Wenger Prepares For Fergie By Seeking Protection

Rumour has it there’s a bit of a game coming up this weekend and it seems to have one of the manager’s pulling out all the stops in preparation.

So is Arsene Wenger getting his players out there for extra training before they face Manchester United? Or maybe sitting them down to scrutinise video’s of their opponents? Nope, he’s whingeing to the press. Because in true Wenger style, he’s trying to use the press to either prepare his excuses or gain an advantage.

Off the back of a 2-1 defeat to Stoke and a 0-0 draw against Fenerbahce, Wenger has bemoaned the physical demands on his players. Of course, there were four English teams in the Champions League this week, none of whom won (in fact we were battered) and yet Wenger appears to be the only manager whose players were excused by their manager for being tired. Following the game, Wenger stated “We have had three difficult games in the space of one week and tonight we did not have the physical resources required.”

However, rather than tiredness, I’d have to suggest Arsenal’s real problem is playing against sides who aren’t prepared to give them time on the ball to play their flair football. They simply don’t have a plan B and Wenger is all too aware of this which is presumably what has provoked him into whining like a bitch again.

Despite initially being friendly to Tony Pullis’ face following their defeat to Stoke on Saturday, the Arsenal boss later decided to launch a scathing attack suggesting Stoke City’s players deliberately set out to injure his fragile little stars. Rather than accept his players’ deficiencies when it comes to getting stuck into a battle, Wenger says “Do you think Delap tried to play the ball when he tackled Walcott? Or that Shawcross tried to play the ball when he tackled Adebayor off the pitch? All the players have been injured deliberately. I am not ready to listen to things that are completely untrue and make people who are cowards, for me, look brave. For me the brave one is not the one who tackles from behind the player who tries to play football, that is the coward. All I can say is they [Arsenal's players] are brave and, for me, you need to have more courage to play football when you know that someone is tackling you from behind without any intention to play the ball. The only intention is to hurt you and I can show some tackles where I can prove what I say. The one who is tackling is not the brave one. For me the brave one is the player who is trying to play football.”

So why this sudden change of heart a couple of days after the game bearing in mind the only player actually sent off in that game was an Arsenal one anyway, when Robin Van Persie decided to lay hands on the Stoke keeper? Well, I think his next rant explains it perfectly.

In full flow now Wenger says “Do you want me to tell you the players we lost here? Abou Diaby, deliberate foul from behind. Tomas Rosicky, deliberate foul. Eduardo, deliberate foul. Now we lose Walcott, deliberate foul. And we have lost Bacary Sagna, deliberate foul on him. There was only one intention when he was tackled and that is the ankle and you want me, on top of that, to sit here and say ‘yes, sorry we are not brave’. We were not protected Saturday.”

And there, in that last sentence is his motivation for such outrageous claims. Tony Pullis himself, having digested the claims made against the Stoke players, says Wenger must have had some kind of objective to make such laughable comments a couple of days after seeming so gracious, and of course he did. Arsene Wenger, who’s already had to apologise for making exactly these sort of claims against Martin Taylor after Eduardo’s injury, thinks this apparent outrage via the press, will influence the officials and get his players the protection he wants.

The sad truth is though, all Wenger has succeeded in doing is embarrassing himself and making his players look even bigger pussies than they did already.