In Arsene we trust?

The usually pensive Arsene Wenger has unusual worries
about the security of his job. 

Much-touted as the most pleasing to watch and technically correct team in the Barclays Premier League, Arsenal and in particular Arsene Wenger will point toward such comments in the face of criticism. Another of the board's favourites is that the club is consistently one of the most financially secure and well operated clubs in Europe. Unfortunately for the board however, is that fans do not flock to KPMG to watch accountants power through to fill in that last debit and cross in the floating tax return in order to smash in the balanced book.

The problem is as old as time itself. People are fickle and are hypocritical. As much as fans of other teams love to berate the likes of Manchester City and Chelsea for lavish and sometimes reckless spending in the transfer markets, you don't see their supporters complaining when their team's name is etched into history on the trophies they parade around town. Arsenal fans would only point to their neat finances after having lost the footballing argument. This is a professional sport we love and follow and with that comes imagery, ostentatious and glamorous individuals and ultimately greed. As Arsenal have shown, football clubs rarely make money and for the people that matter: the bums on the seat, who actually cares?

I don't think many of Man City's supporters, however long they may have titled themselves as such, will hold back chants of their title-winning success because of the massive losses their club suffered (totaling £97.9 million for the 2011-2012 season). The reason is that football fans are here to watch football and that is what matters. City's title last season has done truly incomprehensible favours for the club's progress and image across the world which one may go as far as to say is priceless in itself. One must bear in mind, however, that City's profile wasn't before and probably isn't yet of the largesse of that of Arsenal but that a single season can do so much for a club speaks in justification for the quite obscene spending Manchester's other club have dealt across Europe in the last few years.

In the current era the distaste toward free-spending billionaire owners has transformed to an authority-held opinion that such behaviour needs addressing. Penalties for not meeting financial standards are afoot to deal with clubs operating deep into the red but until such point where these are implemented and to what degree they will even be, the focus as always is on results and silverware. Results, in their positive form,  have not gone the way of Wenger's Arsenal in recent times and the trophy cabinet at the Emirates hasn't seen any action since it was fitted in the Gooners' new home.

The point is that whilst the financial stability and the plaudits this has brought to the club does please the fans, describing Arsenal's current state as having reached crisis point is not an alto drastic statement. And naturally, when things aren't going well on the pitch, the position of the manager is drawn into question. Arsenal fans have stuck by with with conveniently named Wenger through some tough times and their resilience and support is an unfortunately uncommon sentiment in the modern game. As much as the firing of managers in English football has passed the ridiculous and in Chelsea's case reached the realm of the absurd, it is certainly justified in certain occasions.

But does Arsenal's under-performance in recent times warrant such action?

Despite its simple outward appearance the game is football has become highly complicated and extremely technical. With big names come big egos and a part of the manager's job is dealing with the players as the people they are. Wenger has been regarded as one of the most technically astute mangers of his generation and his ability to develop players is seconded by very few. The fact that most of those players play elsewhere is the beginning and end of the problem at Arsenal. The reason for firing a manager should be that the successor promises an improvement on the status quo. Quite frankly, I do not believe there is another man out there, barring the like of 'The Special One', Sir Alex and Pep, who could do better. Given the Arsenal board's penchant for offloading the club's top talent; giving the North Londoners the image of more of a training academy for Europe's elite than a challenger themselves, the job of the manager becomes that much more difficult. One need only have a glance at this weekend's Man City team for an example of three of Arsenal's star performers in recent times in the form of Samir Nasri, Kolo Toure and Gael Clichy.

What control Wenger has in the retention of star players is not entirely clear? And how far the situation has extended beyond the board requiring funds to brought in to the feared situation that star players no longer view Arsenal as one of Europe's top clubs seems more and more like the latter. Robin van Persie is the latest truly world class player to leave Arsenal in search of success and in all honesty who can blame him? The Dutchmen gave so much to his beloved Arsenal but the point came where he decided his time was up. True one-club players such as the likes of Matt Le Tissier and Francesco Totti are priceless to clubs that cannot promise the successes that beckon elsewhere but in the modern era such loyalty has become too much to ask.

Arsenal fans have tired waiting for the day that the austerity stops and the club actually starts striving for real progress and success. The issue cannot be said to be with the manager. Until the board acts to rebuff Arsenal's developing image of a selling club by putting up more of a fight to players wishing to leave the club will forever give the image of a place to develop one's career with the view of moving on when success comes knocking. It has never been Wenger's tactic to sign ready-made talent, a tactic which, given what he has done with he club, points toward his abilities as a man-manager and as an astute coach. In my mind he is still the man for Arsenal and fans should keep faith with the Frenchie.

But ultimately the question at the end of today will be if Arsenal picked up the result and glowing finances will not do much to ease the frustations of anything but a win against struggling Reading. They certainly won't do much to assuage the guaranteed whinging from Monsieur Arsene.