Arsenal: Alex Iwobi ‘desperation’ may pay dividends

Arsenal has stalled in their pursuit of Premier League titles lately, but Alex Iwobi might be onto something with his Arsene Wenger faith.

Arsenal fell short of competing for yet another title that they were early favorites to fight for. It’s become their thing, really, to fail to live up to expectations. All these players say that they want to win for Arsene Wenger, but nothing ever comes of it.

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Alex Iwobi has mirrored these thoughts and said them himself. Iwobi is the poster child of Wenger disciples and I’ve often criticized him for what he’s said in regards to that, particularly when he called supporters impatient, but this time around, there is a certain bit of optimism that I’m finding in his words.

Here’s what he said, as quoted by the Metro:

"There won’t be a single player in our dressing room next season who will not fight for him. We’d run through brick walls for the boss. I’m pleased because he really is Mr Arsenal, isn’t he? He has made it the great institution it is today."

That’s a heck of a lot of talk, as it always is. But there is a certain aspect to it in the coming two years that may serve in paying dividends on this ‘desperation’ to win for Wenger.

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In previous years, we have heard that the players want to win for him, yada yada, it never works. But the farther Wenger gets into his tenure, the more the players will start to realize that if they want to win for Wenger, they better do it soon, because Le Prof is not going to be here forever.

Maybe, just maybe, these next two campaigns with Wenger as boss will invoke a spark in all of his disciples to actually put their best foot forward, rather than assuming he will be back next year and maybe things will go better then.

It sounds crazy, even as I type, because we have seen this crew do the same things year after year. But if there is this determined sense of ‘win one for Wenger’ then the longer they go without doing it, and therefore the closer they get to his tenure ending, the more they will want to win it.

With this club, you always have to look for added motivation, unfortunately, and this may be an extra little push.

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Iwobi, in the mean time, has a big campaign ahead of him, because he fell flat this campaign in a big way, going so far as being dropped to the U23s.