Arsenal: Emmanuel Petit has gone off the deep end

Arsenal’s esteemed collection of former players all have their own ways of coping with the current state of the club, but Emmanuel Petit has gone a bit wild with his.

With a successful club like Arsenal, there are always going to be a large collection of former players who want to weigh in on the club. Especially when that club doesn’t live up to the standards that it said when they were there.

Many Invincibles are weighing in on what the Gunners need, as too are Gunners from the era just before that historic season.

And while all have some basic credibility to their wants and criticisms, but Emmanuel Petit‘s particular assessment is a bit wild and over the top, even when considering the relative lack of success the club has had over the past decade or so.

Here’s what he had to say, as quoted by the Mirror:

"I know Arsenal have won two FA Cups [in recent seasons] and there may be a third to come, but they need to spend money to go to the next level. They are in danger of having a loser image. I have watched every Arsenal game this season and I have lost count of the amount of times I have been frustrated watching them this season."

He went on to say “they need at least six players with a winning mentality.”

By all means he is entitled to his opinion, but the Gunners will not be considered “losers” at any point in the near future. At least not by anyone with any shred of sense. They are one of the three most successful clubs in Premier League history. Are Liverpool considered losers? Absolutely not. Are Tottenham? Even in my biased state I can admit that the Spurs aren’t losers.

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They aren’t winners, or a successful club, but they aren’t losers.

It’s all overreaction. I get that the club is struggling to get back to its successful ways, and that we are all fooled every single year into thinking that this is the year. But to say they are almost losers? They won back to back FA Cups and are in another final this weekend.

And six players with a winning mentality? This depends on what he actually means. If he means we need to sign six players with a winning mentality this summer alone, he’s gone mad. If he means we need six altogether, then no problem, we almost have it. Alexis Sanchez, Granit Xhaka, Shkodran Mustafi, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Rob Holding and more, I just don’t want to sit here and reel off names.

Yeah we have some questionable mentalities on the team. But over the past few summers, Arsene Wenger has been intent on fixing that. Summer 2016 saw two crucial pieces brought into the mix in Xhaka and Mustafi, both with huge winning mentalities.

This summer will be more of the same. We don’t need six new players. We need, just as Wenger said, one or two top quality talents to augment the club’s ability and mentality. Then stick with the formula that has been developed these past couple weeks.

Don’t be afraid of believing in this team again. The team we used to believe in didn’t have the same class of talents as it does now. It had questionable, Arsenal-only talents like Aaron Ramsey and Olivier Giroud. But now we have global citizen talents like Mustafi, Xhaka, Petr Cech and Alexis Sanchez. Not to mention Mesut Ozil, Holding, the Ox. These are all guys that have worlds of indisputable talent.

Petit is treating this club like they are back in 2011. Yes, this season was disappointing, but as Manchester United showed us, you can’t just make a boatload of signings and think that’ll be the solution. Chelsea has been making steady additions for years and has suffered some disappointments, but emerged at the top with a lot of the same cast that struggled to achieve anything.

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Arsenal is going for the same thing. And I, for one, will be banking on them to turn it around next year with a reliable cast of players.

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