Have Chelsea Become the Arsene Wenger of Football Clubs?

For all the recent celebrations of Arsene Wenger’s 20th anniversary as Arsenal manager, they’ve been delivered with an undercurrent of regret.

By reliving how the Frenchman played a big part in redefining the landscape of English football—Wenger is famed for introducing new training techniques and approaches to diet, for instance—the contrast with Arsenal’s fortunes now highlights how he’s fallen behind.

From those halcyon days when he first took charge, Wenger’s Arsenal fell into a steady decline in the mid-00s before they plateaued to become English football’s also-rans. Finishing trophyless and in the top four—as they tend to do these days—may well be good for business, but in terms of sporting prestige, it’s dented the Arsenal brand.

The Gunners aren’t the same ruthless force they were. They can’t attract the best players and have been nudged out of picking up silverware as a result.

Wenger’s power has waned; despite being a manager very much in the present, he’s equally become a symbol of the past. New, younger coaches have knocked him off his perch. Jose Mourinho, Pep Guardiola and Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp are the big names in the Premier League now. They’re the coaches we expect things from—the coaches who are taking the game forward.

Much like his club, Wenger remains in the elite, but it’s at the bottom end of it where we find him. A failure to adapt with the changing face of the game has meant his methods have become dated.

When we reflect on how new money has changed the Premier League in the past few seasons—the likes of Bournemouth can suddenly sign players for £15 million on the back of broadcasting deals—it’s a theory we can apply to Chelsea and the club’s recent demise.

Whereas rivals picked up on the changes Wenger brought in at Highbury before implementing them to their own advantage, Chelsea’s willingness to control the transfer market is beginning to haunt them. The club’s policy was built around that, and now they can’t, it’s affecting success on the pitch.

The arrival of owner Roman Abramovich in 2003 had a massive influence on how we view transfer windows these days. In his first summer as Chelsea owner, the Russian spent over £150 million on new talent to propel Chelsea to a position of title challengers.

The Blues were already a Champions League club, but Abramovich’s investment accelerated their push to the top. Rich and willing to spend, he was the final piece of a jigsaw that had been gradually pieced together since a decade before, when Glenn Hoddle became manager in 1993.

“I remember being at home and seeing it on the news [that Abramovich had purchased the club from Ken Bates],” John Terry once recollected in a Chelsea magazine interview. “I didn’t really know what to make of it at the time, but it is one of those days that I look back on now and realise the …

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