19 goals and your lot didn’t get any, Arsene

ARSENE WENGER admits his season will be dogged by the Robin van Persie question if Arsenal keep firing blanks.

Lukas Podolski did not get the service and Olivier Giroud missed a sitter in his brief cameo as a sub.

And in a week Wenger sold star man Van Persie to Manchester United for £22million, 19 goals were scored on the opening day — none of them by the Gunners Boss Wenger said: “We played some draws at home with Van Persie and we’ve lost games with Van Persie as well.

“But it’s true last year in every game he found something special.

“I never denied that we lost a world-class player. Don’t get me wrong. He’s very difficult to replace. I feel Podolski is not ready physically yet but he has the quality. Giroud, you can see he has a presence when he’s on the pitch in this position.

“But look, Manchester United looked everywhere and didn’t buy anybody else. They bought Van Persie at 29 years of age.

“They realised that this quality is difficult to find on the market.”

Giroud’s miss was a glaring one after a through ball from the impressive Santi Cazorla.

Wenger continued: “Giroud had a great chance on his right foot.

“I think he had more time than he thought. We expected him to score that one of course.”

Dropping points on opening day did nothing to lift the mood at the Emirates, despite the enthusiastic support given to new signings Podolski, Giroud and Cazorla.

Sunderland manager Martin O’Neill’s words summed up what most of the Premier League feels about Arsenal’s decision to let Van Persie go.

He said: “I wondered whether on the opening day of the season fans might just forget about that their main player has left and just get behind the team, which I thought they tried to do.

“But he is a major loss to them and while they would still have been expecting to have won today, he’ll obviously be a major loss during the course of the season.”

Wenger conceded that despite factoring in a couple of matches where points might be dropped at home, starting off like this was particularly frustrating.

Most of the big guns play today or tomorrow and Arsenal could be playing catch up right from the off.

Wenger added: “Of course it was a missed opportunity. It’s always frustrating in the game when you have so much possession and so little points.

“But you have to calculate you will have a draw or two or three in the season. I prefer to play away in the first game.”

But Wenger denied that Arsenal suffered a ‘Van Persie hangover’. He said: “I don’t know. I feel that once you’re on the pitch, you don’t think about players who aren’t there.

“You try to make a good pass when you have the ball and all the rest is an excuse that is not valid.

“Our passing was not quick enough today in my opinion. But I don’t think that is necessarily linked with Robin.”

Arsenal did start brightly but had only a Cazorla blast that stung the fingers of Simon Mignolet to show for their efforts.

Wenger added: “We played with good spirit. Basic fitness is all right but we lack sharpness. We had a few chances, couldn’t convert them and on top of that Sunderland always play the same way against us in the final third defensively.

“If you’re not sharp enough to make the difference early in the game it becomes difficult.”

Wenger remained positive but admitted that his team have work to do in the coming weeks.

He added: “They defended the whole game very well. We lacked something I would call sharpness as well as quality and accuracy in the final pass.

“The formula didn’t work with three strikers up front.

“We were not very balanced and didn’t create enough.

“They blocked our midfield and after that it was difficult for us. We needed to be more creative in our final third.”