Arsenal is enduring a massive injury crisis right now, and it’s inspired some media members to rip Manager Arsene Wenger.
Those critics include am Arsenal legend, Sky pundit Thierry Henry. A story in the Daily Mail today calls out Thierry Henry has criticized former manager’s Arsene Wenger’s decision not to rest Arsenal forward Alexis Sanchez before he went off with a hamstring injury in Sunday’s 1-1 draw with Norwich City.
We’ll know more this week about Sanchez’s status, but it seemingly appears that he could be out for a very long time.
In the post game press conference at Norwich, a hostile and defensive Wenger answered allegations that Sanches may have been feeling the hamstring injury already before the match.
“No, no,” the Frenchman said.
“The players are there to play football not to be rested when the press decides they need to be rested.”
Before Sunday’s game, Thierry Henry said he would have liked to have seen Wenger take Sanchez off when they were 3-0 up against Dinamo Zagreb on Tuesday night.
“I can feel for Arsene in a way,” Henry said. “You are playing for the title and you come here [to Norwich] and you need to win.”
“Obviously if you ask Alexis Sanchez if he is OK, he is going to say yes. If a guy says no then he might as well leave the club. You are there to play.”
“But I think you almost don’t have to ask him anything if you want to rest him. You need to go out and say nothing or, ‘I’m resting you today and that’s the way it is.”
“Again, I personally wouldn’t have liked that when I was a player, but you take it on the chin and see the bigger picture because you want to be out there and play the whole season.”
“Yes, it was difficult to rest him today because you want to win, but I go back to the Zagreb game. With 20 minutes to go at 3-0, you can give him a little rest.”
“Obviously I would like to think the 14 hours traveling, playing away with Chile for the World Cup in South America, doesn’t help.”
“Now we can all say the same thing. If he played today and he scored he would have said, ‘I was right to play him’, but he got an injury so we are obviously going to say he should have rested him.”
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and sometimes writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. The website is also featured on News Now.
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