Wenger (finally) Out
Arsene Wenger will step down at the end of the season, bringing to an end one of the greatest, most complicated managerial tenures in Premier League history.
Arsene Wenger will step down as Arsenal manager at the end of the season, persuaded, apparently, by the fear he would be sacked if he didn’t. This might seem a strange line of thought for a man who has for so long appeared completely impervious to the charge his recent failures were complicating, if not outright tarnishing, his legacy. It wouldn’t be unreasonable, although it may be slightly mischievous, to wonder whether the reaction would have been significantly different had Wenger been fired.
As it is, the reaction has been befitting a death, even if it’s only a symbolic one. Tribute upon tribute upon tribute, the complications of the second half of Wenger’s tenure best left for another, more respectful time. An impressive act of mass compartmentalization. Still, as ugly as the past few years have occasionally been for Wenger, he’s earned this tact. The possibility any manager will ever again do what Wenger has done, for as long as he has done it, are vanishingly slim. It’s only appropriate we reflect on what that means.
That this is so hard is one of many bizarre consequences of Wenger’s decision to stick it out as long as he has. The praise he deserves — Wenger changed the English game, he was in the best and truest sense a pioneer, he showed an entire country what the sport they invented could look like if they only gave it a chance, let it breathe, let it think — all of this praise is now in some sense out of date. The game has been changed again, by Jose Mourinho and Rafa Benitez, by Mauricio Pochettino and Jurgen Klopp, by Antonio Conte and Pep Guardiola. Progress, it seems, isn’t the sentimental type.
The manager who was once the gold standard for innovation, the footballing future in human form, had become above all a barrier to progress, the personification of Arsenal’s inability thrive in the Premier League’s post-Abramovich era. Books could be, probably will be, written on the psychological acrobatics this forced Arsenal fans to perform. Frustration shot through with confusion. Anger distorted by embarrassment. In the past few months, disinterest seemed to have won the day.
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And so Wenger should take great pleasure in the fact this decision will reignite the club he loves so much, the club he has given 22 years of his life to. As the final month of the season plays out, as Wenger pursues the European trophy that has always eluded him, Arsenal will be, for the first time in a long time, finally and fully awake, released from the purgatory their greatest ever manager trapped them in in the first place.