Arsene Wenger is an excellent manager for Arsenal, he just isn’t a director of football
Arsenal super-fan Piers Morgan is going mental over the possibility of the club offering Arsene Wenger a three-year contract extension. The reality is that Wenger is a terrific manager for the North London club, he’s just a poor director of football.
Morgan took to Twitter with an absolute tirade over Wenger’s last eleven years in charge of the Gunners. In particular, he and many other Arsenal fans are souring on Wenger due to his inability to capture a Premier League title this season. Of course, trailing rival Tottenham in the table only adds salt to the wounds of the Gunner faithful.
On the pitch, most rational football fans would agree that Wenger is one of the Premier League’s best managers. He puts his players in a position to succeed on a weekly basis and while he’s slow to change, he will adjust his tactics to suit his personnel and combat the opposition. His biggest fault isn’t anything that he does on the field of play.
More from Playing for 90
- Alexia Putellas reaches 400 games with Barcelona
- Everything you need to know ahead of the 250th ‘Super Clásico’
- Barcelona put five past Real Betis
- Manchester City suffer but come away with win over West Ham
- Baffling Liga MX ruling strips Puebla of a hard-earned victory
Instead, what Arsenal fans should criticize Wenger for is his poor business sense. Actually, it may just be his refusal to dedicate himself to making business decisions that costs the club valuable points. The French manager just can’t manage to separate his personal feelings about his players from the necessary professional reality of running a Premier League club.
The answer to Arsenal’s troubles isn’t getting rid of Wenger on the touch-line. The club would best be served to get rid of Wenger in the board room. It’s time for the Gunners to join the 21st century Premier League and begin the separation of management and personnel choices.
That doesn’t mean Wenger shouldn’t be consulted on manners of player sales and acquisitions, it just means that he should no longer be the dominant voice in such matters. He should be allowed to concentrate fully on managing the players at his disposal.
This would accomplish two important things for Arsenal. Firstly, it would force Wenger to focus on what he does best. He would devote all of his time to tactical adjustments and man management of the squad. That would maximize Wenger’s ability to positively influence the club.
The other thing it would accomplish would be to remove Wenger from foolish personnel decisions. Lowering his influence in that part of the club could lead to big-time rewards. The club would no longer find themselves shackled by players who aren’t good enough to compete for Premier League titles just because they’ve been at Arsenal for a long time.
The list of players that Wenger has kept too long at the North London club is longer than most Arsenal fans would like to admit. His recent dedication to the likes of Theo Walcott, Olivier Giroud, and Kieran Gibbs are great examples of this problem.
Holding on to those players too long also prevents Arsenal from really committing themselves to the transfer market. If Wenger wasn’t so attached to players who were long-tenured at the club, he would be more likely to splash serious cash to acquire world-class stars. The Gunners’ repeated failures to purchase a world-class number nine is the best example of this Wenger-induced failure.
Related Story: Arsene Wenger must sell Theo Walcott
Sacking Arsene Wenger entirely won’t solve Arsenal’s problems. The Gunners only need to remove the Frenchman from the board room to give themselves a better chance to achieve Premier League glory.