Arsenal: Arsene Wenger Deluded With Team’s Mentality

Arsenal showed great toughness against Bournemouth per Arsene Wenger. While that’s true, the result does not mean that they are no longer mentally weak.

There has been a prevalent storyline throughout this season that this is a new Arsenal team, a different Arsenal team, one that does not suffer from the same mental fragilities and insufficiencies as recent teams have done.

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The many late goals that have been scored this year, primarily by Olivier Giroud, would support such a statement. It is indeed a statement that Arsene Wenger himself has made many times, heralding the greater age of his squad – in the past two years, the average age has jumped from 24.4 to 26.6 years – and the greater experience that they boast.

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Once again, the Gunners relied on their late-game heroics to drag themselves out of a considerable hole against Bournemouth on Tuesday night. Three goals with less than 20 minutes remaining, Wenger watched, as his side scored three quick goals to rescue an oh so precious point. After the game, Wenger praised the mental toughness that was shown in such a dramatic comeback:

"“It was a physical test and a mental test for us. A physical test because we had problems to start to cope with the pace of Bournemouth. Defensively we had some problems and I think you have to acknowledge the quality of Bournemouth – congratulations to them… So it was a mental test, but we succeeded because we have a great resilience in the team and great mental strength and that came out. In the end, you are even frustrated not to win the game.”"

However, while the team should be praised for their second half performance, the grit and the determination that they should, their unrelenting willingness to never give in, that does not mean that they are somehow mentally strong, boasting a great will to win with formidable fortitude.

Rather, it shows that they were naive and innocent enough to wholly underestimate a dangerous Bournemouth team, allow a raucous crowd to overawe them, exactly in the same way as the Everton faithful influenced them in the 2-1 loss back in December, and slip into a three-goal hole that took an almighty effort to climb out of.

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Wenger may profess that his side are different to the mentally weak ones of recent seasons. However, while their miraculous escapes late in games are garnering the attention of the media to their never-say-die-attitude, it is an attitude that should not be called upon. Rather, it is an attitude that reeks of desperation, desperation that sentences Wenger as deluded.