Merci Arsene et au revoir

Last week I was told that Arsene Wenger's instructions from on high are to keep Arsenal in the black, sell a few players each season and qualify for the Champions League. If along the way we win something so much the better, but as long as he keeps to the first three, his job is safe.

I don't know how true that is but I suspect it is probably not far from being accurate. At no other top flight club anywhere in the world would Wenger still be in a job following six and likely seven barren years. If the situation had been reversed and United had won the FA Cup in 2005 instead of us and then won nothing subsequently I don't believe Sir Alex Ferguson would still be in charge at Old Trafford. Yet Wenger is not only still in charge but has the backing of the board. The old cliché has it that the backing of the chairman is akin to the signing of a death warrant yet at Arsenal when the board say they back Wenger it appears that's just what they do.

It will be interesting to see what kind of team Wenger puts out for the 4th Round of the FA Cup against Aston Villa - surely our only realistic chance of silverware this season. Or will he once again sacrifice the cups in the (forlorn) hope that we can finish fourth or (whisper it) actually win the European Champions League (ECL)?

Many Arsenal fans bang on about how we have been in the ECL fourteen seasons on the trot and that Wenger is our most successful ever manager. Both true - but in those fourteen seasons we have only come close once to actually winning the thing, hardly a record to be proud of. Yes, Wenger is our most successful manager but he also hasn't won anything for almost seven seasons and in that time has sold a goodly number of players who should still be in the first team.

Bertie Mee was too quick to break up the Double-winning team and paid the price with several seasons of mid-table mediocrity. Wenger, similarly, was too eager to break up the Invincibles and we look set for seasons of if not mid-table mediocrity then certainly a few seasons in the Europa League, a particularly bitter pill to swallow if, as looks likely, the team from the wrong end of the Seven Sisters Road finishes above us and does qualify for the ECL. Our defeat yesterday at home to the Red Devils did nothing to lessen that possibility.

There are just eight days of the January transfer window still open for Arsenal to buy some big names to give us that final push in the three competitions in which we still have an interest. I am not holding out hope that by the time the window slams shut there will be any new players at the Emirates. I believe Wenger was pushed into buying when we lost 8-2 at Old Trafford and had we lost 1-0, 2-1 or even 3-0 he would have persevered with the squad we had.

There is obviously something terribly wrong at London Colney. When he joined the club, the oldies - Seaman, Dixon, Adams, Parlour, Winterburn, Bould, Keown etc thanked Wenger for extending their careers thanks to his revolutionary dietary plans. Now it seems a player gets a light knock and he is out for weeks. Young men in their late teens and twenties should be able to kick a ball for 90 minutes twice a week without getting injured. Sure, the game is faster but even so...

Arsenal are a big club, one of the biggest in the world. It is not enough to live on past glories. We triumphed in the 1930s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. We need to do it again soon. Life is cyclical and so is football yet we have been in the top flight since the end of the Great War. I don't see our place there threatened but nor do I want to see us struggling mid-table. We, the fans, deserve better.

Therefore, it is with a heavy heart that I say, "Merci, Arsene, et au revoir. La sortie est par là"

The problems with modern football...

Having a chat recently with an old chum, we fell into discussing (as we so often do) the problems with modern football - and not just Arsene Wenger's stated ambition for Arsenal to finish fourth.

I listed a number of things that irritate me about modern football. These include but are no by means restricted to:

• The linesman being referred to as "the referee's assistant"
• Squad numbers - go back to 1-11 and avoid the ridiculous situation of having a midfielder like Gareth Bale wearing a left-back's shirt.
• Clubs changing their kits every two years
• FA Cup Semi-Finals being played at Wembley - play them at Hillsborough, Villa Park, Old Trafford, White Hart Lane, the Emirates as they used to be. Wembley should be the preserve of finals and internationals otherwise playing there has no special meaning.
• Play-offs (and also play-offs being played at Wembley)
• Seven subsitutes - two is more than adequate and if a goalkeeper is sent off the team should not be allowed to substitute an outfield player or there is no real sanction. The goalkeeper is the only specialist position on the field.
• Abolition of the European Cup, Cup Winner's Cup and Uefa Cup and replacement by the European Champions League and Europa League. It is a nonsense to have teams who not only are not champions of their own country's league but may have finished as low as fourth to be playing in a European Champions League competition.
• Having almost as many officials in European matches as there are players - and then still making bad decisions when a linesman and man with radio are on the same side of the goal.
• The referee brandishing a second yellow card before showing the red.
• Changing the names of the leagues. Okay stick with the Premier League but the Championship? What was wrong with Division 1? And League 1 and League 2? Calling it League 1 doesn't make it any more exciting or the football any better than when it was the Third Division.

Any additions?