You know what it is like Gooners. Arsenal fans are some of the first to point out any weakness or flaws we see in our club, be it the manager, the players or the top brass, but if anyone else dares to criticise us we are also the first to defend Arsenal.
Add to that the fact that we do not like Manchester United and that the Red Devils have been pretty poor since Sir Alex Ferguson left (and before to some extent) despite spending the sort of money on transfers and wages that a small country would be happy to have and you would think that we could easily dismiss the comments of the United midfielder Michael Carrick, especially as once played for our north London rivals Tottenham.
To be fair to him, his comments reported by Metro do not specifically mention Arsenal but it does not take a genius to fill in the gaps when our club has been labeled as lacking real title ambition in recent years and a top four spot has been dubbed the ‘Wenger trophy’.
Carrick said, ‘We weren’t hoping, we were expecting. That’s not being blasé, that’s just the standards we have.
‘Some clubs would chase fourth, but our standards, our drive, was such that we had to win.
‘We had the tools in place to do it, but the mentality was ‘all or nothing’ and that was the case.’
He was talking about United in the Fergie era and it seems a bit odd as the last few years have seen United happy to finish fourth themselves, but is he right to suggest that Arsenal’s happiness with a Champions League place under Wenger is not good enough and one of the reasons we have not won the EPL title for so long?
D.N.