I’m a newer fan who only started watching the club over the past 2 seasons. I’ve been trying to learn the history of the club, and I’m confused why there was hate for Wenger at the end of his career. I learned that he lead the invincible’s, and that amazing squad from the early 2000s, he gave us the only champions league final appearance in club history, and even after that he seem to do an amazing job. Heck he even got a new Stadium that is really nice. He seemed to be loved. By all accounts he should be a Saint to the gooners but then I look forward a few years, and they were all these Wenger out protests. What led to such a fall from grace.
The club stagnated, fell out of champions league, then Europa league, and he probably stayed 3 years too long. Standards dropped and players weren’t challenged enough.
He’s still a legend. He is Arsenal. Man has a statue outside the Emirates.
I’m 41, all I ever knew was Papa Wengz and I absolutely adored him. But there comes a time where we still love our parents/grandparents but we start to wonder if it’s still safe for them to drive the car……
Same here, 34 years old Swiss gooner. Arsenal was Arsène as far as I am concerned. We moved on and we’re in good hands but I’ll never forget what the man did for us and English football.
For quite a long time, I thought Arsenal was named after Arsène. Or the other way round.
Was heartbroken when I found out the truth. :-/
You weren’t alone in this
This is a great analogy. I think the other thing that annoyed us is that we always were challenging for the top 4 but never were serious title contenders. Also, we could beat all the little teams but struggled to compete with the big ones. It was just a little missing that we couldn’t seem to fill. In hindsight, top 4 for that many years is an incredible achievement and there were def some lean years after.
Love this answer
I think there’s an open question of how he would go with decent backroom staff and financial support.
His worst problems for me were not on the pitch but in going along with gazidis and Raul and not demanding better.
you… are confused.
… Raul joined 2 months b4 Wenger announced his retirement, 4 months b4 he actually retired.
“Spend” started earliest with Auba, but you could argue it was rly only starting in the summer Wenger left. Mustafi/Xhaka/Perez only came about since the season b4 we didn’t buy anyone except Cech. Laca only came in cuz we sold Ox, Mkhi was a swap. We had to sell Giroud to pay for Auba.
We got worse after he left cuz Mislintat was a fraud and Raul deserves to be in jail.
Mislintat’s “genius” set us up with £103m in losses and yrs of stagnation:
I think he was and is still loved but at the same time he had to go
Wenger didn’t fall out of Europa League?
Also, his transfer was less than ideal. Xhaka instead of Kante for that 1 season was pretty horrible. Mustafi, Lucas Perez, etc.
I originally thought Mr Wenger stayed a season or 2 too long. Club needed a change.
However now in retrospect, if Mr Wenger left earlier we may not have ended up with Arteta. Opportunity is all about timing.
His standards didn’t drop. Man wasn’t not funded in the transfer market toward the end. Arssenal built the stadium instead.