Arsene Wenger has come under criticism for his Arsenal team selection for yesterday’s defeat to Manchester City. The French manager opted to make some changes to his usual team for the tough trip to the Etihad yesterday, and following defeat, there was always going to be criticisms where the selection is concerned.
The Gunners are set for ridicule whenever they are unsuccessful, and had he fielded his usual XI and lost this would be no different, and despite his side not being expected to win, he has come under criticism,
Wenger decided to drop record signing Alexandre Lacazette to the bench in favour of Alex Iwobi yesterday, a very controversial move, and a move that could easily have come good in the second half.
Lacazette came off the bench and scored, putting us right back into the game, and had our opponents not been given that offside goal, we could well have gotten a point if not more from the match-up.
Wenger has defended his selection for the encounter, claiming his side were unlucky not to have gotten something out of the match.
“Yes, he was superb and when he came on he gave us another option,” Wenger said.
“But even in the first half I felt that it was more a case of providing better support up front. That was our problem.
“We were always in the game and I believe honestly we were really unlucky.
“It’s very difficult to swallow today. I’m very, very disappointed.
“We needed to be solid. We knew that we had to survive some moments where they had the ball and overall I felt that was alright.
“But we respected them a little bit too much maybe for 25 minutes in the first half and then the second half when we came out we looked always convincingly dangerous.
“I felt that sometimes in our final ball we lacked a bit of touch or accuracy and we could not transform enough situations we had to score.”
Did Wenger’s selection prove itself to have enough to get at least a point out of the game? Were we unlucky?
Pat J