After getting a serious dressing down on live TV by former Arsenal midfielder Paul Merson last night, as the Gunners toiled against Champions League minnows Anderlecht in Belgium, Arsene Wenger and his players have come in for more criticism today.
One of our unlucky opponents from last night, who must still be wondering just how they managed to lose after leading by 1-0 with injury time due to begin, has blasted the Gunners for our performance, tactics and declared that we are a million miles behind their previous Champions League visitors and the team we are hoping to overhaul in the group, Borussia Dortmund. He really gave it to the Gunners with both barrels, as reported by the Daily Express.
Anderlecht midfielder Steven Defour said, “Arsenal were hoping for a moment of brilliance from Alexis Sanchez or Danny Welbeck and didn’t have many runners from midfield.
“Dortmund’s midfielders seemed to be coming from everywhere three weeks ago.
“Three weeks ago, Dortmund outplayed us and we have to accept they were the better team, but I don’t think Arsenal were stronger than we were.”
As if that was not bad enough, Arsenal fan and former player Emmanuel Frimpong unleashed a string of damning tweets during the match, as reported in the Daily Express. The midfielder was clearly enjoying the game about as much as Merson. Most of Frimmy’s rantings concerned the somewhat confusing transfer policy of the Arsenal boss, which has seen him add more tricky midfielders in the last couple of years while ignoring the need to strengthen elsewhere.
He wrote, “Said it and will say it again we need a F****** centre back with Laurent [Koscielny], a bloody DMF and a bloody striker.
“And before u start going down on me it’s bloody true all our players are so similar Jack [Wilshere], [Aaron] Ramsey, [Mikel] Arteta, [Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain] Chambo, Sanchez, [Mesut] Ozil all too similar.
“FFS Sanchez has had a good season but no disrespect would have been better using that to buy a centre back and a DMF bloody sick of it man.”
The 22-year old who is currently playing in Russia for a club called FC Ufa, did finally send a happy tweet praising Lukas Podolski for his last gasp winner. I wonder if the Frenchman takes any notice of this sort of criticism, but you would hope that it spurred him and the players into proving it wrong.