When Arsenal lose away to Liverpool you are not likely to hear many people saying good things about the Gunners. When we fail to score and let in four then you can be pretty sure that the Sky Sports pundits will tear into the Arsenal team, especially Jamie Carragher who has blasted our defending before and played for the scousers for his whole career.
We are not even surprised to hear that the former arsenal and France striker Thierry Henry was left completely at a loss about the way the Gunners performed at Anfield, to the extent that he could not even watch the game at times. But usually you will get some sort of defence of his players from Arsene Wenger, whether it is a complaint about some bad luck or some positive comments about some part of the way we played.
Today not even the Frenchman could find anything good to say about the game. He could not even bring himself to look for something good to say after the match and who can blame him? That was just about as bad as it gets if you are a Gooner.
Wenger said, “The result is a consequence of our performance. We were not good enough. We were beaten everywhere physically, in the end I believe we made it easier for them, and the mistakes gave them a cushion.
“It was shocking (the goal before half-time) but our performance was absolutely disastrous. Not to become too emotional, we have to take some distance, and there are some reasons behind it, and the players now go on their international break, but we do have to take the consequences of our performance today.
“If you find a manager who is happy with that performance today, I wish you good luck. The emotions are negative, but it’s not the right moment to talk about that.”
Henry said, “It was unwatchable, at one point I wanted to leave. I don’t relate to the team and I don’t think a lot of the fans do. That is a problem.”
And Carragher chipped in with, “It’s the last 10 years, and you will see the same performances for the next 10 years because there is a lack of ruthlessness from the top to the bottom. If we are being honest, the board bottled the decision in the summer and were terrified of moving the manager on.
“There had to be a change. Then the summer comes and it’s ‘things may be different’…But what we saw today was worse. I called them cowards last season and got a bit of criticism but I’ll say it again: cowards.”
Ouch Arsenal, ouch! If our famously optimistic boss cannot defend the Arsenal team, what chance have we got?
Bob.