Since the Gunners meekly surrendered to Manchester City in the Caraboa Cup Final on Sunday, all the Arsenal rumours this week have been about possible replacements for Arsene Wenger if he gets the sack before the end of the season, so it is no surprise that the boss was asked about his future at today’s press conference for our rematch against Pep Guardiola’s side.
When he was asked if he was worried, Wenger said: “Does it stop you to sleep that my position is uncertain or certain? No. What is important in football is the game. All the rest makes headlines but it is not interesting.
“I’m just amazed I’m always to answer things that are the same. I turned the whole world down to respect my contract.”
That makes him sound like he would only leave dragging and screaming if anyone tried to remove him from his contract before June 2019, and Nayr made that same point in the last post.
But on to the point of this article, Wenger says there is no shame in losing the final to such a great team as Manchester City. He said: “I’m quite amazed at how people analyse (the cup final) it looks like we lost against a team in Division Five – we lost against a team that dominates English football at the moment. We have to take a bit of perspective.”
So let’s have a little perspective shall we? Shall we talk about how our squad players lost at home to Ostersunds, a tiny team whose whole yearly wage bill would probably not even cover a week’s pay for someone like Per Mertesacker. Our reserves also lost to bottom-of-the-Bundesliga side Cologne and Championship stragglers Nottingham forest.
Wenger was not impressed with that argument either. He replies: “But again, there is no perspective. We won 3-0 in the first game, what you want in the two legs is to win the game and I accept we had a big disappointment on Sunday, but you cannot come out with the game against Ostersunds because we qualified.”
Okay then Wenger, so what about our very best first team, if you are looking for a little more perspective? Okay, well other than being embarrassed by Man City, Liverpool and Man United, Wenger’s best XI have also lost to Watford, Stoke, Bournemouth, Swansea and recently, our hated rivals Tottenham.
Is that enough Perspective, Arsene? Are all those great teams ‘dominating English Football’? What is your perspective on those defeats?
Darren N