So, things didn’t quite go to plan for Arsenal or Arsene Wenger at the weekend. Everyone at the club was hoping for a victory against title rivals Chelsea to mark Wenger’s 1000th game in charge…
Instead this happened:
Combine this with a red card early on in the game and you can appreciate why I said…things didn’t quite go to plan.
As you can imagine, the press went to town:
The Mirror asked its readers ‘Will Wenger ever win the league again?’ after speculating why Wenger may have missed his Monday press conference.
The BBC simply states: ‘Arsenal boss faces criticism after 1,000th game‘.
The Metro holds no punches with its headline: ‘Arsene Wenger must go as embarrassing Arsenal drop out the Premier League title race‘.
It was this last headline that got to me the most though. To have a manager of Wenger’s ability and consistency and call for his sacking is…well…fucking stupid.
Think of it this way.
Sir Alex…one of the greatest managers to have graced the Premier League. He retired last season and departed with the words of pundits describing him as one of the greatest manager’s in English football. A completely fair accolade.
So let’s compare the two…
| Games | Wins | Draws | Losses | For | Against | Win % | |
| Arsene Wenger | 1,000 | 572 | 235 | 193 | 1845 | 967 | 57.3 |
| Sir Alex Ferguson | 1,000 | 564 | 248 | 188 | 1784 | 944 | 56.4 |
Wenger has secured a win rate of 57.3%. Sir Alex 56.4%.
This is not to try and suggest one is better than the other, but to illustrate that we are talking about 2 of the all time greats in the game.
The only difference is that one is still a manager and Arsenal are lucky enough to have him while sadly Sir Alex is now retired.
If you need further convincing of just how lucky Arsenal are to still have Wenger, just glance over at Old Trafford now to see how they are getting on without Sir Alex!
No trophies…Wenger has lost it in recent years…blah blah blah…
At this stage his critics suggest that he should go because since 2005, he hasn’t got the same performace out of his players or attracted the same talent…
Well, where to start?
Wenger’s 1,000 games in charge gave him a win rate of 57.3%. In the first 500 games this stood at 57.8% and in his second 500 at 56.6%.
The observant among you will notice that this win rate for his second 500 games in charge is still higher than Sir Alex’s average. You will also notice an incredible consistency across the two halves of his time at Arsenal.
Find me another manager who has qualified for the Champions League for 16 consecutive seasons!
Then lets look at the ‘not attracting talent’ argument…well, there was of course Ozil, Carzola, Podolski, Oxlade-Chamberlin, Arteta, Mertesacker (all in the last 3 seasons) to name but a few.
The issue here then is not that Wenger does not win games,or that he doesn’t attract big names, but that Arsenal too often buckle in the big games. But this is another blog for another day…
For now, I’m happy to leave it that Arsenal are lucky to have one of the greatest managers in the game and anyone stupid enough to call for his sacking must be able to have a good answer to this question:
What next? Who do you think could get Arsenal performing better than Wenger?
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