Humiliated again!

Arsenal 1-5 Bayern Munich

Seven consecutive seasons of Champions League elimination at the last 16 stage was a mere footnote following yet more humiliation dished out at the hands of Bayern Munich. The headline of course was the 10-2 aggregate score line, the joint second biggest loss in the competition’s history and the heaviest defeat by an English team in Europe’s top competition.

Arsenal had performed well until Laurent Koscielny was sent off early in the second half

but the performance should be viewed in the context of the 5-1 defeat in the first leg. Bayern were clearly playing in first or second gear, the tie had already been won in first leg. The fact Arsene Wenger had the nerve to blame elimination on the referee for his decision to send off Koscielny and award Bayern a penalty, simply added further embarrassment. Yes it may have been a harsh decision to reduce Arsenal to ten men but there was no excuse for the team to then capitulate and concede a further four goals on the night, in similar fashion to the first leg. Wenger’s protestations and insistence on blaming everyone and everything bar himself and his team, just highlights all that is wrong at this club.

Everyone from the very top to the bottom simply buries their head in the sand time and time again. Poor performances from both players and manager go unchallenged week after week, month after month and now things are starting to come to ahead. There is a real apathy amongst the board, chief amongst them majority shareholder Stan Kroenke, who has not invested in Arsenal to build a successful club of perennial title winners. No, for Kroenke Arsenal is just another investment and all that matters is a top four finish each year. That year on year lack of ambition is now coming to fruition with Arsenal having fallen significantly behind the other top six sides and seemingly destined to finish outside the top four for the first time in Wenger’s tenure.

Much is made of the two distinctly different decades of the manager’s reign. The first laden with trophies, the second barren bar two FA Cup wins. The major difference is that in the first decade Wenger had David Dein pushing him to succeed. When Wenger pondered on a decision, Dein would push on ahead in the quest for trophies. Needless to say Ivan Gazidis is no David Dein. For a start Wenger was consulted before Gazidis was hired and as such he does not wield much power.

A protest was held before the Bayern Munich game, urging the board to withdraw the offer of a two year contract to the greatest manager in the club’s history. It attracted only two hundred fans but the tide has clearly turned significantly with a clear feeling that the end is nigh. Those who have long supported the manager also appear to have now had enough. Wenger has always declared that results will determine whether or not he stays and given the results this season he simply cannot justify signing a new deal. Yet the issue regarding the manager is almost a side-show. If Wenger does step aside this summer can the board really be trusted to make the right appointment to take this club forward? So many big names are linked with the club should Wenger leave, but would they really want to manage a club whose board so clearly lack any real ambition? And would the board really want a manager who will ask testing questions of them? It is highly doubtful and therefore, a protest against the board and Kroenke would be more pointed and would surely garner far more support

For this club to return back to where it belongs, a change of manager is not enough. A change of owner is extremely unlikely, but a director of football would need to be recruited and a major squad overhaul would also need to be conducted.  There aren’t many players within that dressing room who fans would desperately want to keep at the moment. Alexis Sanchez would top that very short list but that fight already appears lost and who would really blame him for wanting to leave? Arsenal were fortunate to have such a gifted player amongst their ranks. The manager should have matched his ambitions and built a team around the Chilean, but failed to do so and now he will most likely leave in the summer, fed up at the club’s constant failures. Arsenal certainly won’t be able to replace him with a player of similar quality.  

But quality and ability can only get you so far. This current squad does possess players of great ability but it is their hunger, passion and pride which is severely lacking. Their heads drop all too quickly when the tide turns against them and before they know it they have been humiliated once again. It happens time and time again to this team but the manger has no pressure to change. An ambitious owner wouldn’t accept perennial failure, let alone repeated humiliation. The teams of George Graham weren’t pretty on the eye but they would never have allowed themselves to be humiliated in the way this squad has accepted with a shrug of the shoulders on so many occasions. The quality of football played by this current squad isn’t exactly great either and most wins this season have been a struggle rather than a joy to watch. Things have gone stale, decisions are becoming more and more unfathomable and it is all down to rank bad management. Wenger isn’t held accountable and in turn neither are the players. Both are letting each other down and the club is in a state.

As the goals rained in on Tuesday night, with Bayern’s players strolling through the Arsenal defence at will, it was hard not to feel a sense of deja vu and helplessness. If the unthinkable happens and Wenger decides to bury his head in the sand once more to sign the new contact that is sitting on the table for him, that feeling of helplessness will only increase further and the club will drift further rand further away from those with which it should be competing. The banners held up at the protest march declared that the time for change has arrived, but make no mistake a change of manager alone will not solve the major issues which are destroying this once great club and reducing it to a sheer laughing stock.