The Gunners boss has faced vociferous criticism for his failure to secure adequate defensive reinforcements last summer but his chief scout in France disagrees
Arsene Wenger does not deserve to be criticised for his transfer policy at Arsenal, according to former Gunners star and current scout Gilles Grimandi.
After years of austerity, Wenger has loosened the purse strings to bring Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez to the Emirates Stadium in each of the last two summers in a bid to re-establish Arsenal as title contenders.
Arsenal's efforts this season have been undermined by persistent injuries and Wenger's decision to start the season with just six senior defenders to cover four positions in the wake of Thomas Vermaelen's departure.
But Grimandi, who made over 100 appearances in five seasons with the Gunners and is now the club's chief scout in France, believes Wenger deserves credit rather than criticism for his approach.
“Recruitment is judged in the long term,” he told L'Equipe. “Nobody gets it 100 per cent right. But when you compare the money spent and our performance, I don’t think we do too badly.
“We have suffered in several positions through injuries but we are through to the knockout stages of the Champions League for the 17th time and we have already overcome some very complicated moments.
“That is thanks to stability. Now we have to be very ambitious. And for that reason the knockout tie against Monaco is very important for us.”
Grimandi also voiced his opposition to the growing importance of statistics in football, arguing that greater scrutiny of numbers is changing the behaviour of players on the pitch.
“Stats take a greater and greater role,” he insisted. “You really have to put your case forward to argue against the numbers. In a club, stats give the possibility to exist to people who have a very limited knowledge.
“These numbers give security to people who don’t make brave decisions. That really annoys me. The other thing is that players are conscious of this change.
“Sometimes I wonder how much they are playing for the numbers: how many tackles they have won, how many kilometres they have run. It is not necessarily positive. I can win 100 per cent of my tackles if I don’t go in for ones I risk losing.
“I see more and more players run away from tackles and I think that is something that will carry on until stats start counting pulling out of tackles.
“Some young players who are very talented don’t have tackling in their armoury.”
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