"Sacked in the morning! You're getting sacked in the morning" had been the delirious chant from the visiting support to Wenger after he watched his side go behind during an often shambolic first‑half performance.
Losing his job might not have happened if League Two Town had pulled off arguably the greatest embarrassment of Wenger's tenure. But the inquisition into what precisely his strategy is at the club might have gone off the scale before Bolton Wanderers' visit here on Saturday.
Instead, class eventually showed, a valiant Shrewsbury went down as expected, and Wenger could say of the result: "It was a bit nervy because we played against a good side. They were direct but had good technique. They had a few dangerous positions even after they scored. But we took over in the second half."
If this sounds like a rather generous assessment of Town's qualities it is because Wenger is a man eyeing the visit of Bolton from a position of fourth‑bottom. His team have a goal difference of minus eight, having shipped a barely credible 14 goals in their five league outings. Building morale while denying obvious confidence‑sapping truths is his main game, despite how difficult those numbers make the task.
After the sides had emerged for the second half all-square, a 25-yard shot from Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain after 58 minutes that slipped under Ben Smith, and a cool late finish from Yossi Benayoun, sent the Arsenal fans home relieved.
They finished as they had started, in the ascendancy. The tie's opening flurry featured Marouane Chamakh, who twice threatened to score. But from this apparently comfortable juncture, Arsenal proceeded to crumble during a hardly credible middle section of the opening half: their inability to deal with the high ball, which has plagued their season, was again the big weakness.
Under an aerial free-kick, Johan Djourou and Chamakh each jumped but somehow missed the ball and it bounced dangerously in the area, though Lukasz Fabianski could gather.
Emboldened, Shrewsbury pressed forward again. This time, Marvin Morgan's pass released Mark Wright. His shot trickled past Fabianksi and hit the post before the keeper recovered to save the follow‑up. From the corner Jenkinson allowed Wright a free header at the far post, which he could not direct.
Arsenal's disarray was about to reach a low point. From a throw in on the right Morgan swung in a diagonal that Djourou merely watched, and to which James Collins rose unchallenged, the striker easily slotting the headed finish past Fabianski.
After 16 minutes Wenger's band had lost the plot. A further catalogue of near-disasters followed. Collins was inches from finishing beyond Fabianski again, and Arsenal's rearguard (a loose term) gazed at another corner, which left the keeper stranded and Reuben Hazell a free header he should have converted.
Kieran Gibbs may have equalised with a 33rd‑minute header from a Jenkinson cross, and Emmanuel Frimpong's later free-kick might have drawn a neat save from Smith, but as the sides walked off for the break the impression was of the Wenger project continuing to list. And list badly.
Earlier in the day Ivan Gazidis, the chief executive, scoffed at any assertion that Wenger was out of touch. Yet the evidence of the opening half suggested that he had been protesting too much with the Frenchman making one unfathomable decision in not selecting a strong bench in case of a scare.
After warning before kick-off that "our season depends on how well we respond to the disappointment", Wenger then gambled with his players' drained spirit by naming Ryo Miyaichi, Chuks Aneke, Daniel Boateng, Oguzhan Ozyakup, Sanchez Watt, Nico Yennaris and Damian Martinez as the go-to options for a starting XI from which one or more of Gibbs, Benayoun, Djourou, Chamakh, and Frimpong might have been held back as insurance.
In Djourou, the captain for the night, Wenger was let down badly, unable to rely on one of his established men to set the correct path for his more junior team-mates. In what should have been the easiest outing of his campaign so far the Swiss floundered to cause Wenger one more concern in a tally that continues to rise.
Source: Jamie Jackson, The Guardian on 20 Sep 11
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