Again, Wenger Refuses To Clarify Future After Arsenal’s Humiliating Loss To Palace

Arsenal suffered a disappointing 3-0 defeat at Crystal Palace on Monday night, with the Frenchman saying it would be “inconvenient” to talk about his future.

Wenger is out of contract at the end of the season and has been offered a new two-year deal, although he is yet to announce whether he will continue.

Goals from Andros Townsend, Yohan Cabaye and Luka Milivojevic gave Palace three crucial points in their bid to avoid the drop to English football’s second tier, while denting Arsenal’s hope to secure the qualification for the Champions League.

The result inflicted a fourth straight away league defeat on Arsenal – for the first time during Wenger’s 21-season reign.

“Honestly, I am disappointed tonight. After such a long time, to see that we’ve lost a game the way we’ve lost it is of course very disappointing. I think it would be inconvenient to speak about me tonight, it’s more painful to lose the game like the way we lost this one,” Wenger said in the press conference.

“We faced a team who played very deep, went for a game that was very direct, and we lost many direct duels and many second balls because they were sharper than us and more decisive,” the Arsenal boss admitted.

“Overall, we created many dangerous situations but we couldn’t score. In the first half, we had problems getting in the game after 10 or 15 minutes. We came back into the game and had some dangerous situations that we couldn’t score from.

“In the second half, they came out strong, scored the second goal and from then on you could see it was more difficult. Even if we created more dangerous situations, we were always vulnerable on the counter-attacks because we threw everything forward. That’s a typical situation involving a team who tries to go forward and a team who plays on the counter-attack.

The Arsenal players faced taunts of “you’re not fit to wear the shirt” after the game, from the club supporters but Wenger refused to admit that they gave up.

“I wouldn’t say that (my players didn’t give 100%),” Wenger said. “I want the fans to support the team. I think they are extremely disappointed and I can understand that because we all are. It is understandable that they are disappointed. We played with a desire to win the game tonight, with a very offensive team because we knew we had to score goals.

“We knew what we would face. Their keeper took their free-kicks on the halfway line, so it was important for us to win the ball in the air, win the second balls, get the ball down and then play our game. From the start onwards, in the decisive moments of the game, they were sharper.”

Arsene Wenger’s side are now seven points off the top four with a game in hand.

Wenger has been under siege in recent weeks as angry Arsenal fans demanded his resignation and the calls for the Gunners boss to quit will grow even louder after one of the most chastening defeats of his 21-year reign.