‘Petrol’ money keeping City ahead of their title rivals, says Wenger

ARSENAL manager Arsene Wenger has a taken a swipe at Manchester City by claiming his Invincibles side achieved success without “petrol” money.

Manchester City have made the best start to a top-f light English season after 15 successive victories.

It has led to comparisons to the Invincibles, who went unbeaten in 2003-’04, but Wenger pointed out the financial backing City receive from their Abu Dhabi owners.

Wenger said: “We had no petrol but ideas, they have petrol and ideas. It can happen [that City go unbeaten], but there is a long way to go. At the moment, everything goes for them, but maybe, as well, they have the quality to turn it in their favour.”

When pressed to clarify what he meant by “petrol and ideas”, Wenger replied: “Money and quality is what I wanted to say and in their management and players they have everything needed to be successful. It’s still not easy, they have to respect that achievement.”

Arsenal are hoping to get their top-four race back on track against Newcastle at the Emirates today, having slipped to seventh after being held by Southampton and West Ham. Wenger believes those results are a testament to how it is harder than ever to break down teams from outside the top six.

“They start with the idea that if it’s a 0-0, it’s a good result,” he said.

“Not quite clinical enough, yes,” Wenger was the Frenchman’s explanation of his team’s recent troubles in front of goal where they have dominated the games against Manchester United and West Ham, but have yielded just one goal and one point.

OBJECTIVE

“It’s difficult to explain. Do the teams defend better? You could say no, because we create more chances than anybody else. Are the chances of the same quality? I don’t know. There is no objective reason to have a verdict on that. Is it confidence? Is it the fact that the guys think we have absolutely to score? It’s difficult to know. But we have the chances, the quality of our game is there. But it’s true that at the moment, we cannot show it up with points.”

When he was discussing Wednesday’s game at the London Stadium, Wenger pointed to the fact that this is only going to be a more pertinent issue. In modern football, the smaller teams are increasingly defensive, and increasingly good at it.

“It was difficult to make runs behind, because they played with nine players in their final third,” Wenger said. “It’s a modern problem now. What has changed? West Ham, for example, they ran 105km [on average per game] until now.

“At half-time they were at 56km, so I thought they would die. In the second half they made 58km. They made 114km against us, where usually their average is 105km. That means these teams don’t die any more.”

Wenger believes that modern fans are more relaxed about seeing their teams defend, and happy to get behind it. “First of all, the crowds accept it,” he said with some bemusement.

“They start with the idea that if it’s a 0-0 it’s a good result. Every tackle they make the crowd goes ‘wahhhh’. You would say as long as you don’t score the first goal you’re in a position where you have to take a gamble. It is a modern problem.” (© Daily Telegraph, London)