Split the difference, go to the Grove

So Arsene Wenger manages his last match at the Ashburton Grove Spaceship Huge-O-Plex. Who would have thought so long ago that the structure that was supposed to give Arsenal somewhat equal footing with "big clubs" would then be used to excuse poor tactics, bad and sometimes inexplicable player purchases, and become a house of horrors for the same man who gave the Gunners two league-cup doubles and a 49 match unbeaten run?

The beautiful lunacy of the man who appeared at a debate in New York and simply repeated the mantra "The rent is too damn high" was first proffered in a different though somehow similar form with "The move was too damn expensive." Over and over, match after match, season after season, the excuse was repeated. Oh Danny Fiszman, what didst thou bring down upon us with Stanley Krankey? The ghostly mustache used Wenger's own natural "Money IS evil, not just the root of it" Marxist philosophy as cover to bilk the club and excuse brainless football.

Ashburton Mongoplex became the first evidence of Arsene Wenger's flaws--the game in England to that point was driven by aesthetes like Alex Ferguson and Wenger. Roman "I made my money honestly wink wink nudge nudge" Abramovich eschewed aesthetics to please a trophy-hungry chavvy fan base and chose to hire the most Philistine "special one" in the world. If Sam Allardyce's Bolton teams were "Kevin Davies and a cloud of elbows," just remember Mourinho's first Chelsea teams, "Frank Lampard, Drogba, and I seem to have lost my bus keys." Wenger was appalled.

And then what happened? Wenger spent the next 14 years clutching his pearls to his chest in shock as other people refused to play "pleasing" football. "Why are others not honouring my commitment and idealism?" he cried! "Why is what I did for 3 titles in 8 years now being undermined by pragmatism?" he wailed as his teams looked ridiculous and his player recruitment became the stuff of comedy legend.

Suddenly, as the glorious "high defensive line" started guaranteeing an annual tilt for the FOURTH PLACE TROPHY, excuses about Ashburton Grove, our supposed saviour in the high-stakes world of global football, became a foxhole into which Kranky and Wenger would hide. "We cannot compete financially, we are a poor club" sayeth the excuse makers. But Wenger, who is not only a purist but a puritan, refused to manage the club like any manager who managed a poor club did; PRAGMATICALLYISTCALLY SPEAKING, he wanted beautiful football, but wanted to coax it from clods and castoffs.

Ashburton Mongoplex drove a fissure in the fanbase initially because it simply wasn't Highbury. Then it created a fracture in the fanbase by excusing Wenger's utter tactical ineptitude by creating the AKB vs WOB scism. "He can't buy good players because of the stadium!" cried the AKBs! "The man is intractable and myopic!" bellowed the WOBs! And all the while, the Mongoplex stood, silent, immutable, unchanging.

A.E. Housman penned the lines "And while the world has still much good but much less good than ill, I'd face it as a wise man would, and train for ill and not for good." One of the greatest poems of our time, it could be rewritten as "Arsene, this is stupid stuff" every time Wenger was undone by such extremely simple tactics as not to be believed. Look at all the times Wenger sides were bested by managers thought to be the dimmest of bulbs, by clubs with budgets that were mere fractions of the Arsenal's. It's embarrassing. No, really. It is. AKBs continued to wail that those results were ACTUALLY the fault of the Mongoplex. The Mongoplex became Wenger's shield and security blanket. "No manager could have moved the club to the Grove and kept Arsenal in the Champions League!" they hysterically shouted for nearly a decade. Really? REALLY? NO manager, anywhere, not a one? "Raymond, I believe you are having a joke on me."

I know that Stanley Kranky is shit--this is fact. The Glazer family took 860-ish million quid out of MUFC, too. What is your point? It doesn't excuse what I like to call THE GLORIOUS TACTICAL INFLEXIBILITY OF ARSENE WENGER. The AKBs would go through such mental contortions to excuse Wenger's failings that their thoughts could join a Chinese acrobatics troupe. And still, the stadium stood there as Wenger's sentry, excusing every flaw.

So we have reached the end of the road at the Ashburton Huge-o-blob for the man who gave Arsenal three league titles in 22 years, no European silverware, and the high defensive line. Oh, and Captain William Gallas. Frank McLintock would be so proud. I will not weep today.

"Nobody ever says thank you," warned the greatest football manager I've ever known, and like Wenger, that man also sat in his seat too long. That man also oversaw a stadium "improvement" that shackled his club with debt. No one would say that Brian Clough didn't stay far past the time that he should have at Forest. I would hope they'd also have no trouble saying the same of Wenger, and saying it with honesty, and saying it without sentimentality. "Wenger manages at Grove for last time"--that should be the only headline.