Arsene Wenger says that writing off Arsenal’s Premier League title hopes would be “absolutely stupid”, after the club lost two of their opening three games this season.
The Gunners beat Leicester City 4-3 on the opening day of the season, before back to back losses against Stoke City and Liverpool. It seems like an all too familiar start to the season for Arsenal, more so because fans and pundits alike have slammed their chances of winning the league this season.
The club has faced a difficult transfer window, losing midfielder Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to rivals Liverpool, and failing to sign target Thomas Lemar. But the club did manage to keep hold of star Alexis Sanchez, a player who is almost detrimental to the Gunners’ success.
Wenger has been quick to play down talk of a crisis, and speaking on BeIN Sports, the Frenchman says it would be stupid to write off their chances of success this season.
“People make their minds up very quickly and you forget how good you are – much quicker than you think,” Wenger said on BeIN SPORTS.
“We must continue to believe in our strengths and not to forget. And ours fans as well, to have a successful season we need our fans.”
“Our fans can say ‘our squad is not good enough’ or ‘we are not good enough’ and think ‘OK, we have no chance this year’ – that will not work.”
“We want our fans to be behind us in this moment even if we are very sorry for what we delivered but to have a successful team we need to have that.”
Wenger believes that the 4-0 defeat by Liverpool, a result which leaves Arsenal six points behind Premier League leaders Manchester United, can be put down as an “accident”, and hopes his side can recover sooner rather than later.
“What we learnt from this defeat is that we were not at all at the level that is expected from us and that we must, very quickly, show that was a complete accident,” Wenger added.
“It would be absolutely stupid to say today that we give up in the race for the championship.”
“Let’s not forget, not one and a half months ago we won the FA Community Shield and the FA Cup in a very convincing way with the same players,” he added.