Arsenal: Carlo Ancelotti is the answer for those seeking conformity

Arsenal are surely exploring all possible avenues to replace Arsene Wenger when he steps down, but the likes of Carlo Ancelotti have never been the answer.

Arsenal are a club that does things differently, and that’s been the case from awhile. Sometimes it is immensely successful, sometimes immensely frustrating. But whatever the case, that’s what sparked the Invincibles. That’s what sparked landing the greatest manager in club history and that, ideally, is going to be what sparks the next era.

People are infatuated by this idea of Carlo Ancelotti being the answer to the Gunners situation, but I’m not so convinced and I don’t think the higher-ups at Arsenal are either. Ancelotti is another roulette manager in a pool of super managers.

This managerial roulette, as the name suggests, is anything but a guarantee. Super managers change the way a team is run, they bring in their own power structure, their own players, their own tactics, everything.

And usually, they stay for a couple of years and then the club is left to do it all again. There is no security or consistency in this, only fragility.

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Ancelotti has a wonderful track record as a manager, but being in the category of ‘super manager’ he would undoubtedly bring his own brand to the club and force that on a club that is building its own brand outside of managerial influence. Which I realize sounds silly, because Arsene Wenger‘s era has been defined by his influence.

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But Wenger’s era has also been defined by an immensely understated consistency. Making the Champions League that many years in a row and always finishing in the top four in the most difficult league in world football? That is no easy task. Yet someone people mocked them for it while their team fluctuated in and out of power.

What the team needs is to improve on that model, to push the club forward into winning big silverware rather than just being in a position to potentially threaten. That doesn’t mean we rip the entire philosophy out, because clearly the philosophy has its merits if it has given the club so much consistency in the grand scheme.

The fluctuations of incoming and outgoing managers is not something that this club wants to play with, not in the state that they are in. They need to find someone who will bring an innovative mindset that wants to build on the culture already established, not uproot all of that for their own.

I know this sounds so heavily pro-Wenger, but it’s not. Wenger build something special in his time here and he built it for longevity. Uprooting that would see the team plunge Manchester United style, where they have lost all the identity that Sir Alex Ferguson helped them to build.

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It may be frustrating and we may want a big name guy to deliver immediate results, but there is no guarantee there, as David Moyes and Louis van Gaal showed at United (and Mourinho now too).