Former Arsenal centre-back David O’Leary believes Arsene Wenger is not to blame for Arsenal’s trophy drought.
Wenger has come under severe scrutiny from a majority of the Arsenal faithful and media outlets after the club face yet another trophyless season. However, O’Leary reckons the players are the ones that should be criticised and held responsible, not the French manager.
The ex-Republic of Ireland international said:
‘Arsenal need to change about half a dozen players. I think Arsene has been let down by a group of players he had a belief in.
‘That group have been failures in my eyes and now a change is needed.’
He added:
‘Just look at the AC Milan game last week (4-0 Champions League loss) – they were well and truly beaten but what will disappoint Arsene Wenger is that this Milan side was not nearly as good as the other Milan sides he has played down the years.
‘Arsenal are now fighting it out with Chelsea for fourth place – and the only good thing for them is that Chelsea are struggling too.’
To be honest, I think everyone at the club is to blame for our shortcomings over the past seven years.
A number of our players – we all know who they are – have not been up to scratch and, quite frankly, shouldn’t even be representing Arsenal.
As O’Leary stated, this current group have been failures and have let Wenger and, more importantly, the club down.
However, this isn’t to say that Wenger is a saint, far from it. The Frenchman’s frugalness, tactics and particular substitutions, have cost us several winnable games, top players – coming in and going out of the club – and ultimately silverware.
Our barren seven year trophy drought is a culmination of everything, Wenger, the players and the stingy, money-grabbing board!
Changes are definitely required. However, it remains to be seen whether this ensues.
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So selling your very best players every tear for the past 7 years does not count as a factor in our current debacle? This profit formular will come crashing down when fan decide that enough is enough and stop paying for joyless and damn right painful spectacle.
o’leary’s comments do not make sense except if you consider the performances of players to be a short term problem. However these players have been at arsenal a long time so the question of them letting wenger down isnt valid. He bought them and tried them out(presumably) and then stuck with them. Recent performances from them indicate blame must be taken by the manager that has stubbornly refused to change them. Would fergie have continued with under-performing players?…no-way…he gives them a chance and after a few games if they dont perform they are out…..i would say obertan is a good example of what im saying. Weve had diaby squillacci chamakh djourou all still in contention for a start and they would be long gone at any top club.
Wenger is also to blame for his clear lack of leadership, inspiration, motivation ,player selection and tactics