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One More Year of Wenger - Probably the Best Option?

One More Year of Wenger - Probably the Best Option?

We shouldn’t blame those who liked the look of Roberto Martinez, and even a few years ago had him tipped as a future Arsenal manager, but the people at the club who are going to make that decision ultimately do need to be more considered when planning for the future.

There has been plenty to say about the much-maligned Everton manager in recent weeks, as the FA Cup looms large as possibly his last chance to redeem himself to the Goodison faithful, and as with Louis van Gaal at Manchester United, even lifting the trophy might ultimately not save his job come the end of May. Flashback to 2013 though, and Martinez looked a man with the world at his feet, ironically, primarily due to his success in that very same competition.

Though Wigan Athletic had been struggling under his guidance in the Premier League for quite some time, and of course would wind up being relegated that season too, and spirally downwards from there, the cup run was almost seen as the epitome of everything that Martinez could potentially achieve, if given the right squad. At this point, there was lots to like if you were an Arsenal fan with an itchy trigger-finger and a dislike of Arsene Wenger. Martinez’s Wigan at least tried to play ‘the right way’, with a penchant for flair play and an attacking style that belied the issues further back on the pitch.

No matter though, everyone knew that the Wigan team was nothing special, and there was a tangible belief that Martinez had all the attributes to succeed at a bigger club. Everton seemed the perfect move for the manager at the end of that contradictory 2012/13 season therefore; David Moyes had moved on to his own unsuccessful stint in Manchester, the club had a good mixture of young players coming through the academy and some genuinely high-quality professionals, and looked poised to take the next step onto becoming truly perennial European stalwarts and potentially even proper Champions League challengers.

Furthermore, this was a chance for Martinez himself to prove his credentials, and stake a claim for one of the more prestigious jobs in the game, say, Arsenal. No excuses now, and the shackles off, it was time to see what he was all about, and whether the problems at Wigan had been purely down to the circumstances there, or were actually indicative of some greater shortcomings in Martinez’s style.

It all started so well too. The additions to the playing staff sourced from Wigan seemed somewhat questionable, but James McCarthy hit the ground running in midfield, and the loan signings of Gareth Barry, Gerard Deulofeu and most importantly Romelu Lukaku were all inspired, pushing Everton on to 5th place, their highest league position since 2008/09.

But how quickly things can also go wrong. There has been no progression since that early success, difficult decisions in the transfer market haven’t quite worked out, and Martinez’s flaws still show up large far too often. I’m still a huge fan of his work, but the defensive side of his team’s game continues to be a major issue, as it was at Wigan, and though it is laudable to want to take the game to the opposition at all times, such an approach has undoubtedly cost Everton on several occasions, and Roberto hasn’t seemed to really improve upon either of these faults in the last two years.

So, Martinez is unlikely to be the name on the manager’s office door at the Emirates when Wenger does eventually step down from his role. Instead, he can join a long (and increasingly ridiculous) list of potential successors that failed to live up to the hype generated by Arsenal fans. David Moyes himself, Brendan Rodgers (whilst at Swansea), Michael Laudrup, Owen Coyle, the list really does go on and on.

In reality though, I don’t think that’s really that surprising, and though I often see fans laugh at the W(enger)O(ut)B(rigade) who supposedly championed most of the names that I’ve just mentioned, it is somewhat inevitable that managers like those unfortunate souls are going to be linked to Arsenal. Though Arsenal tend to do things a slightly different way, fans generally like change in football; it’s exciting, it breeds new hope, and it vindicates everything you were saying about how rubbish the current situation is.

Therefore, it is inevitable in many ways that when a manager does well in the Premier League, and earns the plaudits of opposition fans and the media alike, those who are dissatisfied with constant top four finishes and the occasional cup success will look enviously at whoever is in the spotlight that month, and wonder what they might be able to do with the squad and resources that we can offer them in North London. Most managers however do not achieve perfect consistency across their careers, and in the Premier League as much as anywhere else it is fundamentally difficult to achieve success season after season. Sometimes they fade away because their club simply cannot keep up with their competitors in the league (Coyle, Monk) and sometimes they are found out at a higher level (Moyes, Rodgers), but you never really know until they are given the chance.

Of course, on the flip side, you have managers like Mauricio Pochettino (who I seem to bang on about every single week at the moment) who did make a tangible difference at the club at which they were first really noticed by fans, and then go on to enjoy great success at a higher level. There too are managers like Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp (or Sir Alex Ferguson, and arguably Jose Mourinho), who just are successful, but they’re not easy to come by, and Arsenal have rather missed the boat on the two of those that we could have had this summer anyway.

This all leads me to (the perhaps misguided) belief that my confusion about not wanting Arsene to go just yet, but having to accept that we may not move that much further forward with him at the helm is perhaps not as contradictory as it might seem.

Wenger has one year left on his contract at the Emirates after this season, and no one yet quite knows what might happen after that. I think, given the terrible animosity and furore currently surrounding our football club, the best way forward may in fact be to set out a plan in stone, as we have failed to do for the last few times that AW’s position has come up for renewal.

Hear me out here, if the board were to announce this summer that they had absolutely no intention of sacking Wenger during the offseason, but that he would officially step down from his position after the 2016/17 season, this could have the dual effect of reinvigorating the fan base as much as possible, and allowing us time to formulate the next stage of the plan. Fans would know that their time with the boss was running out (formally, as opposed to how we’re all feeling at the moment), and hopefully rally around the club to try to get him one final successful season as a deserved send-off.

For Wenger’s part, he could take action in the summer to give us the best possible chance of competing with a Pep-led Manchester City, presumably resurgent Chelsea, surely-not-possibly-as-bad-as-the-last-three-years Manchester United, and terrifyingly well-placed Tottenham. He wouldn’t splash out £300m of course, but a set end-date to his tenure may well lead to a tangible desire to have one last proper go at the league.

There are no good options just waiting to be taken this summer in terms of replacements, now that Klopp and Guardiola are off the board as previously mentioned, so why not wait to see what happens over the next twelve months, and actually work to put a proper contingency plan in place, so that we’re not left waiting on whatever Arsene’s decision will be at the end of next season, and caught out if he does decide unilaterally to call it a day.

We need to be sensible about the next steps at the very least, as things could get a lot worse than they are currently, and we should actually at the same time accept that they might. We don’t know whether the next appointment will be the right one, we don’t know what effect Wenger stepping away from the club will have on how things are run, and how the players feel, but at the very least, we need to give ourselves a fighting chance of not just picking a Roberto Martinez because we like the look of his philosophy. We have to get this right, and setting a concrete date for when that decision has to be made by may be the first step in doing just that.