Arsene Wenger, dubbed 'Le Professeur' by the British media has been, without any doubt, one of the best managers to have entered England! Ever since he joined the Gunners at Highbury in 1996, the face of Arsenal and even that of English football has changed, completely. His most notable achievement has been the 'Invincibles' campaign of 2003-2004 when we finished the league unbeaten!
Things were all rosy till after the season of 2003-2004. This was the time when Arsenal began the slide! After 2004, Arsenal has not seen a single season-finish at the top of the table! Another distressing fact has been the leaving of star-players leaving at the end of every season. True that we've qualified for the Champion's League each and every season since then.....but it's just not the same as winning the Champion's League or the PL. And consider the present scenario! We finished third in the 2011-12 season and then a sad fourth the last season. Our most influential and top players and most importantly, our former Captains, Fabregas and RVP left the club. And guess what!! They've won trophies at their new clubs! And at the beginning of the season, we lost to Aston Villa at home! Man, that's some embarrassment. This does seem so familiar to most who follow the PL. It seems that we're going down the same road as Liverpool, another club with a really rich history, but is in the process of a steady-decline over the past six seasons or so.
So what is the problem? Is it that Wenger is just playing around with the club? I mean is this all a joke to him? Or is it that his mentality and attitude isn't suited to the present day footballing scenario? That he feels that cheap and budget buys like Yaya Sanogo(free transfer actually) will help us beat the likes of Man. City or Man. U or even Chelsea(read loser)? He might say that he hasn't had enough budget to spend the past couple of seasons due to the construction of the Emirates. But what about this transfer window huh? There was a huge rumor that he had a war-chest of 70 million pounds and that he was willing to buy top players and compete with the likes of Real Madrid. But what happened? He got beaten by Napoli in signing Higuain and then Gustavo signed for Wolfsburg! Even FC Shakthar beat them for Brazilian starlet Bernardo!
But Le Professeur stumped all his detractors with a 42.5 million pounds transfer of none other than Mesut Ozil! Wow, finally a world-class player makes his way to Highbury, rather than away from it(ha ha ha!). And yes, things turned around. We're now at the top of the table, we became the first team to ever beat Dortmund on their home ground-the Signal Iduna Park! Ramsey is in the form of his life, Giroud is finally living up to his potential and the veterans Rosicky and Sagna are playing in such a away that shows that football is a young man's game and for the first time in the past so many years, we Gooners are truly happy. Looks like Wenger has finally got it all right!
Well you might say that we're not even through half the season yet, and we just lost to Man U last weekend. But well, in the Capital One Cup tie we lost to Chelsea, absolutely out-classed(I admit!). But what was our reply? We beat (a resurgent) Liverpool and the mighty European heavy-weights Borussia Dortmund. That says it all!
So at the end of this lengthy monologue, it's basically a question of common sense. Le Professeur has managed to hold afloat a cash-strapped team among others with many millions to spend. And now that he has the money to spend, he hasn't gone all ballistic like Tottenham and instead chose to buy a proven star. And the result is clear! So in my opinion, Arsene Wenger is, was and will be the best thing that ever happened to Arsenal, a true hero!
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