After a successful and promising start to the summer transfer window including star striker Alexandre Lacazette and Sead Kolasinac, Arsene Wenger has managed to absolutely dismantle fan’s hopes of a push for a title this Premier League season. Although many believed this to be possible with a star striker coming in and Alexis Sanchez staying with the team for the remaining year, Arsenal has managed to perform worse than ever before in the new season. I have been against those saying Wenger should leave or be forced out of the club the past few seasons regardless of the letdowns and inability to raise the team’s performance, but I now strongly believe it is indeed time for the manager to move on.
With two new players performing well during preseason and only fringe first team members like Carl Jenkinson and Gabriel moving to other teams, it looked as if the season would be off to a good start as they headed in to face Leicester City the first game of the season. Arsenal won, but they let up three easily avoidable goals and were only saved once again by the super-sub known as Olivier Giroud. Despite the team looking shaky in this game as well as horrible substitutions from Arsene Wenger, they still looked like they had the components needed to keep moving forward and be a force before the international break. They would go on to lose 1-0 to Stoke City, further showing the ineptitude of Wenger with substitutes as he brought off Lacazette to put in known Arsenal failure Theo Walcott. All this led up to a Liverpool game that was expected to show exactly what Arsenal had in them as the season began to take shape.
Losing 4-0 to Liverpool was not only embarrassing, it was downright shameful. Watching a team that has come so close to greatness these past few years, only because they “lacked a proper striker”, go into Anfield and get absolutely dismantled shows that a striker is not Arsenal’s problem. Almost half of the backfield were played out of position, and when substitutes came they were shortsighted and lacked cohesiveness.
As the fans watched this disaster unravel, it seems that the players did too. Immediately after the game, news came out that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, one of only a few players showing vigor in the past half a year at the club, would most likely be leaving to rivals Chelsea. Kiernan Gibbs, a long time faithful team player slated to leave to West Brom, and many sources reported there was aggravation and discontentment within the club. All of this points to a dissatisfaction with the clubs handling of transfers, letting key players to the club go while aging wastes like Theo Walcott collect absurd wages for providing absolutely nothing.
Not only that, they have tons of money to spend but instead hold it close to the chest yet again as they remain the same boring Arsenal which seemed to only care about disappointing the fans and making money for the owner, Stan Kroenke. I do not know whether to blame Kroenke or Wenger more for the lack of meaningful transfer business but I do know that neither is fit to pull the team to the greatness they once had and the best thing the club could do right now would be to empty house and rebuild around a new manager who has the courage to stand up for his players and the balls to risk it all for the chance of success.