Premier League Weekend Review: The worry over Wenger's sit-down strike

Arsene Wenger as we normally see him . . . but on Saturday at Stoke he stayed in his seat

Arsenal are 13 points off the title pace and stuck in sixth with fans arguing over whether manager Arsene Wenger should call it a day. Ralph Ellis saw worrying signs for his future in the defeat at Stoke...

It is eight years now since the radio phone-ins used to grumble on every Saturday night about Alan Curbishley. You'll recall the constant complaints from Charlton fans: "He's taken us as far as he can"; "The football is so predictable"; "He's been amazing but it's time for a change".

These days, it's Arsenal supporters making the same moans about Arsene Wenger. And just as I used to wonder why the Valley faithful didn't understand Curbishley was all that was keeping their club in the top half of the Premier League, I've always thought the Gooners should also be careful what they wish for.

That was until Saturday. For the first time I'm beginning to wonder whether it really is time for Wenger to step aside and bring 16 incredible years of wonderful football and fantastic achievement to a close.

Everybody takes it as a given that, however many problems Arsenal suffer during a season, they will always end up with a top four finish. It's what happens, and they are 1.618/13 to do it again. But after watching them lose so miserably at the Britannia Stadium you have to ask if this might be the season it finally doesn't happen. Impossible? We thought that about Liverpool and Manchester United too.

It was bad enough that Arsenal were so scared of playing at Stoke. Horrible that a side full of wonderfully talented footballers couldn't fancy the challenge of heading away a cross or two, or putting a foot into a tackle. What got me was that Wenger himself appeared to have become tired of the annual ordeal of visiting the Britannia Stadium.

His feud with Stoke fans began the year Tony Pulis first brought them into the Premier League, when Arsenal lost and he congratulated the Stoke staff before going home and moaning about the physical style of play. It got far more bitter a year later after the Ryan Shawcross tackle that put Aaron Ramsey out of the game for months.

Every season since, Wenger has faced a barrage of abuse. The fans mock his accusation that they are a rugby team by singing "Swing Low Sweet Chariot", and jump up and down waving their arms in scornful imitation of his touchline complaints at referees.

But the thing is, however passionate and loud it has got, it has never been nasty. Nobody has ever tried to physically attack him. Stoke's fans have never stooped to the depth of disgraceful personal insult that West Ham and Spurs supporters among others have sung at Wenger from time to time.

Yet on Saturday he stayed in his dug-out for the whole 90 minutes. When I asked him about it in the press conference, he offered the sarcastic reply: "They love me so much here I did not want to give them an opportunity to show me that love."

Sorry, but that is not good enough for a Premier League manager. If his normal way of working is to be up and down off his seat to encourage his players, that's what he should be doing, regardless of the crowd. He should be able to blot that out and do his job. Saturday was time to be up and leading his troops, not staging some sort of sit-down strike.

The painful truth of Arsenal's defeat at Stoke was that if the manager was too scared to get off his backside, you couldn't blame the team for being the same.

Curbishley's answer to being a divisive influence among the fans was to walk away with his dignity intact and see how they did without him. It might just be time for Wenger, three year contract or not, to do exactly the same.