3. Stop Being A Stepping Stone
If Wenger has £70million to spend, or whatever, he should spend all of it. Soon. Arsenal need to send out a statement that they are a club aiming for the top, not a team trying to halt a slow slide to the bottom. Wenger himself has to take a lot of the blame for Arsenals diminishing status in the eyes of the footballing world. Players no longer join to win leagues and trophies, they join to improve their game, perhaps experience the Champions League for the first time, and enjoy good wages that English football has to offer. If they make a good impression then great, maybe they can get even more money with a few medals chucked in at their next club. The talk around Ashburton Grove is not about challenging for titles anymore, not really. It is about qualifying for the all important Champions League. Arsenal have managed to do that on 16 consecutive occasions but as their ambitions slip from winning, challenging, competing, to simply qualifying, the danger is a bad result here or a bit of bad luck there and now they are not even top 4 anymore, and the whole Emirates edifice comes crashing down. Of course, it would be foolhardy for Wenger to suddenly claim they can win the Premiership now, but the downgrad of their aims has been a slow and steady process and at some point they need to reverse the rhetoric. A couple of stellar names, players who make supporters go wow, would really do the trick and change the negative atmosphere around the club at the moment. A good start might be Klass-Jan Huntelaar, but more will need to come, including....