How much longer can Arsène Wenger be offered the benefit of the doubt?
The Arsenal manager is providing the evidence that even the greatest can lose their way, inexplicably and irretrievably
Arsène Wenger's achievements are so monumental it is not an easy thing to find ourselves at the point when we have to acknowledge, however reluctantly, he is straying dangerously close to fully fledged fantasy if he seriously believes restoring true greatness to Arsenal is going to be anything but a dauntingly long-term project.
The evidence was overwhelming even before their ordeal at the Stadio Guiseppe Meazza and the latest directionless effort at Sunderland that, once again, takes them out of trophy contention and makes it felt even more absurd that Wenger had begun the week expressing his belief that they had realistic aspirations of outdoing Milan, Barcelona, Real Madrid and all the rest to win the Champions League.
Nobody had taken it particularly seriously because, put bluntly, we assumed a man of this calibre was surely more in touch with reality and, if not, what happened at San Siro ("not a football match but a massacre," as La Repubblica put it) made the point with the force of a sledgehammer.
After that, if Wenger's judgment is skewed enough to believe it was simply one bad night, rather than the cumulative effects of a decline that has gone on longer than most Arsenal fans would care to remember, then maybe what we are looking at here is compelling evidence that even the greatest football men can lose their way, inexplicably and irretrievably.
This is not said lightly in an age when football's blame culture and unending demand for scapegoats can be incredibly wearing and Wenger has already revolutionised Arsenal to the point that, even now, it feels almost sacrilege to question his suitability for what needs to happen next. Yet how much longer can we offer the benefit of the doubt when it is so plainly obvious that much of the old magic is no longer there? The decline is year on year and when the man in charge appears to believe it needs only some fine-tuning it becomes increasingly difficult to sustain a legitimate defence.
Already this season we have seen open mutiny at the Emirates Stadium and the most voluble abuse Wenger has ever encountered from his own crowd. This frustration has been building since they won their last trophy seven years ago, and who can say it will get any better soon when they will surely lose their outstanding player, Robin van Persie, at the end of the season?
Wenger has already seen most of his better players picked off by predators. Inferior replacements have been brought in and you know things are bad when Sir Alex Ferguson starts referring to him with the kind of 19th-hole chumminess that could make you think they were Rotary Club buddies rather than embittered adversaries of old. Ferguson and Wenger could once have fallen out over a game of Pooh Sticks but, seriously, why would anyone at Manchester United be overly concerned now about the manager of such an ordinary team, 17 points off Manchester City at the top of the league?
The truth is Arsenal are in fourth position despite recording only one league victory of real substance all season. That was the 5-3 at Chelsea in October, when they came across a side enduring their own slump. Otherwise they have lost every single time against the other four other clubs with aspirations of challenging for the top positions. A good barometer of a team's competitive spirit can usually be found in their away form and Arsenal, on their travels, have conceded more goals than every other team bar two of the sides in the bottom four, Blackburn Rovers and Wigan Athletic. In truth, fourth place flatters Arsenal.
What we have now is a team regarded as such a soft touch that, before a ball had even been kicked at San Siro, the former Milan coaches Carlo Ancelotti and Arrigo Sacchi, with four Europeans Cups between them, could casually dismiss Wenger's men in a click of the fingers, and nobody saw it as the slightest bit impudent. Dennis Bergkamp, Martin Keown and Patrick Vieira have all weighed in from the Invincibles era. These are serial winners, as perplexed as the rest of us. Roy Keane, an old foe now on television duty, was still shaking his head as he boarded his flight from Malpensa airport on Thursday. This team, he said, were going nowhere fast. "The worst Arsenal side in 10 years," Sacchi volunteered.
This is why nobody can really blame Van Persie if, at 28, he wants to join a team that represent more than the elegant frustration Arsenal have become. This could be the first season under Wenger that they fail to qualify for the Champions League and will almost certainly be the only time in his tenure they finish below Spurs, currently 10 points better off. The deterioration has been nothing short of staggering and you have to wonder whether Wenger, already planning for next season, is in danger of joining the list of football greats who stayed too long.
The Arsenal manager is providing the evidence that even the greatest can lose their way, inexplicably and irretrievably
Arsène Wenger's achievements are so monumental it is not an easy thing to find ourselves at the point when we have to acknowledge, however reluctantly, he is straying dangerously close to fully fledged fantasy if he seriously believes restoring true greatness to Arsenal is going to be anything but a dauntingly long-term project.
The evidence was overwhelming even before their ordeal at the Stadio Guiseppe Meazza and the latest directionless effort at Sunderland that, once again, takes them out of trophy contention and makes it felt even more absurd that Wenger had begun the week expressing his belief that they had realistic aspirations of outdoing Milan, Barcelona, Real Madrid and all the rest to win the Champions League.
Nobody had taken it particularly seriously because, put bluntly, we assumed a man of this calibre was surely more in touch with reality and, if not, what happened at San Siro ("not a football match but a massacre," as La Repubblica put it) made the point with the force of a sledgehammer.
After that, if Wenger's judgment is skewed enough to believe it was simply one bad night, rather than the cumulative effects of a decline that has gone on longer than most Arsenal fans would care to remember, then maybe what we are looking at here is compelling evidence that even the greatest football men can lose their way, inexplicably and irretrievably.
This is not said lightly in an age when football's blame culture and unending demand for scapegoats can be incredibly wearing and Wenger has already revolutionised Arsenal to the point that, even now, it feels almost sacrilege to question his suitability for what needs to happen next. Yet how much longer can we offer the benefit of the doubt when it is so plainly obvious that much of the old magic is no longer there? The decline is year on year and when the man in charge appears to believe it needs only some fine-tuning it becomes increasingly difficult to sustain a legitimate defence.
Already this season we have seen open mutiny at the Emirates Stadium and the most voluble abuse Wenger has ever encountered from his own crowd. This frustration has been building since they won their last trophy seven years ago, and who can say it will get any better soon when they will surely lose their outstanding player, Robin van Persie, at the end of the season?
Wenger has already seen most of his better players picked off by predators. Inferior replacements have been brought in and you know things are bad when Sir Alex Ferguson starts referring to him with the kind of 19th-hole chumminess that could make you think they were Rotary Club buddies rather than embittered adversaries of old. Ferguson and Wenger could once have fallen out over a game of Pooh Sticks but, seriously, why would anyone at Manchester United be overly concerned now about the manager of such an ordinary team, 17 points off Manchester City at the top of the league?
The truth is Arsenal are in fourth position despite recording only one league victory of real substance all season. That was the 5-3 at Chelsea in October, when they came across a side enduring their own slump. Otherwise they have lost every single time against the other four other clubs with aspirations of challenging for the top positions. A good barometer of a team's competitive spirit can usually be found in their away form and Arsenal, on their travels, have conceded more goals than every other team bar two of the sides in the bottom four, Blackburn Rovers and Wigan Athletic. In truth, fourth place flatters Arsenal.
What we have now is a team regarded as such a soft touch that, before a ball had even been kicked at San Siro, the former Milan coaches Carlo Ancelotti and Arrigo Sacchi, with four Europeans Cups between them, could casually dismiss Wenger's men in a click of the fingers, and nobody saw it as the slightest bit impudent. Dennis Bergkamp, Martin Keown and Patrick Vieira have all weighed in from the Invincibles era. These are serial winners, as perplexed as the rest of us. Roy Keane, an old foe now on television duty, was still shaking his head as he boarded his flight from Malpensa airport on Thursday. This team, he said, were going nowhere fast. "The worst Arsenal side in 10 years," Sacchi volunteered.
This is why nobody can really blame Van Persie if, at 28, he wants to join a team that represent more than the elegant frustration Arsenal have become. This could be the first season under Wenger that they fail to qualify for the Champions League and will almost certainly be the only time in his tenure they finish below Spurs, currently 10 points better off. The deterioration has been nothing short of staggering and you have to wonder whether Wenger, already planning for next season, is in danger of joining the list of football greats who stayed too long.
