Chapter Twenty-Three: Arsene Wenger

Descartes' goal ended the game once and for all, and in the decade-long career between Arsene Wenger and Alex Ferguson, another Italian teenager made a name for himself and made the media spotlight.

When Descartes sent the ball into Manchester United's net, Wenger on the sidelines almost couldn't help jumping up with excitement, he was under considerable pressure this season, Bergkamp retired, the once unbeaten team is on the verge of disintegration, and now Arsenal is all new recruits except for a few people such as Gilberto and Henry.

Especially this summer Ashley. The entanglement between Cole, Arsenal and Chelsea made the professor feel a deep betrayal, and his hair, which had been a little black, turned completely silvery.

Ashley. Cole left Arsenal for the simple reason that money was there.

Although he is only second to Thierry Henry with a weekly salary of 70,000 pounds in Arsenal, Chelsea, who are not bad for money, has offered him a price of 120,000 pounds - a salary increase of nearly double, I believe you will change jobs even if you are replaced, right?

We can't tell who's right and who's wrong, you can say Ashley. Kerr recklessly cultivated his club for money, but Arsenal's subsequent series of smear actions did not add much to them, not to mention that the salary they offered was indeed not as good as that of their generous neighbors.

If we look at this matter as a labor dispute case, it is easy to understand: whoever is paid a high salary, I will help whoever does things, this is a matter of course, is it wrong?

Since we talk about wages, we have to mention Arsenal's salary structure, and to mention Arsenal's salary structure, we have to study Wenger as a person.

In ancient times, I would believe that Arsene Wenger was the big boss of Chaogai's style, because his salary policy at Arsenal has been the subject of constant media controversy.

People tend to think that Arsenal's players are paid very low, that the captains are poached every year, and that every time we go, we can hear how much their salaries have risen at their new club, and how much their annual salaries have risen from how much, and it sounds as if Arsene Wenger is coaxing those players to work for him for free at a low price, and then the players have become famous, found themselves, and decided to go out and make a lot of money.

But is that really the case?

We have a set of data to illustrate it.

In the 2006-2007 Premier League semi-finals, Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, of which Chelsea's overall salary was the first, reaching 125 million pounds, Manchester United was second, with 92 million pounds, and Arsenal was third, their wage expenditure was 90 million, and the fourth Liverpool only had 80 million pounds.

From this, we can see that Arsenal's wages are not low, in fact, they are the third highest salary among the entire 20 teams in the Premier League.

So why do we feel that Arsenal's players are generally paid low salaries?

This has to do with Arsenal's salary cap policy. In the past ten years, Wenger has pursued a cap policy of 80,000 pounds per week, no matter how good the player is, he has never exceeded this framework, until last season, in order to retain Henry, who wants to transfer to Barcelona to hug his thighs, Wenger had to break this cap and offer Henry a weekly salary of up to 90,000 pounds.

But even so, the money was not able to keep the Kings of Highbury, and Henry left the Camp Nou at the end of the season to earn 10 million euros a year, 40% more than when he was at Arsenal.

Seeing this, we will ask, Wenger is obviously a miser with money, but why do you want to say that he is a big boss like Chao Gai?

This is where we need to analyze it. Since Arsenal's player salaries are generally not high, but their salary expenditure is the third highest in the league table, where does all this money go?

It's easy to conclude that Arsenal are pursuing a big-pot policy.

Since the maximum salary of the players has not exceeded 90,000 pounds, and so much salary has been spent in a year, we can only think that the players of Arsenal are practicing a very progressive social mode of production: a socialist society. Equal pay for equal work, there is no group of people who get rich first, and there are no particularly poor people.

Let's look at another set of data.

In the 2006-2007 season, Arsenal's highest-paid player was Thierry Henry, with a weekly salary of 90,000 pounds, and among the first-team players, the lowest weekly salary was Denilson, yes, it was the midfielder Denilson of the Brazilian team in the World Junior Championship, his weekly salary was 5,000 pounds, a difference of 18 times.

In the same season, Frank Lampard, the "magic lamp" with the highest annual salary in the Chelsea team, his salary reached 16.26 million euros (equivalent to 129 million yuan!). And the lowest-paid goalkeeper Hilario, his salary is only 1 million, a difference of 16 times.

At first glance, it seems that Arsenal's salary structure is more unbalanced than Chelsea's.

However, this is not the case, most of Arsenal's players earn around £50,000 a week, with nine earning more than £50,000, but only three or four of the Blues earn more than £10 million a year, including Shevchenko, who has been on the bench for a long time.

It is Wenger's big-pot approach that gives him a unique personality charm, and also makes his players willingly follow him to play the world at the beginning.

But the players will grow, there will be more **, when their wings gradually harden, and the salary and their status have gradually become incompatible, they will feel different, will find a way to fight for better treatment, and find a way to make better plans for their future.

As a result, they will begin to resent the shackles of Wenger's salary, and will try to break free from the cage of what looks like a glittering but actually does not make much profit.

This is the real reason why Arsenal's players have broken up one after another, desperately trying to flee.

Aside from Wenger's morality, he will not treat any of his brothers who eat with him, but the professor has another ruthless side.

That's the draconian one-year signing rule for players after the age of 30, which is just as famous as his salary cap policy.

Thirty years old is the prime of life, but for players, it is already in the late stages of their careers, and there are not many players who can play until the age of 40 like the horses, and most players over 30 want to find a stable place, play happily for a few more years, get a stable salary and then retire.

However, Arsenal's one-year-one signing policy has not taken into account the psychology of these players at all.

Henry, Pire, Vieira...... Each of these players is a famous player who has made great achievements for the Arsenal club, but the professor is still ruthless to them, and he will never waver in the iron rule of signing once a year after the age of 30.

This approach will inevitably make the players feel chilled - we have worked hard for the team, and when we are old, we don't even have a guarantee, this is the club's attitude towards heroes?

So Vieira left Italy with hatred, and Pire went into hiding in France, leaving only the 29-year-old Henry, who is vacillating about where to go next year.

It can be said that Wenger's policy, although it protects the interests of the club to always have the initiative, greatly hurts the hearts of the soldiers and cannot retain people, of course, it is reasonable.

After all, the club is not a sales company, and you can't say to your employees: "If you can't do anything next year, you will automatically leave me." "The club is a group, can you achieve results, you can't blame one person, you can't contribute to the team at the age of thirty? Should you be abandoned after the age of thirty?

If you do everything too much, fate will end early.

Arsenal didn't win a title for a few years after that, and the captains left one by one not because they weren't loyal enough to the team – loyalty always comes at a price, and if you stab them in the back, how can they be loyal?

Compared with Arsenal, Lord Fergus has too much humanity in this regard. Giggs, Gary Neville, Scholes, Van der Sar, the old man has no doubts about the veterans, completely heart-to-heart, and these veterans finally repaid the old man with excellent performance: Manchester United has experienced a series of difficulties such as Ronaldo's departure after 07 years, the failure of midfield reinforcements, and the team's large-scale injuries, but it is Giggs who is old and strong, Scholes retreats and returns, and Van der Sar plays year after year, they have laughed at the Premier League three times in 6 years, even if they are in the middle of the team, they have never been forced to the upper hand by anyone, This shows what a valuable asset the veterans are.

Wenger not only does not cherish it, but also does not trust it, his team has repeatedly collapsed at critical moments, and it is only natural that he has driven high and low every year.

And Wenger has always been so contradictory, his righteousness towards his subordinates and his ruthlessness for veterans make him look more like the twin stars in ancient Greek mythology, with two different faces.

With Arsene Wenger out of the way, let's go back to the post-game.

Descartes' 92-minute win over Manchester United made him make headlines in many sports newspapers today, with reports such as "The youngster becomes famous, the Gunners add a Maxim heavy machine gun", "The storm of youth has blown towards the Premier League, and the Arsenal youngster is in full swing to seize power", and almost overnight, Descartes has become the new icon of British football.

Even his striker partner in the game, Thierry Henry, praised Descartes after the game: "Obviously, it was his [Descartes] who changed our attack, he is a very talented young player and I am very happy to be teammates with him." ”

Descartes was flattered by the praise from King Highbury, and he certainly had to respond: "Thierry Henry helped me a lot in this game, it was his breakthrough and his shot that made me the winner, I think he's still one of the best strikers in the world and I still have a lot to learn from him. ”

The two praised each other like sympathy and were seen by the media as a prelude to the change of the Gunners' forward line, especially this season Henry has been entangled in scandals with Barcelona, and it seems that he will not be too far away from Highbury, and the appearance of Descartes has made the media more reverie.

Amid the praise, Arsenal have to continue their busy schedule this season.

On January 25, the League Cup semi-finals kicked off, Arsenal challenged North London rival Tottenham Hotspur in the first leg, on January 28, the fourth round of the FA Cup Arsenal sat at home to welcome the challenge of Bolton, on February 1, Arsenal had to fight the second leg of the League Cup with Highbury and Tottenham, on February 4, Arsenal attacked Middlesbrough away in the 26th round of the league, and played four games in ten days, Arsenal's bitter days are still to come.

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ps: The information is really hard to find, I got such a little thing in the morning, let's make do with it first, and strive for more words in the afternoon, I wish you all a happy National Day.