I was of course fuming and gutted that Arsenal lost to Chelsea yesterday as I was holding on to the hope of a win that would have kept our hopes of the Premier League title alive, however unlikely they might have been really. So I did not have much patience or good will towards the manager or many of the players for that matter.
When I saw all the stick that the prof was getting, though, and read a Sky Sports report absolutely slating him for his tactics I have to stick up for him a bit. The thing for me is that, even though our attacking tactics did end up playing into the hands of Chelsea, I think the boss had little choice but to go for it.
Wenger also knew this was our last chance after the disappointment of defeat by Watford and he did have the encouragement of our win over the Blues in September. Unfortunately it did not go our way but I do not blame the boss completely for that.
The players who under performed have to shoulder a lot of that. It was not the system’s fault that Theo Walcott failed to track Alonso back and another ref may well have ruled the goal out for a foul. That is why I think Wenger was so cheesed off about the4 foul because if Arsenal had got the opener, and we did create a fair few chances, things may have been very different.
The other problem Wenger had ahead of this game was his lack of central midfield options, so he did not have the players to shut up shop even if he wanted to. I am sure he would have played Xhaka or Elneny instead of the Ox or Iwobi if he could.
So was his hand forced by the situation and our missing players or are we just going to hammer his tactics and blame the boss for everything?
Bob.