da betway： Arsene Wenger has always prioritised the Premier League. Through talking up the team’s ability to finish first (even if he didn’t really believe it himself) to ensuring that come the second half of the season when Arsenal were usually well and truly out of the title race, the objective was on finishing in the top four.
da blaze casino： Yet it is extremely backwards to place so much importance in the Champions League. The club need UEFA’s top competition for the revenue it brings in; anything in the way of a deep run in the competition is simply a bonus. But since the move to the Emirates, Wenger has always been handicapped in his ability to field a strong team in Europe and continue to force the club over the line for a top four finish.
It’s baffling when you think about it. The club have been in a seemingly endless cycle of never really pushing on in their hunt for silverware, all the while talking up one of the factors that have handicapped them along the way.
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I don’t think Wenger’s tactical ability in Europe needs to be questioned – at least to any great degree. Two semi-final appearances, one which lead to the final in 2006, isn’t really something you’d expect from a club of Arsenal’s experience in the Champions League, but the manager has never had the resources to go all out.
When the team did make the final in Paris, it came off the back of a real struggle to overtake Tottenham for fourth. The same was true in 2009 when the club were eliminated by Manchester United over two legs. Arsenal had done surprisingly well to get as far as they did that year, but had it not been for the injection of life offered by Andrey Arshavin in the January window, Arsenal would almost certainly have failed to make the following year’s competition.
Sometimes it’s worth comparing Wenger to his managerial contemporaries. Manuel Pellegrini has done a lot with the little he’s had in the past in Spain. Jurgen Klopp’s Dortmund, right across the board, were hardly a match for Bayern’s endless supply of resources but made it to the final alongside their domestic rivals. And yet Real Madrid have been failures in Europe up until Jose Mourinho arrived and put matters straight, to a degree. The Portuguese led the club to three consecutive semi-finals when the best they could muster previously was a trip to the last 16.
Arsenal’s failure to really deliver on the European stage is a result of the move to the Emirates. Bar 2006, the only season that Arsenal perhaps should have done more with what they had was 2004. Wenger had been building to a team of that ability and ferocity in domestic competition, yet when they failed to get past Chelsea at the quarterfinal stage, Wenger dismantled that squad with near-frightening pace. The importance should have been in building on that team and transferring their Premier League dominance onto the European stage. By 2006, the spirit of the Invincibles was completely absent. Many of the key figures remained, but as a collective the squad was far from an equal.
A lot of this is the reason why I’ve raised the question about the club missing out on the Champions League for a season at least. The problem is fans are too quick to concern themselves with matters on the financial front. They also want to throw in comparisons relating to Liverpool and their struggles to get back into the mix for the Champions League, all the while completely ignoring clubs like AC Milan, Juventus, Napoli, Lyon, and Bayern, among others, who have missed out on the Champions League but have quickly, in most of their cases, returned.
But then you’d have to question whether Wenger and the Arsenal backroom staff would have the same ingenuity to turn the ship around off the back of a season out of Europe. The scouting department comes into play, resulting, often, in poor acquisitions. Wenger has been rightly criticised for his lack of tactical expertise in the domestic game, let alone in Europe, so that adds to the overall problem too.
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The problem with Arsenal is that you can’t pick one fault and isolate it from the rest. It’s a domino effect that allows one poor decision to fall back on everything else. The club’s lack of incentive to change, or even their inability, has resulted in a vicious cycle and stagnation. This summer is billed as the end to all that and the beginning of something new. But for whatever failures the club have had in the Champions League, they do not solely lie with Wenger’s tactical approach.
Should Arsene Wenger be questioned for his results in Europe?
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