WITH SANCHEZ ARSENAL WERE ONLY AVERAGE, BUT WITHOUT HIM THEY ARE USELESS
No hunger, no fight and little quality, Wenger has built a team of also-rans
THIS is the worst Arsenal team in more than 20 years – and they are about to sell their best player.
The empire that Arsene Wenger has built is crumbling around him and none of his players appears ready to dig in to save their under-fire manager.
The day started with Alexis Sanchez being left out of the squad as he heads for the exit door and yet ended up as a bigger story because of this sorry, yet almost predictable, capitulation at Bournemouth.
No fight, no hunger and a distinct lack of quality ( Jack Wilshere excepted) – the Gunners look horribly short in every department.
Manchester United, hoping to nab Sanchez, are offering a player-plus-deal involving Henrikh Mkhitaryan but Arsenal had better see if they can get a keeper, defender, midfielder and a striker thrown in, too.
What must be even more worrying for the fans suffering in the away end is the way that the malaise has spread to some of the other players. Sanchez has given up and other members of the squad do not think the club is ambitious enough to replace him – and how it showed.
Wenger took over at Arsenal in 1996 and was responsible for signing great players like Patrick Vieira, Thierry Henry, and Sol Campbell, but it is hard to imagine any of the current generation getting a game for any of his great sides of the past.
They have become horribly average, so predictable, a team of alsorans rather than challengers who look more likely to finish mid-table than top four.
Wilshere was brilliant in the first half, running the game, picking passes, and using his strength to outmuscle Bournemouth, who were very much secondbest. But Arsenal did not create enough chances to match their build-up play.
Ainsley Maitland-Niles crashed a shot against the crossbar and Asmir Begovic denied Danny Welbeck with a good block. But it was no surprise when Arsenal went ahead after 52 minutes and, predictably, Wilshere (right) was involved in the build-up with Granit Xhaka before Alex Iwobi’s lovely through-ball released Hector Bellerin.
The Spaniard smashed a fierce low shot, it went through Begovic and eventually trickled over the line. Wenger, serving the final match of his three-game touchline ban, could barely contain his relief in the directors’ box. The Arsenal fans, revelling in some gallows humour, began chanting: “How bad must you be – we’re winning away.” The Gunners have been woeful on their travels this season, losing at Stoke, Watford and Bournemouth now, while getting thumped by anyone half-decent. Their only away wins have come at Everton, Burnley and Crystal Palace. That clearly says something about a lack of spirit in Wenger’s squad. And spirit is something that Bournemouth have got by the bucketload under Eddie Howe. The Cherries have made a habit of giving the big boys a bloody nose if they do not match their desire and work-rate. Bournemouth’s pintsized winger Ryan Fraser never stopped, while Callum Wilson and Jordon Ibe both showed the pace and movement that the visitors could not handle.
Fraser’s 70th-minute right-wing cross tempted keeper Petr Cech to come for a cross when he should have stayed at home.
The nippy Wilson got there first to prod home the equaliser, while the rest of Arsenal’s defence went AWOL.
Four minutes later, Lewis Cook’s ball reached Wilson and his lay-off found Ibe whose shot went beneath Cech – and the fightback was complete.
Arsenal threw everything at Bournemouth but never looked like equalising.
Alexandre Lacazette has now gone nine games without a goal and it shows, their final ball was poor and, without Sanchez and the injured Mesut Ozil, the Gunners look bang average.
Arsenal have yet to win in 2018, their worst start to any year since 1995.
That was a year before Wenger (suffering in the stands, above) arrived at the club.
If anyone can remember that far back.