Arsene Wenger: My Arsenal players are too nice and too cocky

Arsene Wenger was unhappy with Arsenal's performance against West Ham

ARSENE WENGER has brought his fallen Arsenal stars to earth with a bump by branding them too nice and too cocky.

 

The Arsenal boss, desperate to avoid a repeat of last season’s costly slow start, responded to last Sunday’s shock defeat to West Ham with a few home truths.

And he warned his players they need to get their acts together at Crystal Palace this afternoon to keep their title bid on track – even at this early stage of the season.

“Sometimes, we are maybe too nice. If you want to say our aggressive level last Sunday was not enough, then I would agree.

“And maybe we were too confident because we thought we would win the game anyway.

“Now it’s about how we respond and that is why our game at Palace is hugely important.

 

“We just need to be at our best and produce a different performance on Sunday.”

Wenger’s warning came as he also weighed into the simmering controversy over the shortage of home-grown players in the Premier League and an FA suggestion that more English players should go abroad to improve their game.

He said integrating very young players into Premier League games was becoming increasingly difficult.

“The level has gone up everywhere and you have no margin any more,” he said. 

“You have a generation of players who are lost between 18 and 20. When a guy of that age feels he doesn’t move forward he loses motivation. And I am a bit scared about that because in France they play in Division Three with their reserves so you get competition against adults."

 

That’s why Wenger was critical of England’s under 21 league – because, he says, it is not the same as playing in competitive games. 

“In many under 21 games there is no build-up before the game, there is not the pressure of the competition, there is not the results you have to stand up for,” he said.

Wenger’s solution is for some young players to move to teams in the Championship.

But he added: “There again only the best will play in the Championship because what happens is that good English players go down to the Championship and that level goes up.

“There is no ideal solution. You have about 700 or 800 young players coming through academies, but where do they go? They can’t all play in the Premier League.”