Arsenal: Bumbling Arsene Wenger is now the issue

Arsene Wenger bumbled his way through his post-match interviews after Arsenal’s embarrassing loss to Swansea City on Tuesday night. In his inability to answer basic questions, it is clear that he is now the issue.

Well, that was dreadful! In perhaps the worst performance of a season littered with calamitous affairs, Arsenal slumped to a 3-1 defeat at the hands of bottom-of-the-table Swansea City. And, actually, they deserved far worse.

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After the game, there was a whole raft of questions regarding the reasons for the loss. Why have the defensive errors, the mental, lapses in concentration continued? Where was the creativity, pace, movement and width in their attack? How were Swansea able to carve open their visitors with a terrifying frequency with only 25.3% possession?

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These questions, among others, were put to Arsene Wenger. Rarely was he able to provide an accurate and valid answer. Here he is trying to explain why Arsenal’s away form has been so poor this season:

"“Maybe after a while it becomes a confidence problem as well, but overall it’s easy to put it down to confidence and tonight it’s very difficult to find a rational explanation behind our performance.”"

Here is another example where, in the last question of the interview, he simply shuts down, utterly unable to provide any explanation as to what had happened to the confidence in the team and why they lacked the necessary conviction and self-belief to perform at a competitively high level.

Wenger is usually such an articulate, intelligent and insightful individual. His answers are always interesting, entertaining and edifying. It is unusual to see him so beffudled and confused by such simple questions. Perhaps it is the simplicity of the question that is so difficult. He knows he should have answers for them, but he doesn’t. That is a criminal damnation of his management ability.

And the stats of his side’s recent form, especially away from home, only further compound the lack of answers. The Gunners have now only three games on their travels this season. The last time they had won so few at the same point in the season was 2005/06. Since January 2017, they have played 23 away league games. They have won just seven, amassing only 26 points in total, and have a goal difference on -7 in those games.

In away games this season, these are the points-per-game of the top six: Manchester City – 2.58; Chelsea – 2; Manchester United – 2; Liverpool – 1.88; Tottenham Hotspur – 1.66; Arsenal – 1. If you needed to know where the Gunners’ problems lay this season, then that one stat tells you everything you need to know. And Wenger cannot answer why.

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That is proof that he no longer knows how to fix the problems that have riddled this club for so long. He is bumbling, bamboozled, and backwards. It’s time, sadly, to move on.