by Alex Fynn
Given that Wenger is 59 and Gazidis 45, the long-term future of the club could well lie with the CEO rather than the manager. At least he is likely to be more hands on than anyone Wenger has had to work closely with before. The immediate tasks are to fill glaring vacancies on the coaching side with the proviso that, as Gazidis admits, “If Arsène doesn’t believe it, then how are you going to push someone in there and make it work?” And the manager seems perfectly content with his existing set-up. He leans a lot on Boro Primorac who was himself a coach in the French first division before joining Arsenal soon after Wenger arrived in England. Ken Friar explained how the duo worked together. “Boro sits up in the stand for all the first team games and will go down and analyse things both at half time and at full time. And then the following day, even if it’s a Sunday, they will have the tape of that match and they will be sitting there for hours between them analysing the game. So that works out well too. They complement each other. I’ve never known them to have a disagreement. I’m sure that’s a good partnership.” But could the same be said about Pat Rice? Would he have met the criteria for a good number two if Gazidis had been involved in the appointment? Just as important, do either Primorac or Rice ever challenge their boss?
Perhaps, as Frank McLintock has commented, “Wenger should have kept Don Howe around.” The former England coach, one of the most revered defensive organisers in the game, instead of being installed as Wenger’s number two, was employed in the youth academy with Liam Brady. Not that he wasn’t successful but, like Wenger, Brady carefully controls his territory so Howe’s scope was limited and, besides, his forte was working with experienced players. As an elder statesman he would have been no threat to Wenger but someone who, just as when Bob Wilson was his goalkeeping coach, at least would have provided expert specialist advice. Martin Keown, a younger and more forceful personality, worked with the squad in 2006 whilst preparing for his UEFA coaching licences. With Eboue, Toure, Senderos or Campbell and Flamini forming an improvised back four was it a coincidence that the defence was set to go all the way to the Champions League final? Perhaps Keown preferred the comfort of the BBC’s pundit sofa or maybe he was seen as a barrack room lawyer, more of a threat than the compliant current set-up.
At least there is now someone in the boardroom willing to talk to Arsène Wenger about his methods. Ivan Gazidis was asked about his interaction with the manager.
“I speak to Arsène about anything I want to speak about and ask him what I consider to be the difficult questions. I’ve never found him resistant or defensive to those questions. I’ve never felt that he’s not willing to examine his modus operandi and think about things with an open mind. I think we have very full, frank, open discussions.”
“Have you disagreed with him?”
“Of course. But if it comes to somebody’s judgment about what’s happening on the pitch, I trust Arsène Wenger’s judgment a lot more than I trust my own.”
“But you can propose and allow him to dispose.”
“We have interesting discussions on a lot of different issues and I’ve never found him resistant to that.”
In getting to know Arsène Wenger, Gazidis is sure he’s got the best man for the job. Nevertheless, he concedes, “I do think he takes a lot on his shoulders. He doesn’t take the easy way out, which is to point fingers of blame in other directions. He’s so instrinsically entwined with the club and so involved in the formation of our strategy, that he will not disavow it. We’re embarked upon a journey that has evolved, not signing superstar players, clearly not in the Real Madrid or Chelsea or Manchester United model. These are the questions that maybe we need to look at, the strategy that we’ve adopted. That’s what the club has been doing, and I think Arsène, to his eternal credit, has never sought to divorce himself from that direction. Instead he’s sought to embrace it and to do the best he can within it. My view is that at this club, we have stability through being self-sufficient. We are not reliant on outside sources of financing. That’s a very challenging path to walk down. It’s difficult and it creates a lot of short-term competitive challenges for us. But long-term I’m confident that the club will be strong and one of the best clubs in England and the world. And we’re not pushing ourselves into an unsustainable business model.”
Because the landscape of English football has changed so much since the arrival of Roman Abramovich, and attained a further dimension with the acquisition of Manchester City by the Abu Dhabi United Group Investment and Development Limited, Arsenal are no longer competing on the level that existed when the Emirates was planned and the funding arranged. The board and Wenger continue to argue for the long-term benefits of financial self-sufficiency, but with Chelsea and Manchester United spending 70 per cent and 20 per cent respectively more on salaries and with the summer of 2008 and the January 2009 transfer window showing the highest levels of expenditure yet recorded (Manchester City had a gross spend of around £80 million), it is becoming more difficult with every passing year for Wenger’s men to stay ahead of the chasing pack. “Arsenal are not a bad side, but they are not good enough to win a major trophy anymore,” ruefully observed a long-standing supporter, asking, “Have they accepted that finishing fourth and balancing the books is the preferred option?”
In 2007, expecting the Highbury Square treasure trove, Wenger was anticipating a positive financial landscape by the summer of 2009. Now that the stagnation in the housing market has put paid to that idea, it is up to the board to ensure the manager has sufficient funds to buy the savoir faire the squad is crying out for. Since the Emirates opened plenty of money has been made by past and present directors through share dealing, but little has seen its way back into the club. Perhaps, if they are not able to donate some of their fortune or provide ‘soft’ (interest-free) loans as other more altruistic owners have done, they could contemplate the notion of a rights issue to raise funds in the way that new shares were created when ITV [then Granada] purchased a 9.99 per cent stake (eventually bought by Stan Kroenke). But with the current board owning less than 50 per cent of the club, the idea of further diluting their holding is not an appealing one unless they wish to clear the way for Stan Kroenke to invest the millions more necessary to own the club outright. However, should he fail to do so, in the event of a rights issue Alisher Usmanov could step into the breach by increasing his shareholding to such a level that he might not even need to form an alliance with Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith in order to take control.
Some fans might actually welcome this development, as long as it meant greater investment in the team. In the event that Alisher Usmanov does flex his muscles and decide to test the water with a bid, perhaps making the kind of offer that even the board’s major shareholders would find it difficult to resist, the one thing he is adamant on is that the incumbent manager remains.
That Wenger is one of the most in-demand managers in world football and could probably walk into any job he fancies indicates the universal respect for him held by his peers. As a consequence of his philosophy, football fans all over the world watch televised matches in anticipation of another vintage Wenger-inspired Arsenal display. The manager is all too well aware of this, confirming, “I want to win trophies, but I think that you cannot survive a long time as a club, or have a world reputation without a style of play.”
The infrastructure may be in place, but until the debt becomes less of a burden and more money is spent on the finished articles rather than potential, the club must be wary of being overtaken and falling back into the pack. They are attempting to chase those ahead of them at the same time as looking over their shoulder. So if Wenger needs eyes in the back of his head, he must first admit to seeing what is staring him in the face, and take the appropriate measures. Perhaps he will be prompted by Ivan Gazidis, who observes, “I don’t have rose-tinted spectacles on with respect to where our team is, at the same time I do think it’s a team that, despite its youth, is growing up. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean it doesn’t need to
be supplemented and that we don’t need to look at that but I think it’s probably further along than people give it credit for.” And the CEO adds pointedly, “If we don’t deliver success Arsène is under the same pressure as anyone in that position.”
And success means trophies: another season without them could see a long and happy marriage end in an amicable divorce. Arsène, though devastated, would probably understand if it came to pass. “I always say that a manager has a love story with the club,” he said in April 2008, “and he has to behave like it will be a love story forever. But not be stupid enough to believe it will never end.”