Sunderland 2 – 0 Arsenal: Wenger suggests that he’s unable to tell us the full story
February 19, 2012
I just don’t know where to begin this morning.
I really thought we would see a reaction from the team yesterday after the disaster that was Wednesday night. But if anything we put in an even worse performance.
We were terrible. Disorganised, shapeless, lacking in quality all over the pitch but most disturbing of all we were absolutely gutless. It was a shameful performance. In the position that we were in with our backs to the wall playing for our last chance for a trophy this season against a team we’d beaten the previous week we should have come out and given everything. We should have swept them aside.
In fairness it looked like we might do just that. We started really well. We were quick, the passing was crisp, we were making chances, Gervinho looked dangerous down the left. We showed that we can play a bit of football. Unfortunately we only showed it for ten minutes.
Coquelin’s hamstring injury was a gut punch. Mainly because it meant the unfortunate introduction of a man I didn’t think we’d ever see again in an Arsenal shirt. Sebastien Squillaci. My heart sank. As I’m sure did those of many Arsenal fans and apparently most of the players too. All of a sudden we looked terrified. And terrible. It can’t be easy reshuffling the pack after just ten minutes of a cup tie but let’s be realistic. Johan Djourou and Sebastien Squillaci are centre backs by trade. They weren’t playing out of position. No excuses there. This is their job. Their livelihood. And they’re paid extremely well to do it. But it was like they’d never played there before in their lives. They were all over the place.
Giving the ball away, failing to track runners, no sense of communication. At one stage a long hopeful ball was floated down the middle of the park towards an unmarked Squillaci who missed his header by a good three feet. It pains me to say it but that’s inept.
Questions need to be asked about why that man is still at the club. He’s clearly not trusted by the boss and his performance yesterday seemed to suggest that he’s got an attitude problem as a result of that. To be brought on in the tenth minute and substituted just after half time is embarrassing. The coach later claimed he was injured but the way he stomped off down the tunnel I’d wager there was more to it than that.
If there’s a problem I can understand that. He’s not fitted in well at the club and that can lead to resentments and further loss of form. These things happen. What I can’t understand is why we couldn’t trade him in in January. That’s pretty much what the transfer window is there for. He could have gone off and made a career for himself at another club, we could have signed Cahill or Samba or frankly any number of centre backs who would jump at the chance to play for a club like Arsenal and we could have had for a few million quid. Instead we kept him and handed Djourou a new contract. Baffling.
What was equally concerning about our performance at the back was how incapable the rest of the team were to regain their composure. I thought that wobble might last ten minutes or so. We never got back in the game. We were chasing shadows and we barely produced a chance to speak of in the entire match. You can point to the RVP penalty shout if you want, and Wenger unsurprisingly did in his post match presser, but that was a 50-50 at best and to start blaming refereeing decisions after a performance as poor as yesterday’s is missing the point by a country mile.
We’ve talked and talked about the quality of the squad and whoever’s to blame for that we know there’s nothing we can do until the end of the season at least. What’s more of a concern at the moment is the manager’s inability to get a performance out of the players he’s got. As I looked at Wenger standing motionless on the touchline yesterday I couldn’t shake the thought that there’s something we’re not being told. Something has gone behind the man’s eyes. He looked a deathly shade of grey. He couldn’t even muster the energy to rant and rave. I’m honestly worried for the man.
The post match press conference was agonising. A cold eyed stand off with the members of the press who used to gather in the hope of a razor sharp quip from this cultured Frenchman about sausages or caviar or how we all believe we have the best looking wife at home. But that Arsene Wenger is long gone. Yesterday he was quiet, sullen, refusing to be drawn. He trotted out some lines about how unlucky we were, how harsh the schedule has been, how ‘we gave everything’. Well come on now. You could see he barely even believed it himself. He just needed something to say so he could get out of there.
One reporter dared to ask if there would be questions over his job as there were following the 8-2 at Old Trafford. What was his position on that? ‘There is no position’ he replied and just stared the journalist down until the next question was asked.
The most telling exchange for me came when he was asked if he was surprised that there would be no trophies for the seventh year in a row:
The competition is very hard in England. I don’t want to speak too much about that. If you want we can speak a long time about that one day but we have to forget that and focus on our next game.
It’s not the first time this season that he’s suggested that there are things he’d love to talk about but is unable to do so at this time. Things that presumably he’ll only be able to share when he’s not manager of Arsenal Football Club. Either because they would compromise his ability to do his job effectively or because they would be critical of those that he works for. Either way, as I’ve said before there is something we’re not being told. For all the mistakes he has made, and there have been many, and regardless of the fact that at times his decision making and his tactics leave a lot to be desired, Arsene Wenger is not a man lacking in passion for football. And yet here he is unable to muster enough anger to so much as abuse a water bottle.
Roy Keane’s made headlines this morning for his scathing commentary on this Arsenal team who he described as the worst side he can remember us ever having. But then he also lambasted us because some of our players were wearing gloves which apparently ‘sends out the wrong message’. I’m not sure what message that sends out other than that it was cold out. But of course ‘real men don’t wear gloves’.
Clearly that’s the sort of wisdom that served Keane so well throughout his own illustrious career in management. It’s a timely reminder that no matter how bad things get, or how frustrated we may all be with Le Boss, things could always be a lot worse.
Well I have to hold on to some kind of solace this morning.
If You Liked This...
Comments
9 Responses to “Sunderland 2 – 0 Arsenal: Wenger suggests that he’s unable to tell us the full story”
Leave a Reply
We (the supporters) can all see the problems, and we have seen them for many seasons now. Surely Arsene can see the areas where we are sadly lacking, but for some reason year after year he fails to address them. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m beginning to wonder if it might be time for Arsene to step aside.
Wenger has implied hidden problems before. I have long thought that the referees give us a very hard time. To hear that almost all of the referees actually come from more Northern parts of the country and I don’t think any come from London is interesting as well. Still, I think Wenger genuinely thought that we should have had a penalty for a foul on RVP in the first half, but the replay suggested Webb called it correctly.
I didn’t see the 2nd half, but it looked to me that we were just outmanouvred by Sunderland on this occasion. They have some pretty good players, and were highly motivated on the day, so well done to them. Still, it made it easier that they scored a lucky first goal (technically an own-goal, I’d have thought), which allowed them to sit back and counter.
The truly baffling thing about Squillaci is that he just doesn’t seem able to judge headers any more. It’s inconceivable that this is a problem he’s had throughout his career, as there is no chance a defender with such basic inabilities could have ever got near the French national team. He is clearly preoccupied and I’m sure has no real interest in playing for Arsenal any more. His signing made sense at the time, and he just appeared to be an experienced defender who would provide solid cover at the back, but it just hasn’t worked out that way. Noone who knows the career he has had would have thought he could have been so poor. Cygan, at least, was not an international, and his lack of pace was evident immediately, but still he was infinitely better in an Arsenal shirt.
Djourou is a player who has everything he needs to succeed except in his head. Physically and technically there is little difference between him and someone like Vincent Kompany: pace, strength, height, jumping/heading, control, passing – he can do it all, but he seems to want too much time on the ball, and lacks the aggression to make the most of his natural abilities. He had a run of games last season where he looked like he was really getting there, but he took another step back following his shoulder injury and hasn’t looked half as good this season.
“I have long thought that the referees give us a very hard time -*and that this is what Wenger is referring too*”
Problem is simple. Try buying a world class player for under 10m nowadays. It’s not as easy as it was and while you have a clueless board saying “no 10m for one player is far too expensive” all you’ll end up with is more Squillacis.
Agree on all counts mate,spot on.
yea i always knew there was somethng we weren’t being told. Now i know. Wenger’s family’s being held by the russian mafia who after falling out wit usmanov have decided to sabotage arsenal. They’ve given him the following conditions for the safety of the hostage family
1. Don’t get quality players
2. Do your best to drop team morale
3. Waste club resources on fat contracts for poor players
4. Sell your best players replace with inferior quality
5. Run the players you have to the ground in training so they can’t give much in d real thng
6. Dnt reward any player who mistakenly comes good with good contracts, put that money into the contracts of poor players.
7. Press the board to pay wenger massive salary &if they don’t want to, flirt with phantom suitors like psg, madri
Stoopid. Squillaci was withdrawn due to injury. Stating otherwise reveals ignorance and petty hatred for the player. At least Squillaci has the excuse of not being played often. Djourou was the worst of the pairing and should never see the pitch again.
Best analysis I have read of Djourou, he had some fantastic performances lasy year, can tackle, heads the ball with real power, needs too mch time on the ball but can make a telling pass, remember the one to Walcott against Swansea? Look it is pretty simple, it is about money, 35 million gets you Carroll in Britain, we cleaned up on the African and French market 10-15 years ago because we had by far the best contacts, thanks to Wenger, now all the top 6 are waving thei chequebook around from Mexico to Madagascar. I tink Mersaaker is a better defender than Cahill, KOscielny certainly is. We will have a great squad next year if we can keep VP but do you know something we have had the best of him already, he will never repeat the last six months again, great player, good guy but that kind of thing happens once or twice in a career.
Sack the fool.