What a difference a week makes.
In the space of 5 days, there were 3 games which turned Arsene Wenger from a pariah to a genius.
Arsenal’s season was on the verge of completely collapsing, and Saturday afternoon was billed as the biggest in Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal career. Win, and things looked up but lose, and it looked like curtains for Arsene.
So what happened? Well for 82 minutes, Arsene was on the brink of facing the biggest shit storm as Arsenal manager as Wigan were leading and looked to have booked their place in the FA Cup semi final. But Arsene’s luck was in and with less than 10 minutes of normal time remaining, Arsenal scored an equaliser.
It really was Arsene’s lucky day as Per Mertesacker’s chance only came from a completely miscued shot from Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. The ball fortunately bounced into the path of the BFG and he headed in from close range.
Then, if Arsenal fans hadn’t suffered enough we barely made it through on penalties against what is essentially a Championship side.
So the first task was complete. Arsenal were in the FA Cup Final, albeit it with a lot of luck.
Then onto Tuesday. West Ham United were the opposition in a game we had to win to keep in the race for fourth place. West Ham scored the opening goal but again the Gods shined down for Arsene. Lukas Podolski scored a massively important goal just before half time, the timing of which could not have been better. Olivier Giroud scored a phenomenal goal, one which 9 times out of 10 he would have mis-controlled and never made the opportunity to score.
So a bit of luck against West Ham.
Then last night, Everton surprisingly slipped up against Crystal Palace in a result no-one saw coming (unless you’re Iain Moody I suppose).
That left us one point clear in the race for fourth and put Arsenal firmly back in the driving seat for Champions League football next season.
What this leaves us with is the notion that Arsenal’s season is more successful than Manchester City’s. There is suddenly a huge amount of optimism around the club – we can finish with a major trophy and Champions League football – better than Manchester City, better than Everton, better than Manchester United and depending on how the results go, better than either Chelsea or Liverpool come May the 17th.
Suddenly, a disastrous season has the potential to be a “successful one”.
But it all comes down to the fortunate equaliser and penalty shootout against Wigan (which we all know is somewhat like a lottery), the decisive moments in the West Ham game and the surprising Everton result against Crystal Palace.
So let me ask you this, is Arsene Wenger a genius or just lucky?
Cast you vote here:
And you can leave your opinions in the comments section below.
pointless article, how old are you? Were you born in the last 8/9 years?
Arsene wenger is a genius coach but what i no about him is that he no dey change player in time dat is it.
Wenger is neither a genius and definitely not lucky. He is achieving at par with the resources available to him. Lucky is Brenda who is enjoying a superb season with the squad he has. If he can repeat this next season, I will call him a genius.
Anyone who knocks Wenger’s achievements is truly an idiot.
His flaws are there of course, especially not buying players when they are desperately needed.
But you only need to look at the first blip ManU have had in 2 decades to see how amazing it is the Wenger has managed to keep Arsenal in Champions League contention every year, considering that Arsenal’s blips have been far greater than anything United suffered. Look at the calibre of players he lost yet constantly kept Arsenal there. Indeed, next season, only Arsenal and Real Madrid will have reached the Champions League for 18 consecutive years. This is an astounding achievement. Lets not forget Chelsea finished 6th a couple of years ago and only their outrageously undeserved victory in the tournament qualified them again – easily the worst winners in the history of the tournament.
I would go further. I believe Arsenal were the only Englsih team that deserved to win their Champions League final. ManU absolutely robbed Munich with 2 injury-time goals when they were battered for 90mins. Then they were a John Terry penalty kick/slip away from losing their 2nd victory. Liverpool were humiliated by Milan 3-0 by half time, but incredibly make it 3-3 with their only 3 chances and Milan missing a stackfull again before losing on pens. Chelsea’s win was the most awful. They were outclassed from the Q/F on. The stat that Chelsea had less shots in all their games from the Q/F to the final than all the teams they played had in 1 game against them shows how painful their victory was. And like Gerard in the final v Milan, they had Drogba cheating his way through most games. Arsenal’s final v Barcelona was the only one that deserved victory. Down to ten men for the majority of the match, they missed 3 one-on-ones after Sol’s goal gave them the lead. Barca, barely threatened but with 12mins to go Eto’o equalised from an offside position. It was cruel and unfair.
PS What exactly was ‘fortunate’ about Arsenal’s victory v Wigan?
They had 30 shots against them. Wigan had 2 on target and scored with a penalty.
Arsenal hit the post twice, clearances off the line and Carson made 4-5 great saves.
And how about the fact that in the first 4 rounds Arsenal faced 3 of the top 5 clubs in the prem. When does that haoppen? If you check the record books you’ll find NO team has ever faced 3 of the top 5 teams in the opening rounds. When Chelsea beat Cardiff in the final, they only played 1 premiership team all the way,
The trouble with blogs like this – and fans in general – is that they are so easily swayed and brainwashed by the negative gutter-press and anti-Arsenal rants on Talksport from the likes of Durham and Stewart Bitter Robson.
And how gutted are all the snipers knowing that Arsenal will win the FA Cup and qualify for the Champions League? Its killing them!
Mertesacker’s goal was not particularly lucky, it was the result of some intense pressure and note that we hit the bar/post several times in the game – some people would consider that unlucky.
What I don’t get about people’s assessment of Arsenal this season is that, for example, City are considered to be having a good season as serious challengers (perhaps up until yesterday), but Wigan beat them, however when we struggled to knock them out, somehow that’s a disaster.
Over the season we’ve once again suffered probably the worst injury list both in terms of numbers and of the importance of the injured players (certainly of the top few teams), so Wenger’s been unlucky in that regard. Say Ramsey’s, Theo’s and Ozil’s injuries had only been for 2 or 3 weeks each, who knows where we’d be now?
I wouldn’t call Wenger a genius because he lacks in some areas, but he is a top manager. He’s had a transformational effect on the PL but has struggled to compete with the big money of top teams. Over his career at Arsenal his biggest misfortune was undoubtedly the Eduardo injury. The 2008 title had our name on it but the leg break was the last straw both because of Eduardo’s incredible (I’m convinced close to Henry-level) pre-injury quality, and because of the knock on effects it had on the squad. Had we won the title that season, things might have been different now, might have kept a few of those major players for longer (RVP for example) and might have been able to attract some of the players we wanted like Mata and Hazard. That’s only bad luck because Eduardo’s don’t come around much, they usually cost £30m and are on everyone’s radar.
Wenger is so lucky, i wish he lost the FA cup so that he will sacked
The manager who only sales his best players. Now a lot of big teams are going for our best defender they can’t come to giorld, even mourinho feel to give BA loan
if he was lucky we wouldn’t have crazy number of injuries every season, and he might have actually won something. The players dig him out of a hole time and again. He is a terrible coach who can’t to tactics against the big teams, can’t react within a game, and overplays his best players until they’re injured.
Watching the Arsenal’s youths is like watching the Arsenal first team. Out played and out classed by Chelsea.
Arsene was in the stadium, what did he learn?
The game highlighted all the weaknesses in the Wenger system. Loads of position, but no end result. Time Brady hit the road, vast expense, but the outcome not justifiably. 90 mins, no real attack on the opposition’s goal. Disappointing!