The manager of Arsenal, Arsene Wenger, believes that the main reason behind the deterioration of his team’s performance in the recent past is the injury to the key players.
The Gunners were absolutely cruising towards the Premier League title in the first half of the season, but, they lost some of their premier guys due to injury setbacks in the middle of their campaign and that hurt them badly. They began going downhill and today, they are not even certain of ending the season in top 4 in the league table.
The fans of the club who were all praise for Wenger just a few months ago are now criticizing him big time and are even saying that he shouldn’t be offered a contract extension by the club owners.
Apart from the fans, Wenger has received a lot of criticism from football pundits as well who believe that the Frenchman has made some big tactical errors especially in the last few matches.
But, Wenger doesn’t seem to be admitting that. He reckons that more than anything else, it’s the injuries which has cost his team dearly in the latter half of this season.
Talking to the reporters yesterday, the Gunners boss said, “I believe if we had not been hit by the injuries at crucial times, we would perhaps have performed better than this. If you look at our squad at this point of time, we are without most of our top players.”
“However, there have been more positives than negatives from the season. We played some very good football especially at the start.”
“When you go through such tough phases, the most important thing is to stick together as a group.”
Arsenal is currently at the 4th position in the Premier League points table.