Wenger slammed by rival boss for Arsenal title blunder

It looks almost certain now Leicester City will beat Arsenal, and everyone else for that matter, to the Premier League title this season, after Sunderland became the latest team to fall victim to Claudio Ranieri and his players. In fact no one but the Gunners has managed to get the best of the Foxes on the pitch but Sam Allardyce did not want to talk about his own failure today.

Instead The Mirror reports that the Sunderland boss chose to stick the boot in on his old touchline rival Arsene Wenger by suggesting that the trophy should really have been coming Arsenal’s way in May after the struggles of Man City, Chelsea and Man United opened the door.

Allardyce said, “A normal season would have seen Leicester, having the season they’ve had, maybe finishing in the top four, which would have been miraculous.

“But they’ve had an opportunity that, without any doubt, Arsenal have missed. Leicester have taken it and Arsenal have lost it.

“We were all talking about, ‘What a chance for Arsenal’, with their squad, their players.

“They were going to take advantage of the Man City, Chelsea and Man United slip-ups and win the league. Up to now, Leicester have shown everybody how to do it.’’

There is no love lost between the two Premier League manager’s but it is hard to disagree with these comments, even if you accept that luck and injury problems have been against us and for Leicester. I just wonder what the Frenchman will make of what his rival says.

Will it make him more determined to do better next time and give Arsenal every possible chance of the title next time? Or might he even start to reconsider his own position and avoid all this criticism?

Tags Allardyce

14 Comments

    1. it is the best chance we have had for many years and we did not take it, for me that only confirms that wenger and do the job he is being paid to do, they are wingers players all of them and he can’t motivate them, there are still to many players walking around that are getting paid silly wages that should not be at the club, everyone can see it but wenger, so for me he should go followed by a good few players, get in a new hungary manger and let him bring in some new blood, we can’t do much worse than what we have done last few years, before people say we get into europe each year you are right but realistically do stand any chance of winning europe ? NO CHANCE with what we have

  1. As ‘the grand daddy’ of epl I think Wenger looks a foolish sitting behind Tottenham and Leicester. Tottenham are chasing two titles at the moment. Finishing above Asernal & epl trophy whilst Wenger fights for his usual.(4th position trophy).

  2. That was what everybody was thinking about. How it was a great chance for us to win. We blew in three bad patches.
    1, in November I think we failed to win one game in that month(SPurs, WBA, Norwich 2pts/9).
    2, in January to February (Chelsea, Liverpool, Stoke, Sot’on 3pts/12),
    3, obviously the March meltdown (manu, Swansea, SPurs 1pt/9).

    If we had taken maximum in one of those patches we would’ve been still been in the race and much closer. SO we basicly had three great chances to stay in touching distances but failed on all three occasions.

    1. It wasn’t our title to lose. First, it was Manchester City’s title to lose. They were neck and neck with us around Christmas. They threw it away first, then we thought it was ours to lose, but back then we failed to appreciate that Leicester were still out in front and weren’t going anywhere.

      The title was never ours to lose. We just thought it was, when really it was Leicester’s to lose. Thinking it was ours meant we didn’t have the drive to hunt them down for it.

    2. Think it was the last patch that hurt most. We all knew we had such a great chance at that point, and most of the players with the notable exception of Joel Campbell, turned up looking like they couldn’t give a damn.

  3. Meanwhile fat sam takes his team down to the championship. Sunderland were dire yesterday.

  4. This season is over so far as I’m concerned. Nothing to play for. Can’t be bothered joining in the whining about Wenger, it’s depressing and won’t achieve anything. I’d rather interest myself with the prospect of the summer transfer window…

    Once again, doesn’t look like we’ll be getting a world class striker. Ibrahimovic isn’t an Arsene Wenger signing, just can’t see it happening, not to mention his wages… Aubameyang doesn’t want to come here, he wants to go to Madrid. Madrid may very well buy him, who knows. That could displace Benzema. Can’t see us signing Benzema either after last summer + his supposed blackmail fiasco. Wenger likes ‘nice’ players. Who else is there? I can’t really think of anyone… Honestly, I’d take Lukaku, but Everton would demand crazy money so it’s probably not worth it. On the other hand, not sure I can handle another season of Giroud.

    Do we need another winger? I’m not sure. I would say yes, but I wouldn’t want to block Iwobi’s path..

    That leaves the defence… And my god do we need improvement here. Gabriel is a squad player. Mertesacker isn’t good enough. Koscielny is good but he’s a secondary centre back – good at his job, but not a leader to marshall the defence. If only the club would go in aggressively to get Mats Hummels… A man can dream I guess…

    1. Agree improving defense is probably the best path considering that Arsenal will not commit the funds it would take to get a world class striker on board like Ibrahimovic or Aubameyang. They could more easily make the defense champions league quality with two or three high quality signings, then go for a striker like Lukkaku, I think Lukaku would raise the level of the strike force, and a stout defense would eliminate these embarrasing goals that we give up. would be a big improvment.

  5. I agree – if we could get one class centre back, it would be great…. Now why wouldn’t 250 million in the cash reserves see to that?

  6. Sour grapes for Sam after losing. Funny how everyone blames Arsenal for letting Leicester go with the title but I don’t get what is wrong with that. The whole EPL hopes were in Arsenal eh? Leicester were by far the most consistent team and it looks like only Wenger broke their code (which is simple, stay back, hoof the ball and hope Vardy has to beat only one defender). Ranieri is just applying the old Italian concept by deceiving you think you have the upper hand and then strike you with devastating effect. SAF would have eaten him alive because if there was one thing he could do was to break Italian teams in UCL. It is not really difficult to beat Leicester (and to prove my point see when they will play UCL) as Arsenal proved twice this season. All you have to do si to keep a compact shape and hand them their game to themselves. It really baffles me how teams didn’t got it so far but props to Leicester, they had it right. There is no undeserved champion, you are champion or not. If they will win it then congratulations to them.

  7. Many people want a CF but it’s not realistic knowing how stubborn our manager is. So why doesn’t he plays Sanchez as our no 9 ??! He’s way better, has the skill, pace, work rate and finishing, all he needs is a little more discipline in that role and he may be the +25 goal striker we’ve been waiting for, he carried Barca when Messi was injured so I don’t see why he’s not being used as a striker ahead of Giroud.

  8. I do not believe that Leicester are top by sheer luck.
    They play well and capitalize on their strength and hide their weakness very well.

    We seem to over rate our team sometimes. If we have not won a league for 12 years, I do not know where we got that ratings from. I love my team (Arsenal) but I am not blind to the truth. We are NOT good enough for this title yet.

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