Robert Pires has become the latest of many ex-Arsenal players to question Arsene Wenger’s thinking when it comes to building his team.
The French midfielder believes that Wenger needs to add true English grit to the Arsenal squad in order to end their six year wait for a trophy.
The 37-year-old trained with the Gunners earlier this season after his four-year contract with Villarreal came to an end, and the Frenchman admitted that the combination of Wenger’s team is not still right. Pires was quoted in the Daily Mail saying:
‘There seems to be a new philosophy now at the club. But if they want to be successful there are two things. The first is that his squad is too young. And now he also needs more English players in his team. You need that mix. You need English players because they have the experience of the league. When they are mixed with the French, Germans and the Spanish, you have a good blend. But Arsene has taken his own direction and maintains his own philosophy. That’s his right and I respect that.’
Pires also pointed to the Carling Cup final defeat at the hands of Birmingham City as the turning point of Arsenal’s season:
‘When they lost the Carling Cup final they went lower and lower and their confidence was gone. They were a little bit broken because if they had won it people would have said, ‘Yes, the first trophy for Arsenal for six years’. But after they lost there was more pressure on the next trophy – and the next one and the next one. They lost to Barca and Man United and then lost important league games. The first one was key.’
In my estimation I believe Pires is absolutely right. I have said many times that Arsenal need diehard Englishmen within their squad, who have experience and leadership qualities.
Chelsea have John Terry and Frank Lampard, Manchester United have Rio Ferdinand, and Liverpool has Steven Gerrard, Arsenal have no one.
We have all the right players to capture a trophy, all we need now is a little bit of English passion to be injected into our squad, and if we can acquire this during the summer, then may be we could finally take that final step and lift a trophy for the first time since 2005.
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The legend that is Pires is absolutely right. I have been saying this for a long time that we need English players. English players will instill passion, grit and most importantly leadership which we lack. Look in the past when we won things, we had great Englsih player, examples are Adams, Bould, Keown, Dixon, Winterburn, Season, Parlour, Ashley Cole, Campbell, the list goes on and on.
At the moment we have Gibbs, Wilshere, Walcott, but these players don’t look like leaders or have physical strength. We need players like Parker, Cahill and Baines, these players along with other players will help us lift our first sort of silverware for 6 years.