Wenger: 'Arsenal lacks championship racing experience'
"The current Arsenal team has never been in a position to win the Premier League," Wenger told beIN SPORTS on April 18. "Hopefully they will win this year and things will be easier from next year. But now, when they haven't won, there will be times when they are tense."
Wenger made this point when asked about Arsenal's two-match results. In the 31st round of the Premier League last weekend, Arsenal took only 10 minutes to lead West Ham 2-0 thanks to Gabriel Jesus and Martin Odegaard. But they then sagged and let West Ham score two goals from Said Benrahma and Jarrod Bowen, setting the score 2-2. The same scenario and score also happened when Arsenal were Liverpool's guests on April 9. Because of these two results, from the leading position with an 8-point difference, Arsenal was narrowed the gap by Man City to 4 points.
"When you start to think about winning rather than the process and the style of the game, it becomes difficult. I used to feel that when I was in charge of Arsenal," added Wenger.
But the former French coach also emphasized that despite losing to Man City in experience, Arsenal has the advantage of self-determination. He said: "I would say Arsenal will still win. What you want in this position is to have everything in your hand. If you win, Arsenal will win. So leading is the ideal position at this stage. sprint".
According to Wenger, the direct confrontation between Arsenal and Man City at the Etihad on April 26 will decide the championship this season. Arsenal currently lead with 74 points, four points ahead of Man City, but have played one more game and are worse on goal difference (43 vs. The team that wins all the remaining matches will be crowned.
Wenger believes Arsenal have more or less advantage when they can focus on the Premier League, while Man City has to divide their strength into three arenas. The army under Pep Guardiola has reached the semi-finals of the Champions League and will meet the lower-tier club Sheffield United in the semi-finals of the FA Cup on April 22.
In the last 18 seasons, Arsenal have 10 seasons ranked first in more than one round, but did not win the championship. In those two seasons they led most of the round, 2007-2008 and 2013-2014. Man Utd and Man City won the title in those two seasons, respectively, while Arsenal ranked third and fourth respectively. In addition, in the 2004-2005 and 2015-2016 seasons, Arsenal also led more than five rounds, but at the end of the season only ranked second.
