It’s unusual to find Arsene Wenger being critical about his former employers, Arsenal, but one recent decision has left the urbane Frenchman fuming.
Wenger enjoyed a wonderful career in the red and white half of north London and completely changed the culture at the club.
A 22-year tenure ended amicably enough despite the fact that his sides were a shadow of those that he was able to work with during the first few years of his reign.
Much of that can be contributed to the move from Highbury to the Emirates Stadium and an associative lack of funds.
That and the fact that the steel had disappeared from the Gunners squad, which had often proved pivotal for Wenger.
His ire, however, related to a decision that the club made off of the pitch.
The coronavirus pandemic has hit every football club hard financially, and the north Londoners had to make the unpopular decision to make 55 members of staff redundant.
One of those was Jerry Quy, also known as the club’s mascot, Gunnersaurus, and someone who’d been at the club for 27 years. That riled Wenger.
“The decision was financially unjustifiable. I don’t know what got into them,” he said to SoFoot and cited by the Daily Star.
“No one can understand it. Everyone who loves Arsenal didn’t take the decision well. I’m part of them.
“They laid off 55 people, which could possibly be explained by a certain reorganisation, a desire for efficiency.
“The mascot cannot be justified by a desire to rebalance finances. It’s incomprehensible.”
Wenger isn’t alone in his thinking, so maybe the club will reinstate the mascot once supporters are allowed back into the stadium.
I for one don’t give a damn for what Arsene Wenger thinks. He should have left some years earlier.
Perhaps the organisation had becomer over grown, over fed and inefficient.