Arsene Wenger has stressed that his team will approach Sunday’s North London derby with all their usual attacking enterprise and made clear that he never differentiates his tactics for a game just because it is away from the Emirates.
The Frenchman has watched his side slowly build their confidence in the last ten days with hard fought victories in three different competitions, but recognises that looking forward is the key to maintaining focus.
Speaking to the press ahead of the Tottenham showdown, Wenger explained: “The real test is the next game. The next game is Tottenham and it is of course a test.
“I never in my life could understand the difference between home and away, for me it’s a football match and no matter where you play you try to play well. I never could understand why in peoples’ heads there is a difference between away and home.
“It is a very important game. You know always the next game is the most important in your life and I do not try to play down the importance of the game at all.
“I just think whether it is away or home it is an important game, and away or at home it is the same; if you play well, you win.”
Much of the focus in the last 48 hours has centred on the threat posed by former striker Emmanuel Adebayor. Indeed, with Laurent Koscielny, Johan Djourou, Thomas Vermaelen and Sebastian Squillaci all sidelined, Alex Song looks likely to partner Per Mertesacker in the centre of defence for the second game running. Backing his side to the hilt, despite the absentees, Wenger reflected on the potential potency of his former charger.
“It’s down to us how much of a threat he will be. It’s down to our quality and to how well we defend and even better how much we have the ball.”
Can we get that picture of those two cunts off this piece, before my foot goes through my fuckin computer screen? Please.
Done. Granted, it was a bad choice.
Cheers.
I was kinda hoping it would be replaced by one of that Susanna Reid off the telly, but that’ll do.
Its this sort of nativity that could cost us on Sunday. For a man of his stature I for one am shocked at this admission.
How on earth would you say there’s no difference between home and away games?
Why are so surprised Manny? this isnt exactly new news, hevent you been watching Arsenal since Arsene became manager, i can only think of 2 occasions where he altered his thinking!
Our Champs lge final run, where he used 4-5-1/4-3-3 and he has been obsessed with it ever since
&
our FA cup final penalty victory over Utd! our last trophy 🙁
Where he played very defensively, we were poor, United were very unlucky but we won 🙂
I’d forgotten we played poorly in that FA Cup final. I only remembered us winning it and our truly great captain ending his Arsenal career on a goalscoring, winning note.
Actually, that’s all I need to remember.
You know, even when rubbing our noses in it over our wait for silverware the press don’t say “Arsenal have won nothing since that FA Cup final and they played poorly in that”.
“Its this sort of nativity that could cost us on Sunday”
You leave Mary and Joseph out of this!
Could this be why we have poor away form?
What? No, because we have poor home form too?
Oh ok
Our home form held up longer than our away form (turned pear-shaped at home from 5 March, and away from 5 Feb), and has returned sooner (5-0-1 this season isn’t bad), and taking all competitive games this year, there’s a big contrast: 14-5-2 at home, 5-7-7 away.
I do think that Wenger needs to rethink his policy: the opposition has different tactics when playing on their own patch, and therefore we need different tactics to counter it. I don’t think our tactics + quality is sufficient that we can just ignore the opposition and venue.
I am a strong believer in Arsene Wenger. However, surely he should have been able to differentiate between home and away matches last season?
Away = Arsenal win
Home = Arsenal lose
(Firmly tongue in cheek on this one)
He sure has turned that around this season
(Tongue -> Cheek. Still there)
Maybe, just maybe, all this explains why we went gun-ho and got spanked 8-2 at wankchester.
I get from where hes coming from, he isn’t talking about going gung-ho attack crazy; simply that home or away he sends his team out to win (whether or not they do is another matter), that if the performance matches the plan, we are in with a shout of a result wherever we’re playing. Admittedly since March the wheels have come off somewhat, but surely we don’t have that short a memory do we folks, we do tend to win more than not.
It’s a message to the team, it’s going to be hostile and Wenger needs them focusing on their football, not the opposition fans or anything in the press. Being at home is an advantage to spurs so Wenger tries to play it down.
[…] of the match, Arsene has played down the rivalry between the two teams, claiming he doesn’t care whether we are home or away, as long as we are winning. True, and good point as well. But, when we play away and win at the […]
Just wanted to say how happy I am to have found this comment section of this site. I’ve been a daily reader of arseblog for a couple of years now and only just found this part of the site. I know, you think I’m a retard, but hey, that’s what using an iPhone app will do to you. Anyhow, cheers, I love the site. And p.s. Fuck united.
Good stuff mate, we can all understand the joy you must be experiencing 🙂
Cool name, De Gea
..WE ARE THE ARSENAL WE ARE THE BEST, WE ARE THE ARSENAL SO FUCK ALL THE REST!!
fuckem all fuckem all..