Arsene Wenger’s Stubborn Pursuit of His Happy Ending Is Hurting Arsenal

On an emotional afternoon in May 2013, Sir Alex Ferguson got the happy ending he always craved and believed he deserved at Manchester United.

His final game at Old Trafford was a typically comprehensive win over Swansea City, and afterward the ground hosted both Ferguson’s farewell party and a trophy presentation as United collected the 13th Premier League title of his reign.

The former United manager led his team of champions from the tunnel, lifted the Premier League trophy and made a speech from the centre circle to a respectful crowd before going on a lap of honour around the pitch with a medal swinging from his neck.

Ferguson could not have arranged a better send-off; he was retiring as a winner bathed in adulation.

A few days later, as the Scot detailed in his autobiography, a fan approached him with an article from an Irish newspaper that greatly pleased him, because it had said: “I had left the club the way I had managed it: on my terms.”

His great rival from the late 1990s and the turn of the millennium, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger must have watched Ferguson’s carefully staged farewell accompanied by a trophy with a mounting sense of despair and jealousy.

How the Frenchman would love to be able to do the same and retire as a winner, entirely on his own terms.

But instead Wenger’s own departure is becoming a long, torturous and miserable affair, with no happy ending in sight.

For now, he still controls the timing of it, but it looks increasingly unlikely he will be able to bid farewell to the Emirates Stadium by hoisting the Premier League trophy above his head.

The truth is Wenger’s desire for a happy ending is hurting Arsenal. The Gunners are trapped, for they will never fall so far that he would be sacked, but they will never rise so high to the summit that it allows him to bow out as a title-winner again.

And so Arsenal are forced to endure the same season again and again, with some fans now flirting with the merits of self-harm and actually hoping to finish outside the top four, in the belief this would force the club’s hierarchy to act and ask …

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