Arsenal manager Ars Wenger departs after defeat to Bolton Wanderers looking the very image of a broken man
It was only when it was finally over for Arsenal, when Tamir Cohen’s emotional celebration of Bolton’s winning goal was concluded, when it became clear that his season was yet again going to finish unfulfilled, that Arsène Wenger stopped fretting.
Picture of despair: Arsene Wenger finds it hard to accept defeat Photo: EPA
By Jim White 9:20PM BST 24 Apr 2011
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Up until that point, as it has been throughout this season, the Arsenal manager’s body language was a compelling piece of theatre, a fringe act every bit as persuasive as the main show out on the pitch. He stamped, he ranted, he unleashed a range of flaps and furies that ran the whole gamut of emotion from anger to, well, anger. But when Cohen stooped ahead of Wenger’s statuesque defence to undo his side yet again from a set-piece, he stood silent, still, impassive.
As he watched the Israeli tear off his shirt to expose a T-shirt decorated by a photograph in memory of his dead father Avi, Wenger, his hands deep in his pockets, his head slightly bowed, looked the very image of the beaten man. This was how his season ended: not with a bang, but with a whimper.
There was a sense as he insisted his side would keep on fighting to the end of the title race – his voice flat, hollow, as diminished as his hopes – that he knew he was merely going through the motions. He must be aware that the disconnect between his endless talking up of his team – whom he describes as fighters, scrappers, men prepared to battle to the very last drop of blood – and the reality has finally been exposed. As he himself admitted, the numbers don’t lie. And, facing the easiest run-in sequence of the title contenders, his team have managed to accrue just two points from a possible nine this week.
The gap between the team Wenger insists he leads and the reality of the side mutely capitulating to a team thrashed in an FA Cup semi-final last week was as big as that between his defenders when Cohen stepped through to score the winner. You wonder how long he can carry on talking up his players before he admits, if he is to win anything, the need to make significant changes, as much to his playing philosophy as to his personnel.
Even among the Arsenal supporters there was a clear sense that the end could not come soon enough. Bolton had devoted an entire stand of the Reebok to their visitors. But, running short of optimists in the camp prepared to travel up north on Easter Sunday, Arsenal were unable to fill it. The absent hordes clearly did not share their manager’s conviction.
Though nobody could suggest he does not share the fan’s pain. When Daniel Sturridge headed Bolton into the lead, inevitably after Arsenal’s defence failed to clear a set-piece, Wenger’s face, etched with frustration, was beamed on to the big screen. It seemed any unnecessary intrusion into obvious private grief. But it provoked a huge cheer from the home support. Nothing, apparently, cheers up the nation as much as watching Wenger suffer.
But then no one suffers quite like him. He paced the technical area continuously, frustrated, furious, fuming. For 85 minutes, nothing seemed to relieve the sense that the world was conspiring against him.
The referee, the referee’s assistant, the fourth official, all of them were exposed to his full range of albatross-armed gesticulations. If not quite on his best Basil Fawlty form, seemingly searching for a stick with which to beat the bonnet of his Austin 1100, he still howled and groaned and whined.
Though nothing seemed to send him into quite such fury as the performance of his own team. When Samir Nasri shot over the bar he turned from the pitch and unleashed a barrage of language at his own bench of a sort that would make Wayne Rooney blush.
And then it was over. Cohen delivered a mercy killing. As Wenger shook Owen Coyle’s hand, he knew it was all over bar press duties delivered in a broken whisper.
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