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Allardyce blasts conman Wenger

15/10/2005

Bolton Wanderers manager Sam Allardyce has accused Arsene Wenger of conning people into believing that Arsenal are the only attacking side left in the Premiership.

During the debate over falling Premiership attendances and claims that teams playing a 4-5-1 formation made the league boring, Wenger boasted that Arsenal were the only team who still played attacking football.

However, Allardyce has claimed that Wenger is very good at conning people into believing that Arsenal play attacking football, giving the example of last year's FA Cup final, where Arsenal were very defensive.

"Arsene is very good at how he portrays his team's performances but he is conning everybody," Allardyce said.

"When they beat Manchester United in the FA Cup final they didn't win playing attacking football, they did it with 4-5-1 and played for penalties."

Despite the performance in the cup final, Arsenal have topped the Premiership goalscoring chart for the last three seasons and are widely regarded by most pundits as a team which plays attacking football.

Allardyce admits that Arsenal do play attacking football but believes that people's perceptions of Arsenal have been carefully manipulated by Wenger to give them a positive look in the media.

"The perception is that Arsenal always play attacking football and Wenger is very good at putting that over to people but it's not always true," Allardyce added.

"Perhaps Arsene does a better job media-wise than Jose."

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