Arsene Wenger: No reason to smile!

A brief round-up on what the bosses had to say on their matches of the weekend in their post match press conference:

This is what Arsene Wenger had to say on the Arsenal 1 - 1 Boro game:

“When we fail to win a game we have dominated, it is always worrying and I am now aware that this is our worst ever start in the Premiership. It was one of those games when we had all the ball, and the chances against a side that refused to come out and play, but we got ourselves into trouble by falling behind and gave ourselves a mountain to climb.

We lacked sharpness because half of the team has been away [on international duty]. However, Wenger insisted: ‘But on the other hand I have never had a feeling that so much potential is in the team to do so much better. I still feel we are playing better in every game, we just cannot finish off teams.”

Once again, ‘we dominated the game, we had the ball, we had the grass, we had the net blah blah . . .’ They didn’t play well enough. Whay can’t Arsene admit this once for a change? Lacking sharpness due to international duty? Come on, Chelsea has more players in the international teams than Arsenal. Playing better in every game . . . my foot. It’s getting all too irritating even for neutrals to watch Arsenal. They are in this boring loop of useless short passes and they do this loop for 90 minutes. Arsene has a lot of talking to do as his captain doesn’t seem motivated himself.

Sir Alex Ferguson on the Manchester United 1 - 0 Tottenham game

“Ryan is showing experience and maturity,the ability has always been there. He has been a fantastic player at this club, there is no question about that. He will go down as one of the greatest players of all time and he is using his experience to get the best from himself. We have said in the past few years how teams have got off to a good start and never stopped. The Premiership title is about sometimes playing great football, sometimes having a bit of luck, sometimes gritting your teeth and sometimes getting through by sheer determination to get over the line. Now, we hope to get on the type of roll which would leave our players feeling we can to it this season.”

Fergie praising Giggs as one of the greatest players of Man Utd. Ryan better beware, something could be waiting for you. Ask the other Man Utd greats like Beckham, Keane and Ruud. Expecting Man United to never stop this run is kind of mother of all optimisms. Let’s see if they still top the league by end of september.

Rafa Benitez on the Everton 3 - 0 Liverpool game

“We will have to improve in defence. We made a lot of mistakes, too many mistakes and in football you pay for them. In the second half we went forward and created chances but couldn’t score so in the end we paid for that.”

Very simply put. Rafa did not have much to say. The above paragraph is the one which he repeats every time his team gets a rout. I remember seeing in a Liverpool blog yesterday that Liverpool’s clean sheet streak will start this saturday. It was more of a clean shit for Liverpool.

Jose Mourinho on the Chelsea 2 - 1 Charlton game

“I’m happy with the performance in the first half and I’m happy with the result. We should have killed the game in the first half. We did enough to score two or three.

You only miss a penalty if you have the courage to take a penalty. He has the courage. He has taken penalties for two years and has taken some very important penalties for us, so I’m ready to carry on with him. I know I have some very good penalty-takers and, if the next penalty is a crucial penalty in the crucial moment of a game and he thinks it’s better to give the chance to a more confident player, I am happy with that. But I trust him as always. Frank doesn’t need sympathy. He is an unbelievable player and in my opinion he is playing well for Chelsea. I won’t give my opinion about England because that is for Steve McClaren. I am more than happy with Lamps.

Sympathy is not the word because with me he always plays. He can be under pressure and you can give him some stick but with me he always plays. He will be out if I decide to give him a rest or in the Carling Cup at home but for me he plays always. He misses a penalty. Some of the best players miss penalties.”

As always, never letting down his man Lampard. He also hints that considering his form, Lampard should decide on whether he wants to take the penalty or not next time. Very subtly, Jose is putting some pressure on Lampard to change gears and delivers.

[tags] Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsene Wenger, Jose Mourinho, Sir Alex Ferguson, Rafa Benitez, Lampard, Giggs [/tags]