Being one of the older fuckers on here, (among a fair few others) I have seen the Manager at our beloved Arsenal FC changed a few times, and at this point where it is abundantly clear that it should and must happen again, I thought I would start a thread for people old enough to remember, to discuss what it felt like when we changed managers in the past…as unlike places like Scum, Chavs and others, we dont do it that often…
First Manager of my life was Bertie Mee, however I was only 3 when he left, I cannot really give an opinion on that one…
So The Managers I can remember properly are as follow (not counting caretakers)
- Terry Neill (76-83, 1 FA Cup win)
- Don Howe (83-86)
- George Graham (86-95, 2 Leagues, 1 FA Cup, 2 League Cups, 1 ECWC)
- Bruce Rioch (95-96)
- Arsene Wenger (96-Present, 3 Leagues, 6 FA Cups)
I seem to remember Terry Neill not being the most popular Manager, being an ex Scum Manager didn’t help with that…despite reaching 4 finals (winning only 1) between 77 and 80, he had lost star players in the same way Wenger has such as Stapleton to Utd (RvP anyone?) and Brady to Italy (Cesc to Spain) and had failed to replace adequately…our league form was poor and it was a period in our history (72-86) that only saw 1 FA Cup win (79) and was mostly mediocre to poor. As such I seem to remember his departure not being lamented too much, in fact mostly the opposite. It was a popular and happy choice to part company with Neill, who had outlived his welcome well and truly by 1983
Howe was seen as a natural successor, being popular with club and fans alike and having coached at various levels for Arsenal, and also being responsible for an amazing youth set up that saw players such as Thomas, Rocastle and Adams emerge. However there was always the feel that he was too much a club man, While loved, he was very old fashioned and failed to push the team on…his departure was sad, but inevitable.
George Graham was a popular choice (albeit, 2nd choice as the Board wanted Ferguson) as an ex Arsenal player of the 71 Double team. Changed the team by instilling discipline that was sorely lacking under Howe and Neill, and introducing the players Howe had nurtured so well and making them into the stars of that time. Winning our first trophy in 8 years in 87 by beating the Big Boys of Liverpool was a great start…following it up 2 years later with that night at Anfield was obviously the stuff of legends…further cementing his legacy with a 2nd Title in 91 (despite a 2 point deduction…). However, a disastrous European Cup campaign where we were systematically taken apart by Benfica saw a change in team direction from the free flowing escapades of Rocastle and Merson, to the more turgid defensive displays of Hillier and Jensen… However winning only our 2nd Euro trophy in 94 in Wonderful Copenhagen truly made him our best manager since the 30’s…
GG’s departure was a very sudden and mixed bag of emotions one…being sacked for taking bungs when buying players such as Siggi Johnson (a mediocre journeyman more akin to mid table teams) and other obviously below par players…here we were as Fans, with the best manager any of us had seen in living memory, who had given us success beyond any of our dreams when he started…but who was also directly accountable (some may say to his own financial gain) for dismantling a successful team and replacing it with below standard players…who was now managing a team in clear decline (especially in the league) and had been caught with his hands in the till as well…
For me it was a massive mixed bag of emotions…loved GG at the time, but also felt massively betrayed that he was signing shit players for his own gain…mixed with the sight of his declining team and the feeling that he simply had to be sacked for his crimes, it was another sad inevitable departure…
Then we got Rioch…Underwhelming Graham-Lite figure with the charisma of a soggy tea bag. Graham had managed Millwall at a lower level pre Arsenal with relative success, and the board obviously thought Rioch could repeat that trick following his relative success at Bolton…however following GG was too big an ask, and despite signing Bergkamp, he fell out with pretty much everyone at the club, especially the players, and left after 1 uneventful season after scraping into a UEFA spot on the last day of the season…although never popular, the manner of his departure was still sudden and a bit of a shock… I remember being somewhere listening to some scum fans laughing about how we have sacked our manager right before that start of a season, as how we were fucked etc etc…this simply wasn’t ‘The Arsenal Way’ to dismiss a manager so suddenly…
Now we are on to Wenger, and the end of his reign must be surely coming…what sort of emotions will that bring?
I am, an unashamed Wenger fan, and I have said I consider him our greatest manager ever, certainly our most successful…However, like Neill before him, his welcome has been outlived…and like Graham, he has failed to live up to his early successes…and has made too many glaring errors in Europe…
Despite being a Wenger fan…I cannot (and really cannot understand those that still do) defend him any longer…and the feelings I would have at his departure (assuming it is going to come at the end of the season as I suspect it will) will again be one of sadness, but mostly one of relief and knowledge that its utterly inevitable and the right choice for the club.
. I feel old now, thanks 
.