Peter Hill-Wood, who was the Arsenal chairman for over 30 years until recently, has jumped to the defence of Arsene Wenger after recent protests calling for Le Prof to be sacked. He certainly seems to be thoroughly angry with the “ignorant people” who are calling for Wenger’s head and is certain that the Board will not be listening to the “few hotheads”,
“Thoroughly ignorant people seem to have a say nowadays,” Hill-Wood said in the Star. “It is a few hotheads jumping up and down thinking they are being clever.
“It is the most ridiculous way to behave really because normal people are forever saying boards act too hastily when they get rid of a manager.
“Here we have a really good one with the team sixth in the league and into the last 16 of the Champions League for the 15th consecutive season.
“Arsene would be entitled to ask them, ‘what the hell do you want?’
“Frankly, I don’t think the club will be paying any attention to them at all.
“I don’t take too much notice of it and it isn’t going to influence the board, I am sure of that.”
“I think you must get a bit p****d off when you’ve done such a terrific job and work up to 24 hours a day and you get a whole lot of ignorant people jumping up and down and screaming their heads off,”
“Obviously, you’d have to be very insensitive not to be concerned. But, having said that, I don’t think it will be keeping him awake at night.”
That is quite an outburst from Hill-Wood, and being the old campaigner that he is, he is probably just used to Arsenal fans wanting Wenger to be sacked in the middle of the season, only for his support to grow again once the club fight their way back into the Top Four.
As Wenger said in response to the protests: “We live in a society of total opinion but we live off not what we say but what we do – and what we do is on the pitch,” Tomorrow night, Arsenal desperately need to “do what they do” and take all three points from high-flying Southampton to take some pressure off the manager and the players….