Arsene Wenger was Arsenal’s manager when they came close to winning a Champions League title in 2006, and the Frenchman has now revealed his major mistake in that final against Barcelona.
Sol Campbell had given Arsenal the lead, and they had to defend it for just the last quarter of an hour before they crumbled.
Wenger replaced Robert Pires when Jens Lehmann was red-carded, and some people believe that substitution was his biggest mistake in the game.
However, he revealed in a recent interview that not bringing in a centre-back to defend his team’s narrow lead was the error he made.
He said on beIN Sports as quoted by Mirror Football: “If I made a mistake it’s not at that moment.
“It was later in the game. In the end, with 15 minutes to go, I took Flamini on for Fabregas out because I wanted to defend the lead.
“Maybe I should have brought a third centre-back in at that time and keep the midfield as it is, take Hleb out and put a centre-back in and to try to defend as long as we could because there was only 13 minutes left.
“Sometimes with 10 minutes to go you just want to get your team over the line and focus on that. So overall, I would say many people question the change of Pires but if you had to play the game again it is not exactly what I would change.”
Just Arsenal Opinion
We are still struggling to reach that stage of the Champions League again, and haven’t even played in the competition since 2017.
Wenger is one of the best managers we ever had, but we need to focus on helping Mikel Arteta to build a top squad that will challenge for titles now.