Arsene Wenger insists he’s still the right man for the Arsenal job, which is fine and all… but maybe he should consider asking himself these questions before insisting that he’ll honour the remaining season of his contract.

Is he helping Arsenal by staying?

Wenger always said that if he felt he was no longer helping Arsenal, he would leave. From the outside, it’s easy to label the idea that the Frenchman could bounce back from the team’s current crisis as crazy or delusional, but Wenger is a man who does just that.

Year after year, the 68-year-old has dragged Arsenal from the depths of mediocrity and forced them to somehow finish in the top four.

Until last season. Last season was a turning point. Although there are has been a sector of Arsenal fans who have wanted Wenger gone for almost a decade, the majority then began to join them.

While there are very few fans who hate or even dislike the boss, frustration is growing because he seems to believe he can help when he no longer can.

“Am I still the right man? Yes, because I’ve done it before,” Wenger said after Arsenal lost 2-1 to Brighton. “I believe a quality of a manager is to try to shorten a crisis. I believe I can do that.”

In 2017/18, more Arsenal fans want Wenger to stand down than ever and that’s because we’ve all come to the same conclusion: it’s not the lack of financial clout and therefore players or squad depth that’s hindering us. Arsenal have broken their transfer record twice over the last year – money is no longer an excuse. It’s Wenger. He’s the common denominator, the man who can’t motivate his own players and the one standing at the heart of almost every decision the club makes.

I understand though, from his point of view, why it might be hard to see that he’s no longer able to help this struggling, anxious side. For 22 years, he’s managed to. But he needs to ask himself whether he is helping any more… or the opposite?

Is he doing more harm than good?

This leads me to the next question Wenger should perhaps ask himself. By stubbornly staying and continuing to run the team the way he currently is, I find it hard to imagine that the situation won’t get worse. By staying, Wenger could be causing more harm than good.

What Wenger can’t seem to see, or won’t admit, is that the players, for whatever reason, aren’t playing for him. They’re not just playing badly, they look like they don’t care. When professional athletes do that, just like with Claudio Ranieri last year, it often means they’re trying to force a change. In this case, it looks like they’re trying to force the club to sack Wenger.

Although I find that pretty disgusting, since they’re still being paid by Arsenal and should at the very least have a go for the fans if no one else, this is only going to get worse if he stays. If Wenger can’t even manage to snap the players out of their funk and motivate them to turn up in the League Cup final against Manchester City at Wembley, there’s no way he could coax them into actually playing well for the rest of the season. Apparently, pride isn’t a big deal for these players.

The longer this continues, the harder this ‘blip’ in Arsenal’s history is going to be to overcome once someone new does come in. If Wenger ends up staying until the end of his contract next year, he really needs to consider that he’s doing the club he purports to love more harm than good.

Was signing that extension instead of bowing out really the best idea?

Wenger doesn’t strike me as a man that ever has regrets. He’s too much of a philosopher and, while I doubt he subscribes to the spiritual notion that everything happens for a reason, I imagine he believes that you learn from your mistakes, which means regrets don’t really exist to him.

Still… he’s got to ask himself: was signing that two-year extension at the end of last season really the best idea? Should he not have just bowed out gracefully after beating Chelsea in the FA Cup final?

When Sir Alex Ferguson left Manchester United in 2013, he left on a high. It was the right time and he knew it. Apparently, the right time for Wenger was years ago but he can’t bring himself to admit it.

Signing the extension was a bad idea and he missed his chance to leave with his head still held reasonably high. Fine, Arsenal had failed to finish in the top four and people would know this would be one of the reasons behind him stepping down, but there wouldn’t have been nearly as much animosity towards him. There’s no shame in admitting enough is enough.

Although fans have been asking for Wenger to leave for years, that extension last year was the final straw for many. Fans simply can’t understand why the manager would be rewarded after last term and why he would genuinely still think he had work to do. Sure, he won his third FA Cup in four years but, if you pan out from the celebrations at Wembley that day Arsenal beat the champions, you’ll see a far bleaker picture of a club that used to win titles, losing their mind over winning a cup final because it’s the only thing they had to hold onto.

Is pride or fear worth more than the club he loves?

Wenger loves Arsenal and, while he’s a brilliant man, he’s still human. I therefore have no doubt in my mind that he’s terrified of leaving the club behind, doesn’t really know what he’ll do next and doesn’t want to either.

Despite the state of the club, it feels like he’s gripping on by his fingernails and it’s sad to see, because it’s embarrassing. When he speaks to the press about still being the right man for the job, despite Arsenal struggling against just about every team they encounter, it makes fans cringe.

In 2016, Wenger admitted that he was scared to leave Arsenal, saying, “It’s been my life and, honestly, I’m quite scared of the day. 

“The longer I wait, the more difficult it will be and the more difficult it will be to lose the addiction.

“After Alex retired and we played them over there [at Manchester United] he sent a message to me to come up and have a drink with him. I asked: ‘Do you miss it?’ He said: ‘Not at all.’ I didn’t understand that. It’s an emptiness in your life, especially when you’ve lived your whole life waiting for the next game and trying to win it.”

Therefore, you can understand why he’s finding it so hard to finally say enough is enough. Plus, there’s the issue of his pride. The man is stubborn and the idea that there are people out there who are right about him no longer being up to the task of managing Arsenal probably kills him.

But he needs to put this to one side. If he really does love the club, which I truly believe he does, he has to realise that his fear over leaving the job he’s had for almost 22 years is nothing compared to the emotions he’ll feel if he takes a step back and realises he’s ruined his legacy.