ARSENAL MANAGER Arsene Wenger has raised doubts about Tottenham’s ability to fill Wembley during the 2017-18 season.
The Gunners’ north London rivals are using England’s national stadium as their home venue while the construction of the new White Hart Lane continues.
Spurs played their European home games at Wembley last season but it did not prove to be a happy hunting ground, with Mauricio Pochettino’s side losing to Monaco and Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League before suffering a Europa League exit after a 2-2 draw with Gent.
Wenger believes any Spurs anxiety about playing at the ground is simply psychological but he does feel they will struggle to generate capacity crowds of 90,000 fans throughout the coming campaign.
“I think it is all a little bit in your head,” he said ahead of Arsenal’s Premier League opener against Leicester City on Friday.
“For a while you had the problem of the quality of the pitch but that does not exist anymore. Today, the pitch is of a similar quality to everywhere.
“After that, the difficulty is to fill it, nothing more. In England, we are not used to playing with half a stadium empty. So can they fill it in every game? I don’t know. A full Wembley Stadium is fantastic.”
Spurs begin their top-flight campaign against Newcastle United at St James’ Park on Sunday.
The42 Podcasts / SoundCloud
Pretty sound policy to be honest. 50m for a player, 50m to grassroots football.
Just the type of move needed if china is to become a real football superpower
They probably fast-tracked this rule when they heard Costa could be coming!
@Conor Mc Lysaght: yeah that’s right why would you want diego costa one of the best forwards in the world playing in your league it’s not like it would raise the profile or anything..dh
@Philip Mcdermott: I was referring to his dirty tactics, fighting with everyone