Arsene Wenger news: Has the Arsenal manager lost the plot?

After slumping to defeat to Watford, provoking chants of ”You don’t know what you’re doing” but does Arsene Wenger really know what he is doing?

‘’You don’t know what you are doing’’ was chanted towards Arsene Wenger on Saturday evening among other things, as Arsenal hobbled to defeat against Watford thanks to a late Tom Cleverly goal which now sees Watford rising above Arsenal in the team. The defeat to Watford wasn’t really all that surprising to anybody who had seen the team lineup before the game; Arsenal didn’t feature Mesut Ozil in the starting eleven and Alexis Sanchez was not included in the team due to the international fixtures. At that point, it almost felt inevitable that Arsenal would end up losing the game.

It’s a regular occurrence for Arsenal fans to be against the manager. It was only a few months ago that the ‘Wenger Out’ brigade was in full force, with banners and protests all around the club as Arsenal missed out on Champions League football for the first time in two decades. A third FA Cup win in four seasons only seemed to have papered over the cracks, a horrific summer transfer did nothing to strengthen a club that desperately needed it.

Arsenal managed to cling onto Alexis Sanchez, but only after a rather embarrassing deadline day where the club bid over £90 million for Monaco’s Thomas Lemar only to pull out twenty minutes later with the player opting to stay at Monaco, Lemar would have rather have gone to Liverpool and work with Jurgen Klopp than go to Arsenal with Wenger.

And that is quite the problem. Arsenal did manage, after several years, to have replaced Robin Van Persie with Lacazette but yet, that move only happened because Atletico Madrid had a transfer ban which stopped him from moving to the Spanish side. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain preferred turning down £200k a week from Arsenal and playing regularly to moving to Liverpool for less money. Arsenal’s two best players in Ozil and Sanchez both want to leave, with their contracts running down in the summer, and Wenger has even admitted that both of them could potentially be sold in the January transfer window.

There’s a toxic, fleeting feeling around Arsenal and it’s a feeling that’s been there for a while. What happens when Ozil and Sanchez follow Chamberlain’s lead and leave the club, can Wenger really find adequate replacements for the pair of them?

Arsenal are level on points with Chelsea at the moment, the defending champions, but Arsenals performances aren’t exactly what anybody would call good. They managed to squeak out a victory on the opening day of the season and haven’t been impressive in their performances this season. A 4-0 hammering to Liverpool showed just how far behind they are and with the two Manchester teams having sizzling starts to the season, it doesn’t appear that Arsenal will be anywhere close to challenging for the title.

It’ll be yet another season of Arsenal having to try to compete for a top four finish, but they’ll have to compete for those spots with Chelsea and Tottenham, two teams far better than Arsenal and of course Liverpool as well.

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All these performances by Arsenal, it doesn’t appear that Wenger has learned anything. One would naturally assume that after failing to qualify for the Champions League last season, after being dismantled 10-2 on aggregate by Bayern Munich in the Champions League, would cause Wenger to attempt to try and changes things up but it doesn’t appear to be. He did change formations from a 4-3-2-1 to 3-4-3 but how much has it changed in truth?

Arsenal did have a change in fortunes last season after the switch, but Arsenal have always had a strong end to the season. The style of play hasn’t changed much from what Arsenal have played before, there doesn’t seem to be much of any change at the club or that they have learned from the mistakes of their previous failures.

Once the man who brought revolution to the English game when he first arrived to Arsenal in the mid-nineties with his methods of fitness, now Wenger seems increasingly behind the times. When you look at the work done by managers by Pep Guardiola, Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte, the in-depth work on analysing their opposition through video analysis and ensuring their team is adequately prepared, Wenger is the opposite.

A man dedicated to allowing his players total and complete freedom to express themselves on the pitch, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to many when he becomes tactically outclassed by managers in the Premier League or in Europe. This becomes further highlighted by former Arsenal goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny who recently revealed that he learned more from plying his trade in Italy with Roma and now Juventus than he ever did at Arsenal, being mesmerized by the Italians ways of preparing their team through the use of video analysis and claimed that it isn’t something Wenger likes to do.

Wenger continues to make the same mistakes from the transfer market to how he sets his teams up. The frustration is growing more and more within the Arsenal fanbase, it has for years, but now it seems to have found its way into the dressing room with the players. It doesn’t present a good image to his team when his two best players do not want to be there, two players decided playing for Liverpool would be a better club to play for and the most Arsenal can aspire for is a lightweight challenge for top four and an FA Cup.

It’s nothing new for Arsenal, none of this is apart from players opting to play for Liverpool over them but perhaps the players at Arsenal have realised that this is all it’ll ever be under Wenger.

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Arsenal news: Has Arsene Wenger lost the plot for the Gunners?

By Stephen Fox | Oct 18, 2017

After slumping to defeat to Watford, provoking chants of ”You don’t know what you’re doing” but does Arsene Wenger really know what he is doing?

More from Playing for 90