We’ve had a steady stream of Arsenal supporters into the Football Transfer Tavern this evening and it’s fair to say that the Gooners aren’t happy!
Having quite clearly stuttered in the Premier League in accordance with their injury crisis, the Gunners have only picked up two points from a home game against Tottenham and two away games against both West Bromwich Albion and Norwich City.
In a relentless Premier League season, these costly results could’ve even potentially ruled Arsenal out of the title race but the Gunners are lucky that the league is rather poor this term in respect of no single side pulling away clear at the top of the table.
It’s all the more disappointing because Arsenal fans would expect to have won at least seven out of the nine points available in those games, if not all nine with the fixtures looking winnable on paper.
Although Arsenal have indeed suffered another terrible injury crisis at the wrong time with both the key duo of Alexis Sanchez and Laurent Koscielny succumbing to blows at Carrow Road yesterday, naturally the spotlight has turned to Mr Arsene Wenger again who must be culpable for some of the club’s shortcomings.
With these in mind, we’ve taken this moment to identify five of the biggest gripes Arsenal supporters have with their long-serving French manager.
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Click on the image below to reveal the five biggest gripes Arsenal fans have with Arsene Wenger.
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He has too much faith with several of his players
It’s been mentioned rather frequently in the tavern down the years and it seems quite clear that Arsene Wenger still seems to have too much faith in several of his first team players.
While it is of course admirable that Wenger trusts his players so much in a tight-knit bond, this has been to the club’s detriment as well with the likes of Mikel Arteta and Mathieu Flamini still retained despite many of the club’s own supporters as well as rival fans claiming they’re both past it – for a club battling for the title anyway!
Wenger In-types may claim that Wenger deserves credit for not giving up on the likes of Aaron Ramsey and while that rings true, there have simply been too many cases of not good enough players being kept on well past their sell-by date.
Even with the likes of Wojciech Szczesny, the Pole was persevered with time and time again before Wenger finally wised up that he needed a loan spell this season to make way for a true top class number one such as Petr Cech to close the gap at the top.
Our Gooners in the tavern can’t help but ask themselves why Wenger isn’t ruthless enough with the club’s own quality in the squad.
Complacency against lesser opponents & not learning from previous mistakes
They claim that after being tricked once, one should be wary so that the person cannot be tricked again.
But this is at odds with what Arsenal have done so far this campaign.
After suffering probably their most disappointing result of last season against Monaco whereby the French club surprisingly prevailed over the Gunners in the knock-out stages of the Champions League, pundits and fans alike made the conclusion that Arsenal were far too complacent, believing their own hype that they’d simply walk into the last eight for the first time in a long while.
The post-mortem after that two-legged loss was long and drawn out but what happened in the first two European games of this campaign?
Wenger decided to weaken the team – and therefore discredit the pinnacle of European competition – by playing the likes of David Ospina and Mathieu Debuchy as opposed to first team players.
Now while you’d STILL expect these experienced internationals to beat both Dinamo Zagreb and Olympiakos, when these naturally rusty players do turn up, they let the club down.
Surely a better tact would’ve been to have played your strongest team from the off, qualified early doors while then resting players nearer the end of the group when the job was complete.
It appears doing things the other way around could mean Arsenal head into the Europa League where no real Arsenal supporter wants to be!
His stubbornness / arrogance in the transfer market
How much time have you got on this one?
We’ll try and be concise and claim that in a nutshell, many Arsenal supporters are of the opinion that they could’ve walked (or more appropriately competed at the very top) the league if Wenger changed his transfer window stubbornness and covered all of the positions he needed in the summer beyond Petr Cech’s signature alone.
We saw in the early weeks of the season after the Gunners’ shock loss to West Ham United that the club was putting together a fantastic run in the league but did any Arsenal supporter really expect not to be enduring the current injury crisis they find themselves within?
Arsenal’s injuries are more than a joke but everybody saw this bar Wenger who thought the likes of Joel Campbell, Calum Chambers, Mathieu Flamini and Mikel Arteta were good enough back-up if first team players such as Theo Walcott, Francis Coquelin or Laurent Koscielny got injured.
Arsenal’s immediate competition have Samir Nasri as a fifth choice attacking midfielder nowadays and it seems clearly apparent that if the Gunners’ injury crisis continues on into the New Year, it’ll cost them because their second string isn’t nowhere near as good as the first.
But top quality players such as Geoffrey Kondogbia weren’t available were they?
The fact he doesn’t seem to ‘lose it’ too often
The Arsenal Gunners fans have had to watch in the last three league games has been unrecognisable from the one that was putting together a fantastic run ending at the 0-3 away win to Swansea City at the end of October.
While all clubs go through good form and bad form, we still cannot understand why Arsenal have been feeling sorry for themselves of late with their performances even described by Wenger yesterday as being ‘jaded’.
It seems a case of most of the players’ heads dropping amidst the club’s injury crisis but shouldn’t these players be trying to prove a point that they can step up and force the manager into a re-think?
These lacklustre performances have to in part be down to the manager who is seemingly struggling to motivate his players when it matters the most.
Quite simply, the placid Frenchman can’t be ‘losing it’ too often in the dressing room to kick his players into shape!?
Dropping seven points to Tottenham, West Bromwich Albion and Norwich City is certainly not the hallmark of would-be champions and Arsenal need to wise up that they have a great opportunity this year if they just improve their consistency.
While everybody was expecting the Gunners to bring their A-game yesterday, they struggled to get out of third gear with still a capable enough XI and how many times have you seen Arsenal bottle games they should be winning like yesterday’s Norwich City fixture down the years?
The fact he has too much power at the club
Many a time, we’ve had Arsenal supporters clash with each other here in the tavern over whether the club should be called Arsenal FC or Arsene FC.
Wenger Out-types and some others that choose to be neutral admit that Wenger is far too powerful at the club with nobody in the world able to predict how he’ll eventually walk away from Emirates Stadium.
As discussed a million times, Wenger of course admirably revolutionised the club’s eating habits and what have you back in the day but it would appear too many things run through him as opposed to a team around him.
A lot of Arsenal supporters claim the club went on a downer the day David Dein left the club and it would appear that without accomplices like this around any more, the club have struggled to get everybody they need in transfer windows despite signings such as Mesut Ozil, Alexis Sanchez and Petr Cech ensuring there are a few silver linings here and there.
