18 years of Arsene Wenger - The Good times and the Bad

Arsene Wenger was appointed as the manager of Arsenal in 1996 to replace Bruce Rioch. The media and the bookies linked Arsenal to a big name manager like Johan Cruyff, instead Arsenal signed an unknown Frenchman who was previously managing in Japan. This left some doubts in the minds of the fans and the media as to whether he’ll be able to live up to the expectations of managing such a big club.

Even Arsenal captain Tony Adams was unsure about his appointment, he said that Arsene Wenger resembled a schoolteacher who would never be able to reach the heights of George Graham. But little did they know that Arsene Wenger would soon go on to revolutionize English football altogether.

Arsene Wenger unveiled as the Arsenal manager in 1996

The Frenchman had a tough first season as it took him some time to stamp his way of thinking on the club, and gain the trust of his team. The team that Wenger inherited was very strong defensively with Tony Adams, Lee Dixon and Steve Bould as their pillars in defense.

He also orchestrated the signing of future Arsenal captain Patrick Vieira. This was the start of a continuous influx of French players under Arsene Wenger which the media labelled as the French revolution. With flair players like Nicolas Anelka and Dennis Bergkamp leading the attack the manager had quite a strong team to work with and ended up finishing 3rd in the premier league in his first season in charge of Arsenal.

In his second season in charge of Arsenal, they went on to win the FA cup and the Premier League which became Arsenal’s second league double. His success partly due to the strong defense that he had inherited, but mainly it was due to the brand of football that he played. He had adopted an attacking style of football which was never seen in England before. New signings like Marc Overmars and Emmanuel Petit benefited greatly from Arsene Wenger’s attack-minded policies.

The next few years were a series of near misses for Arsenal and Arsene Wenger where they finished second behind Manchester United in 1999 and lost in the FA cup final of 2001 to Liverpool. Even though his team had not won anything the Frenchman still showed immense faith in his team. He would always back his team and be perennially calm and positive.

Henry signs for Arsenal for 11 million pounds in 1999

In the summer of 1999 Arsenal signed arguably the best player to put on the red and white jersey, Theirry Henry, for 11 million pounds from Juventus. Wenger had a tendency to mold players into playing in positions even they didn’t know they could play in. Henry is the perfect example of this as he came to Arsenal as a winger but was made into one of the best strikers in the world by Arsene Wenger. Wenger’s achievements did not go unnoticed at Arsenal as many top clubs like Barcelona were vying for his signature but eventually he reaffirmed his commitment to Arsenal by signing a four year extension in July 2001.

Arsene Wenger brought success back to Highbury in 2002 by winning the double that season with players like Veirra, Henry, Pires and Ljundberg all hitting top form. The crowning moment of that season came when title was won by beating Manchester United at Old Trafford on the penultimate day of the season.

The 2003-3004 was undoubtedly the single greatest season in Arsenal’s history by becoming the first team in over a century to go a whole domestic season unbeaten. Due to this achievement, that Arsenal team will forever be remembered as the “invincibles”. This run went on for a staggering 49 games until they were eventually beaten by Manchester United. The fact that Wenger could keep his team motivated and hungry even after they had won the title was an illustration of his leadership skills and the winning mentality he had instilled in his team.

The invincibles team that went 49 games unbeaten

Arsenal then endured two relatively unsuccessful seasons, finishing fourth in 2005 and 2006 but they did manage to win the FA cup in 2005. They also reached the semi-final of the champions league in 2006 but only managed to finish as runners up to Barcelona. In the summer of 2006 the time came for Arsenal to bid adieu to Highbury stadium to move to their new stadium, the Emirates stadium in order to facilitate the growth of the club. This lead to the start of the second phase where he had to operate on a very low budget.

Arsenal had taken a huge loan to build their stadium and hence could not compete financially with the other top clubs. In reference to this Wenger once said “We had to fight with clubs who lose £150 million per year and we had to make £30 million”. Due to this Wenger had to plan for the future and adopted a more youth oriented policy. He bought many young players with great potential and molded them into world class players. Fabregas, Nasri, Van Persie, Adebayor and Ramsey are all examples of this. All of them have gone on to admit that Wenger has had a huge influence on their careers and that he was like a father to them.

The emirates stadium

Arsene Wenger knew that if Arsenal wanted to experience the glory of winning the league again he would have to keep them in the champions league but this came at the cost of trophies. Arsenal were unable to win any trophies since their FA cup win in 2005 despite getting close with the league title in 2007 and the league cup in 2009. This lead to players being unsatisfied and made them leave the club for a chance to win trophies.

In addition to this they would also get a much higher salary than what Arsenal could offer. Players like Adebayor, Van Persie, Nasri and Fabregas all left Arsenal in search of trophies. Just when you thought that the Arsenal manager had put together a team that could challenge for honors some player would leave the club and leave Wenger with the job of rebuilding the team.

Although Wenger has done brilliantly to keep Arsenal in the top four for so many years there have been some frailties seen in his management during his trophy drought. Earlier in this article I mentioned about Wenger’s belief in his players, but in his later years this belief turned into stubbornness. He consistently overlooked the shortcomings of his players and his players and sometimes put too much faith in the wrong players. This stubbornness was also seen by the fact that the Frenchman refused to adjust his tactics according to the situation.

Wenger loves to have skillful, intricate players in his team but he forgot about the physical side of the game which was equally important. Hence more often than not Arsenal were easily muscled off the ball against the more physical teams. Another drawback of Wenger over the past few years has been his business in the transfer market. Ever since David Dien left Arsenal in 2007 the transfer business at Arsenal has fallen into the hands of the manager and although he has pulled off some superb transfers for bargain prices in the past, he has a tendency to haggle a bit too much over the transfer prices of his targets. Many a time this has cost him the acquisition of world class players because he did not want to pay that extra 1 or 2 million more that the other team was asking for.

Arsenal unveil Mesut Ozil signing from Real Madrid

But the signing of Mesut Ozil and lucrative sponsership deals with Puma and Emirates have shown that Arsenal have got their financial clout back and that Wenger can finally complete the project that he started at Arsenal in 2006. His team now has a great chance to end the trophy drought with a massive FA cup final awaiting them in May. It remains to be seen whether or not Wenger will prolong his stay at the club but one thing is for sure, there are not many managers in the world that can match of what Wenger has acheived at Arsenal be it in the first half of his tenure or his second.