Arsenal's 'British core' still has a future at the club - but only if Arsene Wenger departs in the summer
Aaron Ramsey, Jack Wilshere and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain still have the chance to progress at Arsenal - but the reality of the matter is that Wenger continues to stand in their way
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Your support makes all the difference.It is often said that Arsenal would be ‘unimaginable’ without Arsene Wenger but many aspects of the club are very imaginable indeed if Wenger does not sign a new contract beyond this season. Rather than being one man’s personal project, Arsenal would be returned to the ranks of normal clubs, as Manchester United now have been, where managers come and go, but the players stick around. It is a very different dynamic and one which the United players, with just one FA Cup since Sir Alex Ferguson retired, have struggled to adjust to.
No-one knows who the Arsenal manager will be next season but we do have a good idea who the players will be. And while everyone at Arsenal does owe his career there to Wenger, there are some players who could well perform better with a new man in charge.
Much was made of Arsenal’s ‘British core’ when a cohort of teenagers were signed or brought through at the end of the last decade and the start of this one. And yet the reality as those players head into their mid-20s is they have not become the players Arsenal were hoping for.
Arsenal’s relaxed collegial style, the friendly culture of self-expression, is a fantastic environment for senior players like Santi Cazorla and Alexis Sanchez to play their football, but not necessarily the best way to turn top talents into top players. There is a theory in coaching circles that Wenger is too much about cultural development, rather than individual development. Players are encouraged to learn from their mistakes, without being held to high standards by senior players, as used to be the case.
This in part explains why some of those players - Aaron Ramsey, Jack Wilshere and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain - have stalled at Arsenal in the last few years. Those three are still young enough to learn and could perform better next season with a different manager.
Ramsey is the most frustrating case of his generation because he is the most talented; a brilliant all-round midfielder who bravely recovered from a horrific leg-break in 2010. In the first half of the 2013-14 season he appeared to have cracked it, going on a great goal-scoring run which earned comparisons with Frank Lampard.
But since then Ramsey has struggled to find consistency, suffering repeated muscle injuries and seeing his central midfield spot taken by Santi Cazorla. When he plays it is more often on the right wing and this season, just when a spot opened up, he broke his toe. Ramsey is still a great player, as he showed with Wales at Euro 2016. But there is a sense that Arsenal cannot make the most of his incisive high-energy style. He would be better at any of the other ‘big six’ sides, simply because the other coaches employ a more physically aggressive style. Ramsey has needed a change of scene for some time but if Wenger goes in the summer that is what he may get.
Wilshere’s Arsenal career has also stalled, which is why he now finds himself at Bournemouth on loan. Like Ramsey he has been unlucky with injuries but he has not made the most of his natural talent yet. That is why Wenger ran out of patience and decided to loan him out, and it is telling how he has not yet agreed a new deal even as his current one ticks down. But a new manager could give Wilshere a clean slate at Arsenal, which is what he needs. With Santi Cazorla missing most of another season through injury, Wilshere could become valuable again.
Then there is Oxlade-Chamberlain, younger than Wilshere and Ramsey at 23, but another player whose last few seasons have not matched his early promise. He has been shifted around the team this year, still without a role that is his own, and while his shooting and dribbling showcase his natural gifts, he still does not have an all-round game. Wenger decided last season that a move might be best for Oxlade-Chamberlain but he did not want to go, determined to prove himself at Arsenal. Like Wilshere he is waiting for a new deal but a new manager could be the man to provide it, as well as some tactical and technical direction that Oxlade-Chamberlain is still crying out for.
What these players need is direction and structure, which is what Arsenal have been so lacking for the last few years. Trust is good but it is not enough by itself. There are some very good raw materials at Arsenal, and a new manager might be able to make more out of them.
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