Arsenal should move on from Arsene Wenger and now is the perfect moment

“Unique” is one of those wonderful words that can be equally applicable as compliment and criticism. Joey Barton is unique. Luis Suarez is unique. Jose Mourinho is unique.

Arsene Wenger has taken to describing Arsenal’s current situation as “unique”. In this context, it is a synonym for disappointment unparalleled in his reign. “Unique” means the probability of finishing fifth, sixth or seventh. “Unique” means Europa League football. “Unique” means the sort of decline that has brought Wenger’s future into greater focus.

The paradox of the second half of Wenger’s reign has been that the more imperiled Arsenal have been, the more they have seemed to need the Frenchman. His brinkmanship of balancing the books while steering them into the top four, often by the finest margins, has made him the fiscally-sound choice – part football manager, part economist, forever walking a wire without falling off.

And then Wenger undercut the age-old argument for keeping him in situ with his comments after Saturday’s 3-1 defeat to West Bromwich Albion. Coming from him, they were unique. If Arsenal end up outside the top four for the first time in his reign, he said:

In short, Arsenal are primed to cope money-wise without Wenger. In some respects, he has done his job too well. They may not require him because he has insulated Arsenal against the shock of ejection from the elite. They have cash reserves of £100.5 million and no short-term debt. Even the growing probability Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil will leave comes with the likelihood that they would bring in further funds. Without Champions League football, Stan Kroenke’s asset would diminish in value, but not disastrously.

Wenger’s problem is that he has brought a realist’s view of economics to a surreal industry. It is easy to imagine him nodding sagely as he examined the 2008 financial crash. Lenders granting 125 percent mortgages to virtually anyone, banks exposed because they had too many risky investments? Of course the bubble would burst. Except that football’s has not.

Wenger presumed others would experience boom and bust while his constant carefulness would reap a reward. But Financial Fair Play has barely reined in the big buyers. The bottom has not fallen out of the television market.

The funding of the Emirates Stadium was predicated in part on an ability to remain competitive while spending less. Wenger did not see the billionaires coming, Roman Abramovich and Sheikh Mansour spent more and Arsenal were no longer title contenders. Wenger’s next model entailed consistent qualification for the Champions League to give Arsenal a fiscal advantage over those shut out of a private members’ club. Then Premier League rights went through the roof and Europe became more about prestige than prize money.

Wenger seemed a lone voice of sanity and stability amid unsustainability. Instead, there is now a market where Arsenal have fewer financial reasons to fear a Wenger-less future.

Liverpool had the ninth biggest turnover in world football in 2015-16 without Champions League football, and with a ground that, before the new Main Stand was built, had a capacity substantially smaller than the Emirates Stadium and with ticket prices that are considerably cheaper. It shows the Premier League clubs are awash with money: seventeen of them figured in the top 30 in the Deloitte Football Money League in 2014-15 and all 20 could next year. They all have spending power. It is not merely restricted to a select few, as it was when Wenger formulated some of his prudent predictions.

Manchester United contrived to post the sport’s third highest income in 2014-15, a year when they had no European football. A commercial behemoth may be an anomaly in some respects, but the chances are that Wenger has shared some of their savviness. Even when hiring such high earners as Angel Di Maria and Radamel Falcao, United’s wage bill dropped £11.8 million in 2014-15. Their players’ contracts were structured such that they were paid bonuses for being involved in the Champions League or, in that case, not.

If Arsenal have shown similar foresight and caution, their costs could be cut, too. Admittedly, there is the question if commercial contracts are conditional on playing the premier European club competition; United’s kit deal with Adidas is worth 30 percent less when they spend a second successive season outside it, just as there is the reality that they have forked out £500 million in transfer fees without restoring them to the pre-eminence Sir Alex Ferguson enjoyed.

Yet if United are the warning, they are also the example that super-clubs are so wealthy they can even weather poor managerial appointments. Their footballing fortunes were damaged by David Moyes and Louis van Gaal, their fiscal ones less so. Perversely, failures offer Arsenal an incentive to experiment. A financial apocalypse does not seem to beckon. Prudence is no longer a prerequisite of a manager.

United’s fanbase is bigger than Arsenal’s, and thus their revenue stream, but equally Arsenal out of the Champions League would probably generate more money than Tottenham in it, with or without Wenger. For years, it seemed too much of a financial risk to lose him. His idiosyncrasies, his uniqueness, were justified by the numbers. But while his on-field results represent the immediate issue, football’s economics seem to have turned against the economist.