Arsenal: Wojciech Szczesny damning of Arsene Wenger

Wojciech Szczesny has stated that, from a technical standpoint, he did not improve while he was the starter at Arsenal. Such comments are damning of the coaching and the investment of Arsene Wenger.

The summer sale of Wojciech Szczesny was not a surprise. He had been sent on successive loan seasons to Roma after the signing of Petr Cech to be Arsenal’s entrenched number one in 2015, had fallen out with Arsene Wenger on several occasions, and wanted to leave the club which, with just one year remaining on his contract, was something that he could engineer quite easily.

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Wenger duly obliged, seeing the pairing of Cech and David Ospina as enough to cover the goalkeeper position, and Szczesny found his way to Juventus, where he will, eventually, be the long-term replacement for Gianluigi Buffon, all being well and good. As I said, this was not a surprise.

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But, what is a surprise are Szczesny’s recent comments about his time in North London. In an interview with The Independent, where he was asked about a wide array of topics, when quizzed on what it was like to play under Wenger at Arsenal, Szczesny admitted that he did not make any progress, from a technical standpoint, as the starter, and it wasn’t until he arrived in Rome that his game began to develop:

"“Honestly, I couldn’t say from a technical standpoint that I improved in any way from when I became first-choice at Arsenal until the day I left for Roma. However, in the two-and-a-half years since I came to Italy, I’ve improved massively, which is thanks to the coaches and the way they work. It’s not about improving when you play, it’s every day in training you have to work on every aspect of your game and that’s something I’ve really enjoyed.”"

Such comments are a direct shot at Wenger. Perhaps Szczesny is still bitter about being forced – he felt forced, even if this isn’t objectively true – out of the club that he grew up in and that he loved. Perhaps he was meaning it as a compliment to Roma and the coaching that he received there, not as a slight to his time in North London. Possible.

What is more likely, though, is that Szczesny is telling the truth. And, actually, it is quite easy to believe him. In the past four or five years, how many Arsenal players have actually improved under the tutelage of Wenger? Hector Bellerin and Alex Iwobi. And that might be it.

Although Wenger may still have the reputation as a coacher and developer of players from his earlier years at Arsenal, more recently, that hasn’t necessarily been true. The squad has not improved as it has aged. Rather, it has stagnated, and the only progressions that have been made have come from recruitment, not retention.

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There is no definitive way in telling whether Szczesny did or did not make technical improvements while the starter at Arsenal. And even if he didn’t, the blame could quite easily be apportioned to him as it could Wenger. But given the make-up of the current squad and the trajectory of many of the players, it does not surprise to hear of someone doubting the input and the investment of Wenger. If accurate, these comments are damning for Wenger and his staff.