In his weekly column for The Sun, former Arsenal legend Ian Wright wrote:
‘Star players set to leave, barely any new signings, injuries to top players and a seriously tough batch of opening fixtures. I’m fed up of talking about Arsenal with a negative vibe but it looks like dark days are ahead.’
He added:
‘Yet it seems Wenger’s revolution has ground to a halt. Now I fear he may end up walking away.’
So, is Wright correct to worry about Wenger’s future at Ashburton Grove?’
Let’s have a look at the current situation that has got Wright to come out with this. It sounds like Fabregas’s transfer to Barcelona is all but done and that Nasri will be swiftly following him out of the door to join rivals Manchester City as the club want to cash in on a player unwilling to sign a new contract. Already the club have lost Gael Clichy to City while Emmanuel Eboue and Nicklas Bendtner’s time at the Emirates appear to be at an end. The summer arrivals have thus far been nominal with only Gervinho, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Carl Jenkinson coming in. So it understandable to see such a bleak short-term future at the Emirates for Wenger.
However, it is too easy to be negative about the new season and about Wenger’s future. It has been obvious all summer that Cesc was going to leave so he must have found a ready-made replacement with Juan Mata and Eden Hazard – two names that have been continuously linked to the club.
As Arsenal’s longest serving manager, Wenger is going into his fifteenth season in charge of the club and in that time he has had his ups and downs. He has signed a three-year contract until 2014 and I expect him to see it out as why would he leave the club he has helped build, not just on the field but off it?
Just because he has ended up with a weakened team does not mean he will just walk away. If Fergie can get away with rebuilding about four new teams during his time at Old Trafford, why can’t Wenger, especially if he thinks it will benefit the club in the long term?
Players like Wilshere, Ramsey, Chamberlain, Gervinho, are at the Emirates for the long term and this can only be a positive thing. Scott Dann is close to signing and he might at long last be the solution to the shaky centre-back position, although undoubtedly Arsenal fans will criticise the signing.
I don’t think Arsenal are too far off Man United in challenging for the title particularly if they can keep the main players fit while finding suitable replacements for Cesc and Samir and then securing a safe central defender. If the fans get behind Wenger and the team then maybe it could be better season than expected.
This sort of quote is typical of Ian Wright’s pedestrian punditry where he makes ridiculous comments to cause controversy, can anyone apart from him see Wenger walking away just because Fabregas is going and Nasri is likely to follow him?
Sometimes a club needs freshening up especially after six years without a trophy and I think this will only benefit the club in the future; sometimes you have to move backwards to move forwards and I am convinced Wenger will be around for a long time to come yet.
Click HERE to see the original article. This article was first published on FootballFanCast
Written by Aidan-McCartney
was wrighty hoping that LE MAD PROF was going to walk away like i and thousands of others were?
Wrighty may not be the charismatic pundit that seems to impress some easily swayed and superficial journalistic “geeks” out there; but he tells it how it is!!. You know he doesnt complicate the point with skip-loads of meandering diluted garbage thats off the point.
Wenger is cocking up all the time….in fact he cant seem to get anything right. where’s the Centre-back??????????
Even with Fabregas & Nasri last seasons squad was not good enough….& adding Gervinho would have only been part of the solution (more pace on the left). A replacement for Fabregas should have been bought before the season started. It’s ridiculous to wait until the Barca money arrives..we might be out of the CL by then.Whoever is really running the club isn’t fit to run a school tuck shop.
Its gonna be the same old story, we looked but could not find the right player to improve the squad so we could not buy. He will then go onto say we are strong and with the togetherness crap we are not far away. What a crock of S**T but its always the same. I really do think we are going to struggle big time this season and we are going to be the laughing stock of the Prem and Spurs will defo finnish above us if no more players are brought in.
Typical Ian Wright full of shite he’s still hurting from Thierry Henry breaking his goal record so he’s bound to talk nonsense.
If you want to look at how a team is run compare Henry with the previous American owners at Liverpool, or Kroenke. Kroenke’s teams are always like Arsenal, kind of there , but not there He always has good coaches but timid investments. His Nuggets just lost their brightest star in Carmelo Anthony. They sand to lose their standout center from Brazl , Nene also.
I thini Wenger is an excellent manager, but he should not be the only voice on bying and selling. Their most adventurous buy was Arshavin, decent. Gervinho cost a bit more, and the jury will play that one out. He blew it yesterday responding to Barton.
AS for the vaunted Aresenal scouts, well they have not really produced as everyone in now getting players from France. The loss of Nasri, yes he can be easily replaced, shows a particular type of arrogance, that leads to dilly-dallying in regards to extending his contract. That should have been done before last season started. Cheap lesson learned, but what concerns me is that their squad is unsettled with no veteran leadership to lead them on. Hopefully Arsene is an old dog that CAN learn new tricks.
Ummm, when has Ian Wright taken a break from slagging off Arsenal and criticising Arsenal and encouraging players like Thierry Henry to leave Arsenal …. to have time to to be concerned about Arsenal.
Yeah he’s an Arsenal legend, but he’s also a dick with no credibility when it comes to having informed opinions about Arsenal.
What was the LAST positive thing you heard him say about Arsenal since he left in 1998?
He even gave away his winners medal to get that last bit of me me me Ian Wright crap. He gave a broadside into Arsenal at that time, has never had a good thing to say about Wenger either.
Sorry mate, this is like a fan of the Glitter band from the 1970’s telling us Gary Glitter is concerned about the state of education in schools today.
This post is BS,wright has every reason to be worried.as long as wenger stays,we can’t win a coin and not to talk of a trophy
He knew right from last season fab was leaving and knew datdefinitly when Nasri dint sign dat he needed changes.he can spend 15m on a 17 year old unproven player but can’t spend 23 million on mata or falcao or even higuain who av been outstanding both for club and country.he spent over 12million on walcott years ago,where av dat gotten us till date.Wenger is a wanker and shld be sacked.Fans shld boycott matches and hopefully udinese triumph not cos ??i don’t love AFC but as long as d board is still making money and qualifying for the CL,wenger wld never be under pressure and we would as fans just keep crying and shouting and d wankers on d board wld keep filling up their pockets.Maybe if tony Adams,Lee Dixon,Ian wright and the Likes of Parlour all show their concern and Voice it,maybe there might be hope.Buy Cahill,Samber or Per the German giant,buy hazard,kagawa or marvin martin in d midfield and find a deadly finisher in Higuain,Benzema,Falcaoor even a Rodaellda and we wld be strong contenders.without that am afraid.We won’t stop crying and gnashing our teeth.
Wrighty does like to have a snipe at wenger possibly because he moved him out of arsenal or maybe because he wouldn’t shell out £23m for his son. That said he always has the best interest of our club at heart. There is no way wenger will walk despite what many people may want. As for replacing cesc and nasri, the players are already at the club, they are called jack and andrei with Rambo in reserve now gervinho has come into the club. As far as I am concerned the real change we need to make is our formation 433 will not win us anything with our current squad.
I don’t want Wenger to walk..I don’t even know if it’s him who makes the decisions at the club. For the last 3 seasons we’ve been 2/3 (quality) players away from genuinely competing with the best.I agree that Gervinho is a fair replacement for Nasri & that Jack can take Cesc’s role..but who then takes Jacks role??? Ramsey, isn’t that player (yet). As we all saw yesterday..no Cesc or Jack = no midfield creativity.By AW’s own admission the squad needs strengthening i.e. adding to.
It’s the same old doom and gloom from Wright. Never a positive to make about his old Club. And many of the comments seem to share this sad view of our great Club’s future this season.
My advice to all moaning Gooners and to Wright is to await the end of the Summer Window before mouthing off about our Manager and his decisions. Only then will we see that progress is assured by the new blood he has brought into the Club.
Why wait till then? We’ve started the season with a less creative team than we finished last year with.
Lets hope that by the end of the Summer Window we’re still in the CL!!!
Wrighty is right, dark days are ahead.
‘If Fergie can get away with rebuilding about four new teams during his time at Old Trafford, why can’t Wenger…? Well, Fergie won trophies even while he was rebuilding, Wenger isn’t.
WENGER OUT!