It is 21 years since anyone at Arsenal has had to contemplate appointing a manager. In the summer of 1996, after a fifth-placed finish (on goal difference) Bruce Rioch was shown the door, with no successor in place. But what the club did have was a vice-chairman steeped in football, a lifelong fan and an expert negotiator. David Dein had tried to persuade the board to appoint an unknown Frenchman 18 months earlier but his advice was ignored. This time he was not to be denied. So confident was he in his choice that the club were willing to wait until October for Arsène Wenger’s arrival – going through the first couple of months of the season with two different caretaker managers.
Now, with Wenger’s time surely coming to an end, everyone is running through the contenders to replace him – Thomas Tuchel, Eddie Howe, Diego Simeone. It’s a plum job – a cash-rich club with a strong squad that has not managed to challenge for the league title in more than a decade and a fanbase crying out for a change; any change. But while the obsession over who can fill Wenger’s shoes is understandable, it obscures the real problems.
Dein left in April 2007 after trying to engineer the sale of the club – he divested his shares in August of that year – and despite maintaining a close friendship with the manager he no longer has any ties to Arsenal. No direct replacement has ever been appointed.
Everybody is aware by now of the way Wenger’s role has spread beyond that of any other manager in world football. He controls every detail of the club, from the food in the canteen to the length of grass on the training pitches. He dictates the transfer targets, the fees, the size of the contracts. It was not always so. When Dein was at the club theirs was a true partnership – a partnership of equals, both willing to challenge the other. He was a constant presence at all levels of the club, as Ian Wright put it: “We’re talking about a man who goes into the dressing room after every single game, shakes every player by the hand and who knows all the youth team players.”
It was Dein who went out and signed Sol Campbell on a free transfer from Tottenham, offering what were then astounding wages to beat the richest clubs in the world to the punch and sign their biggest rivals’ captain. Could you imagine today’s Arsenal attempting a similarly audacious move? The £40m plus £1 offer for Luis Suárez a few years ago springs to mind.
Dein’s functions were replaced to a degree but his role was split across numerous executives, none with his footballing nous, his feel for the club, or with the power base to push Wenger to strive for more. Ivan Gazidis arrived as the chief executive in 2009 – an appointment signed off by the manager. The governance structure has to be questioned when the person supposedly in charge of the day-to-day running of the organisation joins on the say-so of somebody whose job they should be overseeing. The American was not a complete stranger to the sport but his familiarity with football comes from 14 years at MLS, perhaps a good grounding for growing the brand but not much help in negotiating the backrooms of European football.
Another American joined as an executive later that year to oversee transfers. Dick Law has become the focus of much ire from Arsenal fans for the club’s supposed dithering over targets and fees. The truth is harder to discern. Law had been involved on a small scale for years and helped with the signing of Gilberto Silva in 2002 but the sometimes shambolic nature of Arsenal’s transfer business since his appointment is hard to ignore.
The summer of 2011 has stuck in the mind. The inevitable, and entirely predictable, departures of Cesc Fàbregas and Samir Nasri were stalled until the last possible moment – while Law was in Costa Rica engaging in a lengthy negotiation for a young winger called Joel Campbell. This was followed by a crazed trolley dash after the 8-2 humiliation at Old Trafford. Park Chu-young, André Santos, Mikel Arteta and Per Mertesacker arrived as the transfer window closed. This was not a well-planned squad restructure – it stank of desperation. But who was to blame? Is Law the bumbling amateur some imagine, or is he just unable to challenge the man who makes all the football decisions at Arsenal? It’s hard to imagine Dein allowing the club’s two most creative players to leave within a week of each other without having lined up a replacement.
This power vacuum above Wenger goes right up to the owner, Stan Kroenke. There is no doubt the American bought the club as an investment and a very sound one it has proven. With the manager able to deliver a top-four finish seemingly in perpetuity, the money keeps rolling in. Why rock the boat? He is rarely at the ground and seems more than happy to let Wenger act as a lightning rod for any criticism. This is an absentee owner with no knowledge or interest in football. Beneath him Sir Chips Keswick acts as chairman, a man who confesses to being no football expert, and who, when asked about the club’s continued failure to get beyond the last 16 in the Champions League, described exasperation from fans as “just noise”.
Arsenal are the seventh richest club in the world, with huge cash reserves and a large, modern stadium. The squad have improved vastly in recent seasons but the failures have remained eerily similar since 2008. The common factor is the manager. Would any other club of a similar stature really allow this kind of stasis to have continued for so long?
The problem is that should the manager make the decision to leave – and make no mistake, it will be his decision – is there anybody senior at the club with extensive football knowledge? It’s all very well asking who can replace Arsène Wenger but the real question is whether there is anyone left at Arsenal who is qualified to choose his successor.
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