Wenger admits City clash is critical to save Arsenal season
We ‘absolutely’ must win tomorrow, manager says Players suffering from drop in self-esteem
Arsène Wenger has admitted that Arsenal’s run of dire results has put him “in a place that I don’t want to be”, describing the Premier League fixture at home to Manchester City as a game “I absolutely have to win”.
Although the Arsenal manager was relaxed and even joking in his briefing ahead of tomorrow’s encounter there was an edge to his answers and a realisation that he is reaching a defining month.
With Arsenal’s last match before the international break being the horrible loss away to West Bromwich Albion, Wenger was asked why he appeared so relaxed. His reply was illuminating.
“I don’t know if I am in a much better place,” he said. “I am just in a place that I don’t want to be. I just lost a big game. And I will play another one that I absolutely have to win. I am focused and I know what to do. I managed enough games that I know that, in football, you have to go sometimes through tricky periods. I think as well a very difficult period is a good opportunity to show what you are about and for the team to show what they are about.”
Arsenal are on their worst run of league form in Wenger’s 20 seasons, and their worst since Stewart Houston was manager in April 1995. They also suffered the embarrassing Champions League exit to Bayern Munich, 10-2 on aggregate. Their troubles have coincided with the increasingly fractious debate as to whether Wenger should stay at the club, with his current contract running out at the end of the season and a two-year deal expected to be signed.
He is desperate to carry on – it would now be a shock if he left – but is well aware of the need to reverse the club’s momentum, given that they have dropped to sixth place and are in danger of missing out on Champions League qualification for the first time under him. Doing so would ruin one of his strongest arguments for staying.
There was further sign of the fan discontent yesterday when the Arsenal Supporters Trust revealed that a survey of its membership showed that 78 per cent (of the 550 who replied) believed Wenger was no longer the right man to lead the club. It is the first time that AST has balloted its 1,000 members during a season and reflects the divisions within the club. In the last similar survey, 18 months ago, Wenger’s approval rating was 84 per cent.
Arsenal have also not been this low in the league table since before they left Highbury for the Emirates Stadium in 2006. Wenger admitted it has been a “strange season”. He said: “It just looked it escaped from us in moments. Not for a lot, but every time for a fraction that was on the other side. That is why it is very difficult because it started at Everton, where we were 1-0 up. At City we were 1-0 up. And things went just against us and we could not respond. [They lost both games 2-1.] But it is a weird feeling.”
Indeed, Arsenal’s collapse can be traced back to those two successive away games in December that left their maddening fragility exposed.
Up until that point Arsenal had played 15 league matches, collecting 34 points, and averaged 2.27 points per game. Since then their league form has showed: played 12, with just 16 points gained and an astonishing average of only 1.33 points per match. That is some damning collapse for a club of their resources and ambition.
“The self-esteem of a group is not set in stone,” Wenger argued. “It’s linked as well with the last results. The confidence linked with the last results drops but, where the character comes in, is the desire to fight against it and to fight together. The natural tendency is to go a little bit into your shell and think a bit more about you and not about the group.”
Undoubtedly, that has happened at Arsenal. The first question is whether Wenger has the ability to motivate these players again or have they, subconsciously or otherwise, stopped playing for him, as Alan Shearer claimed in his Match
of the Day analysis after the West Brom defeat. The second is whether the squad have the character to recover their form.
Another factor for Wenger and Arsenal – and one he struggled to explain – is, given the uncertainty around his future, how can the club plan properly? “But do I stay two months or 10 years, I plan for,” he said. “I do my job exactly the same.”
But players will want to know which manager they will be playing for. “Yes, of course,” Wenger said. “But we are always honest and when you speak with people, you are always honest.
“Arsenal is a world brand today, respected all over the world, and the Arsenal name is bigger than my name and coming to Arsenal is more important than… you don’t come to Arsène Wenger, you come to Arsenal.” Lose to City and it may be difficult to persuade players to come for either.