Arsenal: Massimiliano Allegri Can Address Frank Lampard Critique

Frank Lampard has lambasted Arsenal for lacking a strength in their dressing room. It is a fair critique, one that Massimiliano Allegri can address.

There have been many prevalent weaknesses with the Arsenal squad for many years. Their defensive deficiencies, their lack of a pure goalscorer and their weak physicality are all issues that have plagued them as they pursue that ever-evasive Premier League title.

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While these are technical, tactical and athletic issues, perhaps the most crippling problem with the team has little to do with their individual ability. Rather, it pertains to their collective mentality; their soft underbelly, their lack of resilience and fortitude.

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When working as a guest pundit for Sky Sports on Monday Night Football, Frank Lampard detailed the dressing room issues that the Gunners suffer from in reference to the Alexis Sanchez controversy. Speaking with Jamie Carragher, Lampard stated:

"“I don’t think they’ve got a particularly strong dressing room, I really don’t,” Lampard said. I don’t know them all personally but when you go through it you wonder who are the strong characters in that dressing room? There might be other players that are disgruntled, ones that are in and out of the team, and when criticism starts at a club it spreads. Sometimes players make excuses or all of a sudden they don’t like the manager. When you’re in that position, as Arsenal are, it becomes very difficult for the manager to deal with it.”"

It has been a weakness that Arsene Wenger has been unable to rectify. He has avoided big characters in the transfer market, preferring players who are mouldable in his own image, and now holds all authority over the players, meaning that there is rarely room for criticism, something that Lampard revealed that he and other key members in the Chelsea squad would do to keep other players in line.

The future of Wenger, though, is in severe doubt. And his replacement, Massimiliano Allegri, would not cultivate the same losing culture. He is a strong character, capable of building a dressing room that is both supportive and critical, both for the benefit of the team.

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Lampard’s grouch with the Arsenal squad is most definitely a fair one, one that many have proclaimed over the squad for far too long. However, Allegri would not harbour such a weakness within his team. Wenger must learn to build characters as well as players or face the prospect of watching someone else do just that with his beloved Arsenal.