by Lewis Ambrose
Ahead of the FA Cup Final Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger candidly spoke to Gabby Logan for an interview shown on Football Focus.
The Arsenal boss was open, honest, and as insightful as ever.
This season was ultimately just fine for Arsenal. Progress was made in a number of areas, another trophy was won, and we automatically qualified for the Champions League.
It was that very same European competition, however, that brought the greatest disappointment.
Failed
“Where we failed this season is against Monaco at home,” said the Arsenal manager.
The draw was, on paper, a friendly one and provided Arsenal with their best opportunity in years to reach the Champions League quarter-finals.
Maybe the added expectations and pressure affected the players.
“We neglected basic principles,
“2-1 is not a disaster.”
That scoreline at home would have left us with a good chance to progress, but conceding a third goal proved decisive.
“I don’t think the players weren’t in the right place, they just wanted to make the difference on the day in the first game.”
Learning
And that’s something to learn from. Champions League knockout rounds are two legs, if you’re one goal behind after one game it’s effectively half-time, so it really is “no disaster” – but perhaps we will learn from that.
“The team cohesion is very important.
“It comes from being together for a long time, learning from defeat and learning form victory.”
And learning from your experiences is huge, Wenger believes the capacity to do that will determine how much you can achieve.
“The level you can reach with a group of players is basically down to their intelligence level as a whole.”
The manager also praised the players for their response not only to that game, but setbacks earlier on in the campaign.
“This team has a fantastic attitude, I must say.
“The concentration, the collective desire has been good all season because we had a slow start and came back in a very strong position. The attitude has always been right.”
With that, surely we can achieve plenty?
Belief
Especially now we have won a couple of big games away from home.
Wins at Manchester City and Manchester United have shown everyone we can win away against big teams, though Wenger himself never doubted.
“My belief is always strong but it has to be proven by the results,” said the manager.
“If the results don’t show that you’re right even your own players can’t believe.”
Now we do have the results to back it up, and the belief seems to be there in abundance.
“Of course it strengthened the belief because the recent history of a team sets the confidence.
“The fact we hadn’t won away against big teams was of course essential in that.”
Fight
And now we’re ready to challenge for the very highest of honours.
“If you want to fight for the Premiership you have to win some of these games.”
We’ve shown that we can.
Wenger believes in his team, and they now have everything to believe in themselves.
Learn from our failures and we’ll be closer next season.