Arsenal: Arsene Wenger’s newest battle not even part of the war

Arsenal were screwed by officiating against Manchester City, but moving forward, there are bigger battles to fight. Unless, of course, you are Arsene Wenger.

I don’t think I’ve ever been as livid with officiating as I was after Arsenal lost to Manchester City, and that’s saying something. It was a matter of impact. That blatant offside call changed the game. All momentum that the Gunners had gained was sucked away.

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It sucked. But it’s over. And the most important thing to do now, going forward, is to leave that behind and focus on the battle at hand. Arsenal were inadequate against City. Not by the margins that many thought, but they were certainly behind.

To rub that off on the referee is irresponsible and it shows an unwillingness to accept that the club has bigger issues at hand.

Especially going into the North London Derby. Accept that the team was not good enough and try to fix those problems. Don’t keep harping on the referee as if he was the only party at fault for the loss.

At least, that is what I wanted to have happen. But then Arsene Wenger kept fighting the battle against officiating. Again, I get it. We were literally screwed and it was sucky. But the bigger issue here is that Wenger is not starting the right guys because it’s still unclear who the right guys are.

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The bigger issue is that both Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil were terrible. The bigger issue is that the North London Derby is coming up in just a few days and no one is confident in this club’s ability, in part because we have no idea what sort of squad will show up.

There is a war that Wenger has been fighting over the past ten years. A war to get back to glory while balancing a strained budget. In the process, there have been hundreds of battles along the way and I’ve been impressed by Wenger’s ability to fight a battle, then move on to the next.

This time, we needed that same approach. Because I don’t want the players hearing what Wenger had to say and thinking “well, the boss still thinks it was the refs fault we lost, so we were plenty good.” Then they come out against Spurs and look the same.

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Of course, Mike Dean is refereeing the Derby, so maybe Wenger is just practicing his lines.