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Arsene Wenger Stuck In Middle Ground With Arsenal’s Growing Rift
By Josh Sippie
It was about twenty minutes ago that I dove into the proceedings at Arsenal’s annual AGM. The lack of transparency is egregious and leaves so much room for question. Supporters cannot understand where the higher-ups at the club are coming from because these ‘higher-ups’ make themselves so inaccessible. The slightest bit of questioning leads to raising tempers. Through it all, Arsene Wenger is caught in the middle ground.
Whose side is Arsene Wenger on? On one side he has the board. The out-of-touch governing body that oversees the club. They have given Arsene Wenger all the power in the world and claim to have given him nothing short of absolute power. They pay him. But we don’t know what they really expect out of him. Do they want trophies or do they just want to make money? It really is a question that no one can seem to answer.
On the other side is the supporters. The people that make his job worth it. Without the supporters, who do the players play for? And without the players, Arsene Wenger has no job. He has to appease the fans and the players, lest the club cease to exist.
This leaves Arsene Wenger in a tough place, right in the middle. On either side of this Arsenal rift is a body of people that Arsene Wenger needs to maintain his job. 19 years at the club and the rift has only gotten worse. Eventually, he won’t be able to hide behind his vague comments anymore.
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Unfortunately, Wenger lacks that same transparency that the board lacks. It is unrealistic to think that he would divulge everything to the fans but he has to have some degree of communication with the people that support the club he is building. Wenger recently spoke out about how he was “not afraid” to spend money in the transfer window. Something that is incredibly questionable. But it is the same broken record that he continues to say.
I usually back Arsene Wenger. I don’t see what he would gain by intentionally sinking this Arsenal ship. Even if their is a profit involved. He wants to win. That is why he is still here. If he was in it for the money, he could have left a long time ago and been the recipient of some nice compensation. Perhaps he could land multi-million pound checks for “advice” as well.
But these recent events are tough to get behind. He looks more like the boards representative to the supporters than the supporters representative to the board. Alisher Usmanov has had to come to the fans support and he does not exactly have the most power.
It is not a good situation to be in. Especially now that most fans are accepting their belief that Arsene Wenger fights for the board, not for them.
In the end, we still do not know what goes on behind closed doors. Again, there is no transparency. But it does not look good. Not at all.
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