Arsene Wenger's rule will always beat mob rule

Day after day, commentators, former players and fans suggested that he no longer knew what he was doing and should be promptly sent on his way. Even the usually reliable editors of the respected Gooner fanzine published a series of lead editorials demanding that Wenger be sacked, as if the club he has remade as one of the great progressive forces in world football had someone half as good, ready and waiting, to replace him.

His wrong-headed disparagers were also calling on the club to spend £20million-plus on several players -and to hell with balanced budgets and fiscal discipline. It was the logic of the mob.

It was obvious to me - and I wrote this in a column of August 22 - that Wenger would ride this one out, and deserved to. He would have to compromise on his vision of taking on the petrodollars of Manchester City and the Russian oligarchy of Chelsea with a squad of mostly home-grown young players of all nationalities, most of whom had been at the club since they were teenagers.

He would even be forced to do something that he'd never done before at Arsenal - panic buy, as he did after first Cesc Fabregas and then Samir Nasri left the club against his wishes.

That frenetic 24 hours before the transfer window slammed shut was, for Wenger, the definitive end of what he called the "project" - his youth-orientated dream of doing it entirely his own way, in defiance of the hard, mercantile spirit of the winner-take-all Premier League.  

"The hard thing is the feeling that something is ending," he said last week, reflecting on the departure of Fabregas and Nasri, both of whom are in their early twenties. "You had a project with guys that you took on at the age of 18 and [now] they leave at 24. For the first time since I have been here I lost young players who were reaching maturity."

For Wenger it was a case of never glad confident morning again. Yet he did not walk away. He is an idealist, yes, but he's also too smart not to be pragmatic.

When the facts change, said John Maynard Keynes, I change my mind. The facts for Wenger have changed and he has shown enough flexibility, not only to change his mind about how he goes about his business but to revitalise Arsenal in the Premier League through signing more experienced players, such as Mikel Arteta, and playing in a more direct style.

On commentary duty for Sky yesterday, Martin Tyler said that, for all his professorial disposition and polyglot intelligence, Wenger has a "fighter's heart". That seems right to me.

Arsenal were beaten by Manchester City in an exhilarating game but hardly deserved so. They have been weakened by injuries to four full-backs. They are still carrying too many players who should be moved on as soon as is practicable, including Andrey Arshavin and the non-scoring striker, Marouane Chamakh. Theo Walcott is improving but remains far too inconsistent for one who aspires to be a regular England international. He complained and professed disbelief when he was substituted against City but ought not to have done. He was awful.

This is a period of profound transition at Arsenal. The club are adapting to majority shareholder Stan Kroenke's style of absentee ownership and the predatory Uzbek billionaire, Alisher Usmanov, reportedly the 35th richest person in the world and the owner of 29 per cent of the club, remains an unsettling presence, at the club without being part of it. He is not welcome on the board but nor is he going away soon. I've seen him many times at Emirates Stadium, often in the company of David Owen, the former Labour Foreign Secretary and former leader of the SDP. He is there, watching and waiting.  

As for Wenger, his contract expires in 2014. He'll see it out and only then will he know whether he has reached the end of the journey that began when he arrived in London as a little-known manager from Japan in October 1996 and soon afterwards was viciously slandered. The mob at work again.

Like Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, Wenger has earned the right to dictate the terms of his own departure and anyone who says otherwise is a fool or simply doesn't understand what he has achieved.

Jason Cowley is the author of the Last Game: Love, Death and Football (Pocket Books, £7.99)