The Champions League match between Arsenal and the Croatian club Dinamo Zagreb at the Emirates this evening was already shaping up to be a crunch clash, with the winner probably keeping their slim hopes of qualifying for the next phase of the competition alive and also putting themselves in a strong position to at least stay in Europe and drop down to the Europa League.
And as the Gunners suffered a shock defeat in Zagreb on matchday one, there is an element of revenge involved, for Arsene Wenger and the Arsenal players at least. Now the tension between the clubs has been ramped up another level by the comments from the respective managers.
As reported by Sky Sports, Zoran Mamic has not taken kindly to what Wenger has been saying this week about the doping problem that he believes is present in modern football and the failure of the current UEFA rules to deal with it.
I can well understand the prof’s frustration after one of the Dinamo players tested positive after their game against us and although he has been banned the club have had to face no sanction. So Mamic thinks Wenger was wrong to criticise the clearly flawed procedures that make it almost impossible for a club to be found out.
He said, “”Mr Wenger can think and talk about what he wants but there are other people who make decisions about that and that will be in the future.
“I can suggest him to write the rules for UEFA. I think this situation is not the point of this press conference so we don’t need to talk about Ademi.”
The club are even appealing against the player’s ban which seems a bit rich so the best way for Arsenal to deal with the whole story is to beat them fair and square tonight and to make sure that they do not benefit from cheating.