FIVE BULLETS TO FIRE AT ARSENAL BOSS WENGER
Enough reasons for Gunners to dump boss
LONDON: Arsene Wenger’s position as Arsenal manager is under more threat after a dismal 3-1 defeat to West Brom in the English Premier League.
Wenger’s side produced an insipid display at the Hawthorns on Saturday as they crashed to yet another defeat that leaves huge question marks hanging over their ability to secure a top-four finish this season.
SunSport takes a look at five things we learnt from a humbling afternoon for the Gunners.
WENGER HAS LOST HIS PLAYERS
IT’S not nice to see for someone who has given so much to the English game, but Arsene Wenger is a manager who has lost his dressing room.
We know all about the spats with his star players and others questioning how they have been treated by the boss.
But what we are now witnessing is a team that has switched off to everything the manager wants them to do. There is no spirit, no unity and clearly no listening to the tactics and defensive plans he is putting in place – not on the evidence of this 90 minutes.
The trouble is, this is not even an isolated performance. The Gunners have shipped three goals in each of their last three away games, with the 10-2 aggregate thrashing to Bayern Munich thrown in for good measure.
Leicester are a prime example of a group of players who had turned it in on their manager.
Look at their last games under Claudio Ranieri and contrast them with their displays since his sacking. Arsenal players just aren’t doing it for their boss anymore. It is a disgrace to see.
ARSENAL ARE A CLUB SPLIT IN TWO
THERE is now a huge divide between rival sets of Arsenal supporters – all down to Arsene Wenger and the Gunners board.
While Wenger dithers over signing a new deal or retiring, and the board does nothing to speed up his deliberations, the Gunners fans are in open revolt.
Marches and demonstrations at home games had already set the tone, but those warring supporters excelled themselves at the Hawthorns as each side hired a plane to fly a banner overhead. The “Wenger Out” camp got in there first and would have been gleefully slapping themselves on the back by the time the “In Arsene We Trust” plane flew over.
All the while the team were out there on the pitch desperately needing the united support of the fans.
The club are in a mess. Stan Kroenke and Ivan Gazidis are to blame, so too Wenger. But so too those foolhardy fans.
JEEPERS KEEPERS
SUMMING it up quickly, we saw an ageing goalkeeper gift West Brom the lead, then limp out of the action after injuring himself passing a ball five yards.
His replacement then came off the bench and promptly served up another goal on the plate for the Baggies.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Arsenal’s Petr Cech and David Ospina who in the space of 90 minutes produced the kind of calamitous displays between the post usually reserved for the much-maligned Sunday pub leagues.
Cech is a once-great goalkeeper on the steady decline, and it is a shame to see him flapping helplessly in the wind in the way he did to let Craig Dawson score the opener for the Baggies.
Even worse to see him pull up in obvious agony as he pinged a hamstring just rolling a five yard pass to a team-mate.
Ospina is simply not good enough. Never has been, never will be. He couldn’t even mount a decent protest to Hal RobsonKanu’s goal after spilling the ball at the feet of the Welshman.
Priority number one this summer for whoever is in charge of Arsenal? Sign a top class goalkeeper.
NO CASE FOR THE DEFENCE
IT’S bad enough when your two goalkeepers are not up to it – quite another when your defence is abject to boot.
But what were Arsenal’s back line doing for all three West Brom’s goals?
Craig Dawson is so often the target for Baggies corners swung in from either side, it doesn’t take a genius to k now that.
So what do Arsenal do to combat that obvious goal threat? Gift the defender the freedom of the area to run and jump when and where he wants is the answer. And the back line were like statues for the RobsonKanu goal, leaving James McClean unmarked, and then the West Brom substitute alone to prod home the rebound.
It is hard to overstate just what a pitiful, shambolic and simply awful defensive display this was.
WALCOTT FLUFFED HIS LINES
THERE was plenty of sympathy around for Theo Walcott this week, when his excellent goalscoring form for Arsenal was overlooked by England manager Gareth Southgate.
Walcott really needed to produce a display to make his own statement and prove Southgate was wrong to leave him out in favour of Jesse Lingard.
But when it mattered, the forward turned in an insipid display that was so anonymous one of the few times you really noticed him was when he was being replaced by Olivier Giroud.
And that sums up the frustrations many have with a player with such obvious talent who has never really kicked on to fulfil the potential that was there at the start of his career.