Arsene Wenger has called the increased media spotlight on every aspect of football clubs (not just Arsenal) ‘ridiculous’ and urged the media to concentrate more on what happens on the pitch than what goes on behind the scenes.
In an age when information overload isn’t just a catchphrase, media and fans are rapacious in their desire to know everything little thing about every little thing, and it’s something Wenger is keen not to get drawn into.
Quizzed at his press conference about whether or not he’d called the team together for ‘crisis talks’, the manager said, “I don’t talk about what happens inside. We live in a world where you don’t have to come into our sleeping room to know what happens.
“We inform you but don’t forget that your job is first to judge us on what we do on the football pitch and not what we do inside. I think it’s become a bit ridiculous now that every single moment of a football club has to be absolutely public.
“We have to stand up for bad performances but not for everything we do inside the club.”
But when asked about the emergence of a photograph from the dressing room at the training ground which showed the internal fines structure, the boss showed a little more sangfroid.
“You cannot keep anything inside anymore, it’s frustrating because I feel you have a right to privacy inside the dressing room and when that is not respected it’s disappointing.
“But in this case, I think it was not malicious, it is more innocent. The intention counts for me and I don’t think the intention was anything bad.”
He also found time to explain why it was Per Mertesacker who was tasked with collecting fines:
“The Germans do well economically and we respect that. They’re the only ones who make money in Europe and that’s why we’ve chosen a German!”
As frustrating as he is, he’s still a great man for a one-liner.
I don’t understand why Squillaci wasn’t tasked with collecting the fines. After all, picking up the cones after the players train only takes a few minutes and he’s already completed Frogger on hard mode, the poor chap’s at a loose end!
awimb?
Surely Don Vito would be the best option to collect the ‘pizzo’.
Mannone used to collect the fines, but Rosicky didn’t pay up one time and hasn’t been seen since.
Gave him the ol’ Moe Green Special.
I’m fed up with these cheap mafioso stereotypes.
If I hear one more, you will be sleeping with the fishes. Capiche?
What’s goes on at this club is the complete opposite of being public, the fans have no idea what’s going on from one day to the next. The CEO says one thing, arsene say another then days later the mantra changes again.
Lies and half truths is a sad way to treat the fans. But they will turn and bite this board and manager on the arse at some point.
Hmmm, who is giving you thumbs down for this post?
6 of them…
Wenger, Kronken, Gazidis, Bould, Primorac and Rice (Wenger called him).
🙂
Wenger, Kronken, Gazidis, Bould
Wengers calling Pat 🙂
I think they made the calculation that the fans would find the truth even worse than the obfuscation. I mentioned something along these lines in the arses yesterday, so a quick recap: If you look at the club finances, the most obvious interpretation is that the club decided that in order to compensate for a stagnant revenue stream (long-term sponsorship deals), it would be prepared to use transfer policy – i.e. selling players – as a lever to help pay for the rising wage bill. Admitting this openly would in turn require admitting that the club was prepared to sacrifice… Read more »
Then why say we have substantial funds available and we are now in a position to compete with top clubs in the transfer market.
I understand what you are saying and maybe the truth wouldn’t go down much better, but when we get statements saying we have money and then don’t spend it, I’m not sure why some people are surprised when some fans then get the hump. Mixed messages coming form the club are doing them no favours.
Well, the way I see it, they’re not telling strictly untruths when they talk about having substantial funds. The club does have cash reserves, and it could conceivably spend some (although not all) of them on transfers if it really wanted to, but its plan appears to be to “keep the powder dry” for as long as possible. Of course, with the team turning out mediocre performances on the pitch, this seems to be turning into a high-stakes gamble. To be clear, I don’t intend my comments as a defence of either the club’s strategy or the way it has… Read more »
@Cyril Washbrook – would the fans accept such a stark explanation? Sure they would if it was presented as part of the Gazidis-style fairytale. Tens of thousands of fans bought into the rhetoric about our superior prudence and morality. Fans will buy into anything that raises their spirits and gives them some hope for the future. What’s a few years of hardship when we’ve got moral right on our side? Besides, the hardship wouldn’t be lasting for long as Chelsea would soon be doing a Leeds and imploding in a puff of black smoke, and with the coming of FFP… Read more »
Truth is more players will leave Arsenal, we won’t replace with like and the Arsenal media team will use online blogs to spread propaganda of such players being “cunts”.
You’re right, even the most loyal of fans are soon going turn on the club. In fact they’re already staying away in worrying numbers – plenty of tickets available on general release for Liverpool. You have to ask yourself what the club has to hide if it doesn’t believe honesty and transparency is the best way to keep the fan base onside. I’m not suggesting we should reveal our transfer targets to our rivals; in fact the sooner arsenal dot com stops reporting transfer rumours from the tabloids the better, imo, as that kind of tacky cheerleading just leaves fans… Read more »
‘Thank you for your interest in our affairs’….. Sadly, this PHW quote sums it all up.
This was almost news….
AW is correct about one thing. The amount of detail made public by players and agents surrounding recent transfers and contract negotiations at Arsenal Football Club is simply unacceptable. Is there any other club forced to conduct its business in so public a way as us? And, maddeningly, usually by our own players or their agents. This is unacceptable behaviour. And while I’m at it, Arsenal players “voicing their opinions” on our club is also unacceptable. I don’t care if they are “only answering a question put to them” – “I’d rather not talk about that thanks”, is an entirely… Read more »
I am.
She may need ‘comforting’.
Even with the current ‘crisis’ I find it too hard to hate this man
Getting tetchy Arsene? Maybe it’s because you never signed a player at the start of the transfer window when everyone else did including all of our closest rivals above us, when we were in direst need.
What. The. Fuck. Is. Going. On. At. Arsenal?
Who should he have signed though? Ba? He’s just Adebayor with a shorter name. Sturridge?
There’s been no-one signed by any of our rivals that I though: “I wish we had signed him…”
Classic rose tinted glassses. Ba is just another adebayor? Does ade have 14 prem goals and I don’t blame ba for leaving newcastle, he wanted a bigger club. Perhaps more money but isn’t that what football ‘s about today.
Go away, you excuse making fool.
Let’s be honest here, our rivals don’t need to sign like we do, we have the worst squad of them all. Hence our league position. Our problems are much greater than our rivals’ ATM.
@TR: Which is what makes this even more frustrating. They are already better than we are and they are going out and improving ourselves. Our manager/board are doing fuck all (save for loaning marginal players out so we are even thinner before a run of 4 games in 10 days or whatever it is).
Improving themselves. Not improving ourselves.
It’s early here. I haven’t even had coffee. That’s my excuse.
I disagree Frrred. Ba was touted around every club in England by his agent/brother simply looking for a higher wage, and a percentage of the fee. Players like that are trouble. My memory of Adebayor for us was that the fans hated his disloyalty, and his annual “come and get me” routine in the closed season.
Ba belongs at Chelsea, a “club” who’s philosophy and owner he and his brother couldn’t be more suited to.
There are other players in the world, not just Ba and Sturridge. Our scouting network must be utter shite if we cant find players to improve our current squad.
This Adebayor hate is tiring. Yeah, he is a mercenary footballer playing for sp*rs, and money seems to be the most important thing for him. But hearing arsenal fans singing “Shot in Angola, it should have been you” is so disgusting. It has been 4 years since he left arsenal, get over it.
Any arsenal supporter singing like that is a disgrace. The same goes with the “She said no” song. Maybe unrelated to the comments. But chants like that needs to stop.
If there are better players than Ba and Sturridge available and willing to change clubs, then we are not alone in not finding them. No one else has either. No one else’s – not just our – scouting setups have found them.
Like I say, no one that has changed club so far this transfer window have I thought: “I wish he was coming here…”
They he to be available, they have to be willing to change club.av
@Dave Gooner – I agree no one else has made any particularly enviable signings this window, but that’s hardly surprising since every club knows this is a bad time to buy. The enviable signings get made in the summer; at least they do by the type of clubs who bought Nasri, Cesc and Van Persie from us and who had the sense to trigger Mata’s release clause rather than wasting money on Santos and Park. Why didn’t we make a serious offer for Cavani two summers ago when he was younger and cheaper and at that point just about within… Read more »
Weirdo,who mentioned anything about bedrooms/sleeping?
Sangfroid is a noun, not an adjective
Indeed it is. Will amend the article to reflect that.
I am firmly on the band wagon that a change at the helm is required, having said that, I firmly back everything Wenger said above.
Not EVERYTHING about the club should be in the media.
This guy definitely breathes Arsenal. God cannot make anyone perfect, maybe that’s why he made this one a little too stubborn.
There is no “god”,and probably no transfer window either.
“We inform you but don’t forget that your job is first to judge us on what we do on the football pitch and not what we do inside. I think it’s become a bit ridiculous now that every single moment of a football club has to be absolutely public.”
Exactly because what’s happening on the football pitch, all of us are interested more and more why is like that, so we want a peek inside.
I mean, we are assuming why is like that but it would be nice to get some confirmation how bad it is.
We can’t and shouldn’t know all the goings on inside the locker room. That’s just silly. The issue everyone has is there are areas where there should be much better transparency and information coming from AFC and there isn’t. We are watching our club in a downward spiral and nothing seems to be being done about it. We lack true quality and depth in certain positions and we wait for signings but we hear nothing. And Arsene certainly doesn’t help things with the comments he makes from one day to the next that completely contradict each other!
BFG…Debt Collector
Sell kos and per. Both are shit.
Buy someone at least as good as vermaelen/
kompany if not better.
Everything else is probably fine. Walcott as cf.
Giroud as impact sub.
You do realise this isn’t football manager?
Ummm. Ok, but let’s just look at the names. After kolo(our best cb) n gallas(2nd best after kolo), what have we had? Senderos. Djourou. Squillaci. Still a shaky defence. N then we buy kos, and per. Honestly I was expecting a lot from per. But, no. He’s too slow and not good in the air. You would expect him to be good in the air with that size but no, he’s too weak. Slow. N kos, I’m sorry, I’m happy if he just doesn’t score an own goal. May be I sound too cynical but we have had this problem… Read more »
Go away.
Nobody will MICHU when you are gone! MEGALOLZ
Maybe you missed something mate. Because if I remember correctly, kolo and gallas weren’t all that great together and they hated each other. If you had just said ” our defense needs a bit of strengthening, can we please buy hummels” you may have gotten a better response.
From Wengers point of view it might be better if the media discussed what happens around the club rather than whats happening on the pitch…..
[…] Read More Here: Boss won’t discuss ‘internal’ goings-on […]
Per
So, basically, most fellow gooners think we don’t have a problem at the back? Or at least, it’s not our priority problem?
I’m however, annoyed with per’s inability to use any of his height (not even mentioning how frustratingly slow he is) and kos’s proneness to scoring own goals.
Wenger, you’ve screwed big on this cb thing.
Sold kolo, gallas.
Bought senderos, djourou, squilacci, kos, per.
Now, sell kos n per as well and let someone else pick a new cb for us.
I’m still fuming at how we let vertonghen slip and worse, move to spurs.
Senderos was at the club before Gallas… just saying. Not even going to bother telling you what’s wrong with the rest of your statement
To summarise – buy a cb.
don’t forget Stepanovs, Cygan etc. We’ve always had a shitter or two in the team! The others have to have someone to take the piss out of, don’t they? It keeps morale up.
Pfft….I know…damn German internationals… Or to put it another way, Arsenal play much much better with Per on the pitch than we do when he isn’t playing for us. We are far more assured at the back. That is not coincidence. He has the complete confidence of his team mates, and rightly so. He rarely puts a foot wrong. And while he might not be the paciest, he more than makes up for that with a positional awareness which is frankly second to none.. Per is superb, and has been pretty much every game since we bought him. I also… Read more »
I was typing a response like this and decided not to bother, you have put this wonderfully. Per is a massively underrated player.
Selling our best defender from last season (Kos), and our best defender this season (Per…but along with Gibbs) sounds like a good idea to u?
Verm and Sagna are the ones making the most mistakes this season.
Sell Koscielny and Mertesacker? Why would we do that?
Michu forgot Silvestre.
Just saying 😀
I hear Sneijder has gone to play in Turkey and for a staggering 7 mil. He could not have possibly improved Arsenal … not at a staggering 7 mil. We need to save that kind of money to pay to World Class players like Walcott. Also Sneijnder could not fit into the Arsenal. He would get in the way of our new style of play of passing the ball around aimlessly, getting caught in possession and not creating any chances. Also he has a good long range shot, but we do not need such players at the team. I mean… Read more »
Are Galatasary paying Sneijder the 200,000 odd euros a week he was on at Inter?
It its around that for a 3 year deal, they are taking on a 30 mill euro commitment as well as the transfer fee
I doubt a Turkish side could pay anyone 200,000 Euros a week. A pay cut seems more likely.
Wesley Sneijder is…
… a durpy durp a diddly durpy dum.
right. sneijder was also asking for $1k/week, and was willing to help with the kits part time as well.
he is not a greedy mercenary. no, he’s not that.
I bet his 200k pr week demand was a turnoff for many clubs….
The best reason to sign him would have been because he hates Rvp.
off-topic,
Gervinho scored a beauty at the ACON against Adebayor’s Togo, sweet.
Let’s hope he comes back like a champion.
I like Gervinho a lot but we’ve not got the best out of him. Nor out of quite a few others in recent years, some of them (e.g. Arshavin) fairly expensive. Seems to me it’s not – or not only – that we’re now buying bad players; it’s more that we’re misusing them by playing them out of position or in system that’s ill-suited to their particular skills and as a result we’re draining their confidence. Arshavin’s the most extreme example of money wasted, but you could also add Chamakh and, so far, Gervinho and Giroud, all of whom had… Read more »
Just fucking buy someone,,,i don’t give a fuck who it is, it would give us all a lift to battle on for fouth spot, i can’t go through the rest of the season with the mad proffessor telling us “we can make fourth place” “we couldn’t find anyone of top top top top top quality who would improve the squad” “we have the mental strength” or any more old bollocks that we’ve heard a million times before……i can see it, all Arsenal fans can see it…don’t tell me Wenger can’t fucking see it!!!! Arrrrrrrggghhhh
Rant over!!!
From the headline I thought this article might be about Wenger refusing to talk about his bowel movements.
What a relief.
Maybe lacking a bit of consistency down there. But the quality is good.
I did not see that coming. They drop little bit physically in the second half.
(splash)
As frustrating as he is, he’s still a great man for a one-liner.
Oh just fantastic. As Comedy goes, he’s a French Benny Hill come Buster Keaton.
Has he heard the one about the once great North London Club, that over a period of eight years, became mid table dross and was overtaken by Chelsea and Spurs and had West Ham breathing down their necks ?
As Frank Carson said ‘It’s the way I tell ’em”
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha !!!!!
Vomit !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OK, fair enough, I can take the point about Wenger bullshitting to the press and keeping his cards close to his chest – I can take that. But what f**ks me off is that, if Wenger really plays the long game, why does his strategy more often than not bear bugger all fruit? For numerous seasons now, he’s waited to the very last minute in the transfer period, by which time all the “top, top quality” players have been bought up by other teams and we are left with very average bargain bin players that, apart from Santi, nobody else… Read more »
Isnt what goes on inside the club a massive part of why we are failing on the pitch? Yes we can judge you by your performances on the pitch. The performances on the pitch are the exact reason people are questioning what the fuck is going on inside the club.
[…] 来源：[arseblog news] […]
Despite all the media rumors about arsenal signing players (striker, defense , etc) that’s not our business .. Things happening in the board stays in the board and mustn’t be exposed .. Every player arsenal is intrested in you see Manu or spurs running to sign him .. Why ?? It’s all because the other club shares the info to the media to increase the player value and of course we lose the deal cuz we pay half what he’s worth .. In other words ” we sale three we get one free “
Wenger pls try Nd Get Evng 2 Quality Players
It has become clear to me that Arsene Wenger and the board have taken a massif gamble and that currently it is not working out. “If” we were in a strong position this year there would be no call to invest in the team during the winter “but” as things stand and the way the form is, we are heading out of the Champions league and out of pocket by £20m plus. Arsenals spending was to come from the new commercial deals but that is clearly linked to CL qualification. No qualification no money to invest unless more players leave… Read more »