Arsenal legend fires back at Graeme Sounesss over Arsene Wenger dig --[Reported by Umva mag]

Martin Keown has defended his old Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger after Graeme Souness hit out at the legendary former Gunners boss.

In a pretty strong attack from the Liverpool icon, Souness questioned whether Wenger is a ‘football man’ and suggested he was ‘very, very lucky’ due to the team he was in charge of at Arsenal.

The Scot claimed Wenger inherited the best defence in the world and was able to bring in some of his homeland’s greatest ever players thanks to his French connection.

Asked whether he felt Wenger was a ‘football man’ Souness told the Three Up Front podcast: ‘No, not particularly. I’ve been on the bench listening to what he’s telling his players to do. I’ve been working for Sky in games where he’s made very strange decisions.

‘My take on him was he got very, very lucky at a time when French football produced its greatest ever group of players. Inherited the best back five in world football and a 22-year-old [Dennis] Bergkamp. I think Wrighty [Ian Wright], there was still life in him.

‘And then he had 10 years where he won a couple of FA Cups, because that cycle had been and gone. I’ve never spoke to him about football. He would never come into my office after a game, the only manager that never did.

‘I’d go to his office after a game, he would never be there to talk football. I don’t know if he’s a football man or not. I never spoke football with him.’

Keown did not completely take Souness to task over his opinion, but suggested it was combative language in speaking out against an old rival.

He did, however, disagree with both Wenger not being a ‘football man’ and that he was lucky by just stumbling upon a brilliant group of players in north London.

‘I think they’re both fighting men. He [Wenger] said when he was at school every day he was fighting in some fashion,’ Keown told talkSPORT. ‘I believe when he was manager at Monaco, you talk to the people there, Glen Hoddle, he was a totally different animal, and I mean an animal.

‘He probably didn’t want to go into the same room as Graeme Souness, because they’re not so different, these two guys.

‘It’s a difference of opinion, but Graeme really doesn’t know the man. He’s a complete football man. The only thing in his life, really, is football, and what he does now for FIFA is to try to grow the game around the world and try to make the game even better for everyone else to play and take part in.

‘I think he’s a fighting man. He was one of his adversaries, he probably came off second best, he had a few bloody noses when he came up against Wenger’s teams and he hurts a little bit.’

On Wenger’s impact at Arsenal, Keown added: ‘It was a competitive group and Wenger got life out of us. I was still playing football at 38-39 years of age.

‘We had open ears when we were changing our diet, stretching, playing a more simple fashion, it was a total feeling of playing the whole game, not just stopping someone playing, I can go and be creative.

‘I think he was a revolutionary. We’d go for England games and we’d be stretching, people were watching very closely, every club was copying in the end.’

Another former Arsenal star Perry Groves explained why some of the criticism from Souness made little sense as Wenger’s famous unbeaten season with the Gunners came with an entirely different back five to the one he inherited.

‘He said about he inherited the best back five,’ Groves said on talkSPORT. ‘So he went from Dave Seaman, Lee Dixon, Steve Bould, Tony Adams, Nigel Winterburn. When you come into a club it’s great when you’ve got that solidity.

‘All of a sudden, then you go into the Invicibles and the double-doubles of Lauren, Sol Cambell, Kolo Toure and Ashley Cole with Jens Lehmann in goal. Complete new back five!’

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