Johan Djourou: Where it all went wrong for Arsenal this season
Written by Renzo on April 30, 2011 – 4:30
It comes as no surprise that Arsenal defender Johan Djourou believes crashing out of the Carling Cup and then out of the Champions League as being this season’s turning point for the Gunners.
Speaking to Arsenal TV Online, the Switzerland International explained that the mental state of the team was very strong before three disappointing defeats as the team was on fire; unbeaten in the League and of course victorious over Barcelona in the first leg of the Champions League.
But, back-to-back defeats saw the Gunners first lose the League Cup Final in the dying minutes of the game, then leave the Champions League after a shocking referee decision and finally wave goodbye to the F.A. Cup after losing to a defensive-minded Manchester Untied side.
On the lost game against Birmingham, the centre back confessed people were expecting Arsenal to win and so were the players who maybe expected to win a little bit “too much” which was ultimately one of the reasons for the defeat.
On last month, Djourou said:
[The season's turning point?] If you look at the mental state of the team I think the month in which we lost the Carling Cup final, that was a big turning point.
Everything was going well, the team was on fire because we were not losing in the league, we beat Barcelona at home and then this thing happened.
That was a turning point, people were expecting us to win, we were expecting to win as well, maybe we expected too much to win and then we got surprised on the day.
That’s the turning point but after of course you have the Barcelona game as well that we lost and the Manchester United game in the Cup. It’s a lot, it’s a lot to take when you’re in four competitions and lose three straight away it’s difficult.
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mate, this players are chokers all of them……..from cesc to nasir……………from JD to clichy…….no pride,no mentality, no profesionalsim…….manunite lost a semifianl to man city, which surely dissapoint them, but u never see them crying the turning point was……bla bla bla shit.
Arsene wenger is responsible for creating this team, they can defend properly, they can’t score when it matters. All they do is trying to play like the invinclables, thats why they failed. Arsene is yet to realize this team is short on quality and mental strength.
Even though he is responsible, i think the players should take the blame, cesc fabergas,RVP,nasir;theo all have huge playing experiance but they are not changed to leaders by the manager. They don’t want to be leaders.
Same thing next season.