Arsene Wenger is “convinced Arsenal can be in the top four, if not more”

Although I am sure that all Arsenal fans would rather we had managed to buy Aouar as well as Thomas Partey, but one person who believes that Mikel Arteta has bought well this summer is our legendary manager Arsene Wenger.

The main thing for most of us was persuading Aubameyang to sign his extension, and it looks like Gabriel Magalhaes is the beast of a defender we have been looking for, and with the addition of Partey, the spine of Arteta’s Arsenal team looks much stronger than last season.

Wenger obviously believes Arteta has done enough, and in a long interview in the Guardian, Wenger said in answer to the question: “What one piece of advice would you give Mikel Arteta?” (from Stephen in France)

He replied: “To continue to have a grip on the team, as he has at the moment. And to go to the end of his beliefs. I think there is a good team spirit and they have a good chance to do well. I believe it will not be very difficult to improve on the number of points they got last season.

“But I’m convinced Arsenal can be in the top four, if not more. Why not more? They can be the surprise package for me this year: they bought well, they strengthened the defence well. And they kept the players who were already there. In my last year I bought [Pierre-Emerick] Aubameyang, they kept him. They have every ingredient and no real weakness.”

That is certainly brave words from Arsene, and I gor one, certainly hope he is right!

15 Comments

  1. Really encouraging words from AW and surely a boost for MA and the players. However, we cannot get carried away by his comments, surely you don’t expect him to say otherwise. We still have to get a creativity specialist going forward. For now, hopefully the available midfielders can hold the forthe till we get the chance to bring in someone. For now, we are only close to having the right balance.

  2. I too believe that we can challenge for the league. One game at a time and January will present us with an opportunity to strengthen even further.

  3. This year is going to be more open as the pandemic could easily cause teams to field weakened squads if players and coaches test positive.

    There have been a few very unexpected results so far which will give the chasing pack a degree of optimism.

    Whilst I expect a return to form for MC and Liverpool, ManU have a lot of ground to make up and I’m still undecided on Frank Lampard as a top coach. Spending a fortune isn’t the be all and end all. Everton look as though they mean business and so do we. Hopefully Mourinho will implode and Leicester and Wolves fizzle out. Not asking for much🤞

    1. Totally agree. Any team can have an outbreak which could totally ruin their season.

      I would also add Leeds into mix as well. They have one of the most astute managers in the world. So much so that Messi is so aggravated with Barca as he wanted Bielsa as their next manager.

      Another point that people are missing is player fitness and injury.
      It was a hectic end to last season with a game every 3 days. Not much time off in the close season to recuperate in which we played the FA cup final and the Community Shield while other teams rested.
      The late start to this season means with cup games thrown in it will be a game every 3 days again until the new year. This is going to bun out some players and lead to fatigue and injuries later in the season.
      The question is can the teams that are going gung ho at the moment maintain that for the rest of the season.
      A forward thinking manager will rotate players and pick which games to hold something back in reserve and which games to up the intensity.

  4. The fine words of a man who , depsite his mountain of criticism from many on here, me included, still is an Arsenal man through and through.
    I also wish to say that much of his criticism was deserved but not perhaps the spitefulness of some of it. AW ‘s personal legacy tragedy was that he just could not let go and would not listen to reason, when it was clear to most that he had overstayed his time here.

    Unfortunately the financial bad decsions taken by he and esp Gazoid, continue to hold us back even now. With a better owner ,of course, they would now be ancient history and more forgiven. So the real villain has always been Kroenke in my book and continues to be him.

    1. Gazoid sounds like a Doctor Who alien … perhaps he is

      AW showed enormous commitment to Arsenal and achieved so much. I’m sorry that he didn’t go a couple of years sooner too but there was always that hope with him that he could get it right again and win more than the FA Cup. All water under the bridge now

      1. YES Sue P, He is the better looking alien brother of GAZIDIS. The both come from the planet ruinaclub. And you are right with AW, as it IS water under the bridge. But trouble was, along with the alien GAZIDIS, AW made such a financial pigs ear which has left us with so much unshiftable deadwood and paying huge contracts for them all.

        Emery also bought deadwood, I don’t forget. HIS main problem stemmed from his inability to learn passable English, which always prevented him havingthe vital communication skills. Without such skills all managers are done for. Some managers speak English perfectly and some ARE English but though they have language, still do not have PROPER communication skills.

        However, I always say the buck stops with the owner and as such Kroenke is ultimately most responsible, since he hired “the alien” and should have fired both him and AW much sooner but was not in touch enough to really know what a mess they both made in those last several, not merely two years.
        If an owner is not responsible, ultimately, what business has he in owning the club at all?

  5. The thing is the blogger didnt complete the article coz Wenger said further that ozil is an artist and its a shame fans are being robbed of watching him play, he also went further to condemn our playing style which doesn’t have much creativity but much more Steele. I believe like wenger that arteta is doing a fine job and could have been finer n great if we had bought aouar or any nomba 10 when we have decided to condemn our maestro ozil to oblivion

    1. I was interested by your post and delved deeper and read the article highlighted in red above from the Guardian. This is where AdminPat sourced this item
      I read it all the way through and there was not a single reference to Ozil at all. In fact the players he mentioned were Vieira, Petit, Henry and his failure to land Ronaldo

      Perhaps you got confused with another interview but I’d certainly recommend the Guardian’s article as it was really informative about Wenger and his life and vision

  6. When Wenger first arrived I thought he was a genius. He totally changed the way the game was played. In his own words he wanted us to play beautiful football and he achieved that.
    Opposition teams didn’t know what to do to combat it and we dominated the league.
    That was until teams worked out how to counter act it and we started to slump. This is when IMO he started to tarnish the good he had done. He was stubborn and persevered with beautiful football. I defended him to my friends who were saying beautiful football doesn’t win cups anymore. I even have one friend (I have more than one friend Lol) who is a Chelski supporter and started up a personal vendetta against Wenger. Twisting every word he said and continually mocked him but I still stood up for him.
    I will admit in the last 5 years of his reign I became an outie and just couldn’t defend him anymore. With hindsight I didn’t know all that was going on behind the scenes which I do now.
    I hoped he would of taken the France post when it was offered to him and am amazed that he didn’t.
    He was a genius, a pioneer, a loyal and upstanding figure. It’s was a sad but avoidable end to him.
    That being said I wish him no malice and wish him luck.

    1. DAN I guess your experiences are similar to many of our views on the whole AW era. My only personal REAL difference is that I saw the decline around 2008 and was calling for his head in increasing volume from then til he finally left.

      But OVERALL, much the same as you, just the timing being different. He certainly was a genius in that first decade or so of glory and style. He is without doubt our greatest ever manager, taken overall. I admit in the final years of craving his exit, to saying differently , but this was in my anxiety to repair our club with a new manager who could and would take defence seriously.

      I always thought that since around the time of the stadium move in 2006, Wenger never cared ENOUGH about real defence. He had the GG great back 4/5 plus SEAMAN and then The Invincibles defence and that was about it as far as I am concened.
      I have always believed that a great team is built from the back, as GG did with that defence and which AW inherited and whose playing life he prolonged, to his huge credit.

      1. I saw the cracks really starting to appear in 2011 with the 8-2 loss to Manure. I was visiting friends in Brighton who are United fans. Even though it was a humiliating day I stuck up for him with the vain hope he would see that as a catalyst to mend the cracks but instead he just papered over them.
        He stuck by players that were obviously not at the level to push us on which is commendable for the loyalty and faith he had in them but the wrong decision for the club on a whole.
        At that time I wasn’t following what was going on behind the scenes in the boardroom.
        Wenger, shares being sold, Kroenke buying them up and Gadzidis all led to a perfect storm.

        You are spot on about the defence. It went backwards in decline. Doesn’t matter how many goals you score if you conceding more. The team was so imbalanced.

        The final 2 years of him to be honest I was sick of him and was vocal in calling for his head. I was desperate for us to go after Klopp.
        All that is water under the bridge now and I have mellowed in my view of him.
        I would still not like to see him back in a backroom or boardroom role. Maybe in some mentoring role for the youth players.

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