Arsenal boss right to play down bad blood with Stoke?

Arsene Wenger has this week tried to play down the bad blood that has existed between Arsenal and Stoke City ever since that horrible and potentially career ending tackle on Aaron Ramsey by the Stoke defender Ryan Shawcross. That was back in early 2010 but the animosity between the two clubs has never gone away.

To say there has been an extra edge to the games between us since then is a massive understatement and while Shawcross has never been forgiven by us, or by Ramsey for that matter, the Stoke fans have vented their fury on Wenger and the victim of the challenge himself for supposedly `milking´ it.

But while Wenger accepts that there has been an issue, the Frenchman has also tried to draw a line under it by suggesting, as reported by the Evening Standard, that he and his players will be treating the clash this weekend as just another game, albeit a tough one for the Gunners. Wenger was also careful to applaud our opponents for their qualities.

He said, “They have always had good teams and overall when we go to Stoke they are always specially motivated against us. There is history a little bit because of what happened and overall lit was always very difficult for us.

“For me there was never bad blood, it was just a game that was always very difficult for us to play. But I always focus on playing football and trying to get my team to play as well as we can.”

With Mark Hughes introducing a different style of play to the Potters and with Shawcross not available due to injury, perhaps this is the best possible time for the Arsenal boss to try to calm the waters. If the game was at Stoke this would have no effect but if Arsenal can rise above the animosity for our home game, then perhaps the gesture will be reciprocated at the Britannia Stadium and maybe that is behind Wenger´s comments.

He also said, “At home we have done quite well against Stoke. Sometimes we have problems at Stoke. They are team with a good culture of the Premier League, they know how to behave and they have experience.”

It is a nice thought by the Frenchman and shows a bit of class, but I would not hold my breath expecting the Stoke fans to tone down their usual behaviour. Is the boss right in trying to end the feud?

Tags Ramsey Shawcross Wenger

14 Comments

  1. Lets forget about the bad blood history between both sides, and let our main focus be to play well and get that all important 3 points!

    1. Yes. Or OX

      Don’t want to see Ramsey on the right
      (Or Ozil/Cazorla on the left)
      Had enough of that nonsense

      Walcott and OX are perfectly good RW

  2. Forgot about what happened five years ago , start remembering why we should bag the 3 points instead!

  3. Forgive & forget the bad blood? Hunh! Who caused the bad blood to rise in the first place? Ryan Shawcross caused it to be flowing, didnt he? And the potters and their fans have since then embraced the bad blood as a tool to always humiliate the Boss and the Gunners at the Britannia. Have the Stoke FC and Shawcross ever apologise to AFC and Ramsey? They hadn’t, had they? The only way to stop this bad blood from continuing to flow, is for the Gunners to collect all the potteries from the hands of the Potters as they arrived in North London and break them to pieces tomorrow at the Emirates Stadium pitch and later at the Britannia this season. This action will deny the Potters having any access to collect food & water to eat and drink. And thus, the Gunners will mould the hungry and thirty Potters for now by: AFC 5-0 SCFC Full Time 90 +.

  4. For tomorrow, I see us playing this –>

    Giroud
    Sanchez Ozil Ramsey
    Cazorla Coquelin
    Monreal Gabriel Mertesacker Bellerin
    Cech

  5. I’m inclined to agree with Wegner on this. The “bad blood” between Arsenal and Stoke is a bit of an exaggeration. The fans haven’t forgiven the tackle on Ramsey but the games hardly have any extra edge to them, in fact they follow a pretty predictable pattern.

    Stoke get walloped at the Emirates and then Arsenal get bullied at the Britannia. The onl reason it seems as if there’s any edge to it is due to the fact that Arsenal of recent iterations were uniquely susceptible to physical teams, more so than Chelsea, City.

    Bar anything unforseen I don’t expect any different tomorrow

  6. Get rid of the dumb
    teams like Stoke.
    I’d rather a 16 team
    no relegation summer league
    running mid Feb to mid Oct.
    Play 30 games that’s plenty.
    The NFL has only 16 regular season games.
    Play Euros and World cup in Nov

  7. Yeah he is right to do so.
    Less nerves to the guys if he plays it down.
    Although it’s his duty we all know that image of ramsey is still in all of our minds….difficult to the fans to say it’s just another game imo

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