Arsenal FC: Arsene Wenger Alone Is Not to Blame for the Gunners' Situation

Forget about the season and forget about the team for now.

Enough has been said about the Arsenal squad both optimistically and pessimistically to keep us going through January, and a game-by-game analysis is a tiring prospect, especially if results continue in an up-and-down fashion.

No one should forget how Wenger entered the Premier League with a bang, but with the situation as it is, there is no unfairness to him being questioned and criticized as much as he has been lately.

His tactics, transfer dealings and "We have the potential and it will soon show" approach have gotten further underneath the skin of a good number of fans.

But I digress. The two men that should shoulder just as much blame as the man on the sidelines are Ivan Gazidis and Stan Kroenke.

Gazidis himself had a lot to say when speaking at the Sport Industry Breakfast Club earlier this week.

If you want to see all the articles yourself, just head on over to Arsenal.com

He started off by defending Wenger, as any good executive would.

Next up was the assertion that other clubs wanted to follow Arsenal's "self-sustaining" model. You know, the one with the youth policy, selling before you buy, no trophies for six years and no help from your billionaire major shareholder. That one.

OK, one can talk about the introduction of Financial Fair Play and its affects on the money-throwers, but is it really so bad to spend money on a truly proven prospect if that money comes from someone else's pocket and not the clubs?

One would think a business has to spend money to improve and in turn make even more money.

There were two other points of note. One was the long-awaited vote of confidence by Kroenke via Gazidis, and the second was probably the most disturbing, for lack of a better word. As stated in one of the various Arsenal articles: "Ivan Gazidis says Arsenal 'kept their powder dry' in the transfer window to secure the signings they wanted at the right price."

Really? So playing the fool in the transfers of two of our best players, then waiting until the last minute to buy average-to-solid players to increase the amount of bodies in the squad was the plan all summer? That's nice.

So what about Kroenke's part in all this?

From all that we have read and heard, he is completely in-tune with Arsenal's business philosophy, having been on the board since 2008.

Interestingly enough, two of his other major sports entities, at least the ones I am most interested in—the Denver Nuggets (NBA) and Colorado Rapids (MLS)—each have statements on their sites concerning self-sustainability as the business model. Here is the one from the Rapids.

If that is how Kroenke really operates, then OK, I can accept it. But here's the thing.

Neither team has really been overly successful whether before or since Kroenke's involvement. The Nuggets haven't won the one thing they are after each year, the NBA title. The Rapids had success just recently, but that is being sandwiched by average seasons.

Not to mention, the Nuggets let two of its best players go midway through last season. Sound familiar?

So is this the path that Arsenal will follow?

We shall continue to wait and see whether the young ones will grow, buy after we sell and so forth.

If six years has not been long enough for such an achievement-driven manager as Wenger, then how long is?

Kroenke may not be fully in charge yet, but what he has said, or not said so far, means that this situation is unlikely to change.

If all three are in agreement that this is the future for Arsenal, then there is nothing more to be done than sit back and watch things unfold.

Wenger is the one we see on the sidelines, so it is easy to give him 100 percent of the blame. I say take it down a notch and split it three ways.

Kroenke may be the piece to change all this once he is in full flow, but it does not seem likely.

So for now, in Arsene we wait and see.