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Not even Arsenal FA Cup glory can rescue doomed Wenger

Arsene Wenger is often talked of as Le Professeur – he’s an intelligent man, and he has a degree. Well done.

He has a wide knowledge of economics, he is frugal, and he has given Arsenal great riches and a new stadium to play in. But for all this, he has failed to learn the most important lessons from the world of business.

There is a theory in business, and in life, that you should focus on ensuring the positives outweigh the negatives.

Warren Buffett, one of the world’s richest men and a reliable fountain of useful aphorisms, once said in his guide to investing that the first rule is to not lose any money. Second, is to not forget rule one.

[Sutton’s Wayne Shaw resigns from the club following pie-bet scandal]

[In pictures: Sutton’s Shaw and other larger-than-life sports stars]

If you lose 50% of an investment, you then have to watch it gain in value by 100% to cancel out the loss. It is much more important to make sure you don’t do something wrong, than make sure you do something right.

It is thankless, but over the long term it will aid you, in whatever world you use the rule. You have to operate with a margin of safety to make sure you won’t ever regress.

[READ MORE: Arsenal fend off Sutton United to reach FA Cup quarter-finals]

For Wenger and Arsenal, the game against Sutton United came with limited upside. There was the obvious reward, a tie against Lincoln City. Barring a disastrous performance of heroic scale, Arsenal will be the winners in the match, and then they will be a single match away from Wembley. They will probably end up playing one of Chelsea and Manchester United, either in the semi-final or the final.

If they were to be defeated before reaching the final, Arsenal would quickly suffer criticism, as it would soon be understood that this would be another trophyless season. If they lose to Manchester United or Chelsea, then it would not be a failure in isolation, but the context would override that.

The FA Cup successes for Wenger a few years ago meant something. There was something positive to take from the victories. Winning is a habit, we were told, and Wenger was building another new side. It would bond his young side together and give them a feeling that would want them to repeat their success.

And, indeed, they did. Two trophies in a row were followed by… nothing. The Premier League failures kept coming. The European embarrassments kept coming. Players agitated for new contracts and made eyes elsewhere, and the fans lost patience.

So even from those two mini-successes, Arsenal have regressed. To win the FA Cup this season would mean that they were back in a position that was already underwhelming. No outsider thought much of Arsenal’s cups, because they hadn’t shown any consistency, or played especially well to triumph.

There was no great financial reward. The best players around the world took no notice of the trinket, and didn’t suddenly reconsider Barcelona, Real Madrid or Bayern Munich for the chance to join Kieran Gibbs at the Emirates.

Wenger has created a situation this season where there is barely any upside to success in the one competition they have a chance in.

Going back to Buffett, he often talks of two sins. The sin of commission, which is when you do something which is wrong. The second one is the sin of omission, which is when you lose out from not doing something.

The sin of commission would be to buy Yaya Sanogo. The sin of omission would be to turn down the chance to sign Eric Cantona.

Wenger, for the last decade, has been a master of the sin of omission. He talks of the very best players that he could have bought. Alex Ferguson built three great teams, but Wenger has almost built so many more than that, such is the scope of his genius. Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Juan Mata, Cristiano Ronaldo and many more – all are playing for a theoretical Arsenal and winning the league under Wenger. Fat use.

Against Sutton United, seeing the players who were no longer young, but were not good enough for anyone else, it was an Arsenal team full of the errors of commission.

[READ MORE: Arsene Wenger twice tried to sign N’Golo Kante]

Nacho Monreal is fine, but that’s it. Theo Walcott briefly threatened to become consistent, before he went back to being Theo Walcott. The only growth he has made in the last three years is his beard.

Wenger, then, has built a side ignoring his key rules. Back when he arrived, within his circle of competence was aggression, style, fitness and flair. As most people age, their circle of competence widens. Wenger, instead, has narrowed his.

The flair is absent – there’s no more Bergkamps. There’s no aggression anymore, there are repetitive problems with fitness. The circle now includes style, with none of the complements. It just doesn’t work.

For an economics expert, he has ignored all the rules of success. He faces one, maybe two more seasons, with an upside getting more remote, and the downside only growing. The FA Cup won’t save him now.