Arsene Wenger has revealed that he allowed Lukas Podolski to leave the club because he had too many players for that area of the pitch.
The German, who joined Inter Milan on loan until the end of the season, is not expected to return when the loan finished. As we reported when the move happened, Wenger also confirmed there is no option to buy in Inter’s loan deal, it would seem that his time as an Arsenal player is over.
Speaking to the media before Arsenal’s game against Stoke at the weekend, Wenger confirmed that he had allowed the player to leave in order to play – how many other managers would have done that in the middle of a campaign?
Wenger said
“He didn’t get enough opportunities to play – because I knew that, I gave him a chance to go,” the Arsenal manager said.
“Why? Because we have many players who can play in these positions and at the end of the day only 11 can start. When a player of his quality doesn’t get enough games, at some stage too much competition is detrimental to the confidence of the players and their positivity.
“You need the right number and we had too many players in this area. It’s nothing to do with his quality; it’s just down to the fact that we had too many players in the same area.”
Speaking in Italy Podolski revealed that he felt Wenger did not show him any respect because he didn’t say ‘goodbye’ to him, but as I discussed recently, Wenger showed him more respect than managers would have by allowing him to leave mid-season.