may 28th
08.59 – Tons of speculation this morning about Arsene Wenger’s meeting with officials from Real Madrid. It surfaced last week in Spanish football daily El Mundo. Then this week it got picked up by L’Equipe, which seems to be regarded as a bible of correctness and non-madey up crap, and not just another sports newspaper looking for stories.
Anyway, according to L’Equipe Wenger met with Florentino Perez and sports director Jorge Valdano at Orly Airport and they continued discussions at a nearby hotel. Also present according to L’Equipe was agent Marc Roget. This is the same Marc Roget that tried to orchestrate Vieira’s move to Man Utd two summers ago and was a prime mover in the Anelka saga. It doesn’t say who he was representing, but I can’t imagine he’s being used by AW as it was on Wenger’s instructions that David Dein banned him from Arsenal’s training ground.
AW himself says “I met lots of people last Friday. I am still contracted for two years at Arsenal and I will go to the end of this engagement. After that, we’ll see, but it’s possible that I will remain at Arsenal.”
He has always been very specific about honouring his contracts, but now there are rumours that he has a clause in his Arsenal contract that says he can leave at the end of any season if he wants. I’m not sure I believe these ‘back me or lose me’ threats. As much as anyone AW will know the financial siuation at the club. He knows he’s handicapped by the new stadium, he knew he would be before the project started.
Arsenal themselves released an offical statement (which is quite rare) saying: “We are not perturbed by newspaper reports linking Arsène Wenger to Real Madrid. Arsène himself has reiterated his commitment to the Club on a number of occasions and we see no reason to pass further comment on the subject.”
According to Alan Smith a lot depends on the new stadium and how much thaty impacts Arsene’s ability to do his job. “Arsenal are being as daring as they have ever been. The board have gone out on a limb already to satisfy Wenger. The building of a new stadium is a crucial issue to Arsene. That is possibly the key to his future.”
It’s quite possible that Wenger and Madrid were discussing a transfer of a player, or maybe they do want him to be manager, who can blame them? It does make you think about what the hell we’d do if Arsene ever left. This is his Arsenal, no doubt about it. The team plays with a style that no other manager has been able to bring to Arsenal football club. To a man the squad seem behind him. You never hear a player moaning about him. Occassionally a youth on his way down through the leagues will take a pop saying he never got a chance at Arsenal while he can’t even make the bench for Colchester, but that’s about it.
In some ways it’s the price of success. Arsene has done a fantastic job with a limited budget. His net spend is around £4m per season for the 7 seasons he’s been at the club. Clubs like Real Madrid and Juventus and other clubs with far more spending money look at what he’s done at Arsenal and wonder how he might do if they gave him £50m to spend one summer. Imagine what he could do at Arsenal with that kind of money.
Speculation like this is inevitable. Also inevitable is that some of these jobs might be interesting to Arsene. He might wonder how it would be to go live in Madrid or Barcleona or Turin or Milan and have huge resources financially to help him do his job.
Could anyone blame him if he did decide to take an opportunity like this one day? As fans we demand loyalty. From managers and from our star players. Even from the lesser players who don’t play so often at a club like Arsenal but could be first choice elsewhere, we expect them to stay quiet, not moan and feel privileged on the bench (or worse) at Arsenal. Realistically though, very few players or managers have the same connection with a club as the fans do. We’d play for Arsenal for free, for most of the guys at the club now, it’s a job. This is their work and I’m sure they get pissed off with their employers like we all do. Especially after a long time at a club.
If Arsene comes to the end of his contract and decides to move on, how can we complain? 9 years in one job, great success, trophies, a great team with world class players, a fantastic youth set-up, a solid infrastructure at the club and his contract honoured 100%. Who would be begrudge him the chance to make some more money, to manage a legendary team like Real Madrid, to live in the sunshine for a bit? Well, we all would. That’s the nature of football fans. It would be like coming home to find your other half in bed with Roy Keane (that works well for both sexes I think).
Anyway, in 2 years time our stadium could be half-built (provided that shipload of cheap parts and Ecuadorian labourers arrives soon), we could have won the league twice, we could have won the Champions League, we could have the best team in the world and AW could be about to sign a new deal. Or we could be shit. 2 years is a long time in football.
He’ll certainly honour his current contract which runs until 2005. We’ll talk more about this then.
Anyway, maybe we should turn this around. From what I hear Wenger and Perez and Valdano were discussing a deal for Fernando Moirentes. It’s true, I swear.
