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The passion of Arsene: the manager has endured an eight-month nightmare. Stephen Pond/EMPICS Sport

Wenger: 'Half the dressing room wanted to leave.'

The Arsenal manager has revealed the shocking extent of the crisis that beset his squad during the 2011 summer off-season.

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER story of Arsenal in crisis.

Today, Arsene Wenger, the manager at the centre of the club’s unravelling 2011/12 season, has revealed the full extent to which doubt and dissatisfaction defined the mood of his dressing room after the loss of both Samir Nasri and Cesc Fabregas, the club’s talismanic captain, in the summer transfer window.

According to ESPN Soccernet, the Frenchman told radio station RTL that the period had been “extraordinarily difficult”:

“Half the dressing room wanted to leave… You’re preparing for a season where you don’t know who’s going to come in, the players who are staying are asking themselves what’s going on at the club, you’ve got a pre-season tour of Asia…

“Other clubs would surely have gone to pieces in those circumstances.”

Though Wenger is content to speak of player unrest as being a thing of the past, increased speculation regarding the future of the club’s current captain Robin Van Persie, who has proven reluctant to commit his future to the Gunners, and long-term injuries to a number of influential players, including Jack Wilshere and Bacary Sagna, are likely to complicate any immediate attempt to return the squad to some semblance of its former strength.

Read more on this story from ESPN>

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