I’m a newer fan who only started watching the club over the past 2 seasons. I’ve been trying to learn the history of the club, and I’m confused why there was hate for Wenger at the end of his career. I learned that he lead the invincible’s, and that amazing squad from the early 2000s, he gave us the only champions league final appearance in club history, and even after that he seem to do an amazing job. Heck he even got a new Stadium that is really nice. He seemed to be loved. By all accounts he should be a Saint to the gooners but then I look forward a few years, and they were all these Wenger out protests. What led to such a fall from grace.
That’s an excellent question! Here is my personal take.
The fans became the story rather than the team. Arsenal’s underinvestment in the team became notorious and lack of results became the norm. Other teams had stepped up investment, and Arsenal became uncompetitive. Of course, Arsène Wenger’s perpetual optimism grated against that background, but eventually the lack of backing by the owner was the big culprit as well as his faith that FFP was going to be upheld. He could no longer attract the young talent for a song , as he had before so basically he was accused of no longer being a wizard.
The fans should have gone against the real culprit sooner, silent Stan.
When Wenger was replaced the results got worse under a very good manager , and they turned only after substantial investment was finally made.
In short, fans and owners were pretty disgraceful: Wenger was given no real opportunity to compete, and was made the scapegoat.
That period remains a very sad stain in club memory and I personally won’t forgive that fans forgot that they are supposed to be supporters. As it were a lot of them were just self absorbed arseholes.
Wenger was given plenty of money to spend near the end of his reign and his spending made us weaker, rather than stronger. I am not convinced Wenger has the ability to handle a team full of egos which is something that requires a different kind of skill from a manager.
Let’s agree to disagree: just look at Arsenal’s net spend under Wenger it’s ridiculously low and always dwarfed by the other big 4 teams. The blatant mistake was Mustafi, but managing to bring prime Auba and Lacazette in latter years as well as Xhaka is testament to the professor’s gift. the difficult ego was really Sanchez who by that time was no longer in his prime. Ozil was a notoriously difficult character that Papa Wengz kept in check.