Arsenal had suffered a big blow against Manchester City with a margin of 3-1 at Etihad Stadium previous weekend. So many speculations had been started over Arsenal’s failure of finishing in top four of the League Table this season also.
Arsenal’s away form against the top six sides of Premier League from the last season has been really poor. They played away from Emirates with this top sides of English football. In those 8 matches they only managed to earn 2 draws and in the other 6 they were defeated by the opponents. They scored only 5 goals in those matches and conceded 18 goals. Such a poor away record against the big clubs were being really frustrated for the Arsenal fans.
Arsenal didn’t able to qualify for the Champions League this season. The anger and grief of the supporters were present there from the beginning of the season. A part of the Arsenal fan base were very much determined to pressurise the Board to sack Arsene Wenger. Now, Arsenal are situated at 6th position in the League Table with 19 Points in 11 encounters. So the ‘Wenger Out’ platform is getting stronger day by day amongst the Arsenal fans.
Former Scottish footballer George Graham believes that Wenger now must say Goodbye to the club as Wenger’s era is over by now.
“What do you do? I think we all have our time. You’ve had your period of success. Now move on. I’ve had my time.”
Though Graham was very much respectful to Wenger for his managerial career in Arsenal.
“He’s been great for the English game, great for Arsenal.”
But Graham had slammed the Arsenal Board and wanted them to find the solution of the question of the poor form of Arsenal this season.
“Nothing changes. What’s the point? There’s no board at Arsenal. There are questions they’re obviously not going to answer.”, Graham told.
Alexandre Lacazette wasn’t in the starting eleven for Arsenal in the big game against Manchester City and there was clear proof of no plan in Arsenal’s play against City.
Former Arsenal footballer Lee Dixon sounded sad after the defeat against Manchester City and he was frustrated with the strategy of Arsenal without the ball against the big clubs.
“I honestly think they’re unfixable under Arsene. What he’s got there is he’s created an environment which the players don’t really know what they’re doing without the ball.
“It’s quite simple – when I watch them I think ‘they could beat anyone on their day going forward, but they could lose to anyone defensively’. That summed it up at the weekend against City. The Lacazette thing is another issue, as to why he’s not playing, but you play Sanchez up front, who is a chaser of the ball; if he loses the ball then he’ll chase to win it back.
“If you’ve got that, as a manager, you have to have the players to go and back that up, and he didn’t have that. He hasn’t got that because they don’t know how to do that on a regular basis – they are not a pressing side.”
“They do it now and again – they did it against Chelsea, they got it right against Chelsea in the cup final and in the league, and you think ‘wow, they’re back’. And then the fall again like they did against Watford, and then you see them trying to press Man City, one of the best passing sides in the league. How is that allowed to happen?
“If you’re not a pressing side, then you have to press for months and years at a time in order to get it right, it’s really difficult. It’s not just a case of ‘you all just rush to the ball’.
“They have to be triggers, and you need to know when to press – which is just as hard as knowing when not to press if you’re a pressing side, because sometimes you have to unpress, if you like, and just sit where you are. Just running willy-nilly at the ball is a disaster, especially against City.”, Dixon told.
Arsene Wenger had blamed the match officials for the defeat against Manchester City.
“City are strong enough not to need that [help from officials] and it’s very difficult to swallow. I’m very, very disappointed.”
“We were always in the game and I believe honestly we were really unlucky.” , Wenger told in the post match conference.
Wenger praised Lacazette’s performance after coming from the bench against City but he had also mentioned the lack of support of him in the field.
“He was superb and gave us another option. Providing better support up front was our problem.”
Wenger was also very much disappointed with the loss against Manchester City.
“We respected them too much in the first half and then the second half when we came out we looked always convincingly dangerous.” ,he added.
But such a poor start of the season had put Arsenal 12 points adrift of the League leaders Manchester City by this point of the time of the season. The hope of finishing in top four will be shattered for Arsenal after one or two bad results like this in the highly competitive league like Premier League. So the real question which is now rounding the corners of the Emirates Stadium –
Is it the time for Wenger to step down from the managerial job of Arsenal?
