Arsenal to allow Arsene Wenger to call shots on his future at club

Arsenal will allow Arsene Wenger to decide whether he stays as manager of the club next season.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger is said to be still upset at how his team folded against Bayern Munich.

Arsenal will allow Arsene Wenger to decide whether he stays as manager of the club next season and to determine the timing of that decision, despite his side’s humiliating Champions League defeat handed out by Bayern Munich earlier this week.

The under-fire manager is facing increasing calls for him to leave Arsenal this summer after 21 years in charge, with even former players who are loyal to him such as Ian Wright and Lee Dixon saying he should step down at the end of the campaign.

However, the 67-year-old manager is not under any pressure from the club’s hierarchy to depart or even give them a final decision.

Wenger was understood yesterday still to be deeply upset about the result in Munich and shocked at the way his players capitulated.

Wenger has had a new two-year contract on the table from Arsenal since the end of last season, and the offer remains open despite the club facing elimination at the round-of-16 stage of the Champions League for a seventh successive season, while their wait for a first Premier League title since 2004 seems certain to continue for another year.

Arsenal’s board will have an input in the process and talks with Wenger are likely to take place before the end of the season, although no date has been set as yet.

In an interview recorded with German television station ZDF before Wednesday night’s 5-1 defeat in Munich that was released yesterday, the Frenchman said that his future would be decided in “March, April, probably”.

There are some senior figures at Arsenal who want Wenger to be forced into making a decision sooner rather than later, not least to give the club more time to find a successor should he choose to leave, but there is no appetite from majority shareholder Stan Kroenke to bring the decision to a head.

The American remains a huge admirer of Wenger and believes that his remarkable consistency in delivering Champions League football for 19 successive seasons outweighs the disappointment at failing to win leading trophies in recent years.

Arsenal have yet to formulate a detailed succession plan as the expectation until very recently was that Wenger would sign a new contract, and a wide variety of managers including Thomas Tuchel, Leonardo Jardim, Massimiliano Allegri and Rafa Benitez have been linked with the job in the past week, which is indicative of the club’s lack of strategy.

Wenger could yet opt to stay, particularly if Arsenal recover from their recent poor form and cement their place in the Premier League’s top four to qualify for next season’s Champions League, but if he does so it is likely to be against a backdrop of mounting criticism.

Former Arsenal and Bayern goalkeeper Oliver Kahn yesterday described the visiting team’s performance in Munich as the worst he has ever seen, and singled out compatriot Mesut Ozil for particularly fierce criticism.

“I’ve never seen a team play so bad,” Kahn said. “Bayern played a team so catastrophically bad without the ball. The players were so passive, especially Ozil. It’s as if they don’t take the coach seriously anymore.”

Ozil’s agent Erkut Sogut responded by claiming that the German international player is being scapegoated. “Criticism is normal if a player plays badly,” Sogut said. “But Mesut feels people are not focusing on his performance; they are using him as a scapegoat for the team after bad results.

“Bayern had 74 per cent possession. How can someone in the No 10 position create chances if you don’t have the ball? In these games people usually target a player who cost a lot of money and earns a lot of money — that is Mesut. But he can’t always be the scapegoat. That’s not fair.

“Football is a team sport and Arsenal are not performing well as a team. Eleven players were on the pitch but Mesut was singled out for criticism. Was he the reason that Arsenal conceded five goals?”

Laurent Koscielny admitted that Arsenal’s players are unable to explain their poor performance, which led to a series of heated discussions in the dressing room after the final whistle.

The France defender was substituted shortly after halftime with a thigh injury and will miss Monday’s FA Cup fifth-round tie against Sutton United, but is hoping to be fit in time for Arsenal’s next league fixture, away to Liverpool on March 4.

“It being 1-1 at halftime was good for us, but after we conceded the second goal, I think we needed to stay more compact because we have a second leg at home, when you can win,” Koscielny said. “You need to stay together, defend together with all 11 players and keep this. We didn’t.”

The Times