Arsene's Antics!

Is it just me or has Arsene Wenger lost the final screw that was holding his head in place? Wenger's often blatantly stupid rants at officials, fellow managers and opposition team players are quite legendary! So is his love for playing the 'beautiful passing game' more often than not at the risk of humiliation like the recent Chelsea (3-0) loss. His insistence on buying young, cheap players and selling his more experienced stars has now become an obsession! One that can be added to his other obsessions of buying French kids and the current, 'buy the Barcelona youth academy' policy! Season-upon-season we've been hearing the thick French-accented English of Wenger claiming that "They are still young, they are only maturing", and even more surprisingly TV commentators agreeing with him saying "Give them another year, next year they will be champions!"

But after a 5 year win-less (major championships) streak, most commentators and pundits are starting to lose faith in Wenger's babies, ever 'maturing'!... The exasperation of Arsenal fans is becoming ever more evident as they try to justify the latest of Wenger's rants coupled with the ever increasing failure on the pitch! Not even the most die hard Gunners' fan could possibly convincingly justify Wenger's claim that the Dutch FA should compensate the injury, that Arsenal's best player of the season so far, Robin van Persie, picked up while on international duty! And they would be hard pressed to accept their French manager's claim that the Burnley side they drew with 1-1 was supposedly too strong for them!

While Wenger's actual words might have been that it is unfair for Arsenal to have faced a strong Burnley side when Manchester United faced a second string Wolves side the day before, the question still remains whether Arsenal are incapable of getting the better of the strongest side Burnley can put out? I mean, for a team that (if you believe Wenger) is still in the Championship race, getting the better of newly promoted Burnley should be a walk in the park, shouldn't it? Not underestimating the fight and grit of Owen Coyle's boys, who have already defeated Man U in the second week of the season. Still after that defeat, Sir Alex definitely didn't come out and berate the fact that Burnley were too strong for them! Defeats happen and Man U have been notorious for their slow starts to seasons. But in any normal situation, a game against Burnley should be quite an easy 3 points for the Gunners! It wasn't, and while the real culprits might have been his players who again turned in a shoddy performance on the pitch, Wenger chooses to blame his sides misfortune at having to play a strong side!

I keep coming back to that one point coz I still can't get over the ludicrousness of that claim! Yes, Mick McCarthy, the Wolves boss, did rest his 10 starters for the game against United, but can you actually blame him? McCarthy has enough experience to realise that a game against an United side charging for the title would be a difficult one to get a result from even if he played his best side. And in light of the packed Christmas season coming up and more immediately, the game against, ironically, Wolves on Saturday, he rested his key players! Big deal. The fact that McCarthy feels Wolves can beat Burnley while Wenger felt the same side were too strong, just speaks volumes!

And even if it was wrong on McCarthy's side to have fielded a weakened side at Old Trafford, it is to me just a taste of his own bitter French medicine for Wenger who had just the weak before, fielded the youngest ever side in the final Champions League match against Olympiakos who went on to beat his side of inexperienced teenagers and progress to the next round at the expense of Standard Liege, who fell to third in the group on account of that result! For one thing, Liege who will now compete in the Europa league lost out on millions of pounds in TV revenue as a result of that. Now for that, should they receive compensation from Arsenal who will reportedly receive 36 million pounds for topping their Champions league group?

Which brings us nicely onto Wenger's own claims of being compensated for a hip injury picked up by Van Persie on international duty. The number of injuries at Arsenal this season, as has been the case in most recent seasons (40 injuries and counting), is indeed shocking. It is also very unfortunate for Wenger that the one player in his side who has been scoring goals at will and orchestrating the show, is now out for some time. Yet blaming the Dutch FA for having played him in a supposedly 'unnecessary' game is rubbish! I would like to see how Wenger would react if he were the manager of a national side and had a player he called up for a friendly refuse to join the team, especially with the World Cup just months away!

Getting the composition of the squad just right, ahead of a World Cup is crucial and if Van Persie wanted to play at the World Cup he had no choice but to play the friendly. As it is, international managers hardly ever get their full squad together for more than a week in two months. And again, how appalling is it to say that a player should not play for his national side when he gets a call-up? There are players who train, play and exhaust themselves day in and day out to get a single call-up to their national side. Representing the Oranje is a matter of pride and great honour to Van Persie, I'm sure. But for Wenger to berate the Dutch FA for calling him up to play for his country is, I'm sorry to say, simply lunatic!

Wenger certainly seems to have lost his bearings these days. His latest complaint has been about the congested fixture list. The problem – Arsenal are playing 3 games in 7 days!... Earth to Mr. Wenger – do you remember a certain Manchester United side do just that every week for 5 months at the end of last season, what with their commitments in the Club World Cup, Champions League, Carling Cup and FA cup to add to the BPL?... And they didn't do too badly did they? Won the Club World Cup, won the Carling Cup and the BPL, and were Champions league finalists and FA cup semifinalists...

This sort of situation is called hard work Sir Wenger!... You need a squad of experienced players to deal with such situations. You need a squad that is willing to come in one day, give their heart and soul and then 3 days later come back and do the same! Arsenal's kids are certainly not at that level yet... the way things are going and especially if they keep having a lunatic Frenchman in charge who keeps selling off their best players, they won't be at that level any time soon!

- BiBinhio