Man United legend blasts Arsenal over their title credentials
Mar 4, 2016 at 11:51 AM
Manchester United legend Paul Scholes has launched a sensational attack on Arsenal’s title aspirations, claiming the North Londoners ‘don’t have the balls’ to win the Premier League this season following their shameful 2-1 defeat at home to relegation-threatened Swansea on Wednesday.
Scholes also suggests that if Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham manage to beat Arsenal at White Hart Lane this weekend, Gunners’ chance of the silverware will be all but over.
“They can virtually put Arsenal away with a win,” Scholes told BT Sport.
“The question about Arsenal is – have Arsenal got the bottle to go there and win a game after the two results they’ve just had? I doubt whether they’ve got the bottle or the balls to go on and do it.”
Scholes further commented how his opinion on Arsenal’s title credentials changed after their recent slump in form that has seen them lose three consecutive games.
“This season I think I was a little conned by Arsenal. I thought they’d added a bit of steel with Cech and Ozil was really coming into his own and I had a slight feeling that they might go on to win it,” he added.
“But once again they haven’t disappointed, they always seem to, when it comes down to the crunch, lose their bottle and they can’t produce in big games.
“And Wenger, I think, if he gets to the end of the season and they haven’t won the league this year then I think he has to be under big pressure now.”
Arsenal travel to Tottenham on Saturday for the highly anticipated North London derby, and Wenger’s boys wants to prove doubters wrong, three points will be an absolute must for them.
Earlier Alexis Sanchez also claimed that his side lacks the self-belief to win the Premier League even before the back to back defeats to Manchester United and Swansea.
Last season it was August, the season before that it was March, the season before that it was January and the season before that it was March and April and a bit of May – and this season it is happening now. Every year Arsenal endures a spell in which they undo all the good work which has helped them look potential title contenders. It was may be the most striking aspect of the latest defeats: that this lack of edge, this failure to grab an opportunity, felt so familiar.
For years, a popular belief had been that Arsenal’s main problems were actually tactical; they were being undone by Wenger’s so-called stubbornness. Maybe there is some truth to that, but increasingly it is coming to look as though the problem is mental, which the Gunners, somehow, will find a way to fail.