Arsene Wenger Blames Lack Of “Sharpness” For Goalless Draw At West Ham

By The Editor
on 14th December 2017

Arsene Wenger believes the heavy schedule took its toll…

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Arsene Wenger chose to focus on the weary legs in our squad and West Ham’s extra day’s rest after our disappointing goalless draw at the London Stadium on Wednesday evening.

Days after recording a shock win against arch London rivals Chelsea, David Moyes deployed similar tactics against us in the hope of staying in the game.

The hosts were camped outside their penalty for the majority of the game and after weathering a few storms, Javier Hernandez was inches away from clinch all three points at the death as his effort cannoned off the bar and onto the wrong side of the goal-line.

For Wenger though, freshness is key when playing against teams that use such tactics and he’s clearly unhappy at the two away games we played in quick succession.

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“Overall it’s frustrating,” Wenger said after the game to BT Sport.

“They were in a very defensive phase.

“They did it against Chelsea, [Manchester] City, now us. We lacked a bit freshness and sharpness to open them up and get a goal.

“They focused on defending and didn’t try to come out at all.”

When asked if our performance at West Ham summed up our away form this season, Wenger reached for a rather bizarre claim: “If we played on Saturday and West Ham on Sunday, maybe we could have found a little advantage.”

We couldn’t have played on Saturday due to our Europa League clash on Thursday night, it’s rather simple. That’s what usually happens when you fail to qualify for the Champions League.

Check out his post-match thoughts in the video above.