Arsene Wenger says he has no knowledge of a bust-up between Alexis Sanchez and his Arsenal teammates and maintains his decision to drop the Chilean for Saturday’s clash with Liverpool was not a punishment.
Reports last night claimed the 28-year-old was confronted by senior first-team players after storming out of a training session last week and that Wenger subsequently took the decision to discipline his star striker.
“I’m not aware of it. Nothing happened,” said Wenger when quizzed on this morning’s newspaper headlines ahead of the Champions League second-leg knockout match with Bayern Munich.
Asked if he felt the report to be wrong, he added: “Yes, completely false, but I understand that you have to feed the newspapers and we respect that.”
The boss went on to describe his relationship with Sanchez, who has 15 months remaining on his current contract, as “honest and normal”. This morning, the two men were pictured shaking hands during a training session watched by members of the media.
Asked on Saturday night if the decision to drop Sanchez was related to his contract stand-off with the club, the boss was similarly dismissive.
“No, not at all,” he told Arsenal.com. “I do not consider the contract situation when a guy has 18 months to go.
“You make a [selection] decision and people always have a very emotional analysis and an emotional response to this kind of decision.
“I wanted us to play direct and by direct I mean to win the ball in the air and to win the second ball. We do play it sometimes.”
Today, he reiterated that stance: “I explained after the game at Liverpool that I decided to go for a more direct option in the game. That’s what happened. That was the unique reason for my decision. All the rest, his attitude – he’s a committed player and sometimes has excessive behaviours but you have that many times in the history of every squad.”
Given the stories of a bust-up were so widespread we have little doubt that something did happen with Sanchez, however, it’s totally Wenger’s style to play things down when faced by the press. He’s never been one to air the club’s dirty laundry in public and that’s not going to change while he remains at the helm.
I love alexis and ozil but if they don’t want to be at our club (I’m not saying that they want to leave) then let them go. Life goes on. CMON YOU GUNNERS
We should kick him out if he really disrespected the Boss by doing even half the rumors. No ones bigger than Arsenal.
did you realize Sanchez is bigger than Wenger!!
Sanchez?? He couldnt even play regularly in his last team. Wenger made him look good he will be shit without Arsenal. And we wouldnt care less if he goes.
Wenger is the really one who is struggling..it is Sanchez who makes Wenger look good by helping arsenal get top 4. if not because of Sanchez ..Wenger would have been sacked by now
Bigger than Arsene, you mean.
The manager has very much become bigger than the club.
The moment when wanting to win is less important than getting along with the boys is the moment you’ve ceased exist as a football club.
We are an entertainment entity. As long as the peons cough up the dough, winning is an unnecessary luxury.
Arsene Wenger IS Arsenal. And yes you disrespect Arsenal when you disrespect the boss.
No
What are you talking about with all this ‘Arsene Wenger IS Arsenal’ nonsense?
You are making yourself sound like a clown.
Then they can fuck off. No player is bigger than this club, not Messi, not Ronaldo, and not these two. I love Sanchez’ work ethic but if the guy is gonna wine like a little bitch every time things don’t go his way then he, along with soft Ozil, can go fuck off. For me regardless I don’t want to see Ozil play for this team any more. He’s a soft little bitch that doesn’t have the fight to be a footballer in a top league where his team isn’t a thousand times better than everyone else. He is the… Read more »
Messi and Ronaldo aren’t the best examples as both are indulged hugely by their respective clubs (and with good reason).
Ronaldo has disagreements with his managers and teammates, throws at least one strop every game, and you see clips of him doing it in training too. He will never be dropped. Messi can dodge all the taxes he wants and often has licence to essentially stroll around the pitch doing nothing for 70% of a game and he’ll always be the main man at Barca.
Players often are bigger than clubs now sadly.
If Sanchez has the same frustrations with this team that many of us do can we blame him for getting annoyed? Depending on the exact situation, there are circumstances when I think him getting angry could be understandable, If I was him in that team and constantly saw my team mates put in the kind of displays they have been and then saw the complete lack of reaction from them that there has been it would wind me up in a big way. Having said that if hes doing all this to angle for a move away he can do… Read more »
Dude, the only reason they don’t want to be at our club is because of their non-ambitious teammates.
And it all starts with management.
The thing with stories like this is that there is no win for the club. Even if the club denies it, the reaction is yeah of course they are going to deny it. So the story may be completely false and yet once its out, its got a life of its own. The more you deny it, the more it grows, and of course denying it doesn’t convince anyone. On the flipside, if it did happen the club WOULD deny it. I am inclined to believe nothing like this happened though. However its clear that the players need a kick… Read more »
I’m completely indifferent to it. If Sanchez mouths off, then that is not an inherently bad thing. The invincibles suqad contained many abrasive characters and sometimes a little bit of discord and confrontation is a good thing. You was cohesion but you want high standards and competition also. So this is not about principle, if Sanchez was completely out of line and burned all bridges then fine, off you go. If not, then maybe some players could do with looking at themselves a bit. The thing about Ozil annoys me slightly more, but I think I’m alone here. I think… Read more »
Oh well then, mustnt be anything to it at all. Just direct football….
At least I had the slightest respect for him for having the balls to drop Sanchez if he disrespected his teammates by walking out of training or wtv that story was. Right now there is no excuse for not starting Sanchez other than he’s lost the plot. And I don’t buy this bullshit that we wanted to play direct and win the second balls. So Sanchez couldn’t play on the right or the left or even behind the striker? We play him as a striker for a couple of months and all of a sudden he can’t play anywhere but… Read more »
I understand I’m getting all those thumbs down because you just assume I’m one of those aggressive unreasonable fans harshly criticizing Wenger and Arsenal. I’m not. I always said I’ll judge at the end of the season and even after Bayern I was still optimistic cuz let’s get real, we’re never winning the champions league even if we did miraculously get passed Bayern. I want nothing more than to keep a motivated Alexis Sanchez. But, if he is being disrespectful to his teammates and his attitude is disrupting the squad, or he doesn’t respect the manager, than I do not… Read more »
Who cares about teh training ground. Let’s show some anger and cuntiness tomorrow against Bayern and dent their german aura. COYG!
I don’t get the wanting us to play direct angle that hes putting out. Surely if the game plan is to go direct you can still have sanchez in the team, just play him instead of Ibobi or someone and keep Welbz and Giroud up top. That excuse doesn’t add up
Indeed. His initial response of “I’m not aware of it” sounds a lot like “I didn’t see it”.
Does he really expect us to believe that? There was no altercation, it was made up right? Of course it was. Even if that is true it makes the decision to drop Alexis even more bizarre. You are playing one of your top four rivals and you drop your best player? You drop him after the opposition who were defeated the week before against a team who used power & pace against them and you decide the best way to beat them is start a half fit slow Giroud? It’s absolutely ridiculous. Someone at that club (I’m looking at you… Read more »
If he wanted to ‘go direct’ wouldn’t it have made sense to play Sanchez instead of Iwobi Saturday?
I guess Wenger is simply trying to put a lid on things, because there has to be more to it than tactical reasons.
Whilst acknowledging the sensitivity of the subject, one which Wenger is unlikely to expand upon too much in a press conference, this lack of openness and misdirection by the manager has undoubtedly irked supporters at the club, who for years now have been sold a dream of an ambitious club, one which has players with amazing ‘mental strength’ and ‘desire’, yet when it comes to the important/big games they fail to perform. Perhaps had Wenger been more honest and more self deprecating in the past, the vitriol he receives from certain supporters who want him gone would not be as… Read more »
Just a tip for fellow Gooners.
Don’t get your Arsenal shirts printed with an existing players name on the back. Get the name of a legend instead.
So if they leave in shitty circumstances the shirt isn’t wasted.
The owner of a Fabregas and Van Persie shirts speaking :(.
Or, since I’m no longer 12 years old, I’ll get a shirt with no name at all. 😉
Even though I feel the time has come for him to leave, you have to give massive kudos and respect to Arsene for this. With the leak, he has been handed on a plate an easy excuse for benching Sanchez which exonerates him but, even with all the pressure he is under, he still would rather take the flack rather than expose his team and dressing room. Classy to the end.
And Özil and Sanchez IF u want to leave.
Please leave with dignity and respect.
Don’t badmouth the club or the fans.
We don’t want to burn your shirts too ?
If I had joined Arsenal thinking I would be playing for a top club, and then found myself playing with Ox, Iwobi, Welbeck and Walcott, I would also be quite upset.
I’m not going to go into this Sanchez drama thing but I will just say that if we really are a big and financially successful club, then it should not be a problem to replace Sanchez with a player of similar or better level, even if it means changing our tactics. That said I prefer to keep him instead of wasting effort to find someone of similar quality but only because I hope that effort is used to strengthen elsewhere (*cough* defense *cough* midfield).
Absolutely.
We can replace him or Ozil. BOTH will of course represent a problem.
And yes, it will detract from building on strength because we will be in a rebuild mode again which is a step backwards.
That’s what we are trying to avoid.
We want to add a Mahrez to an Alexis, not replace him with.
Regardless if it happened or not Wenger has to deny it and does so in the classy way we’d all expect from him.
And to people saying that Sanchez is playing with shit players so he deserves to leave.
Fabregas played with Fucking, Denilson, Bendtner and Silvestre. And never once did show shitty attitude on the pitch.
And carried our team for years.
Until he went on strike because his Barca DNA beckoned him.
went on strike ? I don’t think so mate! he did another year when asked by the boss when he could have acted up and been a berk about it, but he just got on and gave one more year of cescy football.
Fabregas also played with Van Persie, Nasri, Hleb , Rosicky, Adebayor, Arshavin … how does that compare with the dross we’re putting out there now? A Denilson-Song midfield sounds fantastic compared to watching the likes of Ox, Xhaka, Coquelin and Ramsey stumble around this season.
RVP was rarely available for large spells.
Ditto Rosicky.
Arsharvin was hot and cold in his position out left.
Nasri had one good season ditto Adebayor.
Denilson less said the better. Song again one good season when it clicked.
Its easy (LAZY) to hark back and pretend they were salad days.
Not sure of the veracity of the “bust up” story but where there is smoke there is often fire and the team is playing uninspired, incoherent football, which is emblematic of a bigger problem. I will say that of all the criticisms waged at Wenger, for me the most damning is that he never replaced his leaders from the team’s glory days. Despite Arsene’s many attributes and achievements as well as his wonderful eye for finding untapped talent, the really good players he either groomed or acquired since our last title lack leadership and character. Sanchez is an amazing and… Read more »
Replacing leaders. Its not for want of trying. Certain players he expected to assume the mantle like RVP and Fabregas ultimately disappointed the gaffer. He brought in Granit and Mustafi recently, vocal players to say the least and aggressive individuals. But you can’t have your cake and eat it. When he brings players with fight, gullible fans will tow the media’s Arsenal disaster mongering line and say they are liabilities. All these qualities (bust up on training ground if true), propensity for red card (Granit) are just as much a liability as they are potential positives to be harness. As… Read more »
Would every body stop treating us like we are a small club. We have the same potential as the likes of bayern munich. Sanchez and Ozil can go if they want. We have lost the likes of henry pires viera and dennis bergkamp and we are fine. Players are always replacable. but that musnot distracting from the big issue. Wengers time at arsenal must come to an end at the end of the season. Any one person is never bigger than the club. Whatever happened with sanchez and wenger doesnt matter. The fact is we have gone stale and we… Read more »
There has to be some truth to it but as per usual the media will want to plan crisis in the head of certain Arsenal fans, stoke the dissenssion, gleefully rub their hands and watch our season crumble further. That Alexis wants more appetite from his teammates is a positive. Wenger is trying to harness this and forget the negatives but he has also to remind his right hand man that you need the entire team to work not one superhuman man alone. You are only as strong as your weakest link. Sometimes trying is not enough. You also need… Read more »
Not Arsenal related but this story just goes to prove sports writers are more gossip columnists than journalists.
They are stealing a living churning out stories without providing any proof to back them up.
If sports writers were journalists every transfer story would be factually accurate but instead 99.9% of transfer stories are just click bait for the naive & gullible.
I never see Sanchez complained about Barca even though he was playing well but Wenger revived his career and now people think he is bigger now because of his work rate. IN WENGER I TRUST. HOW MANY MANAGERS CAN COPE WITH ALL THE NEGATIVE VIBES ABOUT ARSENAL AND WENGER AND STILL STAND? SUPPORT THE TEAM… I SUPPORT THE ARSENAL WIN,LOOSE OR DRAW. COYG