In the wake of Arsenal’s massive home defeat to Bayern Munich in midweek, there has been an explosion of anger and grief from the fans, who have seen the Gunners go out in the round of 16 for the 7th season in a row. But Wenger has tried to diffuse the situation by saying that he thought the fans at the ground had a “fantastic” evening, although the evidence is not quite so convincing…
Here is an excerpt from an article on the official Arsenal site last night…..
While our defeat against Bayern Munich in midweek left the manager “very angry, very frustrated”, he was keen to address one positive from the evening – the manner in which the fans at Emirates Stadium stuck with the team throughout.
“It was fantastic,” he added. “They were there for a great night.”
Now I am not saying he is lying, because I am sure that the fans that did “stick with the team throughout” probably were there just for the fun BUT there wasn’t a very large percentage of fans left at the end of the game….
Notwithstanding the fans that didn’t even use their tickets (and there were very many looking at the emppty seats at the start) but as the second half progressed more and more fans voted with their feet and left before the scoreline got even more embarrassing.
Now I know that Mr. Wenger’s eyesight seems to be fading, but one youngster with very good eyes gave a different view, and he could see everything as he was actually on the pitch. The young Spaniard, Hector Bellerin , was asked how it felt in the dressing room after the rout, and he said: “I’m really hurt because to see the fans leave the stadium so early… At the end of the day we play for them, want them to be happy, to be behind us, and it hurts to see them leave so early. We just need to try to make them happy with the rest of our season. We know we’ve got the players and the potential to do well, we just need to play every game the same way that we started today. If we play that kind of football, we can be up there. We have to say sorry to the fans because we want to do better than that.”
So after some consideration I have decided that Wenger wasn’t lying after all, and was actually talking about the Bayern Munich fans, who were the only ones left at the end, and they had a “great time”!
Darren N