There are many fellow Gooners out there who believe that Arsene has an easy job; that he has absolutely no pressure put on him by the BoD, and is paid vast sums of money whilst constantly underperforming. They have picked up a rumour from one of the blogs or newspapers that he is being paid more than Red Nose, somewhere in the region of £7m.

I have no doubt Arsene is generously remunerated by the club. His salary, whatever it is exactly, will be a reflection of him having been our manager for so many years. It will also reflect market value; as in what others – like the Spanish giants – would be prepared to pay in order to entice our manager to their club, and it will also mirror the club’s attempt to keeping Arsene at Arsenal throughout the difficult period of building the new stadium, and beyond.

You might strongly believe that Arsene has not been worth his assumed mega salary, as he failed to bring in silverware for eight years and counting, but the BoD are likely to have a totally different view. They are more likely to look at the wider picture, and will regard Wenger as a fine and  loyal captain who guided the new Arsenal ship through some stormy seas. In the process, he ensured CL qualification year in and year out, and did not require additional funds for player purchases to achieve it.

The club will have made a ‘Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats’ (SWOT) analysis during the periods of before, during, and after the build of the new stadium, and will have done the same  for the direct competition. I have no doubt that based on these SWOT analyses, the BoD will have concluded every time that Arsene did relatively very well. There will have been  hope rather than expectation for silverware over the last eight years, and only now will Arsenal enter a period in which it will be able to become a reasonably strong competitor for the top prices again; and hope is very likely to turn once again into expectation as a result.

This optimism is based on both a better financial position going forward and the likely, or should that be hoped for, impact of Financial Fair Play on the mega-rich clubs, who have been able to operate with enormous losses over the last 4-8 years.

It all remains to be seen whether Arsene is the right manager to guide Arsenal to silverware in this new era, and whether he actually still wants to do it.

Looking at him over the last few months and seeing all the abuse he has had to put up with, I wonder why he just does not call it a day. He could go anywhere; I am sure both Madrid and Barcelona will have vacancies this summer, or he could take a national manager job and take a team to Brazil. He could also just take a break from it all and spend time with his family: life could be so easy for him.

I don’t know Arsene personally but he does not strike me as a person who values money very highly, or somebody who wants an easy job either. Managing Arsenal during and after the building of the new stadium has been anything but easy. Yes, he was paid a lot of money in the process, and no doubt he was offered more job security than most football managers across Europe, but staying at Arsenal, during what is most probably going to be his best remaining years as a manager, was not the easy option.

What would he have lost, had he gone to Madrid or Milan, or Bayern, or Barcelona, or the French National Team, or anywhere else, say in 2006? Even if he had been sacked after a season for not winning anything, or for whatever reason, he would always have had his fantastic record with Arsenal, and found a new job again in no time.

Arsene clearly does not have to work for money anymore. He stayed at Arsenal, and is also now not prepared to leave, for another reason: partly because he is a very loyal person, who, in an old fashioned sort of way, wants to honour his contract every time, and partly because he is an ambitious man who wants to finish on a high and return Arsenal back to the very top, and with beautiful football in the process.

I am not sure anymore whether he is capable of doing this once more with Arsenal, but what I am sure about is his loyalty, ambition and passion for the club as his main drivers for staying put at Arsenal, and that money has very little to do with it.

And for that alone we should always respect him.

Written by: TotalArsenal.

A combination of a proud history, a glorious recent past, a new 60,000 capacity stadium, and continuous top-four finishes, have raised our expectations to dizzying heights over the last few years. Having high expectations, rather than high hopes, is a recipe for unhappiness; and many fellow Gooners have fallen victim to the former rather than opting for the latter.

Arsenal football club has everything going for it, except fans’ patience. After seven years without silverware this is fully understandable; and yet patience,  trust, and continuous belief are now required more than ever before.

Success is virtually always cyclical: it comes and it goes and then it comes again, etc. I guess the one exception to the rule are Manchester United, who under Ferguson, have subsequently weathered French and  Portuguese storms to somehow keep winning things. It all remains to be seen whether they would have won as much, or even anything, in the last eight years, if Wenger had been able to keep his players and spent more money on quality signings; and Abramovic had chosen for stability and consistency, and had worked harder on somehow bridging his differences with the ‘Special One’. But let’s give credit where it is due.

I am proud of our past, and especially our glorious recent history; and it gives me enormous pleasure to think back about the great football we have played. The Mancs might have won more silverware, but the quality of our football, epitomised by the phenomenal achievement of the Invincibles, is what football fans – Gooners as well as non-Gooners – will still remember in twenty, fifty, maybe even a hundred years from now.

However, the past is the past for me, and I enjoy the here and now as much as anything; despite our football being nowhere near as good as before, during and even after the Invincibles era.

Among a significant number of fans there tends to be a need to compare our current performances and (lack of) achievements with those of the recent past; as long as Arsenal do not at least achieve the same in the here and now, they remain dissatisfied. This is exactly the high price that comes with becoming very successful during a sustained period: rather than appreciating and accepting its specialness, we tend to make it our new norm; our yardstick against which our future performances and successes will be measured. This comparison is very likely to lead to dissatisfaction, and in some cases, resentment and anger. You only have to surf certain corners of the Arsenal blogosphere to find the raw evidence for this.

Leaving the past for what it is, and not comparing the current performances of our team constantly against it, whilst realistically assessing our current position, will lead to more realistic expectations; and as a result more inner peace and enjoyment of our football. Easier said than done, but it is as simple as that!

I am also not going to tell you that the future will bring us silverware again: there are no guarantees. Saying that everything will be fine in a couple of years is equally as nonsensical as comparing the here and  now constantly to the past.

Arsenal made the strategic decision to build a bigger stadium in order to compete better with MU and the European top teams in the future, but the arrival of oil money meant clubs could, from one day to the next, spend vast amounts of money without having to worry about the enormous losses and debt they were creating. The new reality bit our mighty team firmly in the arse: not only could we not afford to buy the sort of players Chelsea and MC were able to, they also successfully enticed our carefully developed players away.

There are plenty of reason to be positive about the future, as FFP should come to our rescue, but it all remains to be seen what will happen over the next few years: we should always expect the unexpected, which could be very positive as well as negative.

Arsenal are not going to win the league and we will most probably not win the CL, but we might have a slightly better chance to win the FA-cup. The key thing is, though, to look at the here and now and we have still four months of football to enjoy: every game matters and there is beauty to be discovered in each and every one of them.

Not everyone has realised yet that we have started a new journey this season: we are going through a full blown transition and slowly but steadily the building stones of Arsene’s latest attempt at Wengerball are becoming visible:

1. A British core of very talented players with real passion for the club;
2. The acquisition of predominantly Spanish and German quality, experienced players;
3. The upwards push of talents coming through from our player development system;
4. The removal of players who have not made the grade by either selling them or loaning them out till their contracts expire, or just letting them run out their contracts;
5. All key players have been signed up on long term contracts now, which should enable us to hold on to players, at least in the next few years;
6. More money available from now on, to both hold on to players better – by steadily and responsibly increasing their salaries if and when appropriate – and attract two or three quality players every season.

With these building blocks as the basis of the club’s strategy of making us competitive at the highest level again, these are exciting times; especially if you can refrain from constantly comparing our current performances with those of the Invincibles era, and you can see the progress the team is making.

We are on a journey and who knows where it will end. But isn’t it exciting we are moving forwards again, albeit slowly? Yes, there are likely to be further set-backs, as our transition is not yet completed, but Arsene now has the tools and funds to further improve the team, if and when required.

If you can let go of the past a bit, and manage to swap your high expectations with high hopes; and mainly look for the positive developments in our football and in our team, you might start enjoying our football a lot more.

Carpe Diem.

Written by: Total Arsenal.