"Anyone can keep their job for a long time when they win the title every year," says Wenger.
Tag: Arsene Wenger
Arsene Wenger’s deep thoughts during Arsenal 4-3 Leicester City
A rollercoaster of emotions to start the season.
Arsene Wenger gloats about his new contract
A brief statement from the Arsenal manager after signing his two-year extension
Thought you could get rid of me, did you? With your signs and your plane banners and your Twitter campaigns. Well you tried to fight the zombie apocalypse with water pistols and you lost. Your memes and your YouTube rants have no effect here in Wenger World. Emirates Stadium arose through the sheer force of my frugal will. The only thing that matters here is finishing in fourth place. And even that doesn’t matter anymore. HAHAHAHA!
Perhaps I would have retired if you sniveling ingrates had not awoken my wrath. Insolence of this magnitude deserves smiting. And with this new contract, that is what I will do.
How will I do it, your trembling eyeballs ask?
I will only sign players who even the makers of Football Manager 2017 have never heard of. Ticket prices will rise even further, and the club’s website will broadcast a 24-hour live webcam of our unparalleled and untouched cash reserves as it sits idly forever. I will let Spurs continue to finish above us every season, and once my new contract expires, I will sign another. And another. And another.
I will outlast all of you. Why? Because I am immortal. I am The Highlander. I am the fucking Lizard King of the FA Cup. Bow down before your eternal overlord and repent! REPENT!
Wenger. In.
The company behind every “Wenger Out” sign
“Wenger Out” signs are everywhere these days and one company is behind them all
The Wenger Out Sign Company has turned the dissatisfaction with the Arsenal manager’s job performance into an international business. Founded by Dan Dublinsky—a man who has never watched an Arsenal match in his life—in Caldwell, Idaho, the company sells signs made to look like they were hastily scrawled by a disinterested child to people all over the world who are desperate to feel one with the delicious power of memes.
Brisbane Roar fans with "Wenger Out" sign..
Currently valued at $3 billion and preparing an IPO for the New York Stock Exchange, the Wenger Out Sign Company is profiting from Arsenal’s ongoing reluctance to make a decision about Wenger’s future.
Here’s the ad the Wenger Out Sign Company produced to air during the Champions League final this year:
For more ads from companies with doomed business models, listen to the Dirty Tackle podcast.
Arsene Wenger celebrates having just the second most disappointing team at Wembley
In a battle of underachievers, Arsenal come out on top
Sitting seventh in the Premier League and the subject of an international meme calling for his dismissal, Arsene Wenger hasn’t had much to celebrate this season. So when Arsenal beat fellow high-profile disappointments Man City in the FA Cup semifinals, Wenger couldn’t help but briefly celebrate like he just blew up the Death Star.
Arsene Wenger's reaction to Arsenal reaching the FA Cup final! https://t.co/krhwyhGjkl
In actuality, he just took a little more air out of the already deflated reputation of the once infallible Pep Guardiola, who, it should be noted, still occupies Wenger’s beloved fourth place in the Premier League while, again, Arsenal are in seventh.
Kun Aguero opened the scoring for City in the second half, but Nacho Monreal equalized for Arsenal soon after. The two underwhelming sides then plodded into extra time, where Alexis Sanchez issued a “For the love of God, get me out of here!” plea in the form of a 101st-minute winner.
From Wenger’s reaction to the victory, you might think that Arsenal would be facing a non-league team for the third time in the last four rounds (this isn’t counting Man City, who only play like a non-league side occasionally) come the final, but they’ll actually face Chelsea. And Didier Drogba has already threatened to return to England so he can continue to terrorize them.
Dear @PHXRisingFC I'll be off on loan with @ChelseaFC for two days 26/27th of May, just to make it 17/17 against #afc #IswearIBeBack #banter
But enough negativity. This was Arsene’s day. We should let him enjoy it. Because when your world is crumbling around you, it’s moments like this that prevent you from strangling Hector Bellerin for embarrassing everyone with his James Franco cosplay hairdo.
It's time for Hector @HectorBellerin ↩️ @Alex_OxChambo #AFCvMCFC 2-1 (105)
— @Arsenal
Arsenal broke Premier League rule by playing second half without a captain
An occurrence that makes perfect sense given the current state of Arsenal
As a fitting addition to the supporter infighting, the 10–2 aggregate loss to Bayern Munich for a seventh consecutive Champions League round of 16 exit, and Arsene Wenger’s general obliviousness, it turns out Arsenal played the second half of their 2–2 draw against Man City without a captain.
The Independent explains:
Laurent Koscielny, who wore the armband during the first-half in the absence of club captain Per Mertesacker, was substituted at the interval after sustaining an Achilles problem.
Gabriel replaced Koscielny in the heart of Arsenal’s defence but neither he nor any other Arsenal player wore a captain’s armband, thereby breaching Premier League rules on player identification.
This offense carries a fine of £300 for the first infraction (it then keeps doubling from there), which may sound insignificant, but that’s enough to prompt Wenger to personally staple an armband onto each of his players to ensure it never happens again.
The Indy goes on to report that the Premier League “are expected forego a fine on this occasion and merely remind Arsenal of their duties.” Wenger was asked who the captain was for the second half of the match and he said he “could not remember.” Which is what everyone says when asked who Arsenal’s leaders are over the last decade.
Theo Walcott was named Arsenal captain for their match against West Ham, which will likely prompt the Premier League to issue that £300 fine.
Arsenal fan civil war reaches physical violence and van propaganda stage
A textbook escalation in an increasingly bizarre conflict
Following the air battle over The Hawthorns, it was only a matter of time before the Wenger Wars escalated into a ground assault. I just don’t think anyone anticipated it would involve a van.
Prior to Sunday’s 2–2 draw with Man City, a fan bearing anti-Wenger messages was hired to drive around London.
This coincided with protest instructions being handed out to fans. Instructions that advised people to reply to every single thing Arsenal tweet with anti-Wenger hashtags and to tweet at the club’s sponsors. Because annoying Europcar’s social media manager is really going to get Wenger sacked.
After the match, things got even uglier when Arsenal fans attacked the production of ArsenalFanTV, convinced that the independent YouTube channel has been profiting by fueling animosities between the “Wenger in” and “Wenger out” factions.
https://twitter.com/EnekaQuamina/status/848633126985367554/video/1
Though it may seem like all of this is being orchestrated as part of a new Sacha Baron Cohen film, I’m afraid it’s all too real. It’s only a matter of time until someone ends up in the hospital after going on Facebook Live and threatening to hold their breath until Wenger leaves the club.
Arsenal fans debate each other in the skies over The Hawthorns
A good old fashion plane banner war!
Arsenal’s 3–1 loss to West Brom on Saturday marked their fourth loss in six matches, including a pair of 5–1 losses to Bayern Munich that spelled their seventh consecutive Champions league round of 16 elimination. Their only two wins in that span came against non-league clubs in the FA Cup.
They say that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the mark of insanity, but if Wenger’s repetition has driven anyone insane, it’s clearly more the fans than himself. Arsenal Fan TV is all the evidence of this anyone would need, but during the match at The Hawthorns, opposing banners were flown over the stadium, resulting in the lamest sky battle of all time.
One banner read “No contract #WengerOut” and the other read “In Arsene we trust #RespectAW” but the subtext of both was “We have been reduced to debating each other with rented plane banners…please help us.”
Of course, the plane banner expressing a desperate opinion on a manager’s job status is nothing new. Fans of other clubs have done it with varying results. But to have two opposing banners during the same match is a special kind of embarrassing.
After the match, Wenger spoke ominously about his future and the club’s current position. From the BBC:
“I know what I will do,” said Wenger. “You will soon know.”
The 67-year-old continued: “Today I do not necessarily worry about that. We are in a unique bad patch we never had in 20 years.
“We lose game after game at the moment and that for me is much more important than my future.”
It’s difficult to know what the future holds for Wenger, but I am looking forward to Arsenal’s next match, when the “Wenger Out” air fleet attempts to shoot down the “Trust Wenger” squadron.
Arsene Wenger is sorry he shoved the fourth official
He was just pushing the man out of the way of an oncoming train, he swears
Arsenal’s 2–1 win over Burnley was anything but routine (well, by Arsenal standards maybe it was). After Shkodran Mustafi gave them a 1–0 lead in the second half, Granit “Red Is My Favorite Color” Xhaka was sent off, forcing Arsenal to play the last 25 minutes with 10 men. In added time, Burnley were awarded a penalty, enraging Arsene Wenger and allowing Andre Gray to equalize from the spot.
Wenger was sent off, but refused to go. When he eventually reach the mouth of the tunnel and stood his ground there, he tried to shove the fourth official away from him, perhaps mistaking him for Jose Mourinho.
In the EIGHTH minute of added time, Arsenal got a penalty of their own and Alexis Sanchez scored to give them one final lead. After the match, Wenger apologized for the shove, but that won’t be enough to prevent the FA from handing him a touchline ban.
The way Wenger keeps shoving people during matches, a ban might not be enough, though. It might be time to make him swap his puffy coat for a straight jacket on matchdays.
Jose “Worse than Moyes” Mourinho sent off for kicking water bottle
Mourinho pays tribute to his personal hero, Arsene Wenger
Jose Mourinho was sent off for the second time this season after he kicked a water bottle when Paul Pogba was booked for diving in the first half of Man United’s 1–1 draw with West Ham. In fairness to Mourinho, it definitely could have looked like a bookable challenge from his angle on the touchline, but it wasn’t and now he’s been sent off at Old Trafford as many times as he’s won there this season.
The action that got Mourinho sent off this time, however, might have been inspired by his favorite person in the world, Arsene Wenger. Back in 2009, Wenger was also famously punished for kicking a water bottle at Old Trafford. Surely this was just Mourinho’s latest attempt to be more like the man he once labeled an “expert in failure.” It would certainly explain the last two seasons of his career.
Mourinho has now fallen behind a pace that got David Moyes sacked in April of his first and only season in charge at Man United. Under Mourinho, the Red Devils are currently sixth in the Premier League and closer to 18th-place Hull City (nine points ahead) than first-place Chelsea (11 points back).
On the bright side, Man United are undefeated when Mourinho gets sent to the stands (they drew 0–0 with Burnley in October the first time it happened). So maybe he should do this more often?
