Arsenal: Director of football talk too little too late for Arsene Wenger

Arsenal has put complete control in the hands of Arsene Wenger ever since David Dein left and that simply isn’t any turning back now.

Arsenal used to have a fantastic partnership in Arsene Wenger and David Dein. They worked in tandem to secure the best players in the world while simultaneously ensuring consistent silverware. It was the golden age.

Then Dein left, leaving Wenger in complete charge. If Arsenal wanted a new director of football, that would have been the time to do it. Establish a new partnership.

Instead, they handed Wenger nearly complete control.

For over a decade.

And now, with just a year or so before Wenger calls it quits, the club is looking at adding a director of football. To spoil Wenger’s last, grand hurrah.

This just shows how unintelligent, backwards and downright buffle-headed the board is. A decade later and they are finally realizing their mistake. Arsene Wenger made the most of what he had, but many a time it looked like he loved the club too much. He was too keen on developing the players he had invested in to make key moves for better players.

That is what a director of football is there to do, to provide another brain. It’s a massive concern any time you leave one man in charge of a team, especially with the likely constraints that the board put on Wenger.

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Adding a director of football now would breed nothing but discontent and stress. Wenger has a set ideology that he is intent on following. He may even see this summer at a chance of redemption to get the club back on track after a hugely disappointing season. An ‘overlord’ dictating what can and cannot be accomplished is going to upset things and prevent that.

What a silly, silly proposition. Wenger was up in arms about talk of working with a director of football. His words, as quoted by the Guardian:

"I don’t know what director of football means. It is somebody who stands in the road and directs play right and left? I don’t understand and I never did understand what it means."

When asked about any sort of restructuring, he was even more adamant:

"No, no, no. Sorry, no. I’m not prepared to talk about that. I’m the manager of Arsenal football club and as long as I’m manager of Arsenal football club I will decide what happens on the technical front. That’s it."

This is what the board has created. Love Wenger or hate him, he is in charge and the board will not do anything about that, nor will Ivan Gazidis. They gave him the reigns, emasculating themselves from all attempts at facilitating their own change.

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This is Wenger’s rodeo, everyone else is just there to watch.