Has Arsene lost his marbles?

After yet another yawn-a-thon on Saturday against West Ham, Arsene Wenger has made some extremely surprising statements which would appear to point to a loss of marbles on the part of our esteemed manager.

He is quoted on the Arsenal website as saying

we have produced a great defensive team display

For those unfortunate souls that were there, I’m sure it comes as a shock to discover that Arsene thinks that the defence was “great” – untroubled as it was by a team with only Carlton Cole up front and no real desire to score, it still managed to concede 2 or 3 excellent chances to the away team with Clichy, in particular, giving the ball away in an awful position. It will also come as a surprise to know that Arsene thinks that we

showed great desire until the last minute

particularly as our best player by far this season, Robin Van Persie, was left on the bench until 25 minutes to go and the 11 that did play seemed more interested in passing the ball sideways and backwards than trying to get it anywhere near the penalty area or, perish the thought, shooting.

M. Wenger then went on to say

I can’t fault the spirit but I believe as well that we lost a bit of sharpness from playing on Sunday at Cardiff, on Wednesday a very physical game at Everton and maybe that was why we lacked a bit of sharpness to score.

which sounds like a plausible (if over-used) excuse, until you realise that we were “lacking a bit of sharpness” in both of those previous games too – failing to score in the 90 minutes of each game and only managing a single shot on goal in the entire match at Everton!

But he left the final proof of his failing mental health until the end of the interview, saying

It was a London derby if you imagine that they are 10 points ahead in the championship and we draw 0-0, nobody would’ve found this game absolutely scandalous.

Its hard to find the words to even try and explain what he meant by this! It certainly sounds as if he’s trying to say that it wouldn’t have been a bad result if West Ham were 10 points clear at the top of the league! Can that be true? Does he really mean that?! Or am I missing something here? Maybe its got a bit mangled in the translation but Arsene is famed for his sterdy grip on several foreign languages and has never slipped up before. I am at a loss to explain it. Its nonsense.

Lets hope he hasn’t lost his mind completely as it sounds like he has just spent quite a lot of money on an Alexander Hleb replacement in Andrei Arshavin. The last time we were involved in a transfer saga that dragged on this long, it concerned Andy Sinton who eventually ended up plying his trade at Sheffield Wednesday instead.

Get a grip Arsene – the last thing we need now is for the man at the top to lose it completely.