Emmanuel Petit has claimed that the Arsenal players should take a long hard look at themselves.
The Gunners have lost their last two league matches including an embarrassing 4-0 defeat to Liverpool in which we failed to land a single shot on target.
Arsenal players have since come under criticism for their attitude on the pitch, and much of the blame has been shouldered by the manager, but Petit doesn’t believe that should be the case.
The former midfielder said: “When I see them play – and I see them a lot – they seem to play without motivation. The blame is put on Arsene, but I cannot see that it is all down to him. Why should it be?
“Why should a player need motivating to play for one of the biggest clubs in the world, in one of the best stadiums in the world?
“Some of them do not seem to know what it means to wear that Arsenal shirt.
“Their image from last season was that many players looked so disinterested. They get good money to play for a club like Arsenal. Yet, so few of them look happy and motivated. How can that be?
“Maybe they should take a step back and ask themselves what they can give to the club. Not what the club can give to them.
“Someone should sit them down and tell them not to act like babies and kids. They should be proud of wearing that Arsenal shirt.
“No one expects them to win every game. That is not going to happen. But there must be pride in playing for the club. The body language of players puzzles me. Yes, Alexis Sanchez is a warrior. He always plays like that.
“But many of those players do not seem to realise how lucky they are to be at the club. I just want to shake the tree and tell them how fortunate they are to play at a club of Arsenal’s standing. If Arsenal are to achieve anything this season, then the motivation must come back into the team – and the players have to be responsible for that.
“There is only so much the manager can do. But how can these players not motivate themselves to play? How is that possible?
“There will be motivation for some who have the World Cup at the end of the season. But you can not hope to go to a tournament like the World Cup if you are not in good form for your club.
“But that should not be the reason for them to play well. To play for Arsenal should be enough. That is what makes me so very upset.”
Do the players need to start earning the right to wear our famous red shirt? Does Wenger deserve some slack?
Pat J
But they just want the best payday. Some just do not care BUT the manager has his favourites so if Sanchez has upset the dressing room should he have gone. I also think that the comments they need Champions league football is a load of rubbish.
In any scientific experiment, there is always A/B testing by changing different inputs to see what effect they have.
We have not won the PL for 13 years the only constant in the equation has been Arsene -all the players have changed multiple times in those years.
So blaming the players, is akin to blaming 50+ people over the years to be unmotivated while one single manager is always right.
Arsene can not motivate a man with diarrhea to take a dump.
According to your logic, please explain how come Liverpool and Spurs aren’t champions of the league for so much longer… they sure had been changing players and coaches…
Even Man U have been suffering for a few years in the PL.
Just get behind the club.
COYG!
I dont think some of our fellow gooners understand why most of us want Wenger out, Its simple really, we have stagnated both on and off the field of play, we can no longer compete with the big boys, the recent humiliations include, Bayern in the champions League last season, Liverpool recently, the player contracts thats in a mess, missing out on champions league football, not wanting to pay 50million pounds for Lemar early in the transfer window, but offering 92 on the last day of the transfer window. Remember fellow Gooners what Wenger said “IF I FEEL I CANNOT TAKE THE CLUB FORWARD I WILL STEP ASIDE” well the train has stopped prior to him signing his two year extention, in actual fact we have started to move backwards.
Likewise, I don’t think some of our fellow gooners understand not all of the information from the media, especially during the transfer period, were true. It is simple really, the media fed the fans with rumours and pure guesses. We are constantly linked with at least 10 players at any given time and reports/ sources can tell us we have made some 5 bids already. Failing to realize they are nothing but rumours are really the source of transfer period disappointment. Manage your expectation and try not to take every piece of information as it is.
I’m not defending Wenger, but he’s what he did: paid off the Emirates, missing 1 season of the Champions League, hold the record of most FA Cups won, and the Invincibles. In the same period, I believe, only ManU (when Fergie was still boss), ManC (with the unlimited amount of cash, though we should really be thankful for them contributing a large chunk towards our payment of the stadium) and Chelsea (russian oil money driven), are more successful.
My point is, there are ups and downs in life, and guess what, it is the same with supporting your favourite club. It’s never as easy as in FIFA (Dybala was such a bargain and I can’t sell Gibbs in the game for as high as in real life). Don’t let the media break us, don’t just blame the coach and the players (and I assure you stupid protests won’t have any impact to the owners, it would make us look more like a joke). Get behind the team. Cheer for our players, make our stadium rock!
Ozil was probably right.
Stop talking, start supporting!
COYG!
Just blame the media and nothing else, I call that blind faith. The reason we have media and the open press is so that we can prevent another dictator from rising.
Its obvious you dont understand my logic, which is not surprising as you also seem to support Wenger, which means you have a brain cell deficiency.
Let me try to explain, in any experiment, you have to tinker with all the variables to be able to understand their effects in the results. The only variable that is constant in Arsenal is Wenger so unless we change that as well we will not know his effects on the experiment.
All the other teams are constantly tinkering with all parts of the equation to get the right result. We are the only ones that are keeping one part of the experiment a constant.
Also dont you tell me what to do – you moronic fool. I’ll support who ever I want to support how ever I want to support them so bugger off.
I wish we had players with the mentality of Petit or Bergkamp or Keown or Vieira. Guess we only have Sanchez who is a warrior like them.
Sadly though times have changed and football has as well. I think it is up to the manager to motivate and prepare his team. A manager like SAF would for that reason IMO cut out bad apples quickly and show his team he expected only the best for the club and no self-interest (RVN, Keane, Beckham, and others were quickly and ruthlessly dispatched when they were deemed a bad influence).
However, once a manager has lost the respect of his squad it is indeed only the players that can turn it around. This is why even top managers like Mourinho get sacked when it is obvious they have lost the respect of the squad as happened to him in Chelsea and Madrid.
The difference between Chelsea and Madrid is that those two organizations are goal oriented and pragmatic and had no appetite for a philosophical debate on whether the players should be proud to play for Chelsea or Madrid or not. They fired Mourinho and hired two new managers and went on to win more major trophies.
It really does not matter whether our players should play hard or not. If Wenger has lost the squad and can not get them to play with the passion he should be replaced as he would be at any other big club. The problem has been we don’t act like a big club.
Whilst big clubs talk about winning big trophies and the absence there of, we talk about our values and what we stand for all the while dropping in what we deliver on the pitch.
I love the reasoning and it’s a great answer for those with conflicting values of either spending or working with what you got. At the end of the day football on a competitive level is greed in its own way and if you are an Arsenal fan like me that wants only the best for its team above all else and wish for it to succeed then it’s best you realise this is a competition and it’s a game therefore straddlers get left behind. Otherwise if you cannot accept this reality then perhaps supporting competitive sport is not for you, because the club needs a competitive mind-set and backed by a competitive fan base to do that.
Big clubs target the PL title, Wenger targets 85 points. That says it all IMO.
The players get good money, but they play for a club with lack of ambition and they play under an obsolete system. Arsenal play like France national football team, but without the better skillful players.
Playing with quick tempo like that could work well if the opponents want to attack. But if the opponents are very defensive, they will have problem in unlocking the opponents’ defense and could be hit from a quick counter-attack.
The series of defeats, the club’s lack of ambition and the big protests from the fans have made the players demotivated. Wenger alone would not be able to rectify this issue, without the help of the board and the other executives.
If a manager is not responsible to keep the motivation level high then what on earth is he responsible for. If the team is not being prepared tactically for different oppositions, if the tapping holes in the team is not being filled up by a manager who has made a pact with the owner with main aim at only earning profits for the club then how on earth are the players going to keep the motivation. When the team performs well the manager is praised when the team performs badly the manager and only the manager should be blamed fair and square. Its been talked about a lot that Arsene has been calling shots at Arsenal he should be the man and take the responsibility instead of hiring mouthpieces to defend himself. Arsenal has been trying to disregard the fans for a longtime now. Its hightime for fans to show their influence.
Why hasn’t Ozil signed a new contract though? Someone should explain to me.
I think it’s great he hasn’t signed a new contract. May he leave at the end of the season and take Wenger with him! In no world is he worth 280k per week.
The Arsenal under David Dien was a different Arsenal. Wenger and Korenke are he’ll bent on cashing on for what Arsenal once were. Let’s all gooners get together and get Kroenke and Arsene out of the club ASAP
Wenger is not to blame for anything it seems.
Riddle me this, if a man keeps picking the same unmotivated players in the same fashion, who, is to blame?
Let’s hope Sanchez remained at arsenal would bring something good and turn the things towards trophy full season. Our players has ability but rightly said by petit that they lack motivation. When they play for country they have different body language compared to playing for club. They must have right attitude. I think Arsene must have talk every now and then with team. He must show his anger towards his team rather backing them. He also must stick with different plans against small and big teams. His assistant coach Bould never works on set pieces and never adds value.
I don’t think you can blame Gould. Wenger doesn’t allow anyone to coach defense. Did you read Keown’s story? Whilst working at Arsenal a few years back, he had noticed a CD making the same positioning mistakes in a few games in a row and Keown wanted to help this defender out by showing him his errors on film so the defender could learn and improve his positioning. Wenger forbid it because he didn’t want to hurt the player’s confidence!!!!!!!!!
That makes you understand why we continue to make the same mistakes and why the modern game has passed Wenger by.
Actually you can blame Gould just don’t blame Bould 😉 (sorry typo on the Gould should have been Bould)
Even if you play for Barcelona or Madrid,you need motivation from your manager!
I have alot of time for Petit but he is talking nonsense
“Someone should sit them down” – yes that someone is Wenger!!!!!! How could he let things get this bad? He has a squad now where the ones that have no choice hang around and the good ones leave or want to leave. He has to take responsibility for that
Arsene must not give freedom to any player. He must make boundaries for each and every position. Defenders must concentrate more on defending and headers when we win or loose corners. Our best CDM can be sead and his backup must be Coquelin. The only position worrying is LB as monreal is very slow. But if you create limitation for him then he can win tackles at left side. We can play with 4-1-3-2 against smaller teams and 4-2-3-1 with big teams. Looks like with 3 CBs there is lack of coordination and they are taking it for granted. We have one of the best attacks too. Once lacazette gels in with Sanchez ,Ozil and Giroud we can be deadly attack. I think Arsene sold ox because he realised Reis Nelson is as good as Ox. I think that was good business.
The manager’s job is to make a game plan, and motivate players to make the game plan works.
If the game plan doesn’t work, try to change it into other game plans that might work.
If the player(s) unmotivated, change him(them) for the motivated player(s). Or don’t play him(them) from the start.
Wenger did none of that.
So your questions… “Do the players need to start earning the right to wear our famous red shirt?” Definitely YES.
“Does Wenger deserve some slack?” NO. He was asking for trouble for his stubbornness and very bad decisions.
this is just nonsense. the same players play motivated with there countries thus the problem is the manager. I still don’t get u people. all what it takes few words and u put the blame on the players instead of wenger. and when we beat bornsthmouth we will say everything is okay untill we get hammared by man city or chelsea or the worst tottenhan. ARSENE OUT
That’s Arsene’s job to motivate the players. If he doesn’t care less about how they play, or the results then why should the players! I’ve said before – even if they are terrible week in week out, they’re still picked to play the next match! I miss Petit!
A managers responsibility is:
1) To assemble a team with the right mental, physical and technical ability
2) To develop the players individually
3) To select the team best suited to get the result against the opposing team
4) To implement the right tactics against the opponents in all matches
5) To create team spirit
6) To motivate then players to work 100% always
7) By way of the first 5 points to get the best possible result for the club
For the last 3-4 years (at least) AW has failed in all areas.
Ramsay playing for Wales looks a different player to Ramsay playing for Arsenal. The ridiculous thing is that it is Arsenal who pay his huge wages. Either Wenger cannot motivate him or he is not putting in the effort for arsenal and should be sold. Same applies to a lot of players so ot seems the problem is Wenger. There is an issue with Kroenke amd the goals he sets the club.