It is press conference day ahead of tomorrows crucial Arsenal v Chelsea clash at the Emirates so Arsene Wenger has been having his usual questions from the media. Other than being a vital clash in our race to reach the Top Four this season, it is also our first game of the winter transfer window, and as always the questioning comes around to what will happen to our two great contract rebels, Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil, and whether they will still be with us at the end of January.
First of all, the boss was asked if he had received any offers for his two stars, and he responded: “No, we have not been contacted by anyone.”
Then he was asked specifically what he would do if he lost Alexis, and he said: “This club has lost many big players and responded well.
“But you want to keep your best players.”
So will Arsenal be doing any business in this transfer window? “This will depend as well on the players out of contract in June.
“We have to take that and respond to it.
“We have not lost them yet and [if we do] we will respond by bringing in players of top quality.
“We have not been contacted by anybody.”
That is a brave statement from Wenger, especially if Alexis is sold this month. Where will he find another player of Sanchez’s quality and persuade him to move to Arsenal this month? And how many trillions would such a player cost? Would he really sell him now?
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Kroenkes puppet says it in a way that makes it seem like we have a squad full of exceptional players.
Bull$##t promises from a has been manager.
reddb10,
Couldn’t have said it bettee myself. The old deluded fool is up to his old tricks. Empty promises and a team that is going backwards on the pitch. They could.sing anybody they want , until Mr Potatoe Head is gone it won’t make a difference.
A promise is a comfort to a fool
what is brave about this statement …. a brave statement would be even if ozil and sanchez stay we are at least 3 top quality players short of the clubs above us in the EPL and leading European rivals and i intend to fill that gap…. this is just more of the gallic pseud`s bs to keep fans on board … 2018 has to be the year that wenger goes or the club will end up like AC Milan living on past glories in mid table oblivion
All i hear and see here is more riddlescoming out of his mouth ,just move them on and sign some players ffs .31st of jan will come and it will be the same crap as it is every year .
Here he is trying to lie to us again. ???
If Ozil and Sanchez are replaced by Lemar, Draxler, Goretzka, etc, I think most fans would be very happy. Let’s see whether Wenger keeps his promise on getting back to Lemar or not.
I said theother day…
he ll replace Alexis with…
…Ramsey!
He says a lot of things…. but how often does he see it through!!
We already have top quality players. They will feature tomorrow against Chelsea, Iwobi,Niles ,Chambers, the underperforming Bellerin,etc, etc etc, etc
Two phrase that I hate to hear from:
1) Wenger: ”top quality”
2) Fans: ”winnable games”
Looking forward to Wenger sgning a new contract and put y’all to shame.
One Arsene, Yes , you are clearly the current Arsenal manager himself and therefore the lunacy of your comment surprises no one. No one expects anything remotely sensible or true to ever come from his, which is yours, deceitful and lying mouth.
I know, I know, I’ve turned a new leaf, now I set up my team to adapt to the opponent, I don’t even play with my zip no more, and I quit throwing ’em water bottles.
I hope to god he doesn’t leave it till the last day of the window & then panic buy! Come on Arsene get on it… we need players!!!
Injured Swede incoming I think
Hahaha !!!!
It’s the same nonsense every transfer window again and I honestly don’t understand how people still buy into it. Yes we may sign someone but will they be the high quality Wenger talks of, no chance. We have the money but not the owner/manager willing to spend it and we are not the pulling power we once were, we’re not in the champions league (and unlikely to be next season) and we’re not in with a chance of winning the league so why would a player of real quality want to sign if we’re not offering huge money? Best hope for us is to get some decent players with potential but I do not believe Wenger has the ability to turn them into better players anymore.
Well said Simon. Top quality players like Xhaka,Mustafi and sad to say Kolacinac? ask yourself honestly have these acquisitions improved the team?
The reality of it is each of those and others were/are players that could do a job for us but all seem to be regressing, we needed those players and they all came with good reports so that’s poor coaching nothing else. We’ve got a manager who can’t coach, can’t set a team up, can’t spot a player but has literally thousands of excuses ready to hand, that says it all for me. I honestly wouldn’t let him spend a single £ now, let the next manager have it to spend.
The next manager you’ll be appointing, right? You really overestimate your powers, don’t you?
Did he say he was appointing? No he didn’t.
He is right though, to allow the incompetent old dinosaur to spend money on players is a waste. If he bought Messi he would play him right back and if it was Neuer he would be played in midfield. No let’s get rid of the senile dinosaur first.
your incompetent dinosaur has won SEVEN fa cups , an HISTORICAL RECORD
How many champions league winners medals does he have then
So what, he has won a 7 game competition 7 times. Last year was the only time in 12 years he had to beat 2 top quality teams to win it .We have received soft drawers in the FA Cup most years as well . I’m 22 years he has won 3 league titles and not since 03/04 , no Champions Leagues. That’s what he should be judged on not cups.
Also at the half way point off the season we are 23 points behind the league leaders and you want to talk about 7 FA Cups . Who cares mate mate we are going steadily backwards every year.
@pires The FA Cup is a 2nd rate tournament for 2 reasons:
1) it is a tournament where the squad players are given a run out rather than the 1st choice.
2) It is only over 6 games and you can be lucky over such a short period. This was proved in our run last year.
a) Preston (Championship Team)
b) Southampton (Sothampton dropped 10 1st players)
c) Sutton (Non league Team)
d) Lincoln (Non league team)
e) Man City (good victory but we did benefit from dodgy referee decision)
f) Chelsea (again good win but against a team that had been partying for a week)
So as you can see the FA Cup is no measure of your quality as a team. The measure is the league and the Champions League.
I overestimate my powers? No Arsene you overestimate yours, “I can convince Sanchez to stay” “I can convince Mbappe to sign” ” we can challenge for the league with two of three more players” didn’t go well did it.
Just what planet do you come from?
Yes – obviously they have
How are his comments “brave”??
What he basically is saying, is,
1) that he (the club) now have no control of what happens to the 2 biggest stars in our team
2) If they decide to leave, he will bring in replacements
In other words, at best we will have status quo.
In theory, we still have a chance of top 4, but one of our rivals (Liverpool) have already made a significant and focused strengthening of their squad. That shows ambition and intent and can be characterized as “brave”.
Wenger is just going to continue as if everything is OK, when we clearly are sliding further and further away from being a top club.
Will not be getting my hopes up this transfer window, regardless of what Wenger says, for every quote us fans want to hear, there’s a tired old excuse of why he didn’t. Every year the same I am only looking for top quality and then I couldn’t find anyone better than we have.
If he was brave he would be proactive instead of reactive, a lot of our Jan transfer buys are down to having a player injured, no sorry must of our Jan transfer buys was forced due to injured players. Other managers see this window to try and better there team in areas they think need help, Wenger sees it as a hindrance.
Are we mad, can nobody sitting on the arsenal board see we as a club are in decline,prices for players are going up up up, surely it would be wise to invest on 3/4 players now before wenger leaves the club and keep our good players, in 18 months time I can see defenders going for a hundred million , midfielders for hundred and fifty, and strikers for 200 million, in the long term it will cost arsenal more for players, fans will stop going to games which is evident now, and season ticket holders will not renew . Price of arsenal shares will go down as well. So can anybody tell me what the hell is going on at arsenal?
Well said! Some insight into even the near future is , apparently and judging by most comments, given to very few on here. To me it is VERY clear our club is fast heading for a regularly half empty stadium, and mid -table mediocrity and those who do come will be mainly tourists. That is unless we make a complete change at once and begin listening to the REAL FANS who are 90% fed up to the teeth of Wenger and his lies, deceptions and sheer incompetance. There is no evidence at all of proper forward planning and all Wenger EVER does, is react -usually by moaning – at the latest “catastrophe”, be that insufficient rest days between matches, injuries, poor refs or bad luck. In life , not merely in football, there are those who make their own destiny and prosper, and those who get battered by events and” bad luck” but who have never given thought to actually planning for that to happen. It is what we all call insurance. If you have insurance and a boiler breaks down or a burst pipe floods the house, then you can quickly make good the problem. BUT if you choose not to have insurance – like selling Sanchez and Ozil while they still had proper financial value and using the money to bring in someone keen to play for us – then you pay the price , in things going from bad to disastrous, which for Arsenal they have. Most of our fans have long wanted Wenger out, as we could all see the “broken down” team or the “burst” hopes, based on lies from the club, Gazidis and esp Wenger but the idiot and hopeless board chose to do nothing and leave us uninsured. Two years ago, Guardiola let it be publicly known that he wanted to manage in England, but our board left us uninsured by retaning Wenger and even giving him a two year extension. We could and should have had Pep. He actually coaches intensively and one to one and thus improves players. We , instead have an old, senile , fossil who thinks all coaches are long vehicles for travelling in rather than improving teams. My dear and valued(though NOT by our club) fellow Gooners, this is where we are heading; some see it clearly, others refuse to even look and so see nothing. Unless we enforce vital and clear out style change by a campaign of force and disobedience on social media , and by demos at the ground with banners and anti-Wenger chants, we are lost, never to win the title again. At least not until honest and honourable people run our club.
Apart from thr ridiculous One Arsene on this thread , who is clearly a new escapee from the asylum for the insane, all want Wenger out. But most also want some other action by him in the meantime. Fair comments but I prefer to concentrate on the only thing that matters, which is Wengers probable sacking in May when we finish many points behind the fourth team , probably Liverpool. Last season we only lost out on goal differecne to them but are now 6 points behind with the Chelsea game in hand. I firmly believe the gap will only increase and in May, we will be at best 6th, but way behind 4th place and thus miss CL for the second year running. There are changes happening within the set up among decision makers and even Josh Kroenke wanted Wenger out last summer, not to renew his contract. THIS TIME we need as low a finish and as much chaos as possible to ensure Wenger is forced out, sacked. Surely, if Wenger stays, which 4th place would probably ensure, we continue to rot. Even when we were regularly getting 4th place, it just meant an early CL exit in last 16 and more of the same inept playing, so achieved nothing and never can while Wenger remains. I URGE YOU ALL TO BE GLAD TO FINISH AS LOW AS POSSIBLE AND YES, WE ALL KNOW THAT GOES AGAINST ALL NATURAL INSTINCTS. BUT IN THE STATE WE ARE IN , WE BADLY NEED TO USE OUR HEADS, NOT OUR HEARTS. This means being glad when we lose points. Just until his sacking in May. If we don’t do this we are actually helping and in effect hoping he stays another awful year, on top of all the other dreadful ones. Surely we all want and deserve better than that. I know I do. If you thumb me down and do not want what I say to happen, you are actively harming the club you purport to love.
speak in your name please jon
So then Pires, you seem to think that no one agrees woith me. Why not read the mountain of comments from hoards of Goioners who do? And then read your lone voice comment , disagreeing. If you choose to face the truth, as you do, constantly , then fine. But do NOT stop me from including in my comments the vast majority who clearly think as I do. You only need read all the posts, it really isn’t difficult!
Absolutely agree with you Jon Fox even if it does hurt to say you actually want your team to lose – a team I have supported for 61 years. It is an absolute tragedy that Wenger will not now be remembered for his enormous influence and achievements for his first 8 years or so but he has now had more than ten years of regression, deceit arrogance. Of course he has won the FA Cup on numerous occasions but that is won with 6 games on each occasion. Many of those games against lower division teams. It is just not on to compare FA Cup wins to winning the league. In evaluating Wenger you have to consider the resources available to him, The 7th richest club in the world. I don’t believe thst any other set of fans of any other club would have tolerated what we have endured, especially over the last 5/6 years. I am really, really sorry but Wenger has to go ideally with Kroenke too.
Thank you so much Tdg1944 and of course we all hate to lose in normal times , since to do otherwise is unnatural. But we are not in normal times; we are in Kroenke and Wenger times, of dishonesty, lies, deceit and gross incompetance, which you have brilliantly outlined. Some people actually believe the 6 win FA cup is equivalent to the 38 game league but most know the truth. I have thought long and very deeply about what is the best and possibly only way to rid our club of Wenger , and eventually Kroenke too. We need even more chaos , to fall further and further behind thr top four, as we are now doing. Watch it all kick off in or outside the ground against Wenger if we lose to Chelsea as I believe we will. For the lgreater good , I actually hope we do. The many thumbs down I am now sure to get will show you what obstinacy and lack of vision we are up against from SOME fans.
I hate to pile on the agony but we do need to see the wider picture when evaluating the current situation. One of the things about which I am proud as an a Arsenal fan is as follows. Man Utd and Liverpool both won many of their titles in a concentrated period. Arsenal however accumulated their titles over several decades. A marvellous record of consistency. In fact, Arsenal have been champions in every decade since the 1930’s with the exception of the1960’s (a period of management changes). That includes the truncated decade of the 1940’s. Consequently if Wenger remains at Arsenal and does not win the title by the 2018-19 season he will mar a fantastic record. That would be a great shame.
Most arsenal fans would agree that the problem is kroenke and his poodle wenger, once upon a time great players where excited that a club like arsenal came knocking for there services now they close the door smack in our face,the spirit and soul of arsenal is going fast,the board and wenger must go and the only way is the fans must force these saboteurs OUT
Wenger should just resign
you will bring whom in his place harry redknapp???
Do you honestly believe that Wenger is the best manager to take our club forward?
Find a remplacement for yourself, i don’t see anyone. Maybe Henrique
Honestly, if Wenger went tomorrow ancelotti, in the summer Alegri, with additional coaches like arteta, veira, van bronckhorst. We forget how highly Wenger is paid, for that reason alone the job is attractive to managers. We also forget that Wenger was a left field choice when he got the job, Wenger has been great for us but arsenal has been great for him, we’ve given him a seat at the top table which he wouldn’t have had at grampus 8.
Hope you aren’t saying Wenger is irreplaceable. No one is indispensable. Wenger must go.
Hmmm, my son’s grade 3 teacher is quite terrible and incompetent, I want my son to fail his grade and repeat a year so his teacher can get the sack, its just for a year…sane logic lol.
A wrong and irrelevant analogy. If analogies are to be used , as I often do myself, they should be accurate ones. Firstly, your son is far more important, than any football team to you, I must assume and hope. And his long term education and future life prospects depend on yearly progress, onwards and upwards. A football club can quickly recover with the right HEAD TEACHER in charge and the only danger to an underachieving football team is in loss of reputation , with consequential loss of long term support and thus a downward spiral. EG , Villa, Leeds, Forest and many others. No true comparison with your son at all. Just thought I would take the time to refute your inaccurate analogy.
whiching” your” team to loose to sack the manger is a very nihilistic manner of supporting
can you then be sur that your successor if you can ,Jon, choose one be succesful when you see liverpool since wenger is there change seven or eighth managers without become,basically, better than ARSENAL
It is impossible to get a worse manager than the dinosaur. I mean what is he good at?
1) Tactics – these are often bizarre in the extreme
2) Motivation – We have seen for years that he cannot inspire playes on a weekly basis
3) Defensive coaching – The deadful defensive errors we see all to regularly aswer that one.
4) Offensive coaching – Nothung special here as he is stuck in the past trying to be a cut price Barcelona of 10 years ago with his tippy tappy football which lacks incisiveness.
5) Talent spotter – Variable on this oe. On the plus side Cazorla back in 2011 on the down side Xhaka, Gervinho etc.
So what is he good at appart from BS’ing the fans.
I think keeping Sanchez was a mistake, i was in support of it but his head is not in the game. A Lemar might have had more impact than him..
Quality Players My Axxxx he buy two one legged one eyed has been’s and try and pass them off as Quality Players. The Man would not know a Quality Player if he stood in front of him Wenger has lost this ability.
Like the 2 players this article is about!
Arguably the best 2 players we have