Time for Arsène to Go

Time for Arsène to Go

The indignity of an overhead plane calling for your removal is a moment no manager can survive. While it raises questions about the class of fan that arranges such a display, it is a clear watershed moment. Arsène Wenger wasn’t the first to befall this treatment, but he is the latest and it means bridges can never be rebuilt with a large section of the Gunners’ support. Before the situation declines further, he should do the most logical thing: announce this is his last season at The Emirates.

If only it was so clear cut. Wenger is an open book. His achievements during his time in North London are as obvious as his weaknesses. The main hindrance now being his stubborn nature. It’s that single purpose and drive that once made his Arsenal side become Invincibles. But that was a long time ago – a different era, even. His way is no longer the way. With each passing season when he digs in, Arsenal fall further behind.

His presumed principles should be applauded. On the surface he is against the modern way of buying success. He’d rather develop players. A by-product of this has been the club’s ability to quickly payoff the outstanding loans on their new stadium.

For a while, a new stadium – bought and paid for – was enough to satisfy the supporters. It was always accepted with the understanding once it was paid off, they’d once again compete in the transfer market. Well, the bricks and mortar no longer require financial nurturing but the team does. And Wenger refuses to budge.

What is baffling, is how the stance on transfers is broken now and again (Mesut Özil £42.5m; Alexis Sánchez £35m; Shkodran Mustafi £35m; Granit Xhaka £34m) without an air of caution or appreciation for market value. Still, a feeling persists they are two or three players short of a title winning team. The problem is, they’ve been short for years now.

ozil snachez

Not to take anything away from Leicester’s achievement last season, but that was Arsenal’s best chance to put a decade of being happy with top four, and title nearly rans, behind them. Chelsea were recovering from a Mourinho meltdown, Manchester City had a long, painful goodbye with Pellegrini, Manchester United and Liverpool were still missing in action.

Their local rivals, Tottenham Hotspur, showed they lack experience and maturity when it comes to leading the pack, eventually finishing below The Gunners. It was a case of “now or never.” Arsène’s players opted for the never.

And no matter how long he clings onto power, further success will continue to elude him at The Emirates.

FA Cup victories are not sufficient. Top four finishes – as lucrative as they are – are not satisfying. Success in Europe is, but that’s gone for another year. A Premier League title is, but even in the unlikely event Chelsea implode, other teams will be more likely to capitalise.

The truth is, players and fans alike no longer believe in the Frenchman. It is sad to see such a great record at Arsenal be bookended by disharmony and a lack of respect. But he has to realise his continued presence is having a negative effect as the club try to evolve.

Outsiders will never know if Wenger is carrying the can for the board. They say he has money, but behind closed doors the story could be much different, with his professionalism forcing him to tell the press a skewed version of events. There must have been pressure on Wenger from above because when they moved stadium in 2006, and up to 2013, they actually turned in a profit of £40m in the transfer market.

Had his ideology always been to spend less, develop more, why hadn’t Arsenal turned in a stadium-sized profit every season before this?

Historically, he was happy to bring in imports that required a final stage of development. The team that went unbeaten all season during the 2003/04 campaign added José Antonio Reyes in the second transfer window for £13m. That’s about £18m adjusted for inflation, which doesn’t take into account the new TV money and modern day premium on Premier League transfers.

Could you imagine Wenger sprinkling a player short of £20m on his squad in January nowadays? It’s less likely than when his team hadn’t lost a single league match.

Reyes was the final cog that had followed a series of highly priced acquisitions. The list reads something like this: Marc Overmars £7m; Patrick Vieira and Freddie Ljungberg £3m; Kanu £4.5m; Sylvinho £4m; Thierry Henry £10.5m; Lauren £7m; Robert Pires £6m; Sylvain Wiltord £13m; Francis Jeffers £8m; Edu £6m; Giovanni Van Bronckhorst £8.5m; Richard Wright £6m; Gilberto Silva £4.5m.

Thierry Henry

Those are just the most eye-catching (not adjusted for inflation) from the summer of 1997 to 2002, they are punctuated with many more that exceed millions and offer sparse evidence that Wenger has treated his time at Arsenal as a place to develop cheaper players.

When it suited, he spent big. It’s hard to believe he had a paradigm shift in attitude, unless he’s an all-out hypocrite. But even these big names moved on to pastures new, including golden boy Theirry Henry.

Since then the state of domestic leagues has changed. The Premier League has more cash but foreign top flights have the wealth of better players. The time to develop unproven talent is forever diminishing. To make matters worse, his record with young talent reads very poor.

Has Theo Walcott improved that much under Wenger? He’s one of many young players that have stagnated under him rather than reach full potential.

His methods are antiquated, his views romantic but out of date. One more season isn’t going to bring about the change he’s struggled to find in the last ten years.

The Arsenal fans should be eternally grateful to Wenger, likewise, he should acknowledge that those buying the most expensive seats in the Premier League deserve a fresh direction.

Bellew was Haye’s Achilles’ Heel

Bellew was Haye’s Achilles’ Heel

On Saturday night, Tony Bellew shocked the boxing world. If he’s honest, he shocked himself. David Haye’s recovery was an unknown quantity since returning from injury. Two “fights” against men not fit for sparring told us very little. And the fitness question mark will always hang over Haye’s head. That being said, his explosive punching power was never in doubt. What transpired was something straight from fiction but Haye didn’t lose to Bellew in the eleventh round – that had happened months before and was confirmed in the build-up.

Imagine the scenario: a cruiserweight hounds and pesterers the perceived best heavyweight on the planet. The attacks are verbal and public. The heavyweight struggles to go about his daily business because the yapping cruiserweight will not go away.

So the man in the weight division above finally gives in and agrees to a bout he’s sees as nothing more than an inconvenience – a money spinner, maybe – but still a major unnecessary distraction.

The fight goes ahead and the outcome is what the heavyweight expected: he wins.

That heavyweight was Wladimir Klitschko and David Haye was the annoying cruiserweight. It’s why he hated Bellew so much in the build-up to their fight. The Liverpudlian had out-Hayed Haye. He’d been backed into a corner through persistence, his planned plot back to the top delayed.

Now the question becomes: was that outpouring of anger something deeper rooted than a mere dislike for changing his plan? Was he worried Bellew – a fighter looking like he’s still on the way to finding his prime – could expose his newfound flaws? There was a reason Haye hadn’t taken a proper bout since his shoulder injury.

This doesn’t mean anything should be taken away from either fighter. Both Haye and Bellew gave good accounts of themselves on Saturday. After the first round, Haye took control. It was when he decided to trade blows in the centre of the ring in the middle of the fight that his night unravelled. It looked like something from a Rocky movie at the time and was described that way by Haye afterwards.

Then the extent of the injury to Haye became obvious. He dragged his foot around the ring like he was auditioning for a role in The Walking Dead. But he was a zombie that hung on and kept coming back for more.

The damaged heel isn’t an excuse for his loss, but a reason to consider retiring. He can’t keep going to the well when it’s nearly running dry.

Naturally there will be calls for Haye’s corner to be examined. The criticism being they should have thrown in the towel earlier. The Reflective takes the opposing view. He wasn’t taking dangerous head shots and they can’t pull a proud man early when he still wants to go toe-to-toe.

Haye played the role of bad guy beforehand but he showed heart and spirit when many others would have taken the easy way out.

Eventually that pride had to give way to the inevitable fall. It was a physical descent and a metaphorical one from grace. Not that he’d ever shown much of that, but his royal standing was removed, humility served. A career that remains in intensive care.

About the distasteful side of Haye in the promotion of the bout: he needs to be cut some slack. He remembers when the benchmark for heavyweight trash talking was set by Tyson, saying he’d eat Lewis’s children. It’s panto. Brutal panto, but panto all the same.

The PC brigade have no place in softening boxing’s bravado. And before they jump on that one line: I’m not saying comments that marginalise or discriminate race, colour or sexual preference are acceptable. But nasty words between two men absorbed in their roles is okay. It’s expected. They do have tickets to sell.

And it’s now Bellew that holds a wad of offers, all resulting in more life-changing paydays. Make no mistake, this was always about winning the payday lottery for the Scouser. It follows a trend of boxers seeking bouts beyond their ability, in weight divisions above, for one highly publicised contest.

Except the result was within Bellew’s grasp and he snatched it.

Eddie Hearn won’t want a rematch – that alone could retire Haye if he’s unable to avenge the defeat – he’ll be eyeing the suspect pair that have box office seats, Deontay Wilder and Joseph Parker.

Whatever Tony Bellew decides his legacy is already secure. As he continued to point out: he’s a current world champion. He’s also a legitimate heavyweight that deserves to, finally, be taken seriously.

Shedding Some Moonlight on La La Land’s Oscars

Shedding Some Moonlight on La La Land’s Oscars

Between them, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, managed to make the 89th Academy Awards end with a bizarre climax. Somehow Beatty was handed the envelope for Female in a Leading Role and stuttered from there toward a car crash not usually reserved for such a prestigious event. Dunaway jumped in, saw “La La Land” printed on the card, and the rest was history. Until history was corrected and Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight was revealed as the true winner.

The end took away from what should have been the true climax. The Academy’s triumphant step away from the dark ages and proof that #OscarsSoWhite has been acknowledged and corrected. But that statement, and position, threatens to diminish from Moonlight as a picture. The question is: did it win purely on merit when it seemed La La Land was nailed on to clean up in all categories?

The only way to judge, is to review each film on its strengths.

Moonlight, while being grounded in the harsh reality of Little’s life in the hood from the beginning, still manages to achieve stunning visual work. The rotating camera from the opening scene plants the viewer in a Boyz in the Hood world painted on an artistic canvas. He is befriended by Mahershala Ali’s Juan. He took the Oscar for this role last night, and it’s clear to see why.

The scene when he is teaching Little to swim is as immersive a piece of cinema you’ll see this year, matched by its supposed simplicity.

But nothing in Moonlight is simple. It’s a layered movie that takes Little from the bullied confused pre-adolescent to the isolated teenage version, Chiron. Here the movie explores the themes of sexuality that have become the main tag attached to the project. It wouldn’t work if it was just an exploration of this topic. Themes are compounded by his crack addict mother, isolation, and the powerful but fleeting connections Chiron makes.

By the final act, Chiron has become Black. A fully-grown man. Hardened by the world and his experiences. He is now the drug dealer and the mood of the film manages to again pour sympathy onto its protagonists. He’s assured as a man while still removed from others and life.

For a film that handles dark issues, it also has a tender side. With it, comes a great hope.

There isn’t a weak performance from any of the cast, the tonal shots and soundtrack throughout bring the vision close to ideal.

The big rival for the Oscar, La La Land, had more than soundtrack going for it. It’s a musical. Well, kind of.

It starts as one, setting its stall out with a number straight from the top. It’s unashamedly nostalgic for a by-gone era of Hollywood. Characters even refer to this with a tongue-in-cheek exchange. If you had no clue Damien Chazelle was the director, you’d soon ask the question. Jazz references from Ryan Gosling’s character, Sebastian, and the recurring loops bring back memories of Whiplash.

However, the first section of the film remains in the musical mould. Emma Stone took home the Oscar for Best Actress for her Mia, it’s questionable if this in hindsight was a case of sharing the love. La La Land tied for record nominations yet drew many blanks. She is good in this role, but is she better than Natalie Portman’s turn in Jackie? This writer has to say she isn’t.

But Gosling and Stone do share a good chemistry. It’s not obvious to begin with. You slowly get sucked into their chase of a shared dream. With it, come the recurring melodies that will make even a musical skeptic leave the cinema humming.

For a film that sets out to be a throwback, it does eventually become a contemporary offering. You’ll be forgiven for thinking at the halfway point the musical idea has been shelved. It’s also at this moment the movie starts to find its heart and voice.

This isn’t a failing. Chazelle is a great filmmaker and knows when to push and pull the audience. The closing chapter of the film presents an ending that the Oscars debacle on stage last night gave a tip of the cap to. It also questions if this was a movie about Hollywood for Hollywood or if it pays homage to the perceived simple lives that pursue love above everything else.

It could be that such ambiguity made judges opt for Moonlight when the two were so closely matched but one had a clear and important message.

If we were to split heirs, it could be argued Moonlight starts strong then levels out. The narrative jumping as it does, mean blanks have to be filled in, and the final act leaves one wondering if the Chiron we knew would have become this version. But we see that the essence of Little is still there. Still, the conclusion isn’t as explosive as what precedes it.

La La Land on the other hand, gains momentum the further into the film it gets. All the seeds that have been sowed throughout – musically, visually, emotionally – are brought together for an ending that surpasses expectation.

It means either film would have been a worthy winner and there’s something fitting that, for a time, they both knew what it felt like to be declared Best Picture.

You can’t have a tie in the Academy Awards, but this comes as close to one as you’ll ever see.