A letter to Arsene

This open letter first appeared in issue 258 of The Gooner

Dear Arsene,

Why does it have to end like this?

When you arrived in 1996, I will be honest and say I was a little unsure. But it only took a few weeks to convince me that there was something different about you. Just one glimpse of Patrick Vieira was enough to highlight your knack of spotting a player, and your knowledge of the French market saw you deliver players such as Petit, Anelka, Pires, and rescue Henry from his Italian nightmare. Within a couple of years you brought us the double, and you were probably just a penalty kick away from repeating the feat again in 1999.

In 2001/02 we went the whole league season unbeaten away from home, scored in every league match, and again added the FA Cup to our trophy cabinet. You may have invited scorn when you said we could go unbeaten in a league season, and we might have thrown away the title in 2002/03, yet what followed can never be taken away from us. An invincible season; P38 W26 D12 L0. The league title won at White Hart Lane. The future looked bright.

A certain Roman Abramovich may have arrived at the start of our glorious season, and in 2004 Mourinho became the next ingredient in a hideous cocktail, but we knew you were a class act and we could trust you fully to guide our club through the stormy seas of a stadium move, after our Champions League final appearance in 2006. Gary Neville was right; your ability to keep us in the top four during this period was a remarkable feat, one that should not be taken for granted. Yet the time came to push on and this is where the story takes a sad turn.

I think it was 2012 that I first had doubts. Coming back from a pathetic 0-0 draw at Bolton, I became involved in a heated discussion with my co-passengers, my argument being that maybe you had taken as far as you could, that perhaps you could not deliver another title in this era of Russian money and petro-dollars. I hated speaking against you, I really did. You were a man who had given me so much joy, provided me with some of the happiest moments in my life (excluding family of course), and here I was doubting you.

I felt like a spoilt child at times. Fans of rival clubs would ask why many of us were so ungrateful, why couldn't we appreciate what a great manager we had, and telling us to be careful what we wished for. They may have had a few valid points, yet the sport is all about expectations, and in my opinion we started dipping below the levels required at our club. I'm no glory hunter. I can remember the Dark Ages of the mid-80s, I'm not someone who thinks we have a divine right to win trophies. But what was the point in killing Highbury if we were not moving forward.

To be fair it did look like you had turned a corner. You finally spent big on Sanchez and Ozil, and won two FA Cups. We had a superb end to the 2014/15 season, topped the calendar year table, and everyone felt with a few signings we could compete for the league title. It would have left a lot of us with egg on our faces, left us open to ridicule from your staunchest supporters, and given you the last laugh. You bought in a proper grown-up keeper in Petr Cech, but we waited and waited for the couple of extra players that we needed. And waited.

But this isn't new. I recently listened to an old Tuesday Club Podcast in which Ian Stone complained that we were paying the price for not buying the two players that we needed in the summer and winter transfer windows. That was in 2012. Four years later, and we seem to be driving down a road that we have been down before. Your backers asked us to come up with some names that we could have signed, even though none of us have worked in football for five minutes. It may become a little like Championship Manager, but Kondogbia, Schneiderlin, Higuaín, Lukaku are just a few names I suggested at the time.

Maybe Higuaín and Lukaku were unrealistic targets, players simply not for sale, yet more worryingly you seemed to have lost your mojo for a bargain. Look at Kante and Mahrez at Leicester. Players who have thrived in the Premier League this season, who were both plying their trade in France, and surely would have been on your radar in you prime. They may well win the title with Leicester - heaven forbid Tottenham might even pip them - and the fact that two clubs with less resources than us could lift the trophy in May, may be the final nail in your coffin.

It saddens me that things have developed like this. I hate to see people barrack you, despise some of the abuse you receive, and my heart is heavy when I look at you and see how much you have aged. I know you care, that you love the club, and you hate it when we lose. But you have been making the same mistakes for years, and I just can't see you changing your ways.

It was you who decided that we could go into this season with Rosicky, Arteta and Flamini as players good enough to be squad players in a league winning team. You who decided that we didn't need to buy one single outfield player in the summer, despite knowing that Wilshere and Welbeck were out for lengthy periods. Most sane Arsenal fans knew we were walking a tightrope with Francis Coquelin, how suspensions and injuries could leave us sorely exposed, how a man who was out on loan at Charlton recently had become so important to us. Yet you did nothing about this, and when Coquelin limped off against West Brom, you almost could hear the collective Gooner groan.

Yet we still managed to put ourselves in a strong position. On January 2 we were top of the table, but since then we have taken just 22 points from a possible 45, and have blown the best opportunity to win the league title in years. Words such as bottlers and chokers have not been far away from the lips of many; the defeat at Old Trafford was spineless; the capitulation against Swansea was one from a bunch of players who simply do not have the balls to seal the deal. Look at some of the player images on the outside of our stadium who you have managed during the fantastic first half of your time at the club. How many of this current lot will come close to taking their place next to these legends?

Take Theo Walcott. A lovely chap who we all desperately want to succeed at the club. A loyal player, but a well remunerated young man, who recently celebrated 10 years at the club and was absurdly handed the captaincy for the Chelsea home game. It saddens me to say this, but he is simply not up to the mark. Someone who promises a lot but fails to deliver when it really matters. A player who sadly mirrors the fortunes of The Arsenal at the moment.

Through it all, it has broken my heart to see how far your stock has fallen. It worries me that your reign at the club will be remembered for these turbulent years rather than the smiles you put on many faces in your pomp. And you are not doing yourself any favours with some of your comments. Mental strength; voicing concerns over how negative fans may impact on the confidence of the team; talking of the farce that surrounds speculation over your job; moaning that teams keep turning up to our soulless stadium, and winning/drawing games that we're dominating (once may be unfortunate, but surely you can recognise that we've got a problem in this regard?).

You've always been the target of abuse from jealous rival fans - some of it too disgusting to even mention here - but my growing fear is that you might be on the receiving end of derision from your own fans soon. I'm not the biggest fan of that banner, yet at least it is polite. If this situation continues, as I suspect, then things could turn really ugly. We already have fans fighting each other. How long until they all turn their frustrations towards you?

Where do we go from here? If we finish top four, then Silent Stan will no doubt be chuffed, probably trying to work out a new way of extracting money for consultancy fees out of the club. If you do stay on, then I implore you to change your ways. Get some proper men into the team. Spend some money on strengthening the spine. Get rid of some of the deadwood. All very easy to type, but only you can do something about this.

We are stuck in a cycle that makes you want to scream with anger. Start the summer thinking that we are a couple of players away from challenging for the title; endure a disappointing transfer window; put ourselves in a position to compete; pick up inevitable injuries due to a lack of rotation and squad depth; exit Champions League in the last 16; finish in top four and qualify for a tournament that we have no chance of winning; and back to the summer optimism again. What can be done to stop this and potentially move to the next level?

Your supporters always come up with two arguments: be careful what you wish for, and who is good enough to replace you? The first point is always followed up with a reference to Man Utd, Alex Ferguson, and the struggle that the club have faced in replacing a legend. To some extent you can see their point, but scratch underneath the surface and sometimes you can spot a flaw in this defence. Ferguson may have won the league in his final season, but he left his successor with the job of replacing Evra, Ferdinand and Vidic, patently short of options in midfield, and in hindsight Ferguson benefitted from Robin van Persie's last great season at the top level.

In short, Ferguson didn't leave United in the strongest position from a playing perspective as many would have us believe. This accusation cannot be levelled at you, Arsene. With just a few more additions this squad could have gone places. It still can. We always seem to be just a little bit short of what it takes to get over the line, and it hurts me to think that an intelligent man like you hasn't recognised this.

So who should replace you? It will undoubtedly be hard to step into your shoes, but in reality I don't think that the job is as hard as the task of replacing Ferguson. Simeone could take our club further, even managers such as Bilic and Koeman would still see us compete for the cherished top four spot. Personally I think is worth the gamble now. The sort of gamble that it looks like you are unwilling to take with squad investment.

Of course I will get behind the team. I'm not going to f**k off and go and support Chelsea as some of your backers like to repeat. In an ideal world I would love you to have one more crack at this, another chance to prove us all wrong. But with Guardiola turning up at City armed with an endless pit of money, I think the horse may already have bolted.

I don't like change. I'm a man who has lived in the same town all my life, had the same job for nearly 20 years, and the same haircut for longer (although that is fast disappearing). But I feel the point has come for either you to change or us to make a change. You should be given the ovation you merit when you leave our club, be chaired around the stadium with people applauding you and singing your name. There shouldn't be a dry eye in the house.

One Arsene Wenger, there's only one Arsene Wenger. After almost twenty years of service devoted to our great club, you really deserve to be celebrated for years to come, as generation after generation of Gooners recall your fine achievements. You of all men should leave with dignity.

Kind regards
Steve Pye