It is either ironic or just kind of sad that Arsene Wenger, who was once the very cutting edge of this sport, now looks so far past his sell-by date.
And so there was a certain on-the-nose-ness about Arsenal’s 3-1 loss to Tony Pulis’ West Brom at the weekend. Pulis, that gleeful anti-Wenger, is enjoying his best season as a Premier League manager; Wenger his worst. Set pieces never go out of style, I guess.
Reports have been all over the place following that loss to the Baggies. Wenger said in his post-match press conference he’d announce his decision on his future soon. There was a link to Borussia Dortmund’s Thomas Tuchel. There are now reports Wenger has already signed a contract extension, one last hurrah before he sees himself out. Whichever way you slice it, it seems hard to imagine his next contract won’t be his last.
Which should scare you, whether your allegiances lie at the Emirates or not. There are many disturbing possible Premier League futures, including one in which the Premier League doesn’t exist at all, replaced by some kind of international super league.
It would be too far to suggest Wenger is the only thing standing in the way of such a future — not least because lying face down in a ditch in the way of such a future would be more accurate — but he is at this point the last tether to a simpler, and possibly better, time.
All the Premier League’s other long-standing managers have become engulfed by the league’s endless tumult. Pulis and Sam Allardyce have found their niche as relegation-avoiders on call; David Moyes was chewed up and may or may not still be in the process of getting spit out by the post-Alex Ferguson upheaval; there is no one else.
Wenger, meanwhile, remains aloof. This is not really surprising, even with the calls for his departure reaching new levels of intensity. He has always been uniquely attuned to what is happening off the pitch. As the Pep Guardiolas and Jose Mourinhos of the world have focused on the soccer, and thus allowed themselves to be dragged around Europe by increasingly powerful financial currents, Wenger’s attention has been divided.
There is the sport, which he so obviously loves, and there is everything else, which his intelligence and curiosity and self-awareness can’t seem to let him ignore. Does any other manager care what is happening to the game, really? That it is now possible for, say, Manchester United, out of the Champions League and struggling more than they have in a quarter century, to spend $100 million on a player, and for it not even really to matter whether he’s any good (he is good, but sooner or later they will spend a similar amount on someone who isn’t). That, at the other end of the spectrum, Leyton Orient, a century of proud Football League history behind them, are on the brink of destruction.
Of course Wenger himself started all this. It would’ve happened one way or another without him, certainly, but it didn’t. He set the Premier League on its current trajectory, and now here he is refusing to succumb to the momentum it has gathered since.
There is a whole mountain of evidence to suggest Wenger has little, if anything, more to offer Arsenal on the pitch. But then what has set him apart has always been his understanding of what’s happening off it. When he leaves, there will be no one left to call the league, the sport, out for its increasingly nefarious nonsense.
Arsenal fans may balk at the idea of Wenger as the voice of reason. Wenger, who has come in recent seasons so fully to embody Enstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
But the thing about stubbornness is it’s only ever one good result away from principle.
Weekly Awards
The Elmo Award for Most Dubious Grasp of the Alphabet: Jose Mourinho
Manchester United were mostly pretty good against Middlesbrough on Sunday, winning 3-1 in the absence of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Paul Pogba, Ander Herrera and Henrikh Mkhitaryan (an unused substitute, presumably due to the 90 minutes he played in the Europa League on Thursday). Jose Mourinho was clearly pleased with his backups, pointing out proudly after the match, “We don’t have plan B, C, D, E, F and G — but we have M, N, O, P and S.” Which raises the question what happened to H, I, J, K, L and, more importantly, Q and R. Although it seems reasonable to assume at this point that Luke Shaw, who is a left-back and was an unused substitute in a match Ashley Young started at left-back, is Z.
The Brendan Rodgers Award for Misleading Comparisons: Phil Neville
Manolo Gabbiadini has been exceptional since joining Southampton during the January transfer window. Ahead of Sunday’s match against Tottenham, he’d scored six goals in only four appearances for the Saints, and his off-the-shoulder game inspired Phil Neville in NBC’s commentary booth to make this bizarre comparison: “He reminds me of an Italian center forward called Inzaghi who used to play for Juventus, always playing on the shoulder,” said Neville. Ah yes, Pippo Inzaghi, winner of three Serie A titles, two Champions Leagues (with AC Milan) and a World Cup, and the fourth most prolific European goal scorer of all time. I can see his epitaph now: “used to play for Juventus.”
The Carl Jenkinson Award for Brief Substitute Appearances: Jordon Ibe
Jordon Ibe’s move to Bournemouth hasn’t panned out as he, or the club, would’ve hoped so far. In 20 Premier League appearances (eight off the bench) this season, he’s got no goals and no assists. The good news is he’s only 21, and his immense natural talent isn’t going anywhere. The bad news is Eddie Howe’s preferred use for him against Swansea on Saturday was as a 94th minute substitute, in a match with only three minutes of stoppage time. He did, improbably, manage to touch the ball in his approximately 20 seconds on the pitch, but something tells me that’s not what he had in mind when he made the switch from Liverpool in the summer.
The Fabio Aurelio Award for Free-kicks: Willian
Willian had big shoes to fill against Stoke, filling in as he was for an injured Eden Hazard. But fill them he did, giving his side the lead in the 13th minute with a very cheeky free-kick that beat Lee Grant at his front post while everyone else on the pitch was waiting for a cross. The Chelsea juggernaut roles on. The Blues need seven wins from their last 10 matches to win the title, but that assumes second-place Tottenham win all their remaining games, which they won’t. What Chelsea need is to drop no more than nine points more than Tottenham over the final 10 matches of the season, which they will, or won’t, or whatever. Chelsea are going to win the league.
The Jon Dahl Tomasson Award for Misses: Adam Lallana
There are games and there are games, and my oh my was Manchester City vs. Liverpool a game. The first half was a fascinating tactical battle between two of the world’s best attacking managers, all high-lines and running in behind and risk-reward calculi and penalties that weren’t given, and it slowly turned into a good old-fashioned, end-to-end slugfest. The players were visibly exhausted from about 75 minutes onward, which goes some of the way to explaining how Sergio Aguero, arguably the Premier League’s best finisher, missed two golden opportunities in the last 10 minutes, but none of the way to explaining how Adam Lallana, unmarked in the 6-yard box, missed the ball almost completely following a rapid Liverpool counter.