The Ice is Beginning to Thaw

The last time Wenger's tenancy was seriously called into question, the debate revealed a divide amongst the Arsenal faithful.

On the one hand were those who blamed Wenger for our inability to finish higher up the table, failing to win any silverware for almost a decade and losing our best players season after season.

On the other were fans who saw Wenger as the best candidate to weather the financial storm our club was facing, having to repay enormous debts running into the hundreds of millions. In fact our fourth place finishes were evidence of his brilliance rather than his failure.

Whilst other managers were spending between £30-80 million every season yet failing to make any real improvement, Wenger was making the club money whilst retaining Champions League football.

However this season has marked a shift in the club's and the fan's expectations. Perhaps it was Gazidis selling Wenger down the river by declaring that we were finally ready to compete with the big boys in terms of financial power.

Perhaps it was our storming start to the season which flamed the fans hopes that finally after long last our drought was over.

In actual fact Arsenal have been in hibernation for the best part of 6 years, and now that the ice is starting to thaw our senses are dulled and our killer instincts are slow to return.

This is the first year that Arsenal's spending has outweighed its return (from player sales alone). Look at the other sides above us and they are all hundreds of millions in debt, having spent far more on bringing players in. figures for last 5 seasons

Look at City, as Mancini attested, Pellegrini's title contending side is made up predominantly of players that he signed two or three years ago, with the addition of several other multi-million pound acquisitions in the shape of Negredo, Navas et al. By signing one or two world class players a season, City are close to building a side that is completely unrecogniseable from the one they fielded 4 or 5 years ago.

Chelsea too, with the exception of their defense are almost completely different to the side which took to the field 3 or 4 years ago.

Liverpool and Tottenham too.

Now look at Arsenal: Sagna, Gibbs, Wilshere, Ramsey, Flamini, Rosicky, Walcott, Ox and the like have been featuring in the side for the best part of half a decade.

Only this season have we made our first acquisition of a world class talent. We would argue that with the purchase of 2 world class players a season for the next 3 years we will have a side that will be more than equiped to finally take on the sides who have spent (in Chelsea's case) close to £1 billion on players in a decade.

You could certainly make a case that Ramsey, Ox and Wilshere have the potential to be great, great players. So too that our defense is one of the best in the league, however what has become apparent is that the diference in quality between our first choice 11 and the team we fielded against Stoke, Tottenham and Chelsea is vast.

We have to sign a marquee striker, a quality fast-paced winger, a 6ft plus monster in CDM and a reserve centreback who is capable of doing the same type of job as Mertesacker.

Now history would suggest that we don't go out and buy more than one or two players per transfer window so we're not expecting this to happen, however half of that quota must be met this summer, whilst the second half the next.

The question is do we still trust Wenger to be the man to sign the right type of players by being savvy enough to spot them and being ruthless enough to bring them in at any cost. Similarly as this season has shown does he have the tactical ability to outsmart the likes of Mourinho and shake off the hoodoo of teams like United.

We say yes. In an era that predated the petro clubs, an era that predated the ability to simply buy trophies through fielding a team that cost the equivalent of five of your opposition put together Wenger was second only to Sir Alex Ferguson.

Now that the playing feld is beginnning to be levelled we must give Wenger the chance to bring in an Ozil, a Draxler, a Griezman every transfer window until our squad is as strong as those we're fighting against.

Shake up the backroom staff, change the fitness team, bring in new scouts (whoever was responsible for Park, Squillaci and the like must surely be gone by now) but allow Wenger to attract the big names, continue coaching our stars like Ramsey, Wilshere and the emerging talents of Gnabry and Zelalem whilst building a side that can look to dominate the league in the same way we did with Wenger at the helm in the early noughties.

We're praying for success in the FA Cup as it will buy Wenger time enough to prove his doubters wrong and show signs that we have improved. The improvement is there for everyone to see but because of injuries we'll never know just how far this side could have gone.

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