Friday March 2, 2007 09:17
Arsene Wenger Facing FA Fine
Posted by The Soccer Blogger as English Premiership
There wouldn’t really be a lot to write about if it weren’t for Arsene “The Thunderbird” Wenger not being able to engage his brain before he opens his mouth. Here’s what The FA had to say about that yesterday, and I quote:
“Questioning the integrity of a match official and accusing them of lying is a very serious claim to make as it questions the whole integrity of the game. We will be asking Arsene to explain these comments.”
Basically Wenger is now facing his third FA charge of this season, that’s pretty impressive and there are still a few months to go to add to that tally. Go Arsene, go! It is understood that the FA are, behind closed doors, absolutely staggered by the comments Wenger comments made after he appealed against Adebayor’s red card in the Carling Cup Final. The FA are not just concerned about his calling the linesman a lier and questioning his integrity but that he got his facts severely wrong in doing so.
The man obviously doesn’t like losing but that’s hardly an excuse or any kind of defence. I can’t imagine there are many people in life, never mind those at the top of a professional and international sport like football, who do like losing. Perhaps he should just not speak to anyone from the media for a period of 24 hours after his team loses. Though to be honest, over the last 10 years his teams have won far more than they have lost. He seems to have developed an incredible persecution complex in his 10 years in English football and he now seems to be a perfectly balanced guy, he has a chip on both shoulders. Without doubt he needs to re-program his internal “software”.
And all this is a crying shame because he is obviously an exceptional manager who will do what he can to back his players. The problem is he can’t seem to judge when he should back them and when he should not. It’s all or nothing, But let’s not forget what Arsenal are capable of on the pitch, fighting and brawling aside obviously. Wenger has produced excellent teams throughout in tenure. Arsenal have been transformed from being labelled as boring “1-0″ merchants to one of the best entertainers in the business. They really have been great to watch at times and that’s down to Wenger. This is a man who has been able to find incredibly talented players in unknown African villages, has been able to “steal” such talented players as Fabregas from a club like Barcelona, has developed some good players like Henry and Viera and turned them into truly great players. So his apparent persecution complex with the game’s officialdom really does seem to be his only major fault.
I hate to think what might happen should Reading beat Arsenal at the Emirates tomorrow. If they do, Arsenal will have lost their last four games in four different competitions. I bet that’s the first that will have happened to Wenger, how will he react? Arsenal have to put their season back on track tomorrow. Should they fail, their season could effectively be over and I can’t imagine that is something Arsene Wenger could tolerate or handle too well.
It’s going to be an interesting game and all eyes will be focused on the touchline. I wouldn’t like to be one of the match officials tomorrow!
The Soccer Blogger