This article is a submission for the Arsenal Latest writing competition; to participate, please read the details here.

Written by David Gold

Allow me a moment to reverse the meaning of one of Shakespeare’s most famous quotes fellow Arsenal fans of the blogosphere. I come here to praise Arsène Wenger, and not to bury him, as so many have seemingly sought to do in recent weeks.

There remain those staunchly loyal to our all seeing emperor, the ‘Arsène knows best club’, but their number has diminished rapidly. There are those, like the kind folk who bring out a smile on the face of Adrian Durham just after 5pm on a weekday, who have become so disenchanted with what is going on at the Emirates that they have actually been cheering on our opponents. They want the frugal one fired.

I suspect I am among the majority, somewhere in the middle, who whilst despairingly trawling Twitter in search of evidence that Wenger is going to get on with it and buy someone, cannot ever see themselves being able to actually call for him to go.

Let’s pause to reflect on some of the criticisms of our club, and Wenger, in recent times, and consider their validity. There is one thing that irritates me more than Arsenal’s dithering in the transfer market, or a referee giving non-existent penalties at crucial moments in a game to decisively turn them away from us (hello Kevin Friend, Mike Dean). It is that so many of us have been swept along with the media frenzy to bash Wenger and the club that we have ignored what is so fantastic still about Arsenal football club.

Wenger in the transfer market

I’m going to start with one of the most irritating themes of debates around Arsenal, that is Wenger’s transfer dealings. Dithering he may be, but what planet are those who say he has lost it in the transfer market living on?

Have these people heard of Carl Jenkinson? Plucked for barely a million pounds from Charlton just a couple of years ago, and already showing that he is a player capable of performing at the highest level. Laurent Koscielny was brought in from Lorient for pittance, and is now one of the best defenders in the league. Was Aaron Ramsey superimposed at the Emirates by a benevolent overlord, or did Wenger scout, sign and develop him?

Theo Walcott, Santi Cazorla, Mikel Arteta, Olivier Giroud, Per Mertesacker, Thomas Vermaelen. None of them bought themselves. And sure I don’t personally know a huge amount about Yaya Sanogo, but then I do know a lot more about him than I did at the time about some Spaniard we bought almost a decade ago. Cesc something or other. Spare me the Wenger can’t pluck talent like he used to. Such a belief is more blinded than many accuse Wenger of being.

For every Henry there is a Stepanovs

Sure, you’ll now point out Marouane Chamakh, Gervinho and Sebastien Squillaci. And you’d be right as well – but this is hardly evidence that Wenger has somehow ‘lost it’. Remember Christopher Wreh?  Francis Jeffers? Richard Wright? Igors Stepanovs? Google Alberto Mendez if you’ve forgotten him.

Recently Arsenal have been bidding for Luis Suarez. The owner of Liverpool, John W Henry, asked what was being smoked at the Emirates Stadium. Whatever it is, it certainly wasn’t as strong as what he was smoking back in 2011 when sanctioning a £35 million move for Andy Carroll.

For some reason, Arsenal are constantly attacked for things others get away with – and as Gunners fans we are all too easily cowed into the ‘bash Wenger and the board’ mentality the media try to push us into. It’s time to stand up and defend our club.

Arsenal set trends for wider football community

Sure, we haven’t won anything for eight years. It is very easily forgotten that we didn’t win anything between 1998 and 2002. Back then, it was just Manchester United in our way. Now it is Chelsea and Manchester City too. For me, this is evidence that Wenger hasn’t lost it – if anything his problem is that others have sought to copy our style.

In the Premier League today, almost every club seeks to play our style of football. Whether it is wilful conversion, like Swansea, reluctant like Stoke, once we were the only team seeking to play neat pass and move football on the floor, now it is almost every team in the Premier League. Where Wenger made us the first team with a proper global scouting network in the country, now every team has one. We were ahead of the times in physical and dietary preparation. Now everyone else has caught up.

Sure, I’d quite like us to win something too, but why do we never get praise for having led the way in English football? Manchester United may be the most successful team of recent years trophy wise, but we have been the trend setters of English football, we have been its modernisers. Arsenal and Wenger more than anyone deserve credit for making the Premier League what it is today. These innovations that have come in weren’t Alex Ferguson’s ideas – they were Wenger’s.

Outdoing the billionaires

Now, this may be a controversial point, but I actually believe genuinely that our achievements in the last few years are greater than those of Manchester City or Chelsea. They have spent close to a billion pounds over the last decade each and last year, Chelsea scraped home ahead of us by two points. Manchester City were not far ahead of them.

I genuinely ask, what is more impressive – spending unlimited funds to buy the world’s best players and finishing second or third in the league, or losing your best players every summer, building a brand new stadium and continuing to compete on a par with the billionaire backed.

We have also managed to consistently produce arguably the most entertaining football in the country. Who saw Chelsea close up at Old Trafford last week, scared of defeat? Arsenal under Wenger would never accept a draw. Why are we not more proud of this?

Let us not forget – Chelsea have yet to build a stadium that will enable them to thrive financially, whilst Manchester City were lucky enough to have one built for them for the Commonwealth Games. For what we have spent, few can match us in Europe. That is of course what is so frustrating about Wenger’s spendthrift ways – imagine if he did open the chequebook for once, we could overtake these teams. But that valid point should not take away from Wenger’s achievements in recent years.

I’m sure there are Arsenal fans cursing at their screens and wondering which of the club’s executives asked me to pen this article. But in response to those finger wagers, let me conclude with this. Maybe I have missed the point and am wrong. It is possible. But I’d rather be wrong than line up with a knife to dig into the back of the most important man in Arsenal’s illustrious history.

Latest: