Jack Wilshere has leapt to the defence of his under-fire Arsenal team-mates, insisting: “Nobody can question our character”, writes Adrian Kajumba in Belgrade.
Watford skipper Troy Deeney slammed the Gunners after Saturday's come-from-behind 2-1 win over Arsene Wenger’s men, accusing them of lacking “cojones”.
But midfielder Wilshere, who was an unused substitute for the match at Vicarage Road, said: “As a player, if your attitude is questioned, it’s horrible. I look around this team and you can’t question our character.
“People try to put us down, they always have. I don’t think the comments were justified.
“When we look back at the game we look back at ourselves and what we did wrong. I don’t think we can look back and question our character. We did certain things wrong, but we certainly didn’t want to let the lead slip.
“We will move on.
“We have a game against Red Star Belgrade and another big game at the weekend [away to Everton] and we have seen with this team that the players can bounce back quickly and we will do that.
“I am sure individually players are disappointed – no one wants to hear those comments. But players are entitled to their opinions and to talk.
“That’s part of the modern-day game and we have to deal with that. All we can do is bounce back with a good performance tomorrow and at the weekend.”
Arsenal face a big test of their character here on Thursday evening, in a Europa League group game against Serbian league leaders Red Star in their intimidating Marakana home.
And Wenger, who admitted the comments by Deeney “hurt”, backed his players to respond after yet more criticism.
He said: “Everybody is entitled to talk. I think after the game sometimes the enthusiasm of what happened went overboard.
“We don’t listen too much to what people say. We try to analyse our own game and get on with it. Yes, it hurts when my players are spoken about like that, but I know who my players really are — in the last seven games, we had six wins and one draw.
“After that, the comments, that’s part of the modern game. You have to realise that.
“I love my players and I trust their strength of character to respond quickly.”
The Gunners' boss is set to name another mix-and-match side that will include defender Mathieu Debuchy, who has not played since an injury-curtailed 16-minute appearance against Bournemouth last November.
Amazingly, his last Arsenal game before that was the PREVIOUS November, against Dinamo Zagreb.
Wenger said of his fellow Frenchman: “He has not played for a long time because every time he is close to coming back he gets injured again.
“He will certainly start tomorrow. Hopefully he gets through.”
PROBABLE TEAMS
RED STAR BELGRADE Borjan; Stojkovic, Le Tallec, Savic, Rodic; Kriszicic, Donald; Srnic, Kanga, Radonjic; Boakye.
ARSENAL Cech; Elneny, Debuchy, Holding; Nelson, Willock, Coquelin, Maitland-Niles; Walcott, Giroud, Wilshere.