Stubborn Wenger needs new route to promised land

ON Saturday evening, when Alex Ferguson sent out a team consisting mostly of full-backs, it seemed likely that the post-match analysis would focus on the poverty of United’s squad, and how the club’s indebted owners are bleeding away their ability to compete.

Instead, the full-backs cruised to victory while Arsene Wenger rubbed his face and yanked at his tie like Roy Hodgson in his last days at Liverpool. It’s time for the annual sport, as much a part of spring as Paddy’s Day or Easter, of mocking Arsenal’s mental weakness.

Wenger hates the way that judgement in football hinges on outcomes. Three years ago, Arsenal conceded two late goals at Anfield to lose the Champions League quarter-final. Deflecting the predictable questions about his team’s brittle mentality, Wenger complained that too often “the winner is praised beyond reason, the guy who does not is slaughtered”.