Arsenal football club and their manager Arsene Wenger have been under heavy criticism for quite some time. The scrutiny doesn’t end there, as owner Stan Kroenke and the Arsenal board are also consistently under fire. Right now, the north London club, on almost every level, is often getting slammed by supporters, supporters of rivals, neutrals and pundits in the global football community.
This isn’t new, but there is a fresh batch of criticism originating with more club legends this international break. Former Gunners Emmanuel Petit and Lee Dixon took massive swipes at the Wenger regime. Additionally, former Gunners manager George Graham took aim at club leadership, saying that there is no board at Arsenal.
In an op-ed on the website for Irish sports book Paddy Power, Petit, a former Gunners midfielder, called out the tactics and approach of Wenger, in the Gunners 3-1 loss at Manchester City this past Sunday.
“He wanted his team to score goals and not to defend, but in the first half he made some tactical errors that made this approach impossible,” Petit wrote.
“He was afraid of Manchester City and his team were passive as a result. I think more substitutions should have been made in the midfield area: Ozil was on the pitch, but he was just a ghost.”
Meanwhile Dixon said that the Arsenal of Arsene Wenger is unfixable.
Lee Dixon on #afc: "I honestly think they're unfixable under Arsène, The players don't really know what they're doing without the ball." pic.twitter.com/srfDH9mg0i
— afcstuff (@afcstuff) November 7, 2017
“I honestly think they’re unfixable by Arsene,” he said on BBC Five Live. (transcript via the Daily Star) “What he’s got there, he’s created an environment that doesn’t really know what they’re doing without the ball.
“It’s quite simple. For me it’s simple when I watch them I think they can beat anybody on their day going forward.
“They can lose to anybody on their day defensively. That summed it up at the weekend against Man City.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune corporation blogging community Chicago Now.
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