It seems that Wales boss Chris Coleman has not taken kindly to Arsène Wenger’s recent assertions that international duty was to blame for Aaron Ramsey’s recent hamstring injury which he sustained against Bayern Munich and which will keep him out of action through at least this month’s international break.
Wenger was especially incensed that Ramsey played against Andorra after Wales had already clinched qualification for Euro 2016. Coleman responded in a lengthy WalesOnline article regarding the incident, and he did not hold back in his criticism of the Arsenal boss.
I was surprised when I heard his comments. Anybody can phone me up, I would have no problem. If Wenger had a problem with me or my selection he could call me up and I’d gladly would have driven to his training ground and spoken about it.
Our jobs are hard enough without having a chip at each other, especially a cheap shot which is what it was.
If there was a problem with one of our players then pick the phone up and if we got it wrong I would hold my hands up. But I had no correspondence, no phone call, my medical team has had no correspondence – and that’s the green light for us to play the player, plain and simple.
Coleman was additionally peeved that Wenger also attempted to link Gareth Bale’s recent injury woes with Real Madrid back to his international participation as well.
And don’t comment on Gareth Bale – it’s nothing to do with Arsenal.
It is clear that Coleman feels that Wenger has engaged in some ex post facto diagnosis with regards to Ramsey’s injury citing Wenger’s call to Roy Hodgson regarding Theo Walcott’s fitness. Coleman insists that such a call, should Wenger have made it, would have been taken seriously by the Welsh medical team.
He called Roy Hodgson about Theo but he didn’t call me. It would have taken five minutes.
If he had said to me to be careful with Aaron we would have done, but there was nothing. We sent him back to Arsenal fit, he played against Watford for 90 minutes and then again three days after. They were 3-0 up at Watford, they still had two subs, so they could have taken him off, rest him then.
So I don’t know how he can get to the assumption the injury was our responsibility. It is his mistake, not mine or my medical team.
In his list of grievances against Wenger, Coleman ended by noting that the public nature of the Frenchman’s comments also rankled. Coleman claimed that his response was not an attempt to deepen the burgeoning rift or burn any bridges. However, the perceived public dressing down of he and his medical team necessitated a response.
Me speaking publicly is not something I normally do, but I am paying him the respect he gave me – which is not a lot.
It doesn’t help me to burn bridges, it is not in our interests, but I cannot sit back and let someone put the blame on us when we don’t deserve it.
Coleman continued and defended his medical team.
We are working the right way, we have a medical team who work really hard and the players are treated properly. We don’t take risks and we don’t take gambles.
It is not in my interests to rock the boat but I can’t sit back and let someone say things like that because I have to protect my staff.
To make that comment afterwards is not right, we don’t deserve to be fingered like that. It was his problem, we dealt with it properly. I’m not digging anybody out, I’m not causing a problem, I’m dealing with one that was handed to us publicly.
I would have driven to see him and have a conversation privately, but he took that out of our hands.
