I am not really sure why it took a whole week for the Arsenal manager to have his say on the somewhat controversial incident during our away draw at Norwich City last weekend, but I suspect it has more to do with the pressure that Arsene Wenger has been under because of the current injury crisis at the club than any real belief from the Frenchman.
Ahead of our latest Premier League game against Sunderland, Wenger harked back to the previous game and the incident in which the Norwich defender Ryan Bennett appeared to launch our Chilean forward Alexis Sanchez into a camera pit. Alexis was clearly unhappy at the time, even though it was not that event that caused the hamstring injury.
The boss did not talk about it at the time, though, so I was surprised to hear him bring it up this week and even more surprised at the choice of words reported by The Mirror.
Wenger said, “First of all it is dangerous to have a camera there. He could have killed him. Secondly, he didn’t need to push him like he did. I think the camera position was absolutely dangerous.”
Killed him Arsene, really? Now I agree that Bennett was in the wrong here and do not believe for s econd the Norwich player’s claim that he did not try to push him. ‘My hand slipped honestly’ yeah right mate. And it was dangerous because that camera pit is made of concrete and the equipment itself is all metal and sharp angles, so I think that Bennett should at least be warned about his actions.
The Gunners have suffered from this sort of thing before as well. Remember Stoke’s Arnautovic needlessly launching Debuchy into an advertising board last season? That cost the Frenchman a long time out of the dsquad and ultimately his first team place so the authorities really should act.
But for Wenger to talk about Bennett nearly killing our player and also to complain about the site of the camera just makes him look silly and gives the anti-Arsenal and Wenger brigade more bullets to fire. What do you lot think?