Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger is so wrong to believe Gunners starlets like Reiss Nelson or Joe Willock are up to the job this season
SunSport's Neil Ashton says the Gunners can't paper over cracks of another shambolic transfer window by promoting whizkids
HE got down to the business of the day pretty quickly.
Item No 1 was transfer business and item No 2 was Mesut Ozil.
There was barely time, or inclination, for anything else.
Transfer deadline day at Arsenal is traditionally a shambles and August 31, 2017 was no different. No wonder Arsene Wenger wanted rid of it.
Arsenal’s manager emerged from the bunker of the international break — “it was not a holiday” — knowing he would be pumped for information.
About Alexis Sanchez. About Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. About Ozil and his criticism of Arsenal’s “legends”.
Wenger turned on the charm. He conceded that Arsenal are in crisis (again) and that the fans have already turned on the players (again).
The “legends” will have a field day if they do not beat Bournemouth at the Emirates tomorrow.
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He has boxed himself into a corner after a thumping 4-0 defeat against Liverpool was followed by yet another chaotic deadline day.
The bottom line is that Wenger hoodwinked the fans.
He sold Oxlade-Chamberlain to Liverpool for £35million and agreed to offload Sanchez to City for £55m when he promised they would stay.
Sanchez remains at Arsenal only because Monaco would not sell Thomas Lemar at such short notice.
Wenger has not spoken to Chilean Sanchez since the transfer to City fell through hours before the wantaway forward played against Paraguay.
Chile’s World Cup qualifier in Bolivia was on Tuesday and Wenger was still waiting for him to return 48 hours later.
He is finally expected to clap eyes on him this morning, but the mood will be sour and the atmosphere unpleasant.
The likelihood is that he will be on the bench against Bournemouth.
Sanchez, whatever the bluff about how committed he is to Arsenal, is livid that his City move fell through.
It has been amplified because a player he considered inferior — The Ox — was allowed to go.
Arsenal got massive money for him, a huge return on a player who never really proved himself at the Emirates.
They are still another body down. The replacements are not the £40m, £50m, £60m signings their fans crave.
Wenger said: “We are in a strong financial situation and we have a good enough squad to compete.
“Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is a great player, but sometimes it opens the door for some younger players like Reiss Nelson or Joe Willock to get an opportunity they wouldn’t get.”
Nelson is 17, Willock is 19 and neither are ready to be thrown into a dressing room as disenchanted, as disillusioned as this one.
Wenger insists somebody had to go, with the financial pressures at Arsenal forcing him to accept Liverpool’s offer for a player with less than a year left on his contract.
He added: “We have players we do not want to extend and we have players we wanted to extend but could not find an agreement. At some stage you have to quantify the loss of income.”
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The cost to Arsenal is obvious, with two successive Premier League defeats as the players agitated for deadline-day moves.
Ozil is another, with his lamentable display at Anfield coming under scrutiny from some of the club’s greatest names.
Ian Wright, Martin Keown, Emmanuel Petit and Tony Adams have all had a pop at the £42.5m forward for his disinterested displays.
Ozil, evidently a sensitive soul, told them to “stop talking and start supporting” after the Anfield annihilation.
Wenger, inevitably, backed his man. He added: “In England you always come to the wrong conclusions — if England has not won on an international level in over 50 years, it’s maybe time to come to the right conclusions.
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“To convince people that to win you have to play ugly is the wrong debate. To come to a conclusion you have to kick the ball into the stand to win is the wrong conclusion.
“If you take the biggest teams in the world, they all play football. Brazil has won how many World Cups? Five? They play football. Germany play football. Real Madrid play football, Barcelona play football.”
Sadly, Arsenal do not play football any more. They just play games.
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