Arsene Wenger is a Timex watch in a digital age

The sense of relief was palpable across the Emirates stadium yesterday afternoon as Santi Cazorla’s late winner earned Arsenal a hard fought 2-1 Premier League win over a determined Aston Villa side. When Paul Lambert’s relegation threatened side equalized after 68 minutes, once again boos echoed around N5. Arsene Wenger might have felt that the toughest week in his entire 16-year reign as an Arsenal manager was heading towards another low, until the Spain international popped up to a fine build up play between Jack Wilshere and Nacho Monreal to score his second of the game and his team’s. Yet, this is no end of a long drawn story that has pushed every Arsenal supporter into thinking what the summer is in store for them and the team after a dismal season that has virtually ended any pending interest on the club’s ambitions for the remainder of the season, barring one, and that is to qualify for the Champions League.

Yet, the moral of the story is that problems won’t be sorted out even if the Gunners qualify for the elite European spot for next season until and unless Arsene Wenger realizes that his tried and tested transfer policy has to undergo massive changes over the close season, if Arsenal are to end their eight year trophy drought and become the same force in English football that once went a season unbeaten. Pure nostalgia for some Arsenal fans like me!

The edge that the Frenchman had over his rivals, even on Sir Alex Ferguson, in the late 90s and early 2000s was due to the fact that Chelsea and Manchester City were not bought by oil tycoons and billionaires. Also, the youth policy of Arsenal exceeded immensely over many teams just due to the simple fact that the Gunners were able to keep hold of the finest talents, unlike today. The ultra expensive move from the hallowed fields of Highbury to the now proclaimed ‘cursed Emirates’ made the Arsenal boardroom and Mr.Wenger aware of the financial constraints for the club and both believed that best way for the club to move forward is to retain faith on the club’s home grown talents rather than splashing money on the best buys from across Europe.

The move has backfired so blatantly that Arsenal had to sell their best talents that they had invested, nurtured and developed over long periods of time to the likes of Barcelona, Manchester City and Manchester United. The question whether Arsenal are a feeder club has been asked time and again, and to be precise,,they are virtually that, and in the not so distant future, the club will fail to hold on to the remaining classy talents in the form of Jack Wilshere, Alex Oxlade Chamberlain and Theo Walcott. Even though they have all signed new deals, it doesn’t take a player long to feel unhappy at Arsenal, in the near future. Unless Arsene Wenger lets off his traditionalist attitude and makes a summer statement by bringing on big name players, this will not change.

In this age of petro dollars and billionaire money, any player could be scouted out of anywhere. Wenger is right that far too many players have their values highly inflated in the transfer market and that makes it difficult to bargain. But at the same time, one just cannot replace a Robin van Persie with an Olivier Giroud or a Marouane Chamakh. Sir Alex Ferguson is not the best just because he won so many things for United, he is the best because he evolves with time. Unlike Wenger, he is a digital man in a digital age while the Frenchman, even though he changed the face of English football, is a Timex watch (an irreplaceable watch although no match in the current age of digitisation) in a digital age and the club is suffering for that.

United, too, have a coveted youth system but for the sake of winning titles, they bring in players who are already the best in the business and not rely on raw inexperienced talents to do the job. The inexperienced ones grow immensely by playing with those world class talents and that is the secret of the Red Devils’ ambition and success.

Just look at the teams that have beaten Arsenal both at the domestic front and European front over the past few seasons. Teams like Barcelona, Bayern Munich, the Manchester clubs, Chelsea and even Tottenham have invested on players who do not need a full season or two to become a fully developed player, unlike Arsenal’s case. Players like Ashley Cole, Cesc Fabregas, Samir Nasri, Gael Clichy, Alexander Song and Robin van Persie have left Arsenal as full internationals and added a different match winning dimensions to their respective new clubs, helping them to trophies and long term success. They are finished products who can win trophies single handedly.

This is investment in the modern age and a great football economist as Arsene Wenger, surprisingly, had let go his best players and not replaced them by able ones. May be he is a player’s coach who gets concerned when his players do not look happy. Far too many times, we have heard from the likes of Fabregas, Nasri and van Persie that Wenger is like a second father to them after changing club colours. Yet, when you are looking at the interests of your players, you have to look at your club too. As an Arsenal fan, you wonder, has he raided other Premier League and continental clubs for outstanding players just as other clubs do at Arsenal’s door? Has Arsenal shown the courage to ask Everton for Marouane Fellaini for the amount the Merseysiders want and not what Arsenal and Arsene Wenger have deemed fit enough to suit the Emirates economics? Why can’t Stan Kroenke and Ivan Gazidis pinch Wenger to bring in an Edinson Cavani to replace the void left by the departure of Robin van Persie?

May be the Arsenal management trust Wenger far too much than they should, maybe they are feeling indebted to the man who has transformed not only Arsenal but English football as a whole. But it’s the fans that are paying a heavy price for the long term faith on a man who has clearly lost it in terms of running this wonderful club and in terms of modern transfer policy. Unless there is a hands-on change as far as Arsenal’s summer transfer policy is concerned, no one will be attracted to the club in the near future and White Hart Lane will replace the Emirates as North London’s Champions League representative year in and year out with the Gunners condemned to a mid-table finish.