Have you ever seen Wenger so angry?
By Avenell Dave
It is so hard being an Arsenal fan these days.
We send a fortune on tickets, we live on memories of the recent past and we yearn for the club to compete in the manner that a club of size should.
We have all the ingredients to win trophies regularly.
We have the infrastructure and, dare I say it yet again, a pretty damn good team. When they want to be.
But we lack heart. We lack conviction. The players lack fear that their status at the club may be in jeopardy if they do not perform.
Would Andrey Arshavin, the forgotten man, have been any worse than Gervinho if given the same chances?
And yet the Russian, frustrating as he can be, has been discarded and will almost certainly never play for us again.
It shows that Arsene Wenger can be ruthless -and he has to be now more than ever if his legacy is not to be tarnished and we are to compete at the level which he made us accustomed to.
Wenger was defensive, tetchy, argumentative and lacking all his usual charm at the pre-match press conference on Monday and to a certain degree, I don't blame him.
While he must take some of the blame for the defeat to Blackburn, the fact is, we DID have a full team of internationals playing, who should have been capable of winning the game comfortably.
If the stories of a contract extension really are just mischief making - and let's be honest, the media may well be making trouble given the continual crisis they position Arsenal as being in - then Wenger ahs a right to be angry.
If the fact that the team was kept in the dressing room for almost an hour on Saturday is true, he has a right to be angry.
But with Bayern coming and no doubt baying for blood, Wenger has to transmit that anger onto the players and get them fighting.
During our most successful era under Wenger, we had a record number of bookings and red cards.
As those bookings became less frequent, so did our competitiveness.
Now the last thing I want is for us to become a dirty team like Stoke but we need some nastiness, some winners, some bite in the side.
At the moment only Jack Wilshere provides that and it's not enough.
Let's hope that Wenger's fury, taken out on the media in a way I don't think he has ever before, is the sign of a man who is up for the fight, who is reminding the players that their futures are at risk if they do not improve and fight for every ball in every match.
Bayern is a massive game. We cannot lose but even if we draw or win, we need to do more to arrest the malaise that has infected the club.
Let's hope Saturday was a watershed moment. We have hoped for that so often before. Something has to change.
For now, victory and a clean sheet against Bayern is the bare minimum.
Addict XI
Sagna Mertesacker Koscielny Vermaelen
Arteta
Walcott Cazorla Wilshere Podolski
Giroud
David Alexander
Reader Comments (4)
No Cazorla??? I think you'll find that Giroud will start on the bench...
No Cazorla?
At last a sensible look at our predicament. first the team tonight. I would play Kos left back and Vermy in his usual spot. I would play 4-4-2 and go for them from the start. If the usual ( under AW) happens and we give away a goal, then we have to go gung ho as per the Barca game. I would also include Arsharvin on the bench for the last 20 mins. He can finish Gervihno cant.
Now the state of our club:- I read recently an old article in one of my old AFC books by George Graham in which he said that 'the fear that teams have of coming to Highbury nowadays is that they will never score. so any goals we get are going to be almost impossible to get back. We have a philosophy that says dont give away goals and you dont lose'
Now its obvious to real Gunners that in the second half of AWs reign he lost the fantastic 6 that GG left behind. It is no coincidence that since the last one retired we have won so little and are so brittle. Arsene is a Barca lover....he wanted to convert us from Power and tough defenders to pure Dutch type football.......sadly he never had the defence to to support the great forward six's he created time and again. You would have thought that one day he would look at just the stats and the answer would hit him between the eyes ie; dont give away goal and you dont lose!
I love Arsene but he has shown an arogance towards Gunners who know a bit about football and tried to advise him of the facts he was ignoring. But thats him. He has been great for AFC, but he has this flaw and it has cost us pride and trophies.
The board is a sad mishmash of 'Im OK Jac,k public schoolboys, who have made millions selling their shares to foreigners who never invest. The 'look how clever we have been attitude re; the stadium is galling.....why did they not approach Usmanov for the funding and not the banks? Why did they not have a capacity of 65K plus? Why did they not build a new station beside the new ground just for match days?
This board is and should be in banking....they have no concern for AFC as a living thing that it is to us Plebs. After the latest farce whilst we are trudging home on foot and but plus tube. They are in the directors lounge having a champers and chips. No idea of the outrage out there at all.
IF in an ideal world, I had just one chance to affect the future of AFC I would appoint a GG character for defence coaching and buying policy. He would have one objective to set up a UK & European scouting team to bring in only class defenders. They would from 10 years of age be taught the art of defending and passing. A group like Dixon & Adams would be my choice using GG old tactics.
it will n ever happen, so we have to live in hope that AW seees the light and buys a world class goalie (Szcezney is a good backup only) and I would have replaced him with Jack Butland by now anyway. I would pay through the nose right now for Cheillini and Ceasar. I would have beaten Manure to several Arsenal supporting players they now have on their staff and barely used.
Most radical though I would have the biggest cut price sale of all the dross we have here and loaned out around the world and re build using brits.
Why should any A.K.B. be upset at a rumour that Wenger would be offered a two year extension ? You should be elated, overjoyed. That's what you all WANT isn't it ? You ( still ) DO, don't you ? Two more years ? Ha-ha ! Where will we be in two years time if this were to happen ? Playing in the Europa League, then mid table mediocrity.
" In Arsene we rust."