Mertesacker slams the Arsenal players (including himself?) – And the ref of course…

Per Mertesacker was our hero in the FA Cup Final against Chelsea last season, and he was called up again for Arsenal’s first defence of the trophy we have won for the last two years. But today he was extremely unimpressed with the Gunners reserves and he thinks they did not try hard enough to show that they could win a place in the Arsenal first team, in fact he was very scathing of his team-mates when he was asked about today’s performance. “It’s pretty easy. The manager made a lot of changes, gave a lot of trust to players who haven’t played a lot recently and I don’t think anybody justified their selection today. That sums it up I think.”

He was obviously not very happy, and carried on his criticism when he was asked if the team that was picked simply wasn’t good enough. “It’s difficult.” he replied. “In the first half we played in the park a little bit. We were not precise, especially in the final third. We couldn’t create a lot of chances. In the second half there was a little bit more spirit from ourselves, but in the duels you could see that they out-battled us and that little momentum never really changed.

He said that he thought the ref was wrong to allow the last penalty goal, but he admitted that the players did not turn up after being given a chance to show their worth. “When we scored to make it 3-2 and when he mis-kicked the penalty, obviously we expressed it to the ref but he didn’t listen. It’s difficult to take because for those players who played today, that was probably a last chance to show up and show the manager that they’re ready to play more games. It’s not the case anymore.”

We may now be out of the FA Cup, but we are still in the League Cup semi-final against Chelsea starting on Wednesday, and we are also in the Europa League, so he was reminded that there were still trophies that Arsenal can play for, but he was still unhappy when he replied: “Yes but we wanted the FA Cup. This feels like we had to defend it, but you couldn’t see that we really wanted to defend it. This round is always the toughest. You face a Championship side away and you need to be ready but for the majority of the game, we were not.”

He definitely sounds as unhappy as us fans, but as Wenger refused to talk about the disputed penalty that killed the game off, Mertesacker explained how he saw the situation and whether it should have not been allowed because Kieran Dowell slipped and touched the ball with both feet. “Yes [it was a double contact]. It would’ve been a free-kick for us.” he said. “You could clearly see it, that’s why we shouted to the referee. He didn’t have any explanation and that’s on him. They obviously spoke to each other, and nobody saw the incident. David saw it and all the players did too.”

The veteran German may not have been happy with his fellow players, but he himself looked like a long and lumbering defender that couldn’t cope with the Forest attack. surely he was as big a part of the problem as the others?

Darren N

48 Comments

  1. Everyday we will keep on saying excuses like referee,penalties,players but deep down we all know the problem is one ARSENE WENGER.

    The young guys on the board like josh kroenke and gazidis need to man up and sack wenger.i think its hard for the older guys to sack one of their own.

    Other news arsenal and mancity are negotiating transfer of alexis sanchez.

    1. Sad day
      Out of fa cup to lower league team
      And our talisman is leaving

      Day to forget.
      Team to forget

      Love you arsenal. end this cycle soon please.

  2. african footballers have very good stamina.
    people like victor moses,yaya toure and victor wanyama have insane stamina.
    even weaker ones like mahrez and salah run alot without tiring.

    iwobi is the opposite.i think he gets tired early in the game hence the dissapointing displays.cant even shoot.

  3. The Players did not play well but they always cover for Wenger. In his post Match Interview he had no excuse and when asked about Transfers all he said was “We signed a Greek boy.
    Boy being the Word not Man. Arsenal need Men not boys. Wenger Out.

    1. The players always cover for Wenger. They always hide. Its Wenger that sticks up for them and that’s the problem.

  4. Sanchez to City 35m, lets see who we waste that on. Personally, i wouldn’t spend a penny until theres a new man in charge he will need lots to change the whole club

    1. I hate to think…. probably some donkey who runs round the pitch like a headless chicken…..We already have plenty of those!!

  5. Get these disgraceful so called Muppet footballers (if they even deserve to be labelled footballers) out of the club.
    Send the so called manager with them.

    It is clear why Sanchez and Ozil want out.

    OX’s decision for Liverpool is starting to look pretty clever.

  6. Jonny Evans – ‘erm im good right here in W Bizzle. Sure it doesn’t have good housing or any shops you can buy decent **** from but lol you dudes got done by then **** from Nottingham. I think I’ll just wait see if Pep still needs me’

    1. Haha why would any decent footballer want to play under this muppet, they don’t.
      Only frauds will stay like walcott.

  7. Can’t we loan Iwobi, Chambers, Holding , willock, Niles out to a lower division?

    Iwobi might need to drop 2 divisions tbh.
    Maybe a loan spell back to Nigeria.

    1. Or , hopefully, a pemanent stay there SPINELESS AND LITTLE BOY PLAYER. We had just two players who earned there wages today, AM-N , esp, first half, and Ospina.

  8. How much more humiliation do we have to take before the board stand up and sack our incompetent manager and his assistants?
    On another issue are these young players who were out there today the future of a once great club then I fear for the future, we are in for a long period of trophy drought.That has got to be one of the worst teams to wear the jersey and one of the worst performances ever.

  9. Come on guys, this has become the normal state of affairs at Arsenal! I’m not so shocked at that pile if s**t today. It’s the usual same lack of fight, spirit and determination that shows Arsene is no longer the man to lead Arsenal. These players don’t work hard enough for him or the club. They have no pride or passion! Arsene Wenger has lost his touch and no one is accountable for failure. If that s**t happened at Man City that would be fired or benched. Not at Arsenal though, because this is normal..

    1. both calls were 100% correct ,nothing wrong with d two penalty,y always blam the ref wen our defenders don’t think.do u guys watch football.d second one was a tackle from behind and our defender fell d playing before touching d ball.while d first one ,even a blind man can clearly see it,d of problem we have is DAT our defenders are not smart and too slow to react.

      1. No one said the penalty calls weren’t correct. The question was should the second penalty goal have been disallowed as the taker touched the ball twice.

      2. Debuchy should not have gone to ground, it’s too risky the way refs are awarding penalties these days. However, if you get the ball first and your studs are not up, that’s a clean tackle. He clearly got the ball first and it simply would not have been called foul anywhere else on the pitch. You can see Debuchy’s leg is hooking around and he hits the ball with his heel before the ball bounces off Traore’s shin and then there is a bit of contact and Traore goes down rather dramatically. Not a foul. Still, Debuchy needs to be smarter than that.

        1. and whose fault is it,no motivation and there are players playing below expectation and yet Wenger continues to field them ,why ? because no competition for spot, if you have two good players in one position,d one playing will b fully awaere that if he doesn’t perform to expectation ,there is another good guy waiting to topple him ,hence d one playing is contious of DAT, then why allow contracts to linger on,get rid of unproductive players who ate on free salaries, walcot,iwobi,mattasarka, and buy players you can use,end carzola contract and channel d money elsewhere, too many leakages in d system,y waisting money for noting, all these is asene fault,he is the coach. no tactics at all,in Africa we are backward because of our failed leaders. if a country plunges into recession ,who do you blame,me who is s mere citizen? no rather d president,just as president buhari failed us in Nigeria ,Wenger out

          1. Damn right there’s no motivation, you can play sh*t week in week out knowing you’ll still be picked to play the next match! Those players should be made to fight for their spot in the team

  10. these guys are suppose to be civil servants not footballers, why pay so much when less is expected from them,in Africa were I come from, d worst set of workers are d civil servants, they don’t set target for them,laxity to work,non challant attitude yet there job is d most secured in Nigeria,arsene Wenger is a civil servant

  11. I still can’t believe the team he put out… as holders of the cup… he gave all our decent players the day off!!

  12. Why when every club is doing bad its always sack the manager. Nobody looks at the over payed players that are not putting in the effort and just walking around the pitch. The problem is our players are too comfortable. At the end of the who would buy our deadwood players

    1. The manager has a job to do and is accountable for picking the team. You think Pep would have any of that crap playing this Saturday? Wenger picked them and they sucked! He bought them too and they are not responding to his instructions. He has lost the players and the dressing room.

      1. Pep has an open checkbook. Players that don’t play well they get rid of them. We can’t afford to do that. How much has pep spent since he came there. Chelsea and utd do the same so stop talking ridiculous

    2. and whose fault is it,no motivation and there are players playing below expectation and yet Wenger continues to field them ,why ? because no competition for spot, if you have two good players in one position,d one playing will b fully awaere that if he doesn’t perform to expectation ,there is another good guy waiting to topple him ,hence d one playing is contious of DAT, then why allow contracts to linger on,get rid of unproductive players who ate on free salaries, walcot,iwobi,mattasarka, and buy players you can use,end carzola contract and channel d money elsewhere, too many leakages in d system,y waisting money for noting, all these is asene fault,he is the coach. no tactics at all,in Africa we are backward because of our failed leaders. if a country plunges into recession ,who do you blame,me who is s mere citizen? no rather d president,just as president buhari failed us in Nigeria ,Wenger out

  13. I think Burnley and Leicester must be thinking that they have a genuine chance of moving ahead of us in the league table.

    Here’s wishing for a miracle.

  14. Arsene wenger earns around 7M per year.

    he is third to guardiola and mourinho..even conte earns less.

    then he gives us all this mediocrity. ?

      1. He needs a couch a blanket and cup if ovaltine … Should have retired a decade ago with everyone having fond memories … Sad way to go but go he must … Arsenal are more than this guy

  15. I thought the fa cup was the cup Wenger gave it a good go in, so imagine the team he’ll play on Wednesday in the carabao cup ?

    1. He screwed up again Sue. He thought the gamble would work but it completely backfired again! The man is so damn oblivious it’s frightening!

      1. Arsenal season will be over on Wednesday all they will have to play for is 6th place at best No Cup this season. We are really going places with Wenger in charge.

  16. Why do most of our fans kick us when we are down. At the end of the day we are not city not Chelsea and not utd. They all spend huge amount of money pay massive wages. Liverpool spurs are in the same boat as us. At least we won 3 cups in the last 5 years. Spurs and Liverpool won nothing so why aren’t looking to sack their managers. Because they support their teams when their losing and winning. So at the end of the day if we win the Europa league which I think we will and get back into the champions league will you guys be happy. Probably not.

    1. Because he really took the piss with that team selection!! It’s almost like he wants us to lose!! It’s not like he thought he’d play a weakened team as he’d rather go for the league as surprise surprise we’ve screwed that up as well. So onto Wednesday with another take the piss team selection…. our reserve team are useless when will he realise?? We need new players when will he realise?? Yes Liverpool etc haven’t won anything for ages but at least they’re trying to put that right… buying players, fielding a decent team, have managers who motivate. You should get my point by now

  17. pls that my previous post is a reply to Larry, who says he can’t blame Wenger when the players don’t give thief best thanks .mistake

  18. As a life long Arsenal fan it pains for me to see Our beloved Arsenal play that bad?… shocking is an understatement, iwobi walcot elneny holding debuchy and even welbeck do not deserve to wear an Arsenal shirt, from henry berkamp viera pires keown bould adams and co with young players pushing through like fabregas we have come to giroud xhaka ramsey wilshere monreal mustafi chambers holding and shit players that happily sit on the bench collecting their pay packet that should be fighting for a spot like. Arsenal is screwed from the board to the players no ambition no fight no respect and no fear of fan backlash. I felt embarrassed watching that game today and no disrepect to forest a decent pub team would give forrest a much harder time thn we did today. Wenger needs to go and take his bold bast**d assistant with him. Bring in max allegri or diego simeone and then wagch thr players play for their life as they will not want to go in at full time knowing they will get skinned by the manager… wenger you lost ur style ur fire has been pissed on and it pains to see that your stubbornness has made you look like an absolute fool. Pack your bags and go before u make
    This a lot worse for yourself, no wonder why sanchez has been half out the door since last summer why would he want to play for this guttless Arsenal? Bet he regrets signing for us, a couple fa cups is all he has to show for it and years full of the same embarrassments by the likes of bayern and co… I Want The Old Arsenal Back… move to a bigger stadium and we will be a powerhouse they said, yh right all they was looking at was their own pockets and how to fill them instead of taking Arsenal forward. Use to be a time where we was genuinely fighting for the champions league now we are out of the running for the prem well before Christmas ? #RANT OVER… need to win on wednesday??

  19. Dear Arsenal fans.

    Stop cutting off your noses to spite your faces. It was a hugely disappointing loss, yes, but if we don’t support our lads it will affect our ability to get in the Champions League places. I’m accustomed to all of you having emotional meltdowns and believing in magical thinking that if we change the manager we’ll never lose another game and we’ll win every trophy instantaneously, but it is still aggravating to see people who are supposed to be fans turn on the team. Doesn’t matter which team you are, if the fans are awful it will impact the club–it will lead to losses, it will alienate talent, and it will make it more difficult to recruit better talent in the future.

    Wenger HAD to rest his first team players, they just came through a brutal run of games and they need to rest for upcoming fixtures. How would people feel if we played Ozil and Wilshere and Sanchez and then they got injured before a game vs. Chelsea? People would be going red in the face blaming Wenger for managing his players’ fitness irresponsibly.

    Holding has had very solid games against top level opponents in the past. Is it Wenger’s fault if he plays miserably this time? If you criticize the manager or the players, try to at least make sense. Mertesacker was right. All the players here were auditioning for first team spots and they basically all failed. They didn’t bring the focus or intensity required and they brought embarrassment on themselves.

    It’s terribly disappointing, but instead of imploding and fighting amongst ourselves like idiots, focus on the other cups we can win and on regaining our CL places. If we stay out of the top 4, the challenge for the next manager will be immense, so there’s no point in sabotaging the team you claim to support. If you are going to be a whiny defeatist little bitch and try to organize “protests” and “boycotts” and whatever other stunts that will undermine team morale, please change your allegiance to another team. We don’t need that kind of weakness here.

  20. Your comment about Arsene needing a coach You are spot on one taking him as far away from the Emirates as possible.

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