With a chapter dedicated to Park Chu Young.

Burnwinter wrote:

I wouldn't be surprised if there were some big twists left in Wenger's tale.

He'll be getting lots of intriguing offers and it'd hardly be a shock if in six months he'd decided to embark on some zillion dollar project in China.

I just hope he gets his tell-all book out before football takes over again.

He's already been 'linked' to Everton, Monaco and PSG.

Burnwinter wrote:

Remains one of our greatest mysteries.

Along with Lucas & to a lesser extent Gabriel.

Anzac wrote:
ohboy!!! wrote:

Some great posts here.

I have been thinking about the possibility that Gazidis now brings in a director of football (technical director). Now he has a clear run, it will be interesting to see what he does. The club has been floating along for far too long now. It will be interesting to see what happens from this point.

This summer will be very interesting.

The suggestions I saw seemed to indicate changes to the coaching staff.
Wonder if Bould will survive the winds of change?

The new man is surely likely to bring his own people along. Would be very surprised if Bould ended up retaining his role.

Jed wrote:
Anzac wrote:

The suggestions I saw seemed to indicate changes to the coaching staff.
Wonder if Bould will survive the winds of change?

The new man is surely likely to bring his own people along. Would be very surprised if Bould ended up retaining his role.

Perhaps not so much of a given - my impression being that Gazidis is looking to use this opportunity for the club to take the majority of control in regards to style etc, and the manager becomes more of a head coach. 
If the club have such an infrastructure in place the manager doesn't need to bring any entourage with him unless he is looking to reinvent the wheel as AW did on his arrival.  Even then he still retained most of the staff and used players to change the culture.

Most managers even in Europe bring in their own staff when they move clubs. Any one manager with a clearly defined style of play needs his own supporting cast, be it the condition trainer or co-manager. Only goalkeeping coaches these days are linked more to the club than to the man in charge - incidentally that one needs to be replaced more than anyone else

I really hope a new manager brings a whole new coaching staff with him.

I'd be surprised too if the backroom staff didn't change. I reckon Bould might still be assistant manager next season to ease the transition with the players though.

We need to get rid of Bould. Clean slate, new start across all coaching postions. If Bould is that good he will go with Arsene to his next project.

Apparently Wenger has taken a swipe at Arsenal fans in the West Ham post-match interview? Or maybe, more specifically, a dig at AFTV?

He sounds a bit bitter.

Yeah, doesn't sound like a man who has willingly stepped down.

He should have been pushed to do this 2 years ago. It's clear from those statements that he feels he was still doing the right thing by staying on.

Sounds to me like a confirmation that the empty stadiums, along with the protests last year I guess, is what got to him and the board. They’ve been banging on about uniting the club since the start of the season and I guess he’s acknowledged that he’s the ‘personality’ getting in the way of that happening.

To me seems more like he doesn't perceive he is the problem but making out that if people think he is the issue then fine. Certainly suggest he saw an element of the fan base as damaging the club.

Rex wrote:

Only seen it briefly mentioned here, but don't you think this was essentially a somewhat graceful sacking? I don't for a second think this was Wenger's choice; I think he was given this opportunity to bow out as gracefully as possible, but that it was made clear to him that he was not going to be the manager next season. Only a few weeks ago he was reiterating that he always follows through on his contracts, and then this. I just don't buy that he did this willingly.

Of course it was. Do people actually think Wenger left of his own volition? Arsenal.com had the PR strategy ready. We kept all the media stuff in-house to control messaging. Wenger himself said today that it wasn't a relief because he wasn't tired, and mentioned not being resentful multiple times (meaning he is, in fact, resentful). 

Gazidis has been building up to this for a while now. There was the months-long residency with Josk Kroenke to build political support within the Kroenke family. With Sven and Raul's first transfer window seemingly a big success, the foundation was put in place to find Wenger's successor.