Arsène Wenger erupted in fury over "wrong information" intended to "harm" in a dramatic press conference before Arsenal's Champions League match with Bayern Munich. The manager also became embroiled in an angry exchange with a journalist who asked questions about Saturday's dismal FA Cup defeat to Blackburn Rovers.
Arsenal host Bayern in the first leg of their Champions League showdown on Tuesday after crashing out of the Cup at home to the Championship club. Reports on Monday morning suggested that despite Arsenal facing what could be an eighth season without a trophy, negotiations had already started with Wenger over a new deal, with his current one set to expire in the summer of 2014.
However, Wenger, 63, went on the offensive at his pre-match press conference, looking to set the record straight. "That is the wrong information and I work for 16 years in England and I think I deserve a bit more credit than wrong information that has only one intention: to harm," he said. "If it is good information which comes from nowhere it is all right but this is wrong information that comes from nowhere and it is completely wrong."
Wenger then became involved in a heated exchange with a journalist, adding: "I look at you not because you give information, I do not know if it is you, I do not know where the information comes from. Why do you look at me? I just thought you had given this information out.
"This is a pre-match conference for the Champions League, if you want to talk about Saturday, that press conference has been made after the game. Can we get some questions about tomorrow's game, that would be very nice."
Wenger feels it is important to "take a distance" from Saturday's disappointment, where a scrappy goal from the former Arsenal trainee Colin Kazim-Richards inflicted the manager's first FA Cup defeat by lower-league opposition.
He said: "We have to analyse the game. We lost to a team who had one shot at goal, it is not like we have not touched the ball in the Blackburn game. Football is about skill, intelligence and some things as well are a bit unpredictable."
Wenger stressed his team must take no notice of the negative headlines and broken cannon motifs if they are to progress over two legs against the Bundesliga giants. "We know well what is going on here. What is important is to forget what people say and focus on our strengths," he said.
"We play for Arsenal in the last 16 of the Champions league, we have qualified for a long time. What is important is not what people say it is what happens on the pitch.
"We live in a democracy of experts and opinions, but we have to live with that and cope with that and show we have the mental strength to deal with any opinion. There are a lot of experts who are not necessarily always right."
He added: "There is a lot of superficial analysis. We have to accept we take the blame for going out [of the FA Cup] but you have to put things into perspective. You have to really analyse it, just because one guy says one thing, everybody has to go the same way."
No comments:
Post a Comment