It’s official, folks. We’re getting another instalment of Carry On Wenger, the tragicomic tale of a man who is not doing a good job keeping his own head while everyone about him is losing theirs.
If rumours are to be believed, Piers Morgan and his Twitter army will be taking on an even bigger role this time though the score, composed at the Emirates, will be as silent as ever.
The running time will be two years. Just as well it missed the cut-off date for Cannes.
In all seriousness very few people, except for gleeful Tottenham fans, can be looking forward to what is coming – more militant gurning and griping from both sides of the divide. Those who look upon Arsenal’s record under Arsene Wenger as if it were unspeakably good are just as tedious as those who consider it impossibly bad. The only one to have gone grey in this bubble of black and white is Wenger himself.
Those two extremes played off each other in typically slapstick fashion before and after the FA Cup final. In the build-up to the match it was all about whether winning a devalued competition would be a suitable end to the Frenchman’s reign. That Wenger has now won as many FA Cups as Liverpool and Chelsea shows just how foolish it was to ever doubt him, is how it was framed in the aftermath.
To understand these opposing forces is to glimpse into the ‘horrendous psychological environment’ among the Arsenal camp that Wenger has quite candidly talked about. Players can protest they do not read papers but show me one who has never partaken in – and been burnt by – social media. The temperature of debate over their manager is scalding.
Arsene Wenger.
Wenger cannot cool off his critics over the summer. But what he can do in the meantime is use all that ferocious heat and forge his squad into a defiant, steadfast unit, one that has a chip on their shoulder the size of north London.
He should take the most biting opinion columns and musings from ‘celeb’ fans and stick them up in the training ground. This is what they think of you – show them how wrong they are. All the Twitter nay-saying in 140 characters can help build character. Direct the frustration outwards rather than inwards.
If the squad was a little more bullish and brazen, the less likely Alexis Sanchez is to stage a hissy fit. He may have acted like a prima donna to the extent that at one point last season Wenger was forced to drop him, but if his teammates can’t match him for flair, they can at least match him for fight.
And how they did so on Saturday. If you’d squinted at your TV set it was Franz Beckenbauer, not Per Mertesacker, who was mopping up every stray ball at the back. Granit Xhaka could have been made of granite in the middle. Sanchez will always be the star but think how focused he could be with a reliable posse to back him up.
Wenger must use all that momentum and ensure what happened at Wembley were not the actions of players desperate to give their departing boss one last hurrah.
To do that he must also take off his gloves and project himself in a more positive light to the media, who have needed no second invitation to use him as a punching bag at times. He can be irritable, of course, but rather inoffensive. Though he need not turn into Jose Mourinho overnight, Arsenal need a touch of that swagger amid a dressing room that is short of it.
If Wenger can be that lightning rod for the Gunners then perhaps others will follow suit. It is imperative that Sanchez, and even an inconsistent Mesut Ozil, stick around for the ride and they will be convinced to do so if their manager shows an ability to venture outside of his comfort zone.
Those two are not the only ones with their contracts ticking down – 12 players in total as of this moment are free to walk away in 2018. The hope is that Wenger’s signing will spark a domino effect but the others will also need reassuring that the chips will not stay down.
Arsenal also need reinforcements though their squad remains talented if typically fragile. But though supporters cannot expect a Patrick Vieira or Thierry Henry to waltz through the doors this summer, they are entitled to an impassioned Wenger ready to pen one last, if overdue, Hollywood script.
