Former Arsenal star Alan Smith has criticised Arsene Wenger after the Gunners 1-1 draw against Manchester United on Saturday.
The North London club went into the game as favourites against a weak United side, but they failed to turn up and struggled throughout the game.
Smith wasn’t impressed with Wenger’s late substitution calls and claimed that it was one of his flaws. Here is the post from his official Twitter account.
An obvious Wenger weakness: he rarely changes anything before 70 mins
— Alan Smith (@9smudge) November 19, 2016
Smith definitely has a point here, there have been instances over the past few years where Wenger left his substitutions too late, not giving the players enough time to make an impact. You need not look far, as this was the case in yesterday’s game too.
During the first half of the game against United, it was clear that Arsenal were struggling to find a foot hold in the game. The creativity was lacking in the middle of the pitch and they also struggled to create any potent attacks from the wings.
Sanchez was clearly not 100% and although he did show his quick feet on a couple of occasions, his overall game was not up to the mark meaning there was no threat to the United goal.
Ozil, Walcott and Ramsey were also very poor and Wenger should have made some changes around the hour mark if not at the lemon break, but that was not the case as the French boss waited until the 70th minute to make his first move.
There was enough pace on the bench in the form of Chambo and Iwobi, which could have opened up United much earlier if the boss would have made the changes before.
Ultimately the goal did come in the form of Giroud with an assist from another substitute Chamberlain, but that only shows that Wenger might have preserved his trump cards a little too long.
There is also flip side to this view, that if you make the changes too early then you might struggle at the end of the game as there is always a risk of some injuries and Wenger might indeed be right in holding his substitutions back until late in the game. But, we would like Arsenal to take that gambles to win crucial games.
What do you think guys?
