Troy Deeney‘s famous comments claiming that Arsenal lacked ‘cojones’ have proved to be correct, so he claims.
The Birmingham striker was at Watford when he made the comments, and he made his statement after his side had overturned a 1-0 deficit to win 2-1, when Tom Cleverley struck an injury time winner, and his words proved a real sting in the tail amongst our fanbase.
I doubt many of you are hearing of his comments now, with him stating that our team lacked cojones at the time, but the English forward insists his words have been vindicated, with none of those players remaining a first-team player at the club any longer.
“We’d come from behind to win with a penalty from me and a late strike from Tom Cleverley,” Deeney stated in his autobiography(via The Sun). “Arsene Wenger, who was the manager at the time, said the decision to award the penalty was ‘scandalous’ and blamed the defeat on that.
“But when I went on BT Sport after the match, the interviewer asked me about what he had said and I came up with a different explanation for our win. I was respectful to Mr Wenger, but I did say, ‘It’s having a bit of cojones’.
“Whenever I play against Arsenal, I’ll go up and think, ‘Let me whack the first one and see who wants it’. What I said touched a nerve, I don’t regret any of it. If anyone actually watched that game back, which they very rarely do, they would see what I was talking about.
“Ten seconds before we score the second goal, the ball goes up to Mesut Ozil and he bottles it because he thinks he’s going to get smashed. Ozil is a fantastic footballer, he is technically gifted and his touch is sweet but, in that moment, he thought he was going to get hit from behind. So in that instance, they wimped out.
“I was hammered by Paul Merson and a host of ex-Arsenal players. Because you have stopped playing, you have more entitlement to say that than me? Are you worried that I am going to be better at your job than you?
“If anything, I am more entitled to talk about this era of the Premier League because I am in it. I am not dated. I think I have been proved right because there are not many people who played in that game for Arsenal who are still at the club, certainly not in the first team.”
Alexandre Lacazette, Mo Elneny, Sead Kolasinac and Granit Xhaka all remain in the first-team squad from that starting line-up, and you could say that only the Swiss midfielder remains a regular in the team so far this season, but does that mean that his comments have been proven right?
Yes. He was being honest and sincere about what he felt about our team . I believe he is right . The second chapter of Arsene Wenger years tried to concentrate more on technicality and ignoring physicality ( using Barcelona of Laliga decent as a reference which went awfully for us which was the start of the rot in our yet to be healed club).
During the 2005-2008 arsenal vs Chelsea , in the first 5min of these games you’d see a lampard , a terry or Michael Ballack kicking an innocent Cesc Fabrgas at just the early moment of the game , this they do every time because I paid attention to these little details .
The arsenal players just sit , sulk , complain and moan without the referee doing anything. Later these good arsenal players will become scared to hold the ball for too long and they misplaced passes . That was the tactics of Jose Mourinho in his early seasons agains arsenal .
This attitude has grown into a giant rooted tree. Xhaka was trying to bring back the right mentality of putting a fight but the square doesn’t seem to embrace it , like wise the fans . I guess the lack of cojones spread like a cancer from the manager , to the squad , the team , the club and then the fans .
That’s why some here don’t want mediocrity and complain about loosing to brentford , having a false mentality about playing big teams .
I guess this bad cultural heritage has to stop starting from the fans that goes to the Emirates . Anfield is a scary stadium because we all know they have the cojones
Arsenal as a name doesn’t have it and Deeney is 1000000000000000% right .
It’s not physicality, it’s mentality. Fabregas had “cojones”, was the last player in our side to be intimidated, it’s one of the things that made him stand out.
A clear example: Barcelona’s great sides were full of short players, but aside from being technically gifted, they were also fighters. I have a firm memory of a Madrid-barca game where someone went in hard on Deco (elbowed him I think) and could have hurt him -it clearly just angered him and he answered by upping his game and they ended up winning easily. The amount of times Ramos alone tried to intimidate and hurt Messi as well – it always backfired. That’s what it’s about: mental toughness (although having a few bigger players definitely helps!)
Deeney was & is disrespectful and arrogant. Even now, he still tries to talk down elders. Arrant nonesenc
Why the same article disrespecting Arsenal as one two days ago on the same subject and same ex Watford player? We discussed his comments then!
As for the comment from @Blaze above….SMFH.