Arsene Wenger - Football Genius or Megalomaniac

To place men in certain defined categories is a task beyond the normal realms of functionaltiy. This holds true especially in the case of football managers. To label one manager as a footballing genius, or an inconsistent assessor or simply as a failure is a mistake many of us tend to make. Being a religious follower of the Barclays Premier League for almost a decade there is no character in the English game that arouses as much vile churning angst in me along with a conflicting sense of very intense and unexplainable attraction towards the enigma that is Arsene Wenger.

Watching Arsenal play can take you to two very distinct dimensions at the same time. Theirs is a brand of football that discards the stereotypical 'English' game of lump the ball ahead and follow it up with a horde of muscle bulging beasts. They instead choose to patiently build up the game from the back line and gently stroke the ball around each others feet with quick one touch passes and exquisite technical movement, very similar to the eye-catching 'tiqui-taca' game that Barcelona adopt. To some extent, they manage to pull it off amazingly well, but at the other end of the spectrum, they also end up frustrating the living daylights out of a viewer and make you want to run into a wall head-first after repeatedly hammering it with a blunt object. (OK you get the point)

Arsene Wenger has been at the helm of the London club since 1996. He quickly transformed the way they played from a dull yawn-inducing sleepwalk (Highbury was rightly dubbed 'the Library') into an exciting fiery rodeo. He got his just rewards as well. He is the only non-British manager in the Premier League to have won the double (1998 and 2002) and is also the longest running and most successful manager of Arsenal FC (winning 3 league titles and 4 FA cups). 2004 saw the pinnacle of this football revolution at Highbury when they went the entire league season unbeaten, a task that was last managed over 100 years ago by Preston North End.

But soon after that things began to crumble. Slowly but forcibly Arsenal have been transformed from genuine title contenders to the almost-maybe men. The last 3 seasons have seen them battle it out with the likes of Aston Villa and Everton for 4th place, though they did manage a good challenge in the 2006-07 season. Many have pointed out that the reason for this downfall has been Wenger's stubbornness to constantly pick a team that appears to lack that biting edge due to its average age, and also his over-reliance on picking youth over experience.

They have now gone 4 years without any silverware and surely this is a team that is no more in transition. For a comparative view, just see what their rivals Manchester United have achieved in these last 4 years. Each transfer window opens up with a plethora of experienced names being linked with the club but ends in disappointment for the fans when they realize that Arsene will not budge. In fact, Arsenal ironically end up as a 'selling club' for most of the bigger European heavyweights to pick on.

In the midst of all this there are constant cries for Wenger to realize that his plan of youth over experience isn't working, but somehow he doesn't seem to get it. Last season when they were humbled 4-1 on aggregate by United in the semi-finals of the Champions League there was a sign that maybe 'The Professor' will finally make that one central defensive midfielder acquisition but apparently he changed his mind over the course of the summer. Arsenal are one or two quality signings away from a title winning team but this cannot go on forever. Either the best players at the club will consistently leave (Fabregas is next as Barcelona have their eyes firmly set on a homecoming for the Catalunyan), or the fans will run out of patience with the man they believe knows best. The credit he has built up over the years is beginning to dwindle now.

Arsene Wenger looks like the perfect personification of mad captain Ahab on a wild quest for his white leviathan, but this is a journey that could ultimately result in a similar fate for his ship, his crew as well as his life. As a Manchester United fan I obviously don't want Arsenal to win anything, but minus Arsene Wenger manning the ship at the Emirates, football is the loser and the Premier League will lose a true gem of a manager. Football can be a cruel mistress for some and happy endings are very very rare.