As the dust settles on centre court and the debris of defeat lingers to leave Andy Murray reflecting on how he must raise his game to go from fourth to first, Arsene Wenger will be plotting a similar journey in North London.
The Frenchman's vision of sustained growth remains incorruptible but the 'In Wenger we rust' banner spotted at the Emirates at the back end of last season will cut deep.
For those supporters long-since exasperated by an Arsenal side which is a perpetual work in progress, Wenger has become no better than the cowboy builder who promises the kitchen extension will be complete tomorrow ad infinitum. As Elvis once warbled, tomorrow never comes.His post-match rhetoric after big-game chokes has begun to resemble Ed Miliband's recent terrifying assessment of public sector strikes when he gave near word-for-word identikit answers to five different questions, to leave his interviewer Damon Green 'getting twinges of what I can only describe as existential doubt'.
I'm not sure if existential doubt is contagious but reports suggest there's a strand of it going around London Colney, with Cesc 'Sarte' Fabregas forced to train with a big red 'X' chalked on his shirt, while Samir 'Nietzsche' Nasri questions his very existence after learning he could earn twice as much sat on the bench at Liverpool. Brighter news is that Wenger has drafted in Racing Universitaire d'Alger's Albert Camus for a trial and the early signs suggest he's an improvement on Manuel Almunia.
Wenger's mantra has always been evolution over revolution but with half his squad sporting Che t-shirts these days it's difficult to envisage anything other than wholesale changes at the club between now and August 13. Gael Clichy has already joined Manchester City having concluded his trophy cabinet can only house so many Emirates Cups and other more important players are set to follow suit.
Fabregas is so desperate to join Barcelona he's taken to leaving his calling card in random Catalunya phone boxes, while Nasri seemingly has no intention of staying even if his captain's departure could see him installed as Arsenal's creative epicentre rather than having to ask politely whenever he wants to prompt from the middle of the field.
If nothing else Fabregas' position as captain has surely become untenable whilst he continues to flash his knickers at Barca president Sandro Rosell. Christ, he'd probably coo in his ear like Marilyn to JFK if it sealed the deal. To lose Cesc has become inevitable but to let Nasri run his contract down to a final year is just careless.
As Sir Alex Ferguson was quick to attest after his side were played off the field by Barcelona at Wembley in May, football works in cycles and Wenger has demonstrated in the past an ability to build new sides when the lustre of previous versions fades.
Wenger's genius has been to know exactly when to sell, as Marc Overmars, Emmanuel Petit, Patrick Vieira, Thierry Henry et al will testify.
The difference this time is it is the players calling the shots. No manager in the world would choose to sell either Fabregas or Nasri and yet, with little over a month until the new season gets underway, this is the exact position Wenger finds himself in. In some respects it echoes Sir Alex's quandary back in the summer of 1995 when he sold Andrei Kanchelskis, Paul Ince and Mark Hughes. Kieran Gibbs should, injuries permitting, provide adequate cover for Clichy - out of sorts for much of last season in any case - but whether he has a Beckham, Scholes, Butt or Neville(s) waiting in the wings remains to be seen.
Ferguson reacted to losing the Champions League final by reinforcing to the tune of £50million in bringing in Phil Jones, Ashley Young and David de Gea. It's a tired comparison to note that Wenger has signed only a 19-year-old from Charlton but it's a point probably not lost on Nasri as he eyes the bright lights of Old Trafford.
Just this morning Paul Scholes said: "They (Arsenal) just flatter to deceive. They do play the best football to watch at times, but what is the point of that if you are not winning anything? Not only that, they are potentially going to lose their best players in (Cesc) Fabregas, (Samir) Nasri and (Gael) Clichy. I don't think our manager would allow this club to go six years without a trophy."
The purported signings of Chris Samba, Gervinho and Gary Cahill could all prove to be astute, but they needed to be in addition to the existing squad, regardless of sales in the opposite direction.
"If I look at this team I'm proud of them, proud of the attitude of the players and the football we play. It's only in this country that we have to face what we face." Wenger, 2011.
Wenger is the bloke on Bullseye who says 'Jim, I've had a great day but I think I'll take my Bully tankard and £46 and let someone else have a gamble', while the rest of us scream at the screen 'FFS Arsene there could be a speedboat behind that revolving dart board!'.
That said, criticism of the more vociferous variety brings to mind Woody Allen's quip 'The food here is terrible, and the portions are too small'.
Disdain is readily dished out when football clubs are proven to have acted irresponsibly financially and yet when Wenger comes over all Vince Cable he's called a tight-wad. While football buries its head in the sand Wenger is one of its sole rational voices, having the foresight to realise the boom years are inevitably, sooner or later, followed by the bust variety.
There may be a feeling of unrest within the club with regards to a six-year trophy drought but in terms of league placings his unblemished record of qualifying for the Champions League in each of his seasons at the helm is matched only by Ferguson since he swapped Japan for the capital in 1996. When you add to that the fact Arsenal have the fourth highest wage bill it stands to reason that finishing fourth might not be a reason for walking the plank either. It's not dissimilar to when Murray, the fourth best player in the world, is accused of choking when he loses a semi-final. Isn't that what's supposed to happen?
"I believe that anything in life, if it is really well done, becomes art. If you read a great writer, he touches deep inside and helps you to discover something about life. Life is important on a daily basis because you transform it - you try to transform it - into something that is close to art. And football is like that." Wenger, 2010.
And herein lies arguably his greatest strength and Achilles heel. Wenger's obsession with creating something of aesthetic appeal is laudable, as is his board's patience in allowing him every chance to fulfil his vision, but it is also hugely prohibitive. And perhaps even selfish.
Writing and painting are solitary pursuits. The processes involved in both largely eschew collaborative factors and thus, in this respect, are not as Wenger attests like football at all. If anything the job of a football manager is more akin to an architect. It's a more meticulous building process that is needed to mould together disparate players and personalities to form a sum bigger than its individual parts.
Art is all about heart, an emotion that runs the terraces and stands but not dressing rooms and training fields. Not the good ones anyhow. But Wenger knows all this, he's too intelligent a man not to recognise that modern football - for better or worse - is more than just about the glory Danny Blanchflower once claimed.
Whether he's too stubborn to do anything about it remains to be seen.
Source: Alex Dunn, Sky Sports on 5 Jul 11
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