From David Wooster : Dissing your youth players and being ruthless
I thought it was fascinating when Wenger said after the Carling Cup game that the young players weren’t ready.
As you have said many times, he often talks to his players through the press.
However, this time I instantly thought that he was addressing Gazidis and the new youth set up.
It felt like he was saying this isn’t working, the players aren’t ready and whose fault is that?
He was firmly laying the blame on the new team that have been put in place but NOT by him. It was like he was making the point “look what happens when I don’t get my way!” So the failure of the game was down to his youth players not being good enough, deflecting from the real problem which is that he doesn’t have a balanced squad because he isn’t ruthless.
I run a business and I find it difficult to be ruthless but Wenger is just not ruthless and he is in a sport where it is vital.
As you say he likes the status quo and no confrontation.
He doesn’t sell players or move them off the payroll when they are either past it or constantly injured.
So he ends up with an unbalanced squad that can’t cope with the rigours of English football. He’s been doing this 20 years and he should know better but stubbornly keeps players that Ferguson or Mourinho would have offloaded years ago.
It is inexcusable and puts pressure on the other players who inevitably breakdown or lose form over the course of the season. We won’t win the league because we just don’t have the depth of players to do it. It’s not about the one or two key positions that we are weak it is about building a squad that he and even more importantly the players believe in.
It just feels to me like he is constantly catching up. This squad is better than some of the ones over the past few years but other teams have moved on and he hasn’t accelerated his squad-building to catch up with them,hence being constantly at least two players short, and constantly having four or five players who will break down during the season.