
Arsene Wenger
By Rachid Parchment
How do, just a quick blog today.
Arsene Wenger in a recent interview has shared his thoughts on why Arsenal will not end up as Premiership champions this season:
“I expected to be first. If you look at our last 18 games, we are not far [away from there]. And if you look at our last six games, we are first.
“I believe that we had a bad start and something was not right on the psychological side of the team. We lost a little confidence at the start of the season. And if we had beaten Hull at home we would have been top of the League. Maybe we were a bit too complacent. But we learnt because we are a young side and since then we have been remarkably consistent.
“Before the season I knew there would be a hangover from the disappointment of last campaign. We did fight very hard but I believe as well that we had to rebuild the midfield.
“It was not only those psychological reasons. We had to find a balance again because we lost Hleb, Rosicky and Flamini. We lost three or four midfielders, we did not have Arshavin yet and we did not expect not to have Rosicky.”
Okay Arsene, fair enough. One thing though, please tell me why whenever we win important games you’re the first to say how mature this team is and how great their character is, yet whenever we lose to teams we shouldn’t have, such as Fulham, Hull, Stoke, Man City and Aston Villa you contradict yourself by saying the team lacks maturity? What we lacked at the beginning of this season was a proper leader. At the start of the season Gallas was the captain and he was more focused on himself than on the team. As such he wasn’t focused on the goings on on the pitch such as when we conceded the goal to Fulham. It happened because he never committed himself to the marking his man on the corner kick and didn’t put up a challenging header and Almunia was beaten. It was Gallas’ self centered ranting that caused him to lose focus on what matters most – his performance and team results. It’s this that led to a poor start to the season and to our not gaining enough momentum early to push for the title. Contradicting yourself much?
Why is it you still cannot have the maturity (which you vehemently and repeatedly claim our young squad has) to raise your hand and accept blame where needed? Why is it that you have said it’s because we lost Hleb, Rosicky and Flamini why we started the season so poorly, yet you conveniently ignore the fact that it’s your responsibility to maintain and improve the depth of the squad but you chose not to sign a replacement for Flamini?
Middlesbrough preview tomorrow. Take care.
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