Arsene Wenger needs to reinvigorate sorry Arsenal or they’re going to fall out of the title race
Ian Wright hopes Arsenal boss doesn't dwell on Manchester City's offside goals and instead tells players to up their game
ARSENAL should be heading for Christmas staring at a month of hugely winnable games.
Instead, these matches have suddenly turned into must-win ones — with a serious threat of the whole season blowing up in their face if there are any slips.
And as Arsene Wenger tries to lift the Gunners after losing two games in a week from leading positions, I hope he picks his words very carefully.
For whatever he says, I pray he doesn’t use the one which would give all those players who disappointed at Manchester City a get-out-of-jail-free card — offside.
We can argue from now until May about whether Leroy Sane’s goal should have stood, the same to a lesser extent about Raheem Sterling’s winner. The fact is they were given, end of story. And are you telling me Arsenal played well enough in that second half to have seen the game out in any case?
Those days of chanting “1-0 to the Arsenal” seem a generation away but every Gunners fan would snatch your hand off for one right now.
It’s not about ability. What worries me is their intensity. Or more to the point, the way it seems to be dropping in matches — their inability to find a second goal to kill off a game.
People tell me they were bullied at Everton last week but don’t give me that.
They lost at Everton, and to a footballing City side, because their opponents wanted it more. They worked harder. They were more intense.
That, for me, is the most worrying thing and a problem Arsene needs to address immediately or it will be too late. Alexis Sanchez again worked his socks off at the Etihad but too many are not performing.
Mesut Ozil in particular has come in for tons of stick — and there has got to be a reaction from him to that.
We all know the quality he’s got, so there can be no excuse for the performance he served up at the Etihad.
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I’m not interested in all the stuff being chucked around about how he was walking. That’s pretty much irrelevant.
When people went on about that it was wrong, because City were actually in front of him, Arsenal were pretty much in shape and if he’d have bombed around, he’d have left a gap and been hammered for that.
He does need to start delivering more than he is right now, though, because frankly he is letting down all those fans who continue to fight his corner.
But while Ozil needs to buck his ideas up, he’s far from the only one. The problem for Arsenal is a collective one, not individual.
And they need to stick together like never before now — there is no hiding place after the City defeat.
That’s why they cannot, must not, look to refereeing decisions as a reason for the loss.
The players can’t have any excuse, they can’t be thinking “if those offsides had been given we would have won”.
We can all see what’s coming now — all the ‘Arsene Out’ brigade will be clearing their throats, while the “same old flaky Arsenal” lot will be doing the same.
The only way to answer them is to start delivering on the pitch. To start showing some accountability.
No more mistakes, no more slips, no more dips in intensity.
We’ve been down that road too many times before and I certainly don’t fancy heading there again.