Arsenal News: Gunners Boss Arsene Wenger's Bold Statement Came Too Soon

It's understandable that Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger would want to inject some positive influence into his side before starting Champions League play against Borussia Dortmund, but his bold comments about Arsenal's renewed confidence came too soon after a disappointing summer transfer window.

The Gunners are underdogs as they head to Signal Iduna Park and face off with Die Borussen. The game comes on the heels of Arsenal's first league win of the season against Premier League newcomer Swansea. Andrei Arshavin's 40th minute strike was the only goal of the match.

That wouldn't see like a big enough result for Wenger to make public comments about his squad turning things, but that's exactly what he did, according to ESPNsoccernet.

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"The confidence is back now. [We] had not won yet in the league and that had played a big part in our head. In our job, momentum is vital. We just want to play to win.

"When you look back when we traveled to Udinese [for the Champions League play-off] everyone expected us to win the game and we did, we want the same against Dortmund."

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Really? A 1-0 home win over a team that will struggle to get out of the relegation zone restored Arsenal's confidence? That doesn't seem very likely.

It's more likely a case of Wenger trying to convince players and supporters alike that everything is fine at Emirates. Losing Gael Clichy, Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri cannot be overcome with a gimme victory over Swansea.

Not only is Wenger putting extra pressure on himself, but he's also putting it on his players to perform well on a big stage like the Champions League. Now if they fail, it will seem like a bigger disappointment because the manager gave everybody a false sense of hope.

Arsenal enter the Borussia Dortmund clash without the services of Aaron Ramsey, Jack Wilshere or Thomas Vermaelen, which makes an uphill battle even tougher.

Even if the Gunners pull out a shock result to start the group stage, there will still be a lot of work to do before they regain full confidence. It just seems like Wenger is trying to accelerate the process after he made some final day transfer moves.

Wenger is right when he says momentum is vital in football. It can carry inferior teams to surprising results and cause opposing coaches to scratch their head. But building they type of momentum is a slow process that takes a couple strong results to complete.

It certainly doesn't happen simply by beating a team you should beat. That's not confidence-building; that's face-saving.

Wenger's intentions were right—it was just too soon to go public with those comments. He should have waited to see if his club could pull out a point on the road before saying the confidence is coming back.