Arsene Wenger says he’s not interested in who wins the Ballon d’Or, or any other individual award in football, saying that pressure on players to set themselves apart from teammates has had a negative effect on some careers.
Professing his preference for the collective, the manager was asked about Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, and while he was happy to talk about their quality, he wasn’t prepared to plump for one over the other when he was asked who he’d choose for the prize.
“I would go for nobody because it’s not my problem at the moment,” he saod. “I have a much bigger problem – to prepare my team for Sunday. It’s a debate that is always very difficult.
“First of all, I’m against that debate because I think we are first a team sport. As a manager I always feel responsible to encourage the collective effort rather than singling people out.
“I think the modern world is too much about individuals and we as managers are more worried about the collective. I’m not too much of a fan.
“I’m against the Ballon d’Or, I’m against all these things. I’ve seen careers destroyed because the players are too much obsessed to get individual rewards.”
The Frenchman also had a little pop at the people who surround players, saying their influence is not always positive or for the footballing benefit of their clients.
“I feel it encourages selfishness and people inside the game to go too much for their own sake when some players are in a better position.
“Even the agents sometimes motivate the players to get individual rewards because they are more valuable on the market after.”
That’s what happened to Gervinho. True story.
I think Gervinho won for “longest first touch away from one’s own feet”.
I wouldn’t necessary laugh at Gervinho’s technique. A guy who can dribble through the entire field and so easily.
Gervinho can control the ball further than most players can kick it.
That first touch against man city gets me everytime.
Gervinho? I didn’t think there was a footballing award for the ‘largest forehead in the game’ – if there was; it would always be a closely fought contest between Gervinho and Joleon Lescott every season.
It’s actually no longer called a forehead, in Gervinho’s case it’s more a fivehead
No, he didn’t win that award in the end…….he picked up the “how to kick a ball over the bar from 1 yard out” award instead :p
Gervinho ha ha ha…
I shouldn’t laugh, it’s a sad story.
Ha ha ha Haa…
It kills something called cohesion and teamwork.
“I’ve seen careers destroyed because the players are too much obsessed to get individual rewards.”
“Even the agents sometimes motivate the players to get individual rewards because they are more valuable on the market after.”
I can only guess he’s referring to players he’s managed himself.
Here’s my top 5 list in order of probability, most likely, at the top:
Nicholas Anelka
Emmanuel Adebayor
Nickolas Bentner
Emmanuel Petit
Paul Merson *this is my wildcard*
Apart from the question was about awards not rewards
Yes but the point he made was that the agents equate awards to rewards.
It seems like a particularly strange way of looking at things, you’d like to think his focus would be on getting the players to play to the best of their ability not worrying about how much they get paid!
the bigger the contract they get for their players, the more they get for themselves
and?
Nickolas would disagree with you on this list and argue that he should be #1.
Can’t wait until he’s handed the Manager Of The Month award for October ?
Honestly, it’s comments like this that make me so proud to have Arsene as our manager. Anyone who wants rid of him can fuck right off….whatever happens this year. This guy is pure class.
Rollocks. He’s “pure class” who hasn’t finished in the top two for a decade, and whose Champions’ League record is very average. And he’s so “classy” that he’s never beaten Maureen in a thousand attempts. He’s stubborn and aggorant and is hopeless at seeing his own flaws.
He’s past his sell-by date and will never win either of the two big ones again.
Got to say, there’s something admirable in the way you stick to your opinions regardless of how the team is performing, even if I don’t agree with them.
there’s nothing ‘admirable’ about his hate-on for wenger. he’s got his blinders on, and he’s become so incredibly boring and predictable.
His opinion may stay the same but the reasons keep changing…
You must be crazy. Or allready are. He is legend. And allways will be. And anybody who has something to achieve in their lifes should be aiming doing it with mr. Wengers class and dignity. At least i am doing it
Zzzzzzzzzzz
Difficult for the Gerv to contain his massive ego inside his head
Oh
Gervinho is exactly the type of player we could use right now. He’s hardly ever injured and can do a job on the wings. I’m sure I’ll get thumbed down for these comments, but I don’t think he deserved the stick he was getting here.
Of course he didn’t. He is exactly like Giroud – very sensitive. Shame fans didn’t support him like they do with Giroud. I think he played well towards the end of his last season.
He didn’t deserve the animosity true but Giroud and Gerv are extremely different. Yes confidence based (Gerv much more) but Giroud battles his way through his insecurities and forces his personality on the pitch, whereas Gerv will spiral. Take last season for Roma, started incredibly but a dip in form continued until the end of the season. This year the same, started scoring immediately but there are already calls to have him dropped, citing favouritism from Rudi Garcia…
Gervinho was incredibly inefficient. People get frustrated with how inefficient the Ox can be, but I thought Gervinho was much, much worse. It was extremely frustrating to watch him dribble through opposition defense like it isn’t a thing and then botch the final ball over and over again.
There’s a very talented footballer somewhere in there, but with forwards it’s efficiency and consistency that separates the average from the best. I don’t think he was lazy or unmotivated, he just wasn’t good enough often enough and it never looked like that was going to change.
Dude……. Bradford !
Wenger may only value the collective side of the game but he has to thank three individuals for his success as a manager: Henry, Bergkamp and Vieira. Plus, if he gets Ronaldo or Messi (in a dream) we’re champions, Lewandowski we’re champions, Suarez we’re champions, Neymar, we’re champions.
So you’re basically saying a good manager adds no worth? It’s just the odd world class player that a team needs to be successful… Firstly if this were the case I think wenger deserves a lot of credit for bringing in those players in the first place. Secondly if you don’t understand the value that wenger brings to arsenal then you don’t know much about football
Wenger is the kind of guy who would pick Lauren over Henry.
Indeed, Wenger was asked to pick his best recruitment: Lauren. I was surprised. I was certainly not trying to detract anything from Wenger. I like him but I just love proven facts.
I meant that in a good way.Let me rephrase what I said, Wenger is the kind of guy who would pick Lauren and nacho monreal for every Henry and ozil.
Having seen a snippet of the “Ronaldo” doc, the narcissistic twat is the supreme embodiment of ego
that Arsene is referring to.
“…he would probably call his own name out during sex…”, Guardian review!
Agree, he has shown disappointment after Bale scored goals, unheard of in football. However, he has massive quality, something between 50 and 60 goals a season, that’s no career destroyed by ego or individual awards.
Word. His ego is truly indestructable.
“…he would probably call his own name out during sex….”
Excuse me but HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA
If they moved here they would just be injured 🙁
The same Wenger who was sure that Henry should have won it in 06
Maybe he felt that culture had something to do with Henry’s departure shop his opinion has altered since 2006. Also, of course he’ll back his own player
Oh gervinho! the memories just like the rest, we chose to remember your dark side. Eboue, so good, everybody wondered why we were after Sagna! Had a good season of rotation with Sagna where he played at home and Sagna away games. Was pushed to right wing a season later where he had a season to forget but sadly that’s what We choose to remember him by Yohan Djorou, Imiss his “we’ll bounce back ” talk. He was a decent CB. even for a fourth choice Saved our arse when Hallway and TV5 were bajamxed. ( I still remember that… Read more »
Talking of individual awards, I’m surprised Ramsey didn’t get nominated for the Puskas award
Sounds like RVP to me
I don’t know the man at all, but he does seem like an honourable sort.
Last of a breed.
Should shut the whols thing down as soon as either of Mesut, Sanchez or THE JEFF win it.
Jeff he can.
The way the stupid goal.com packaged this article as if Wenger was directly having a dig at CR7 is embarrassing, absurd, unprofessional and very cheap. It seemed to me that they desperately wanted clicks from users.
I read that last sentence in Barney Stinson’s voice. Hehehe. Well done Blogs.