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A friend asked me, shortly after the debacle at Chelsea, “Why doesn’t the Arsenal board sack Arsene Wenger?” One has only to look a short distance across North London to see why this question should arise. My response was: “He actually returns excellent shareholder value. Year after year, he operates on a parsimonious budget, often selling the best (and most marketable) players from the last season and somehow turns around and brings in Champions League (CL) second round revenue and Champions League qualification for the following season. This year, he parlayed the Ozil acquisition into a lucrative shoe deal before our customary second half maladies took hold”.
My friend immediately understood and replied, “It makes perfect sense when you put it that way”. Indeed, I cannot think of any other manager, not Fergie, not Mourinho, not Guardiola, who could have kept a team in the CL places right through the financial maneuvers needed for the Emirates move. Well, perhaps Juergen Klopp might fit the bill in a year or two.
Of course, Wenger sometimes displays a very un-professorial, self-destructive streak and he needlessly resurrected his ‘nature versus nurture’ philosophical debate yesterday, hard on heels of humiliation by Liverpool and Chelsea, with a CL exit sandwiched in between.
“We will continue to develop players from within”, he exclaimed, rubbing a generous dose of salt into the open wound of the Gunner faithful. Predictably, every response was some variation on an ironically French theme, “Off with his head”. While there is great kumbaya warmth to the nurture argument, a quick look at successful nurture programs reveals a few truths.
If one looks at Barcelona, or Fergies’s babes (sic), one key element is that they were complemented by some very experienced and pricey acquisitions. Wenger must have missed the Seinfeld episode where he the character has a confirmed car rental reservation, but the agency does not have a car. The punchline was, “The important thing is not to take the reservation, but to hold the reservation”.
Wenger has been singularly unsuccessful in holding on to his charges. He has stood by them through long injuries (van Persie, Fabregas), lavished praise (Nasri), conferred captaincies (van Persie, Fabregas), even held “father-son” chats (Fabregas), all to no avail. Much as one yearns for these sincere attempts at nurturing loyalty to succeed, they are old fashioned.
What are the other incentives? Money is not enough once one has enough of it, and at £90,000+ a week, one has enough of it. Indeed, there is little left but to seek glory in addition to the money, and everyone wants that glory early and often. One rarely hears of a homegrown Barca kid bucking for a transfer; Fergie’s babes stuck around till he decided to sell them. That is where Barcelona and Fergie have been successful. They have blended in enough high priced acquisitions to offer that vision of glory to their youngsters.
Like an alcoholic, Wenger must first acknowledge his problem. When he does, his first step to recovery would be to apologize to the Gunner faithful, not by words, but by acquisitions. If he doesn’t, the team will be as successful as those shrewd Dutch giants, Ajax and PSV – a farm team nurturing talent to be sold on for profit to the likes of Man City and Barca.
