Former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has revealed that Serge Gnabry’s problem at the north London club was that German refused to complement his abundant natural talent with hard work.
The German signed his first professional Arsenal contract in 2012 and spent five years at the club. He was also sent on loan to West Brom before leaving for Bundesliga to join Werder Bremen in 2016.
Gnabry was the man of the match during Bayern Munich’s 3-0 win over Chelsea in the Champions League at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday. Bayern dismantled the Blues in the second-half as Gnabry bagged a brace and Robert Lewandowski found the net.
He also scored four goals in Bayern’s 7-2 demolition of Tottenham in north London in the group stages earlier this season, Gnabry added another two to his tally as Bayern left the capital with another crushing win.
However, fans have condemned Arsenal for allowing the German winger to leave the club following his impressive performances last night. Gnabry spent the following summer with Germany’s Under-21s and Wenger fully expected him to put pen to paper on a new deal in north London but interest from Bremen made him lose focus.
Speaking to Bein Sports, Wenger commended Gnabry but questioned his attitude when it came to putting in hard work to complement his talent.
“This guy, he has no real limitations – it’s more how much does he want to suffer,” Wenger told Bein Sports.
“Because he has pace, power, technical ability – he’s very intelligent.
“Sometimes he looks for the easy way in football. That’s what was his problem.
“He lacked a bit. I gave him to West Brom, it didn’t work out at all. In fairness, I think we had an agreement with him but Bayern stole him away from Werder Bremen.
“He’s a good player, he needs good players of course, like everybody, but he has the individual ability and collective ability.
“We had an agreement with him but because he didn’t play at West Brom I let him go with the Under-21s in the summer with the German national team.
“He did very well, of course, he was fresh. We had prepared him for us to sign his new contract but then suddenly he wanted to go to Werder Bremen.”
Also speaking after the game about his record in London this season, Gnabry told BT Sport that: “I’ve got a lot of fans here, a lot of them were in the stands tonight again, and it seemed like they gave me some kind of good power and of course I always like to come back.”
On the tie itself, Gnabry added: “We need to be prepared for this second leg. It is still open but I think we have a good advantage.
“Last year Liverpool beat Barcelona after a 3-0 advantage so we have to be careful. We have to go into the second leg with our focus and try and win that one as well.”
Following his four-goal haul against Spurs, Gnabry took to Twitter to post pictures of himself celebrating along with the message: “North London is RED!!!”
North London is RED!!! pic.twitter.com/1Te5YjqpWo
— Serge Gnabry (@SergeGnabry) October 1, 2019
The forward was back on the social media platform after his club defeated Chelsea last night. Gnabry tweeted another four pictures of his performance this time around with the accompanying message: “London still red.. #FCB”.
London still red.. #FCB pic.twitter.com/3108THrtzv
— Serge Gnabry (@SergeGnabry) February 25, 2020
