Wenger hits back at Neville jibe

Arsene Wenger has responded to Gary Neville’s claim that the Arsenal manager has demonstrated “arrogance” during his Liverpool post-game press conference (via the Express).

Arsenal lined up with Santi Cazorla and Francis Coquelin in the 0-0 draw against Liverpool, and while Neville agreed that was Wenger’s strongest partnership, he doubted whether they are good enough to win the league title.

Henry, who is Arsenal’s all-time leading goalscorer, is anxious by his old side’s start to the season and believes Wenger has to add some more firepower to the squad.

The legendary Arsenal FC forward was quoted saying by Sky Sports: “I don’t think it’s arrogance, I think it’s belief”.

Arsenal, who last won the league in 2004, have not scored in five of their last six home games.

“It is either naive or arrogance, because they keep losing this way”.

“I just cannot get my head around why he would not sign players of power to assist these talented players that you’ve got to enable them to win the league”, Wenger said.

“I think it is going to be a massive week”, said Henry. It’s the one big black mark that I’ve got over Arsene Wenger these last 10 years – why he hasn’t identified the issue with these types of players in central midfield because they can not win the league with these types of players. I’m here so I’m quite used to it and I try to do my job well, which is all I try to do. I leave judgement to everybody else, the assessment of the quality of my work. You find all kind of attributes for me since I’ve been here. Are they good reasons?

“Everyone’s entitled to their opinion“. It didn’t help Arsenal that through illness and injury they were without regular centre-backs Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny (the first time both have been absent from a team-sheet since April 2012) but all the same Wenger will have been alarmed by the sub-standard defending of their deputies, particularly the headless Calum Chambers. “First half, Petr Cech was the man of the match“.

“I could prove to you that it’s not necessarily right, but let’s not go into that debate tonight”.