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Arsenal forward Theo Walcott
has acknowledged the
disharmony within the club’s
ranks by declaring it is time for
Arsene Wenger’s players to
stop “fighting each other”.
Reports emerged last week
that star player Alexis Sanchez
had become involved in a
blazing training-ground row
with some of his team-mates.
Wenger said the reports were
“completely false”, but
speaking after Arsenal’s humiliating Champions League
exit against Bayern Munich,
Walcott admitted all was not
well within the camp.
“There are certain things that
happen at training grounds,”
Walcott said, in comments
published by the London
Evening Standard newspaper
on Wednesday.
“I’m sure it happens at every
other training ground, most of
the time, really. You don’t see it
often at Arsenal.
“Things have happened. They
need to stay in the dressing
room and the players and staff
need to sort it out. We are in it together here. We can’t be
fighting each other.”
Sanchez came in for criticism on social media after television
pictures appeared to show him laughing following his
substitution during Arsenal’s 5-1 home defeat by Bayern on
Tuesday.
The result completed a 10-2 aggregate defeat that saw Wenger’s side eliminated from
the competition in the round of 16 for the seventh season in
a row.
Wenger, Arsenal’s manager since September 1996, is out of contract at the end of the season and is due to make an
announcement about his future either this month or next.
Some fans have called for him to step down, but Walcott said the players had to take
responsibility for the club’s predicament as well.
“He (Wenger) will take this on himself, but us players need to
look at ourselves,” said the England forward, who put
Arsenal 1-0 up in Tuesday’s second leg.
“The manager has been taking a lot of flak in recent weeks
and us players have been accepting it, but we can’t.
“We need to take the pressure off the manager and that will
happen by performances. Who
knows what the manager will do? Players just want to play football for this club and do well for the manager.”
