Okay so Arsene Wenger was not talking about the reasons behind the vast swathes of empty seats at recent Arsenal home games when he used the term dreamland today, but it was in the same press conference when he was asked about the issue and I could not help but connect the two.
As reported by the official Arsenal website, the boss gave his pre-match press conference ahead of the Europa League clash with the Russian club CSKA Moscow today and used the term ‘dreamland’ when asked about Arsenal winning the trophy.
I have no real problem with that as the Frenchman was talking about not getting ahead of ourselves and taking this very important competition one step at a time.
He said, “We don’t live in dreamland, we are in a quarter-final and we have to be very realistic and go step by step and give everything to go through in the quarter-final. Then we’ll see.”
A good response I reckon, but Wenger was also asked about the issue of fans staying away and instead of accepting that it was a protest, his answer seemed to suggest that it was only because there was not much riding on these games that so many seats were empty.
He said, “I’m not worried about that. I think the crowd, when something is at stake, is always there and behind us. Anyway, on top of that, what will decide the crowd’s attitude is the quality of our game.
“I’m always concerned when our stadium is not completely full but I don’t think that will be a problem tomorrow. For us tomorrow it’s about our performance and our crowd will be behind us.”
Is our manager really so blind to the feelings of the Arsenal fans?
Bob.