Arsenal vs Borussia Dortmund preview - Wenger brushes off Usmanov comments
Posted Wednesday, November 26, 2014 by PA
Arsene Wenger will not take criticism from major shareholder Alisher Usmanov personally, but has told everyone involved with Arsenal they must get behind his team.
Uzbek oil magnate Usmanov - whose Red & White Holdings Group has just over a 30 per cent stake in the Gunners parent company - gave an interview to American broadcaster CNBC in which he questioned the direction of the club.
He suggested Wenger's mistakes were never properly evaluated, which was standing in the way of them challenging Europe's other leading sides.
Wenger, now the longest-serving manager in the top flight, has enough experience not to take anything to heart, with the 2-1 Barclays Premier League home defeat to Manchester United on Saturday having attracted plenty of negative headlines.
The Gunners boss, though, believes such public statements and suggestions of crisis talks with the board do little to benefit the team, who host Borussia Dortmund on Wednesday night looking to secure a place in the last 16 of the Champions League once again.
"When you are such a long time in football as I am, you don't understand any more what crisis means. I must get to the dictionary and look at it well again," said Wenger, who confirmed England midfielder Jack Wilshere will see a specialist to assess the seriousness of ankle ligament damage suffered in the defeat to United.
"During the 18 years I have been here I have shown that I can take criticism. Everybody has the right to have an opinion, having said that, we have values at this club," the Frenchman added.
"The first one is when we go through a difficult patch, we show solidarity. That is a very important one.
"The second one is that, when you have something to say to each other, we say it face to face. We don't need to go to the newspapers.
"I don't take (Usmanov's comments) personally at all. It is an opinion that I respect, but when you are from this club, you are from this club. You are in or out, you cannot be both.
"I am long enough in the game to know that when you play well, but lose the game, you get flooded with critics, however, if you play a very bad game, but you win it, everyone says how great you are.
"It is our job to take a distance with that and see what was right and what was wrong. The rest is part of the game."
Arsenal, though, will be able to call on France defender Laurent Koscielny, who has resumed full training after an Achilles problem.
Forward Olivier Giroud is ineligible after being omitted from Arsenal's Champions League squad. He was originally expected to miss all of the group matches because of a broken leg.
In the Dortmund camp, Marco Reus has accepted Marvin Bakalorz's apologies for the foul which brought his football year to an end.
Bakalorz was shown a yellow card after lunging in and catching Reus on his right ankle during Paderborn's 2-2 draw with Dortmund on Sunday.
Reus has been ruled out until the start of January and Bakalorz issued an apology.
"We've exchanged messages and I told him that I was really sorry and that it was never my intention," Bakalorz told the Westfalen-Blatt newspaper.
"Reus was cool about it. He was pleased that I had written to him and said that he knows I didn't do it intentionally.
"Once everything has died down, we'll have a chat about it all."
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