Arsenal Balls: bitter Vieira snipes at Wenger
Patrick Vieira, the former Arsenal captain now working for the Manchester City project, is critical of the Gunners. He tells The Telegraph.
“In the last five or six years, Arsenal went with more of this type of technical players. The Invincibles had it all. Now when I watch Arsenal, they play good football, but I just have a feeling they are missing something – the physical presence, the personality. The team is not doing as well as it used to and you need to win football matches. They’ve been disappointing, losing games they should have won.”
Yes. Yes. All true. But what Vieira fails to mention is money. Manchester City, for instance, are doing rather better than they were when Vieira’s Arsenal were top of the pile. Back then the idea of City winning a cup was a joke, a pretty good one for those who can recall the brilliant banner displayed at Manchester United – the one that counted the years since City had won something.
Vieira adds:
“I’m disappointed not to have ex-Arsenal players working at Arsenal. It is good for the young players could see a Thierry Henry, a [Freddie] Ljungberg, or a [Martin] Keown who have been at the club a good few years working in the academy, or working somewhere. I think they can do it a bit more, players want to do it but do not have the opportunity. I don’t understand it, the perfect example is Ajax. You see all the old players working for the club, on the field, in the office – the door is always open for them – but Arsenal don’t do it and I don’t know why.”
Well, Henry was at Arsenal but left because, reportedly, Wenger wasn’t happy with him pontificating on Arsenal players’ flaws in his other job for Sky Sports. Freddie Ljungberg coaches the U15s. Keown did coach at Arsenal but now works as pundit on the BBC.
The Sun says “Freddie Ljungberg and Steve Bould are the only former players on their staff.” No. The current Arsenal set-up also includes Kwame Ampadu.
Vieira does not work at Arsenal. Might he be a little bitter? In 2009, Wenger explained why he had let Vieira leave the club for Juventus:
“When Cesc Fàbregas was 18, 19, I would play him in a 4–4–2 with Patrick Vieira and I saw it did not work. Then I had the decision to make about letting Patrick go, because Gilberto Silva and Vieira worked, Fabregas and Silva worked, but I could not play Fàbregas and Vieira. But Fàbregas was 19 and if he did not play I knew he would want to go, so we risked destroying everything, all the work we had put into this player.”
And who says a great player makes for a good coach? Not Arsene Wenger, Jose Mourinho, Alex Ferguson…
Posted: 22nd, August 2016 | In: Arsenal, Back pages, Sports Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
