Ex-Arsenal star says: “People are sick of Wenger’s moaning”
The ex-Arsenal and Wales striker John Hartson has one of his little outbursts and he reckons that “people” are sick of Arsene Wenger always blaming the referee when his team gets beaten. The Gunners have one of the worst disciplinary records in the Premiership this season and Wenger thinks that it purely down to the refs picking on his players, rather than coming out and blaming his own players.
Hartson, who scored 14 goals for the Gunners as Ian Wright’s strike partner, said today: “People are sick of it. You want Wenger to come out and say ‘look, my players were ill-disciplined’.
“Over the years at Arsenal the discipline has been woeful under Wenger. You want him to take it [the blame] on the chin.
“We all know Arsenal should have won the game, they go 1-0 up but that’s a dangerous score line, they needed that second goal. Fulham are always thinking, one more goal and we’re back in this.
“I’m getting sick of excuses from Wenger. I don’t know how you can defend his comments really. I genuinely feel Djourou deserved to get sent off.
“The first tackle on Dembele was a definite booking, and a rash referee could have sent him off. Then he gets away with another one on Frei that could have been a booking and then the third one on Zamora.
“Zamora’s a very clever player and if you’re clean through and then pulled back, clever players go down. You’ve seen Arsenal players like Samir Nasri, Cesc Fabregas and Robert Pires all go down under Wenger.
“This is was what clever players do. If they are touched, if they’ve felt a little bit on the shoulder, they go down. It’s not cheating, it’s clever.”
The fact is that he is correct. Wenger never seems to bring his players to task when they do something wrong or have a bad game, in fact he has supported some of Arsenal’s worst ever players in the last few years.
But are Arsenal fans sick of it as well?
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Out of tune?. Like or Dislike:
11 
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I agree with hartson well said john
Opinions divided. What do you think?
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I do have to agree with arsene, the calls have been terrible, but its happening with other teams too and they arent complaining. Shit happens. Get over it.
Top Gooner!. Agree or not?:
37 
13
Still upset about his poor form at Arsenal??
How sad.
Top Gooner!. Agree or not?:
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9
Wenger will never take the blame for anything, the man is too proud and going senile.
Opinions divided. What do you think?
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It is easy to see from the games with M.city,Astonvila,Wolves & Fulham that we are struggling, all signs are there and it is the time to do something if there is somebody to do something about it.
Top Gooner!. Agree or not?:
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wenger said we have a big squad…i agree…we have a squad full of crap players like squilachi chamack djourou almunia ect…but not quality players…
can we win the premiership and the champion league with them? i don’t think so…
14 years we are in the champion league? good…but our team just accompanies the others because in 14 years we never won it…i am a big fan of arsenal but our current board is just happy with themselves and their not winning anything…
let s start buying players ourselves and let s stop showing the good players to other teams….
Top Gooner!. Agree or not?:
44 
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The refereeing at some points in the game was poor but the decision for the sending off was correct. Wenger needs to look at himself for his team talk or lack of at halftime;the lack of a muscle man leader in midfield and poor midfield performance of some players that let fulham play through the middle. That with taking off a player to support RVP and the midfield dropping far to far back suggests poor coaching in my book. We need to learn from this as Theiry wont be able to sort that out. Get a leader please Arsene and improve upon coaching tactics to change games or finish teams off. Buy a leader on the park.
Top Gooner!. Agree or not?:
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Im sorry i agree with Arsene, we should have had 2 penalties, if this guy watched the game, he see what we ALL saw, look at the game against Wolves, the handball – even the commentator says ” he (the referee) saw it (the handball) and i cannot understand how he doesn’t give it”…
Top Gooner!. Agree or not?:
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Im sick of it but not just from wenger every bloody manager is moaning about it due to the.pessure they are under. its just another typical indictment of the blame.culture we live.in. gone are the.days when people owned up for their mistakes.first unless they are totally bang to rights. no its all about trying to lay the blame elsewhere to see if u can come out of it better off or scott free.
but lets get this right it is not just wenger.
Top Gooner!. Agree or not?:
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Certainly a major clear out is required but we`ve all known that for some time. Wenger is a busy man and it is very time consuming so it would seem that he needs to appoint someone who`s sole objective is to clear out the `deadwood`. I`m of the impression that Wenger has become stale, a real`stick in the mud`, he needs a new and younger number two to revitalize him.
Top Gooner!. Agree or not?:
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Arsenal are full of average players, when they grow Wenger sells and start again. How long can fans endure ?every season they keep tosing ball in 18 yard no shot and they get punished, who suffers? Fans do!
Top Gooner!. Agree or not?:
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Since when is an ex player a good ref? if you hear ex players talking about the rules they only prove they know shit about the rules. (pardon the expression)
It is not because you once could kick a bit against a ball that you know something about refereeing.
and why doesn’t Hartson speak about the not given penalty? Or about the 5 not given penalties in our last 5 games? Was this because of the fact that our playerr were ill disciplined at the time?
Because he has to earn a living as a pundit and thus has to speak what his employers want to hear.
If there is one thing I am sick of it is that I’m sick of ex players who are moaning about Wenger
Top Gooner!. Agree or not?:
29 
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I agree with walter, Hartson should shut up and stop being so selective in his comments, for some reason he never has a good word to say about Arsenal, you would never guess he used to play for us. I am pissed off at the vendetta by refs, pundits and ex players against Arsenal and Wenger. We have been robbed of a dozen points this season by crap refs decisions, and they certainly do not even out over the season. When are we going to get a 50/50 call go our way? I challenge anyone to show me a game this season where we have got points as a result of refs decisions going in our favour. I am sick of being screwed so I can understand why Wenger gets so angry, what must it be like for him to be kicked in the balls almost every week.
Top Gooner!. Agree or not?:
22 
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shitiii are playing with 10 men but they can do it …with our big squad with 1 man down that is it…we start being shaky… arsenal for life…
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7 
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wengers defending of djourou was totally unwarranted for.this arsenal team has got into the habit of defending 1 goal leads all the time.thats just not right,nor safe…..its not like arsenal should continue the explosive attacking football and leak goals,ok to cut on offensive plays but wenger should know when to and when not-to…..
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This stupid ex-player. Are you sick. Cant you see how we are robbed in several games ? For the past 4 matches we have been denying some penalty. Do you think you can succeed arsene ? You are a liar and failure. English fa too. Man u and arsenal both played on saturday why do they give 4 good days to rest. And arsenal have just 48hrs to rest. And so called stupid fan stupid pundit will raise their dirty mouth on wenger.
Opinions divided. What do you think?
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@undisclosed ,like the way u said it.mourinho,daglish,ferguson,wenger etc….everyone !!
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You can’t keep blaming officials. We are simply not good enough. Let’s be honest and acknowledge the fact that we have lots of “ordinary” players that cannot compete for the title or Champions league.
Opinions divided. What do you think?
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HARTSON IF WHAT WENGER SAID ANNOYED YOU THEN YOU CAN EASILY KILL YOURSELF BECAUSE YOU TALKED OUT OF HATRED. WENGER IS RIGHT, PROBERT OFFICIATING WAS RUBBISH
Opinions divided. What do you think?
8 
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If we can start from now 2 pick all available 3pts,b/4 march,we may be topping the league,but how can we do that without enough fire-power & back-ups.The loan for the defender should be for d rest of d season,since kibbs is another micheal owen,there today,gone tomorrow.
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Refrees are not favouring arsenal in penalty aspect & they always blow against them,wenger is right because its d responsibility of a coach to complain about a patial refree& acept defeat.stupid coach can be silent,& those who against wenger are idiot & dubious in nature.
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This is one of the few post where opinion rating is heavily split, interesting!!!. For me DJ is not a very good right/ctr back sorry. We have a bigger problem than we as fans and a club are willing to admit. First I am a huge Wenger supporter. However I must say our squad is not yet there. Even if we loose a man we should still manage. Many criticized Santos here but since he’s been injured we are slipping. As a top 4 club we should have killed the game before the red card but we do not have the squad to do that. We desperately need someone who can play the wings and score to compete with Walcott. After the last few games many top 4 clubs will not start him in the next game thereby making him work harder and more consistent. But we have no real goal scorers for these positions. Also we are not getting enough creativity from the mid so we need one for that position asap. We can not win anything if we have to grind through games. If VP gets clear chances he can score but u need the killer passes to open up defenses and create clear chances to score. We need a left back to compete with Santos as well cos if Gibs continue to be injury prone then we will be back here again if we only have Santos in that position. So we need a Left back, creative mid and striker to at least make our games easier. By the way Coquelin has been brilliant.
I would prefer Wenger to admit even if not openly but to himself that we have too many players clubs like Sunderland may not even buy so the needs to be sold as soon as posible and replaced with better players. Like that if a player is having a bad day or injure at least we have a more than capable replacement.
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how does this bloke rate the tag ‘star’ ?
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@Mick
Stop giving excuses. Wolves came to Emirates and faced the same situation Arsenal was facing at Fulham, but did not give in any goals after one of their players was wrongly sent off. On the other hand, as soon as Arsenal went down to 10 men, you could see them giving away the game, and they eventually did. You gotta start holding the manager and the players responsible for these results. Every Club goes through these kind officiating, whereby the 50/50 decisions go in favour of the opponent. I have watched so many games in this festive period where i have seen the referees refuse to give penalties, when they deemed it was ball to hand. So you should stop complaining, Arsenal team is not good enough to compete for the title, or top 4 position.
Opinions divided. What do you think?
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Almost every Arsenal red card this season has had some significant doubt about it. Either the first yellow was ridiculous or the second one was unwarranted. There is a litany of incomprehensible decisions mostly involving the referees being unwilling to award a genuine penalty. Gervinho is a case in point against Newcastle – there is a penalty not given, then a serious act of violence and petulance by Barton on Gervinho before it ever got to the handbags that saw Gervinho marched. Bottom line is if the officials do their job, the thing doesnt get out of hand. These guys are supposed to be the best most experienced refs in the country yet they make junior level mistakes by giving unwarranted early yellows that come back to haunt them later – either by a red being given or in some cases yellow cards not given where they should be because the player is already carded for a nothing challenge.
Wenger probably should be more disciplined himself but if you look at the refereeing in the last 3 Arsenal games its hard to be overly critical of him. Dissect the Vermaulen yellow card – Kolscielny makes a challege and actually gets his feet to the ball before his thighs take out the winger in the follow though (not his studs!!!) The ref gets the wrong player retrospectively for a questionable card – it wasnt violent – the player was tossed up in the air etc.
Then against Fulham his comments come after witnessing a penalty against Gervinho not given, the Double handed shove in the back on Wallcott, the outrageous “who did the handball first” and then Djourou marched for a non challenge that was far less than either of the Senderos wrestling efforts on RvP earlier in the game.
The bottom line is the officials have become such a “protected species” they are above reproach and so are giving pathetic performances with little redress. The media should be plastering pictures on the front page highlighting the errors but they remain silent.
I wont even comment on Hartson – he’s an idiot!
Top Gooner!. Agree or not?:
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We are still an AVG team who will barely get into top 4 this season..!! like we always do..
but the diff will b that before we used to have a good season in the start and bad in the end..and this time its going to be somewhat opposite…
well i wonder if our discussion/arguments matters alil..
Arsene is going to do what he has to and what he is told to do..!!
And kroenke.. all he needs is MONEY… hahhh…
i can only dream of Arsenal winning a trophy any whea in near future
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3 
0
im even sick with this could be another 7 yrs trophiles streak n the board is crap.
im sick too with wenger moan bout injuries.he says his squad is big! ol of them hv quality.show that with squid n almunia..n we’re eff enuf! poor some superstars in the club.we’re crap!
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……….since when has John Hartson been considered a star????
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5 
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Every manager blames the referee when they feel short changed, Wenger’s not alone in that. Fergie’s another who blames officials for a loss; doing that takes the heat away from the team, especially if they put in an average shift.
I thought the ref. was atrocious and not because of the RC he handed out. The number of fouls that weren’t called (unless you were the home side) was unbelievable, looked like a Championship game at some points. We’ve had some tough calls of late and I’d be pretty pissed if I was Wenger too.
Moaning and managing go hand-in-hand much like ex-players and half-assed criticism.
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the ref’s poor performance was only PARTLY responsible for our loss. other reasons are poor finishing & some equally poor substitutions especially to bring an error prone & ageing defendr in squillaci to defend a 1-0 lead for the last 10 minutes. a complete joke.
now mr hartson, u call zamora’s dive “clever”. what about the penalty appeal? the challenge was made, but the defender didn’t win the ball & brought down gervinho instead. isn’t that a penalty?
secondly, there was a time when arne riise used both his hands to shove an arsenal player(don’t remember his name) on the touchline. no foul.
wenger lifted us from the relegation zone to 1 point short of 4th spot, nobody wants to give him credit for that, but when he (rightly) criticizes the ref, he is called a crybaby.
yes, he did make poor subs, so let’s hope that he learns from his mistakes, & makes the required changes to the squad.
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Djourou should be offloaded, secondly, wenger has to think about defence & stricking force. if adjusted properly i think everything can be up-right without moaning.
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wenger mistake ever because he(wenger) no good enough change player allmost game
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at the end o it all arsene shd b reviewing th 2nd half display that was lethargic n his lack o tactical acumen when the opponents start getting the upper hand which was evident coz we honestly didn’t deserve 2win for th team is playin very slowly n knowin how a few gunners will think me rash bt ramsey on more occasions than not fades out o games!imagine if we had th same team bt with cesc still in…the continuous creative spark is below par 4 an arsenal team
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Wenger cannot make more changes to the squad because we do not have enough players, that is simple as that…
His policy of youth and home grown players as failed with juice…!!!
Wenger has become our weakness and we need to have someone who will only deal with the coaching side of the team.
He is deluded and it is sickening to see him on the touch line arguing with referee’s assistants. That is a sign of weakness and we are, in fact, powerless.
Tottenham keep going on and cumulating points when we keep struggling with a side that was destroyed by Man U at home !!!
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2
Wenger should otp playing on our minds. we do not suport arsenal because we are stupid when the shopping window opens, he behaves like a child in the supermarket who tourches everything and ends buying non Clubs with lesser financial muscles like tottenham have good squards. If he continues fooloing us, we should abandon some games for him.
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Some times Wenger’s outrage is out of frustration which he inflicted on himself.Average players produces average performance.No doubt.Diaby gave us disaster last year and Djouru is displaying such as well.We have alot of such available but undesirable players in arsenal and this is due to Wengers so called policy which is taken the club downward. I agree with John Hartson,we are tired of his complain and buck passing. Let him strengthen the team the way other serious minded managers are doing.
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Those who think Arsenal are such an “average team” might consider that Chelsea for all their spending are only 2 points ahead of us. One other thing I have noticed with many Arsenal fans is the capability of a non Arsenal player seems to be always exaggerated, whilst Arsenal players are always crap. Yet these crap individuals seem to continually pop up in the national teams!
I was so anticipating seeing Goetze play when we met Dortmund after all the hype week in and week out on all the Arsenal blogs – well he didnt do that much and hobbled off after a fairly innocuous challenge by Gervinho and I really doubt he, like Eden Hazzard represent value for money at the 30+ million pounds being quoted for their transfers.
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to think a player of hartson’s quality played for arsenal oh the pain, what horror. slowest man on earth is right tho arsene should just admit his players are not good enough i mean they are good enough when playing at their best but at this stage of the season they are tired and are not at their best which makes them a mid table team with two worldclass players. arsene needs to wake up and realise unless he spend money adding quality insted of quantity to our squad were are gona finish 6th if were are lucky. the way we play shud be altered at the later stages of the season cus our style of play demands lots movement which means lots of energy
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@Dial Square You forget that it was Wenger too who put us in the relegation zone in the first place. Only once we were in that predicament did he panic and buy some players. LOUSY management if you ask me. Perhaps if he had actually bought Samba, Cahill, Parker, Mata we would be on top of the league? Something to think about as current midfield of Arteta and Ramsey, Rosicky and Benayoun just cannot compete with the best in the world. We rely too heavily on Walcott and Gervinho to assist RvP. When they are having a kak day, RvP does not score. Look at the fulham game. Walcott played sh*te, no assists for RvP.
Anyway regarding the topic, blaming the ref is just an easy way of passing the buck. I have watched plenty games this season where Arsenal would commit fouls but the ref did nothing. You cannot blame the ref entirely for a loss. It just shows how immature and irresponsible Wenger actually is. If he had any professionalism about him and treated the club with respect and ambition to be champions, he would take a good hard look at himself and what mistakes he had made. (Bad substitutions). Also if the team play a sub par game, (in this case they played utter sh*te) he is the one who needs to rap them out. Sugarc coating everything and blaming the ref only prolongs the mediocre play we have seen.
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Big Gun,
and when did i say that we lost only bcoz of the ref?
i agree that the players’ poor performance & equally poor tactics were the major reason for the defeat.
secondly, arsenal being in the relegation zone was not entirely wenger’s fault. we have seen that he did the scouting for a number of players like jones, samba, cahill, mata, young, enrique, downing & some others, but they were either snapped by other clubs or stuck to their previous clubs. wenger’s fault? or is it the board who refused to pay up? you tell me.
lets take this defeat as a wake up call & hope that new faces arive. and regarding ref decisions………..well, there are other teams who have suffered due to poor refreeing, so lets not complain.
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the ref’s cant do witout takin parts in arsenals failure.ths’s wht they knw hw to do best mayb nx generatn tht arsene assures them media tht would b al english can rebrand us for gud.
arsene also hav to b blame for some crucial defeats. if a player’s played well u can praise n continue wit him n when he doesnt perform bench him let him realise tht there is a firm competition.personaly i love garvin his build up is ok but end product is smthin else n i adimit he ned to influence d game more above al is a gud addition if u put everythin into considratn wenger is foolin us abot walcot hes a wastiful n woeful player he cant improve n boss wil keep imposing him on us why? fulam game is a london derby alwayz hot u must xpct a tulf game plus we dnt finds it easy at craven cotage though we played very wel in first half but lack d wining mentality to kill d game off.in secnd half we were no where to b found we gave their midfeilders d room to dictate d game it was obvious arteta has week he ned to rest if to consider d amount of games he has involved i xpctd wenger to replace him wit rosisck n direct replacement btw walcot n chamberlain he shld knw better tht’s not wise to remove ur 2wingers wit a formatn of 4 2 3 1 n replace them wit likes of yossi n tomas am not sayin they are not gud but we ned a pace up front but these 2 can only produce a flair he must ‘ve a gud plan wit ths two but i thnk d plan was wrong n (jo) did xcatly wht our boss suppose to do he can see we’re not ready to give up despite d fact we look tired n introduced d young
hungry frei very fast player to come n do d business n he doesnt let him down he tormented n xpose our defence to crown it his input won them 3 point.their boss went straight to him n kissed his forehead after d march.why chamberlain cant b use in this way,mayb our boss ned to wake up n started usin this guy n buy some players if we want to end up in top 4.when it comes to coachin wenger is d man i respct most in his professn,but to b honest we ned a fress blood old age is natural n believe is affectin our dear boss sometimes if u think it’s harsh am sorry but we ‘ve to face d reality.let promote steve bould or bring in tony adams as arsenal No 2, dnt force vic akers to sign anymore.these lads ned fress experience.
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Tired with Wenger excuses,we simply played bad.Our trend shows we will continue with this poor run unless Wenger decides to bring in real tittle chalenging and winning players.With craps like Theo,Djourou,Squillaci,Almunia,Arshavin,chamackh,Ramsey,Rosicky,Diaby and injury prone Gibbs we’ll continue hurting.On the other hand we need plyers with fighting spirit and competent(Classic players).Poor Wenger what the heck are doing with your scoutting team?Metesacker we cant rely on him he is poor in marking and air balls.Ganaz forever.Let ex-ganaz tell the truth because at the end of the league Wenger will say “it’s because of ijnuries we didnt lift any trophy”
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i thing wenger make a mistake he brought a weak player like banayoun the game was level when he take out chervinho every thing mixed so the blme is mr wenger i agree that ex players of arsenal mr john
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2
Always stick by your players
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lets get real once wenger goes we will have a chance of wining again
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