Wenger and Arsenal stuck together in defeat

COMMENT: Wednesday's 3-1 defeat to Monaco has left the Frenchman on the brink of his most embarrassing European exit and the sense is of a coach who has reached his ceiling

By Liam Twomey

As the dust settled on another Arsenal humiliation and criticism poured in from all sides, the most damning words of all flowed from Arsene Wenger. He spoke of “suicidal” defending, a collective loss of nerve and the heart ruling the head before touching on a favourite theme. “Mentally we were not ready or sharp enough to get into this game,” he admitted. “We paid for it.” 

Mentality is something Wenger talks about a lot, in victory and defeat. Nor is it idle talk – renowned French psychologist Jacques Crevoisier has regularly been employed to work with Arsenal players in recent years, and in 2010 he subjected the entire squad to a psychometric test designed to measure all the mental qualities required of an elite athlete. Nicklas Bendtner famously scored 10 out of nine for self-confidence but, as Crevoisier concluded: “They were all outstanding psychologically.”

The youthful core of that 2010 squad is still at Arsenal, five years more mature and, thanks to last season’s FA Cup triumph, no longer burdened by a debilitating trophy drought. The rest has changed beyond recognition but the majority of arrivals have been experienced performers; on Wednesday a makeshift Monaco side faced a Gunners team with an average age of 26 years, five months and 11 days, boasting nine senior internationals, two World Cup winners and the club’s two most expensive ever signings.

So when this Arsenal compounds a catalogue of recent big-game embarrassments by allowing the most goal-shy team left in the Champions League to almost double their tournament tally in a single night, it seems obvious that the majority of the blame lies with the mind of the man in the dugout rather than the minds of those on the pitch.