ARSENE WENGER is the Sir Alex Ferguson of London – but without the trophies.
It is time someone at Arsenal Football Club plucked up the courage to take control to avoid them spiralling towards years in the football wilderness.
Wenger has been allowed to become the Emperor at the Emirates, a towering presence who has the final say over everything.
And even now, with the Gunners on the verge of imploding, Stan Kroenke and Ivan Gazidis sit passively on the sidelines looking on – desperately hanging on the word of a manager who is steering a club to oblivion.
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If Arsenal miss out on Champions League qualification this season, the warning signs are there that they will struggle to recover their place at the top table of the European game.
Sound ridiculous? Just ask Liverpool, or Manchester United, what life is like when they can’t offer the top competition to the best players.
And if it happens, Kroenke and Gazidis will be just as culpable as Wenger, for they have indulged the Frenchman to such a point he has become bigger than the club without justification.
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At least in the case of Ferguson at Manchester United, he was delivering winning teams – right up until the end when he won the Premier League in his final season.
Wenger has overseen a gradual decline that anyone aside from himself has predicted, and the Arsenal board have sat there and watched, too scared to stand up and wrestle control back for the good of the club’s future.
It is high time a revolution took place in north London. Things need to change, and change quickly.
The board has to depose Arsene Wenger
Even this week, the Arsenal boss was claiming he is yet to decide if he fancies signing on for another two years as manager.
For a start, that decision should now be taken out of his hands by Gazidis and Kroenke.
Wenger has rightly earned a place in the Gunners folklore, but it is doing his legacy no favours by timidly hiding behind the line that the Frenchman has earned the right to decide when he packs up.
The whole of the footballing world can see a change at the top needs to happen, now is the time for Gazidis to pull his manager aside and say the decision has been made for him.
Failure to do so would be a dereliction of duty.
Start behaving like a big club
Big clubs don’t settle, they strive to become better.
If Chelsea, Manchester United or Manchester City don’t win the Premier League there are strong questions asked, and usually changes made.
Not so at Arsenal where the powers that be genuinely believe their supporters have never had it so good.
They sit happily coining in the cash from the £1billion television deal, lucrative shirt and sponsorship deals and a corporate fan base that pays well over the odds for season tickets.
And they settle for the Gunners time and again coming up short on the pitch, and in the transfer market.
Star players are allowed to leave, other targets decide against moving to the Emirates, yet that matters little to a hierarchy who prioritise annual accounts over annual trophy challenges.
Like a rotten apple, the attitude has spread and rooted itself around the whole place. No-one is held account for failure now.
Stop the penny pinching and start paying up
Imagine how much better Arsenal would be with N’Golo Kante in the side. Except it shouldn’t be a dream but a reality.
The French midfielder was more than interested in a move to Arsenal after playing a pivotal role in helping Leicester win the Premier League, but the Gunners didn’t want to move heaven and earth to get him.
They wouldn’t pay the £110,000-a-week to get their man. Chelsea did, and now they are on course to win the title.
Arsenal are happy to collect the huge increases in commercial revenues from the growth in the Premier League, but no so happy paying the increased wages. It is simply no an attitude geared for success.
Sign a world class striker
Arsenal fans will be sick of reading the club being linked with this forward and that, only for the club to fail to deliver a marquee signing.
But it is more than that, the Gunners do not possess a genuine top draw striker who can striker fear into the hearts of opponents and make a real difference in games.
Alexis Sanchez is an exceptional player, but he is an attacking midfielder more than an out-and-out front man – and while Olivier Giroud is decent, he is short of being world class.
All their rivals have a clear star up front, except Liverpool who themselves are being punished as a result.
The Gunners create chance after chance but too often they go begging. And until they bite the bullet and sign a proven hit-man they will again be at a disadvantage domestically and in Europe.
Could you really imagine Giroud and Theo Walcott being the striking options at Chelsea, City or United?
Ditch Mesut Ozil
Arsenal have paid the price in the past for not keeping hold of their best players, but it is time they off-loaded the German for the good of their team.
Ozil and Alexis Sanchez have been playing hard-ball this season when it comes to their wage demands before they agree to sign new deals.
Sanchez now looks to be on the way out, and following him through the exit should be Ozil. He just doesn't produce consistently enough.
His signing was something of a statement when they forked out £40m to Real Madrid for his services, but because he was the first 'world' star they had purchased it appears he has been afforded too much slack.
Arsenal should stop being thankful to Ozil for playing for them, keeping him in the side when his form doesn't warrant it.
Instead they should tell him he doesn't deserve top billing, and move him on in the summer. The squad would be better as result.
Time to beef up
Those great Arsenal sides Arsene Wenger produced all had one thing in common - as well as quality footballers they were physically imposing.
The likes of Patrick Vieira, Emmanuel Petit, and Gilberto Silva were not just gifted, they were powerhouses who could mix it with the best of the hard men.
But Arsenal now are a powder-puff of a squad, too often falling short physically in matches.
The lack of height can be exposed at set-pieces, but it is in open play where the team suffers just as much as players are brushed aside too easily by their opponents.
There is nothing in this Gunners squad to intimidate opponents, no aura about them, and that has to be addressed.
No-one is asking Wenger or the club to change style and go route-one, but they do need to match up physically much better than they currently manage.
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