Arsène Wenger thinks Gary Neville’s suggestion that he does not prepare his Arsenal team well enough is one of the most “ridiculous” things he has heard in his 30-year managerial career.
The Sky Sports pundit and England coach has twice turned his beam on Arsenal this season, first labelling them “arrogant and naive” and then suggesting that the Arsenal manager and his side had failed to “prepare mentally for big games” in recent years.
Instead, Neville claimed, “Arsenal go into training on Friday morning thinking how they will pass the ball, score with a bicycle kick, how much fun they’re going to have.”
Wenger scotched that accusation. Asked if he did prepare his side more stringently than Neville had suggested, the 65-year-old manager said: “No, we just turn up on a Saturday and then just go out and play. Honestly, I am 30 years in this job. I have a good tolerance level because sometimes I have to listen to things that are really ridiculous.”
Both Wenger and Ivan Gazidis, the Arsenal chief executive, made a point at the club’s annual general meeting on Thursday of emphasising their recent investment in recruitment and analytics staff. Wenger said that he now has a “core group” of about 20 people providing him with information “about every game and every day”. His job is to “find the four or five pieces of information that are really crucial”.
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The Frenchman, doubtless, would say the new approach is working. Arsenal go into this evening’s game, away to Watford, having gathered more points in 2015 than any other Barclays Premier League club and with their confidence boosted by a 3-0 win over Manchester United.
“We see the number of chances created and the number of shots given away to our opponents, and that allows us to believe we have made big strides forward,” Wenger said. “But we have to show that with our results. Since January 1, 2015, we have moved forward. Now we have to show we can do it through the season as well. In the last two years, we have moved up a level.”