Wenger’s FIRST 10 years at Arsenal (THREAD)

Not for the easily offended

The truth stings

Topics:
why we weren’t as successful as we should’ve been

Why some decisions Wenger made during that era was the BEGINNING of the problems that would continue during the Emirates era

Why the first ten years were overrated

We’ll go through stats and summary’s towards the end

(1996/97)
First thing we need to remember is that Wenger came into an Arsenal side that already consisted of the best back 5 in England, as well as Bergkamp and Ian Wright.

(1997/98)
With that said, credit for Wenger’s French core that pushed us to win the league in 98; Vieira, Petit and Anelka. Overmars was another effective signing too. One of the French core did however consist of Giles Grimandi (we’ll mention him very soon)

(1998/99)
In the season after, Ian Wright left and we bought in Kanu and Freddie Ljungberg. I wouldn’t say we did much wrong this season and only missed out on the league by a point

(1999/00)
In the following summer, Steve Bould (centre back) retired, the first player to leave from our infamous defence.
We replaced him with THREE FULLBACKS: Nelson Vivas, Sylvinho and Stefan Malz.

In the attacking department, Anelka left and we brought in Henry, we also bought Croatian striker Davor Suker (we’ll mention him very shortly)

In the previous season where we finished a point behind united, we scored 59 goals and conceded only 17.
In 1999/00 season after we Wenger made his defensive and offensive signings, we scored 73 goals (more goals) but conceded FOURTY.

We went from finishing 1 point behind united in 1998/99 to finishing 18 points behind them the season after.
We also lost to Galatasaray in the Europa League (Uefa cup) final that season after we dropped into the competition after being knocked out of the UCL group stages.

(2000/01)
This season wasn’t any better (probably much worse), we immediately bought in Sylvain Wiltord to replace Davor Suker who was a desperate flop and despite Wenger buying three fullbacks the previous summer, he had to sign another fullback, this time it was Lauren.

A very good signing we made was Robert Pires to replace Overmars who left for a record fee (40m) to Barcelona, Petit also went to the same club.

We did however sign another tragedy in striker Francis Jeffers when he had the opportunity to sign the 1999/00 golden boot winner Kevin Phillips

Wenger finally decided to bring a cb (two years after Bould left), but it couldn’t have gotten any worse...
in Ray Parlour’s autobiography, he explains how Wenger ended up signing Latvian defender Igors Stephanovs, it’s definitely worth the read!

We play Manchester United that same season with a defensive injury crisis and Stephanovs had to start, as well Oleg Lugzni and Giles Grimandi.
We were 5-1 down at half time and lost 6-1 in the end, here’s a masterclass from Igors Stephanovs, feel free to watch the goals yourself

Most games we lost in the 2000/01 were when we had least two of stephanos, lugzni, sylvinho, Grimandi or nelson vivas playing. In other words, the most games we lost that season were when Wenger didn’t have his inherited back 5 playing.

We finished the season on 70 points; United finished on 80, meaning United still won the league with 11 points less than they had the previous season. We were more in the mix with the likes of Liverpool, Leeds etc for two years straight, United had no competition.

This was also United’s 3rd Premier league in a ROW, they also achieved this in the Emirates era.

(2001/02)
Things significantly improved in the following season: we got rid of a lot of deadwood like vivas, sylvinho, Stephan Malz etc and replaced those defenders with the likes of Kolo Toure, Van Bronckhorst and of course, Sol Campbell. We also signed Edu that summer, too.

Henry was well established, Ljungberg was well integrated into the side, Pires got a crucial injury but was already in favour with the Arsenal fans and you already know all about “Wiltorrrrrrd.”

Things really fell into place and we would go on to win our second double in 2002 finishing 7 points clear ahead of second place liverpool, and ten points ahead of 3rd place united who made signings that didn’t work out such as Veron and Diego Forlan.

(2002/03)
That summer, we didn’t add much to the squad but we did sign Gilberto silva who impressed after Brazils World Cup tournament.
However, Tony Adams retired and so did Lee Dixon - two players from Wenger’s inherited back 5 meaning David Seaman and Martin Keown remained.

We replaced our best ever cb that summer with none other than Pascal Cygan.
Now, I watched the entire Arsenal season review for the 02/03 season and I can tell you for SURE that Cygan had a big part to play with us not retaining the league that season.
Here’s a masterclass:

Cygan was the Mustafi of the late Highbury era but it got brushed to the side since we weren’t as bad as we are nowadays.

Even though we scored more goals than the 01/02 season, we ended up conceding more goals than that season (similar comparison to the 98/99 and 99/00 season) and the extra goals we did concede proved costly.

(2003/04)
In the following summer transfer window we finally got rid of Luznig and stephanovs, but we only ended up replacing them with phllip senderos. THANKFULLY, Senderous had barely played during our 03/04 campaign.

David Seaman left and we did well to replace him with lehmann. We also added Fabregas and Reyes to the squad, it was an improved window and Wenger realised who’s good enough to start and who isn’t.

The problem was that because Wenger had already signed so many flops or the players that weren’t established enough, we couldn’t really afford to rest players or interchange the squad and eventually it caught up to us in the cup competitions:

Despite finishing 15 points above United we lost to them in the fa cup semi finals.
We also lost at home to Claudio Ranieiri’s Chelsea in the champions league quarter finals in the space of a few days.

I’d like to also mention that apart from the 05/06 season, the quarter finals was the furthest we ever reached in the UCL in Wenger’s first ten years, (and we only reached it twice), we actually reached as many ucl semi finals in the Emirates era than we did at Highbury.

Our 03/04 underachieved by not winning the UCL or TREBLE.

Now a lot of rivals often criticise us for drawing twelve games in our unbeaten season, but tbh I couldn’t care less how we won the league just as long as we won it, so I won’t use our twelve draws as criticism.

But what I will say is that despite going unbeaten, we showed many signs that we needed to refresh the squad and improve in the following season if we wanted to retain the League or even consider challenging for the UCL again.

(2004/05)
But we didn’t do that. The summer of 2004 season signed Van Persie, Eboue, Flamini, Arthur Lupoli and Almunia. Wenger also rejected Drogba before he went to Chelsea, you might say “but we had henry,” this is a mentality of replacing rather than ADDING to our squad.

We went from finishing 11 points ahead of Chelsea in 03/04 to finishing 12 points behind them in 04/05. Also, if Chelsea were this ‘boring’ team and we were the free flowing team then how comes Chelsea finished on more points than the invincibles, scoring only one goals less?

Anyway, Mourinho’s arrival was the end of Wenger. People like to say “the rivalry of Wenger, Ferguson and Mourinho” but actually it was Wenger and Ferguson pre 2005 then Ferguson and Jose 2005 and beyond. Wenger didn’t have a sniff on Mourinho ever tbh.

That 04/05 season saw us lose 4-2 at home to United with Almunia in goal, here’s him getting chipped by John O shea’s weak foot.
Cygan also started in the two games we conceded four goals that season. I’d argue he was a part of this goal too.

That summer we didn’t make any significant signings to help push us towards regaining the title: we signed Walcott, Vela, Adebayor and Hleb, all talented players but after Vieira’s departure, this seemed like Wenger beginning to replace the invincibles rather than to ADD to it.

(2005/06) We finished 4th (Wenger’s first time) on 67 points, 24 points behind back to back league leaders Chelsea. We got top 4 on the last day of the season, finishing two points ahead of Sp*rs who needed to win their final game but failed after their squad had food poisoning

We had an impressive UCL run and we fought hard in the final, robbed by the referee but we had nobody to bring on in that final and Barca did, and of course, nothing needs to be said about the goalkeeper Wenger signed.

Just also like to mention that Karius couldn’t get a game for Liverpool after his two UCL final mistakes, Almunia remained at Arsenal for 6 more years.
The following season had an even worst transfer window but that is the END of Wenger’s first ten years.

To summarise: why weren’t we as successful as we should’ve been?

1.) Due to Wenger often replacing the squad rather than adding to it

2.) Wenger’s lack of tactical imputes

3.) Wenger’s costly signings especially in the defence,

4.) Wenger’s defensive tacical inferiority.

How do these problems relate to the Emirates era?

1.) We’ve never been able to have a proper defensive identity ever since. Wenger’s incompetence in defensive judgement is proven with the Igors Stephanovs saga.

2.) he relied on the standards of his players to dictate how we defended, in the Emirates, we didn’t have those elite inherited defenders anymore so wenger continued to get found out.

3.) Replacing the squad rather than adding to it has been going on ever since Wenger arrived, yet Kroenke gets sole blame for the fact that Wenger didn’t move try to adapt to the modern era

4.) We have a myth in our fanbase that playing attractive football is more important than winning, which is why none of the criticism I put in this thread will mentioned by Arsenal FT. You think the thing of having 70% possession and still losing only happened at the Emirates?!

4.) Wenger told us that the stadium move would make transfers more difficult for us, this is a proven lie as we don’t finish paying off the stadium till 2030, nevertheless this narrative sold to the fans is what made our club more appealing to Kroenke.

5.) Wenger got rid of most invincible players that were over the age of 30, and we were left with a squad of unproven tiki taka merchants and we got told that it’s because of the stadium move.

People say Wenger changed in 2006 or that he “sold his soul”, that is not true, Wenger has always been the same, and that is the biggest problem:

he was a breath of fresh air when he arrived, but he just ran the SAME squad to the ground for years without adding to them and only depended on his ‘gem’ signings, and many of his signings not only flopped but proved costly.

The same thing happened at the Emirates, for every Samir Nasri there was a Denilson, for every Arshavin, there was a Park Chu young, just like how for every Wiltord there was a Francis Jeffers

Why were the first ten years overrated?
Because we massively underachieved in the League and in Europe with some of the best squads we’ve ever had in our history. Once Wenger had more competition i.e Mourinho and Rafa, he was completely sussed out.

Some facts:
Wenger’s flops during his Highbury era:
Remi Garde, Giles Grimandi, Mattew Upson, Luis Boa Morte, nelson vivas, Kaba Diawara, Davor Suker, Oleg Luzhnyi, Stefan Malz, Sylvinho, Francis Jeffers, Igors Stephanovs, Thomas Danilevicius, Stathis Tacvlardis....

Richard Wright, Pascal Cygan, Senderous, Manuel Almunia, Arthur Lupoli, (I’ll be extremely generous and not add Flamini or Eboue to the list only because they helped us get to the ucl final in 06). I could list so many more btw (I left out all the free signings)

The bad signings definitely outweigh the good.
It’s almost as if Wenger threw stuff to a wall hoping it would stick?

Wenger made only two good defensive signings during that era (and in 22 years),
Those signings are Lauren and Kolo Toure, Cole was an academy graduate and we wouldn’t have approached Campbell if we had to pay a fee, because when we did pay a fee, we signed the likes of cygan.

We also gave these players all away for free (they weren’t ‘old’ or retiring)
Parlour
Wiltord
Edu
Pires
Sol campbell

Wenger’s European record during that era:
1996/97: Uefa cup - First round exit
1997/98: Uefa Cup - First round exit
1998/99: UCL - Group stage exit
1999/00: Uefa Cup - Final defeat
2000/01: UCL - Quarter final exit
2001/02: UCL - second group stage exit

2002/03: UCL - second group stage exit
2003/04: UCL - quarter final exit
2004/05: UCL - knockout stage exit
2005/06: UCL - Final exit

(Second group stage was basically the equivalent to the knockout stage)

Because of the nostalgia, and probably because of how useless we are nowadays, we look back at that period with rose-tinted glasses

The narrative was that Wenger was perfect until Kroenke arrived, well I’m pretty sure we went four seasons without winning the league before Kroenke even bought his first share at the club, let alone before he became major shareholder, so what’s the excuse?

The same Wenger from 2018 is the same Wenger from 1996, he’s always been recruiting/developing talented gems as well as absolutely embarrassing flops. (If we want to be even more specific, we can also add that he’s always been great in the fa cup and poor in the league cup/europe

he got away with ‘go out and express yourselves ball’ while he was relatively new to the premier league but when teams started spending money and the league became more competitive, we just made ourselves look like 70% possesion pass merchants with no cutting edge.

We got tactically found out especially in Europe. If you’re going to just allow good players to express themselves on the pitch , at least add to the squad rather than just waiting for the good players to leave then just replacing them

Due to Wenger’s nature of management, Arsenal was and will always be the most ideal club for Stan Kroenke. Kroenke till this day continues to milk profits from Wenger’s early success, which Wenger helped Kroenke to achieve by telling us for years there was nobody on the market.

Two lies, one wealthy owner, one deceived fanbase and parade for leaving Highbury..

Hope you enjoyed

The truth stings