Arsenal’s second largest shareholder Alisher Usmanov has blasted Gunners boss Arsene Wenger for “not learning from his mistakes” after the Emirates Stadium side suffered their third English Premier League defeat of the season on Saturday with a 2-1 home loss to Manchester United.
The result saw the French manager’s team slide to eighth in the league table, marking their worst start to a season since 1982.
And Russian billionaire Usmanov believes Wenger must change his approach if Arsenal are to compete with the top sides across Europe.
Embed from Getty Images“Everybody makes mistakes. He can make mistakes and I know as you age it is more difficult, more challenging to accept one’s mistakes,” he said.
“The potential of the team is there but there is no critical evaluation of mistakes and they need to acknowledge them, because no genius can retain the same level of genius if they do not acknowledge mistakes.”
“It’s only when you admit your mistakes that you can get rid of them. I wish this for my club.”
“Nothing bad is happening apart from repeating the same result – we keep being in the middle of the Champions League but we only lose the first play-off games. Some may be happy with that but as a share-holder, I am not.”
And despite the Frenchman’s reluctance to spend big money in the transfer market in recent years, Usmanov admits Wenger does have the funds at his disposal to significantly strengthen his squad.
“Does [Wenger] have money or not? There is officially money in the club,” Usmanov said.
“My opinion – and I tell it openly – we need to strengthen every position to play on the level of such teams in [the] UK as Chelsea and Manchester City, in Europe like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain and other clubs.”
The Footballing World 