Arsene Wenger hits back at Gary Neville over Arsenal's tactics

Gary Neville has been critical of Arsene Wenger in the past

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has once again taken aim at former Manchester United full-back Gary Neville after the pundit alleged that the club do not prepare properly for big games, branding it ‘ridiculous’ and has insisted that his side have shown improvement this season, as per the reports on Daily Star.

The Sky Sports pundit claimed that the Wenger’s players don’t do much preparation ahead of the big games prior to the Gunners’ 3-0 over United before the international break.

“I may be wrong, but I sense that Arsenal players go into training on Friday morning thinking about how they’ll pass the ball, score with a bicycle kick, how much fun they are going to have.” Neville said.

Both have had several disagreements on certain issues this season. Earlier in the campaign Neville labelled the French boss “naive or arrogant” but Wenger has now made it clear that he is sick of the ridiculous remarks passed by TV pundits.

“We just turn up on Saturday, just go out and play. Honestly, I am 30 years in this job.” Wenger replied sarcastically.

“I have a good tolerance level to sometimes listen to things that are really ridiculous. Honestly. I can do it.”

Some of the back-room staff at Emirates Stadium have been understood to be upset with the former United player’s comments, insisting that they have been doing far more preparation work in recent times.

We have progressed since January 2015: Wenger

The North London club travel to Watford for their next Premier League fixture and coincidentally, Neville is the channel’s lead co-commentator for the game. Earlier this week in the club’s Annual General Meeting, Wenger had also suggested that he could quit in 2017 and he might be paying the price for being in-charge for the Gunners since he took over in 1996.

“Sometimes you pay the price for being somewhere for a long time. As well you have to accept that.” Wenger added.

“The criticism you get is cyclic as well. I can take a distance with that. We see that the numbers of chances created, shots given away to our opponents, allow us to believe we have made big steps, strides forward.”

“We have to show that on the pitch with our result. We feel since January 1st 2015 we have moved forward. Now we have to show we can do that through the football season as well.”

“We had better balance between attacking and defending. We conceded less goals. We had many clean sheets in the second part of the season. As well we won the FA Cup let’s not forget that. Overall in the last two years we have moved up.”