‘Some of our achievements not discussed’

Arsene Wenger believes his side should have had more credit over recent years despite their lack of trophies.

Arsenal have not claimed a top prize since the 2005 FA Cup, but have reached two League Cup finals and the 2006 Champions League final.

With the club operating with restricted finances during this period, Wenger feels their achievements have gone under the radar.

“When you make a decision [to build Emirates Stadium] you don’t say, ‘OK, we invest in the stadium but we don’t want trophies’,” he said.

“In 2006 we were in the Champions League final. Nobody speaks about it now but it’s still an achievement. It’s not a trophy but we did it without conceding a goal in the whole campaign and only lost in the last 13 minutes of the Champions League. Can you say you failed that season? I don’t think so.

“On top of that we managed to stay in the top four that season.

“We [also] beat Real Madrid with Zidane and Beckham and all these people but nobody speaks about it. It’s like we have done nothing at all. Why? Because at the end of the season you don’t parade the trophy.

“Had we won the League Cup that season people would have said, ‘Ah, they won the League Cup in 2006’. But what is it compared to when you know as a manager... to win the League Cup or reach the Champions League final without losing a game, what is the difference?

“You have to take a little bit of distance with [the criticism for a lack of trophies] and assess what is difficult and what is a good season. I know that trophies are important. But it’s not like if you haven’t won a trophy nothing happened in the whole season and it was disastrous.

“You still played good games and bad games and in the season when you won trophies you still played bad games.”