Wenger had held discussions with Perez in 2003, at a time when his budget had been severely cut ensuring he missed out on possible signings such as Cristiano Ronaldo. Since then, Roman Abramovich's fortune had catapulted Chelsea to the forefront of English and European football, whilst Manchester United continued to speculate on players and accumulate trophies at a rate Arsenal could only dream of in the far-flung future. Arsène Wenger was still fighting the odds, only in the face of such a financial disadvantage â in spite of the club's phenomenal turnover â he was not actually beating them anymore.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
NOW OR NEVER
“If we buy, it certainly won't be players who lack experience. We have enough of those.” When Arsène Wenger outlined his intentions for the summer a few days after his team's exit from the Champions League at the hands of Manchester United, there would have been a loud chorus of “hear, hear” from Arsenal fans. “I do what I can with what I have available and you have never heard me complain,” he said, “but I do not accept that people think I'm stupid enough that I have £100million at my disposal and I put it in the bank because I am scared to spend it,” contradicting his response to Peter Hill-Wood and Danny Fiszman who, when asked what he would do if he was given such a windfall, were promptly told, he'd hand it right back again. Then, for good measure, Wenger added, “I believe the more everybody shuts up inside the club, doesn't talk about anything and works hard is [for] the best.” It was perceived as a clear message that he did not want to hear any more “Arsène can afford to buy any player he wants, he only has to ask,” statements from board members.
But it was too late. The manager had long ago let the cat out of the bag. The popular assumption that he was happy enough to construct a young team through choice had been seized upon by the board for their own purposes. Better to let Wenger face the brickbats from the supporters and the media than admit that the club could not afford to buy the stars who would increase the likelihood of success.
Certainly all the tickets may have been sold, but the poor fare on offer was turning the public away. So when it was habitually claimed, over the course of the 2008/09 season, that 60,000 were in attendance (amounting to over 99 per cent matchday stadium utilisation â the highest in the Premier League) even though there were clearly empty seats all around the ground, people believed the evidence of their own eyes and no longer trusted the official line. Yet if the club had issued the true numbers who had passed through the turnstiles, the illusion that demand continues to outstrip supply would not be so easy to maintain. That many season ticket holders were not even bothered about occupying seats they had paid so handsomely for should be a matter of grave concern. The next logical step would be that they will not be bothering to renew them. After the anticlimactic finish to the 2008/09 season, a significant number decided to do just that, with others opting to subsidise their outlay by renting their seats. The novelty of the Emirates is over. Fans now know they can easily get tickets to go six or seven times a season, which is sufficient for many of them. The market for selling seats, generally at face value, already flourishing through the unofficial supporters' chatrooms, forums and email lists is set to continue to expand. Of course it is tougher to get a ticket when Manchester United are in town, but for Bolton it's a breeze, especially if the game is televised. Even the added attraction of Champions League participation is not always enough to fill the stadium.
The Champions League semi-final elimination at the hands of Manchester United encapsulated the season. Arsène Wenger talked up his team and they let him down. They were simply not good enough. Supposed to come of age for the second leg, the biggest game the Emirates had hosted so far, the evening fell flat early on in the proceedings and there was a steady exodus of fans by half time.
In the final that United reached at Arsenal's expense, Barcelona took care of the English champions in a way that Wenger must have wished his team could emulate, with a style that he has always aspired to but, more and more of late, has consistently failed to produce. “We are convinced, [myself and] the directors, that we are doing the right thing,” said Wenger adamantly, “Because we want to run the club by respecting the financial balance, by developing the idea of the game played how we want it played, and by developing the players who we bought, who have been at the club for five years. If we do not get there next year, or the year after, then I will be responsible and stand up for it, don't worry.”
Looking to the future, the relationship between the manager and new CEO Ivan Gazidis â a man with new ideas and methods â is key. A few months into the role, Gazidis's work can now begin in earnest. The initial signs augur well with Wenger revealing, “I see Ivan as someone who can help me achieve my targets, and we have a shared vision as to how the club has to be run. As much as you can say, âif we don't win, I am responsible,' I want to say, âIf we don't win, he is responsible!'” Gazidis's experience in the buying and selling hundreds of players for MLS should enable the manager to take more of a back seat once he has identified a target, proposing more and disposing less. Wenger may have been overprotective of his squad, but he will not be able to shield them from the evaluation of the CEO. “My focus is going to be very, very laser sharp on what we do to improve the performance of the team,” said Gazidis.
Whether Wenger continues to be master of all he surveys will be interesting to observe. Gazidis, although fully supportive of the manager, will have noted that he is unchallenged by his staff and his fellow directors. David Dein was fond of repeating that the manager had a job for life at the club but a human resources department is about to be established because “As we now have over 400 employees we require that,” said Gazidis, admitting, “I was surprised when I came in that that didn't exist. It's one of the key areas in any size of organisation.” Undoubtedly such a move will challenge the wisdom of the current arrangement whereby Arsène can do what he wants with a budget of £100 million provided he delivers Champions League revenue every season (expected to pull in the highest amount ever for 2008/09). But Gazidis set a loftier benchmark when he pronounced, “This is a club that aims higher than 4th place. We don't believe that's good enough, this club wants to win things.”
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 âsoft' (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.”