Sexy af, and still one of the best of all time. Spoiled the Arsenal fanatics now he’s paying for it.
I’ve been a WOB for far too long.
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His European record alone rules him out of being in the conversation as one of the best managers of all time. Never mind the 13 year title drought.
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I’m talking more PL than anything.
So when you say all time you mean the last 20 years?
He’s third in that list even imo.
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Behind Fergie and Jose ?
Arguably
- Ferguson.
- Wenger.
- Mourinho.
If Wenger left after say 2012 I’d have him above Jose but not now.
Pretty much this
As i said in another thread i dont perceieve ‘greatest’ to be purely results based.
Wenger changed English football for the better. Has been a role model for people in all walks of life, and has put a real effort into developing English players. He oozes class.
Mourinho has had very little positive impact on English culture. Being a possible root cause of the inflated transfer fees and wages that plague the sport now, all anyone recognises him for is alienating people, spending money and playing negative football.
I almost feel like he is up their by proxy because of his results, however Wenger and Fergie are a different breed and imo a tier above the likes of Jose.
He was a visionary that went blind.
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You can look back on past failures with hindsight but I think 2017 is the fairest time to leave.
Before that he deserved credit for his success, then balancing the books then in 2014 when we were officially rich he deserved the chance to reap the fruits of his labour. He hasn’t done well or bought well since then but you can’t exactly sack a manager who’s just finished 2nd. There’s absolutely no case for him getting a new deal now though and I’ll be disappointed if that’s what this club really wants.
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I mean, you definitely can. There’s no way our board ever would because they lack the bravery and ruthlessness to do so. Chelsea sacked a manager who just won them the Champions League, because despite that one good thing in isolation, he clearly wasn’t good enough and wasn’t actually the man to take the club forward. A board/owner with balls would have done the same here, because coming second last year was a fucking shite achievement. The only thing that would have been good enough would have been winning it.
I’m sure there are other examples of managers losing their jobs after far more tangible achievements than finishing second behind Leicester City.
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Mourinho’s been playing in cheat mode though.
So was Fergie to a lesser extent
The thing is despite being ‘officially rich’ we spent about the same as Spurs, less than Liverpool, Chelsea spent about 400m to our 240m, United and City spent stupid amounts.
He hasn’t actually spent much in comparison. Some of those re-couped more money but that’s largely down to having invested is the baron years. We were never going to recoup of an old Poldi or Chamakh
People will claim he spent big money on Xhaka and Mustafi but that isn’t big money in today’s market, it’s what 10m was when we were getting Gervinho and Giroud.
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Refused to adapt to the change of the game. Became indecisive in the transfer market and held onto injury prone players for far too many years.
Decided against instilling clear on field leaders as he wanted his players to carry out his methods to the letter of the law.
We lose/lost our way in so many games in this way.
In between these periods Wenger has become the established face and voice or the club and has now become almost to powerful to question.
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That’s just not true. Both those transfer fees are in the top 50 of all time according to wiki. There really are only a handful of defenders more expensive than Mustafi.
So what, the list needs weighting to football turnover and then neither will make the top 1000. PL clubs income in the last couple of years has gone up 60% and CL money has gone up about 50% and most clubs are making about 50% in merchandising. As such transfer fees are vastly inflated.
You have to compare to other players costing similar amounts. IE Sissoko to Spurs 30m, Batshuayi 34m, 29yo David Luiz 34m. Meanwhile prospects like Lacazette and Morata are being touted about for 50-60m and Pogba who is very good but not quite world class is 90-100m
He also wanted Mkhitaryan, who was ‘only 30m’ but including the contract, signing on fees and agent fees the total cost of that deal is expected to be around 100m. Comparatively the Xhaka deal is nowhere near that.
I’m not saying Wenger shouldn’t go but pretending he had loads of money to spend is a little disingenuous.
I agree.
Mourinho has only been successful because of the money he spent, and Ferguson as well.
This is the main reason why both of them have such a bad relationship with Wenger, because he was playing great football, winning trophies and spending a fraction of what these two did.
Also, both of them are bad losers, as well as being bad winners, and their lack of class is the opposite of Wenger’s more honest approach with the media.
As I said before, it’s just a shame Wenger wanted to build our club up to be one of the biggest in Europe, with a new stadium and a bigger fanbase, but lost sight of what was really important, which was winning trophies.
It was almost as if he wants to prove to everyone that his way is the best way, and there is no room for adjustment.
It’s this stubbornness and arrogance which means he has to watch all the other top clubs get new managers who are able to adapt and have new ideas while he has remained the same, which clearly can’t worked.