Frenchman seemed to be considering the prospect as he struggled to find reasons for his side’s inertia.

The result came just hours after Manchester United had shown energy, desire and determination to come from 2-0 down against West Ham to win 4-2 and Alex Ferguson’s side are now seven points clear at the top, although Arsenal do have a game in hand.

With so much at stake it seems inexplicable that Arsenal could produce a one-paced display devoid of inspiration or even perspiration, and a sanguine Wenger was clearly flummoxed, describing the performance as ‘not good enough’ and ‘flat’.

So, in a week when Barcelona manager Pep Guardiola suggested he was considering his future at the Nou Camp, is Wenger doing the same?

“I feel good here but I believe my time at Barcelona is ending,” said Guardiola.

“I’ve already done three years. One more will be four years. And in four years a big club needs a lot of courage to keep the same coach because the players get tired of coaches and vice-versa. Everyone should know when it’s the right time to go.”

Wenger, of course, has been at Arsenal for a lot longer than four years — 15 in fact — and maybe there were signs on Saturday that his powers of motivation are waning with a group of players who despite playing wonderful football seem psychologically unable to take that one final step to glory.

It’s not as if the Blackburn display was a one-off; Wenger also looked bemused after home defeats against Newcastle and West Brom and has also seen his team fail to score at home against Sunderland and Manchester City and produce an inexplicably low-key performance at Wembley in the Carling Cup final.

So when, with just about the very last question of a tense post-match interview, Wenger was asked if he had taken his team as far he can, his answer was worthy of analysis.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I want to finish the season and then we’ll see. But at the moment of course I’m more concerned by the short term, to get this team to respond in a convincing way.”

For Arsenal fans still in love with their manager — and rightly there are plenty of them — those are worrying words.

Perhaps you can put it down to post-match disappointment and frustration, perhaps to irritation; but either way it would be hard to say they are irrelevant. There were other signs, too, that Wenger is losing it — and in particular a rant about the match schedule that seemed to suggest a conspiracy theory at the Premier League.

Arsenal had played Saturday’s match a few hours after leaders United won at West Ham, a victory that added to the feeling of pressure at the Emirates, and they face similar scenarios in the coming weeks with United playing first on most weekends.

“There is a lot of things going on that I do not want to talk about,” said Wenger mysteriously. “I’m here for 15 years, I know how things work. So I want to be completely correct, like I have to be.

“I do not write the schedule so you should ask people who make the schedule. I cannot give you any answer. I look ‘when do we play’ and its on Sunday until the end of the season.

“Is it a disadvantage? I don’t know. I do not want to speak about anything else that makes it look like we are looking for an excuse for a performance where we have not been good enough.”

There is no conspiracy at the Premier League, of course, but Wenger is certainly correct about the last part because his Arsenal side were never good enough to beat Blackburn despite starting brightly and creating an early opening for Theo Walcott, which was blocked by keeper Paul Robinson.

By half-time the home team had already run out of ideas and Blackburn had even gone closest to scoring when two Manuel Almunia errors almost gifted goals to Jonsson and N’Zonzi.

Who knows how the game would have ended if Rovers had not had N’Zonzi slightly harshly sent off after 75 minutes for a lunge on Koscielny, but even with 10 men they were good enough to keep out an uninspired Arsenal side to the increasing frustration of the Emirates crowd who booed them off at the end.

Substitute Nicklas Bendtner did have a header cleared off the line and Marouane Chamakh should also have scored but in the end Wenger was left distraught and if he isn’t considering his own future then you wonder if the players will have to change next season instead.

“I don’t think it’s time to talk about that now after the game; it’s not the moment,” he said. “What is important now is we focus on our next game.’’

With an away trip to Blackpool next up for Arsenal, followed by games against Liverpool and Tottenham, there is not much time to put things right; and judging by Wenger’s current mindset a lot more than just the title could be at stake.