If we give Ozil a massive pay rise to stay, I'm genuinely done with Arsenal. He represents the exact player that is the problem with Arsenal. At Real his disappearances in big games was less noticeable, they had Ronaldo, they had Modric and others making the space that he needs even against the best teams but when he was bad(which was often, I mentioned this exact problem when we bought him) again it was less noticeable because they would still win more often than not.
With Arsenal there are too many similar players who fold under pressure, we lose all those games and so his poor performances simply stand out much more. He was like this with Real, he went missing for huge portions of the Germany games in the World Cup, he went missing in his first year with us, had a kind of decent second year though still went long spells in many games playing poorly but at least got an assist at some point, back to his usual this year.
Arsenal were a completely different team, with in effect a different manager up to 05/06... that manager honestly no longer exists and even if he did I still think he probably had major flaws that just weren't exposed. Can Wenger go from capable of building a great defence and solid leadership to inability to do both? Or is the more likely explanation that Adams/Keown were in effect teaching everyone around them as they trained and that Wenger wasn't really responsible for any of the grit, leadership or defensive solidarity that happened during that period. When the last of the players who trained day in day out with Adams and that group were gone, which would be I think Lauren/Sol, that is when Arsenal lost their ability to win the big games at all consistently. That is when we started getting 'soft'.
I always come back to it, managers are rarely complete, the mixture of decades of total training amongst the squad have an effect, the last manager has an effect, the existing players at the club have an effect and the new manager has an effect. The combination of 1-0 Arsenal, the defence that did that, the players who had that mentality and leadership and the attacking verve and attacking players Wenger brought in is what made Arsenal great, together as one whole piece.
Everything but Wenger and his attacking parts were gone post 05/06, and we've not only never been the same, we haven't changed since 06/07 or so, same mistakes, same weaknesses, same types of players being bought, same lack of improvement, same mentality issues.
Wenger has to go, the board give Wenger too much power and the fans backing Wenger so completely give the board too little reason to fire Wenger. Everyone is at fault, but when Chelsea, City or Utd fans kick up enough of a stink the manager's position becomes untenable and leaves for a new start and a new attempt to succeed.
Can anyone say that new managers at Real, Barca, City, Chelsea, Bayern... are failing to do well? Spurs now as well, Atletico? When a manager isn't doing the business they need to go. People again need reminding that of all the teams with an Arsenal level wage bill or higher, we are the biggest failures, the least competitive, getting the least far in europe and not competing for the league genuinely, getting 20 points off then ending up only 10 points at the end after a good run isn't competing for anything. Then you add in the teams with lower budgets who are also making it to CL finals and league wins, Atletico, Dortmund, Spurs becoming a power, Leicester. There are no excuses, no manager in europe is failing as badly as Wenger is.
