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Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger would consider moving to Real Madrid to replace Jose Mourinho.

The People says Wenger will seriously consider the option of replacing Mourinho at Real Madrid.

Wenger turned down Real three years ago but the door could be opening again after Mourinho admitted his future at the Bernabeu is in doubt.

And Gunners officials are worried that Arsenal’s scrap to stay in the Premier League’s top four may put Wenger under increased pressure from unhappy fans.

The board are supportive of their manager but the opportunity to take up a top La Liga post may tempt him to walk away in the summer.

An Arsenal source confirmed: “There is a feeling that he could move there.”

SOURCE: The Peoplevia Tribalfootball

Expect stories of this nature to increase as we move nearer to the summer, especially if Arsenal continue to sit outside the top four. There does appear to be growing speculation that Jose Mourinho is not happy at the Bernabeu, but given that his Real Madrid side sits seven points clear at the top of La Liga one wonders if the Portuguese manager is merely looking for some appreciation for his efforts both from the press and his board.

Arsene Wenger has of course achieved a great deal at the Emirates Stadium but he may well notch up his seventh successive season without silverware this term and with fans protesting and a number of high profile players, Robin Van Persie & Theo Walcott to name just two, still to put pen to paper on new deals, the North London club could be about to enter a crucial period that could well shape the club in the long term.

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This week Arsenal extended their run of games without a win in the Premier League to four matches. In the same week, Arsenal Chief Executive Ivan Gazidis staunchly defended his club’s business model and transfer policy, highlighting the importance of remaining self-sufficient.

“[Our business model] does mean we can’t afford to compete with oil money, and we can’t afford to compete with super-wealthy individuals from Russia,” he told Fox.

“But I think the more important thing about our model is that it’s sustainable. If we’ve learned anything from the world’s economic crisis, it has to be that football clubs need to have responsibility – not just for today, but for their own futures.”

“Our business model means that we can continue to do what we’re doing forever.”

The importance of a sustainable business model is clear, especially with the prospect of UEFA’s ‘Financial Fair Play’ regulations on the horizon. Arsenal have, all things considered, done an excellent job of remaining financially sound in the aftermath of their expensive move from Highbury to the Emirates Stadium. In 2010 the club recorded a record pre-tax profit of £56 million.

At a time where wealthy owners taking over clubs and spending hundreds of millions of pounds is becoming more and more common, the ambition to remain completely self-sufficient and the success Arsenal have had in remaining one of the world’s most profitable clubs is even admirable.

However, what seems to have gone amiss is the blindingly obvious fact that the sustainability of the business model Gazidis is so proud of hinges on having a successful playing squad.

Football is a business. However, the most important aspect of any football club will always be the football team itself.

Champions League qualification for teams like Arsenal brings with it massive revenue and the ability to negotiate top commercial deals. Success brings with it season ticket sales and international recognition. These things are hugely important for Arsenal’s business model. The ‘football’ and the ‘business’ must operate in tandem. In order to sustain their business model, Arsenal Football Club simply has to deliver results on the pitch.

That aspect of Arsenal’s business model is perhaps under more scrutiny now than at any other time during Arsene Wenger’s reign as manager of the club. A 0-0 draw with Bolton on Wednesday night left the club in 7th place in the Premier League table. Finishing in the same position would surely represent a disaster for Arsenal.

Over the years, Wenger’s ability in the transfer market to buy low and sell high has generated significant money for the club. However, the sale of top quality players like Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri at the beginning of the season, and the subsequent failure to replace those players with footballers of similar quality is clearly costing Arsenal.

However, it’s wrong to look at those players in isolation. The policy of selling top players for big money and not spending to adequately replace them has been a theme for Arsenal in recent seasons, arguably dating back as far as the sale of Patrick Vieira in 2005.

The result has been a steady decline in terms of success. The club has gone six seasons without a trophy. Finishing without trophies was seemingly considered acceptable by those in charge while Champions League qualification was assured. However, Arsenal now face the realistic prospect of failure to achieve even that.

Consequences for such an on-the-pitch failure would certainly have a massive impact on Arsenal’s business model. It would also have a futher impact on the ability to attract top footballers to the club and to hold onto players like Robin Van Persie. And so the cycle continues. The club would then have to try to combat the threat of a complete downward spiral.

Despite the quality of their football, Arsenal were already failing to win trophies and achieve footballing success with players like Fabregas and Nasri in the side. The worrying thing is that the overall quality of the playing staff decreased over the summer and the club seemed to anticipate no major consequences.

While operating as one of the most profitable clubs in world football since the move to the Emirates Stadium, each year, the club has regressed further and further on the pitch. Perhaps those in charge will not fully feel the effects of that until they are hit by a lack of Champions League revenue, or a fall in season ticket sales. The danger is that by then it could be too late.

Arsenal do have a successful business model, which they should rightly be proud of. However, it has to operate with a greater emphasis on footballing success. Making the “business” a priority over football will eventually lead to a decline in business success because the two ideas are inextricably linked.

Follow Jason Mitchell on Twitter @JasonOffside

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Arsene Wenger is on a two-man shortlist to replace Jose Mourinho as Real Madrid manager.
Germany head coach Joachim Low is the other candidate being considered with Mourinho’s relationship with the players and club hierarchy deemed beyond repair.
The Portuguese, 48, said on Tuesday: ‘I don’t know if I’ll be at Real Madrid next season.’

Wenger turned down a move to Madrid in 2009 but the La Liga leaders feel they have a better chance of persuading him to leave north London this time due his struggles at Arsenal.

SOURCE: Daily Mail

By all accounts Real Madrid are feverishly looking to find an appropriate replacement for Jose Mourinho this summer and have earmarked a move to bring Arsene Wenger to the Bernabeu after failing to lure the Frenchman in 2009. One would imagine that out of the two man short-list that the La Liga giants have drawn up the Arsenal man would be the preferred option given Joachim Low’s lack of club football management experience.

51 year old German national team coach Low has very little top level club experience, indeed other than a two year stint at Stuttgart in the late 90s and a season in Turkey with Fenerbache the former Freiburg midfielder has barely made an impact in the club game but has flourished as a national team coach.

Wenger may well feel that the time is right to leave Arsenal and after what could well become a seventh year without silverware, the Gunners may not fight all that hard to prevent the former Monaco man from moving to Real Madrid.

According to the Daily Mail Mourinho has reacted badly to recent abuse from his own fans after news of a row between the boss and defender Sergio Ramos and an earlier run in with keeper Iker Casillas was leaked to the press. The former Chelsea boss has come in for quite a lot of stick from the Spanish media and this has led many to believe his days as Real Madrid boss are numbered.

Arsene Wenger may be deemed the perfect man to take over at the Spanish side as they look to bring in an experienced boss who can help battle Barcelona for domestic and continental dominance.

Real Madrid sit top of La Liga but have lost to their arch rivals in both La Liga and Copa del Rey action this season.

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1) The game has changed and Wenger hasn’t

Arsene Wenger is a genius when it comes to unearthing young talent, for spotting a relative unknown and making him into a household name. Arguably these skills and qualities are from a bygone age when this model of squad building was a cost effective one. However the game has changed. Even when scouting a teenager in today’s market a Premier League boss will still need to fork out a small fortune to land a starlet who may or may not prove to be the ‘real deal’.

As the Premier League, and football as a whole, continues to evolve has Wenger fallen behind the times?

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Watch as Arsene Wenger, in first his post match one on one and then the press conference following the Man United defeat, attempts to justify this decision to take off youngster Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.

Wenger répond aux sifflets des fans d'Arsenal by evidenceprod

So in case you missed them. Here are his excuses.

1) He points out that he must have made x amount of thousands of substitutions and some of them would not prove popular. This is of course true but you’d be hard pushed to find one that he has made over the past 15 years at the North London club that drew such scorn from the Gunners faithful.

2) He admits that that substitution turned out to be the ‘wrong’ one, the thing is everyone could see that bringing on the hugely ineffective Arshavin at that particular point in the game was either going to restrict Arsenal’s forward momentum, or as it turned out, lead to a Man United winner as the Russian failed to track back and made a ‘non-challenge’ on Luis Antonio Valencia that led to Danny Welbeck’s goal.

3) Wenger states that Oxlade-Chamberlain was tiring. Well that’s just not a buy-able excuse. The teenager’s last act before being subbed was a sumptuous run and lay off for Robin Van Persie. If that was the act of a tired player then the Arsenal boss must have hoped his entire eleven were knackered.

4) Wenger says that Oxlade-Chamberlain was sick during the week. Again this holds no water. That excuse would presumably have ruled the youngster out of the game entirely. He had managed to put in a marvelous performance for 70+ minutes, did the sickness only then just hit the player the second after his top notch assist?

5) Wenger ends by trying to make out that because Andrei Arshavin is the captain of the Russian national team his decision made sense? Well firstly if Arshavin is the captain of the Russian national team isn’t it about time he showed more interest in the game? The 30 year old winger has been off form for over 18 months and is frankly a player that Arsenal can not afford to count on any longer.

What do Arsenal fans think about the decision to sub Oxlade-Chamberlain?

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Perhaps the most disheartening aspect of Arsenal’s seventh Premier League defeat of the season, that came at the hands of newly promoted Swansea City, was that the loss probably failed to surprise many of the club’s ardent following. A season that started in woeful fashion appeared to be on the mend up until a month or so back when Arsene Wenger’s side hit their collective self-destruct buttons once more.

For the North London side to essentially lose to a side that plays the game using the same brand of free-flowing, free-spirited ‘total football’ as the Gunners do will have been lost on no one. Swansea City pretty much beat Arsenal at their own game and this is further evidence that an alarming number of Wenger’s squad is not able to play to the levels expected of a side pushing for a top four finish, let alone a side hoping to end a six year silverware drought.

Having lost big name first team regulars like Cesc Fabregas, Samir Nasri and Gael Clichy in the summer, Wenger opted to bring in replacements that were arguably not up to the task of filling pretty big boots. Perhaps the Frenchman’s stubborn refusal to fork out big sums, or perhaps his board’s reluctance to fund such moves, led to signings that simply don’t adequately replace those who left the Emirates Stadium?

As well as new arrivals failing to make an impact there are also a number of players in the Arsenal squad who consistently fail to deliver and arguments about ‘transitional’ periods don’t wash with players who have been regularly ‘flattering to deceive’ for two or three seasons.

Here are eleven such players who Wenger must consider offloading. Players who need to take a long hard look at themselves in the mirror and question their lack of desire, ability, character or in some cases all of the above.

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As the January transfer window approaches, rumours of Thierry Henry re-joining Arsenal on a short-term basis continue to gather pace. Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has publicly ruled out January moves for Gary Cahill, Yoann Gourcuff and Lukas Podolski but has failed to do the same with regards to a move for the club’s all-time leading goalscorer. In fact, in the past week he seemingly revealed that he was seriously considering the idea. “Short term is ideal for us,” Wenger stated, before adding “I haven’t made any enquiry yet.”

Of course, Wenger has previous form for such a move. Sol Campbell and Jens Lehmann have both been brought back to the club on a short-term basis in past seasons and when you consider that Campbell had been plying his trade for Notts County and Lehmann had been retired from the sport entirely, Thierry Henry would be a more logical signing than either of those seemed at the time.

Henry has been training with Arsenal since the MLS season came to a close and as a result the move is perhaps less of a gamble than it seems at face value. Henry’s fitness levels will have been monitored thoroughly and Wenger is best-placed to make an assessment of whether or not Henry still has the sharpness to compete at the top level in the Premier League. Reports suggest that Henry has indeed impressed during his time at the Gunners’ London Colney training facility with Martin Keown recently speaking of how the Arsenal players have struggled to get the ball off him.

When the idea of a loan move for Henry was first reported, many scoffed at the idea, dismissing it as a move based on sentimentality rather than practicality. Sentimentality towards Henry has been a theme of recent months. In the summer Arsenal attempted, and subsequently failed, to have Henry play the second half of the Emirates Cup fixture against the New York Red Bulls for the home side rather than his current club. More recently, Arsenal unveiled a statue of Thierry Henry outside their stadium.

Others were much more harsh, dismissing the idea as being stupid. Why bring back a player who, at 34 years old, is undoubtedly past his prime? Shouldn’t Arsenal be looking towards the future rather than turning back to an old familiar face?

However, logically, the move actually makes a lot of sense. Arsenal are set to lose Gervinho and Marouane Chamakh as the pair head for the African Cup of Nations and Arsenal are already short of cover for captain Robin Van Persie, who will need to be rested on occasion if he is to get through the season without suffering an injury.

Henry played a role similar to Gervinho’s during his time at Barcelona and can also provide cover for Van Persie’s central striker role, as his diminishing pace has forced him to play a more predatory role for the NY Red Bulls in the past couple of seasons.

While Henry is undoubtedly past his prime, he still has a lot to offer a club, especially as a back-up striker. He may not be the rapid striker of ‘The Invincibles’ days but in the MLS season just passed, Henry contributed 14 league goals in 26 appearances and weighed in with 4 assists. The level may be below that of the Premier League but he still offers a genuine goal threat and would also give Arsenal a different option from set-pieces, especially direct free-kicks.

The old footballing cliché is to ‘never go back’. However, in recent times there have been examples of players returning to previous clubs and being successful. Lukas Podolski returned to FC Köln and seems far happier than he ever did at Bayern Munich. Juan Roman Riquelme won several trophies after returning to Boca and of course the previously mentioned return to Arsenal for Sol Campbell was a relative success, with the defender putting in some calm and assured displays for the club.

There is also the notable example Henrik Larsson’s brief spell at Manchester United in 2007, after which the Swede won a Premier League winners medal, as evidence that strikers in their mid 30s can be of huge benefit on a short-term basis.

The move may well be based as much on sentimentality as practicality but perhaps that isn’t a bad thing. The return of the club’s greatest ever striker would create a buzz excitement which is arguably much needed at the club if they are to push Spurs, Chelsea and Liverpool for a top 4 finish.

Time will tell whether the move happens and to what degree it is a success, but Arsene Wenger was astute in bringing Henry to the club in 1999 and it should come as no real surprise if a short-term loan move for the same player proves to be equally astute in 2012.

Jason Mitchell

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After six seasons without silverware and with recent talk of a possible Arsene Wenger departure in the summer it seems that Arsenal are in a crucial period of their recent history. The North London club have lost big name performers over the summer and arguably need more competent replacements than have been purchased.

The Gunners also have a number of current players who need to step up a gear and help steer Arsenal back into the limelight and out of the dark.

Here are ten men who will be crucial to the club in the coming months and years, men who have the ability to make Arsenal title challengers once again.

10. Karim Benzema

In many ways the perfect striking foil for Robin Van Persie and a player Arsene Wenger has targeted for some time. The former Lyon man is by no means first choice at the Bernabeu and may be tempted to consider a move to the Emirates Stadium in the summer.

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