Judge us in May – Wenger

Arsene Wenger has urged Arsenal’s critics to wait until the end of the season before passing judgement on them.

Arsenal were behind after just 19 seconds at the Britannia Stadium on Saturday and found themselves three goals down before eventually battling back in a 3-2 defeat to Stoke. Continue...

Wenger was later jeered and received abuse as he and his players boarded the train back to London but he called for patience as his side prepared to faceGalatasaray away in the Champions League on Tuesday.

“The response after a defeat is always very important,” he said.

“What we want is to come back quickly to a strong defensive performance, to what we had before the game(on Saturday).

“We showed a lack of experience defensively (at Stoke), but we could have scored four or five goals in this game and the team response during this game was quite strong. For the rest, you expect that everyone is disappointed after that result, but the Premier League is difficult.

“We want to be judged at the end of the season, not after every single game where it is normal that emotion is always very high.

“What is important is the next game and responding in a strong way, to play to win the game.

“It is part of our job here, you cannot always look for excuses. We are down. Everyone feels it. When you have a disappointment you respond in a strong way, that is what competition is about.

“You cannot say there is a guarantee to anybody you will never lose a game. Many teams will lose at Stoke; you have to be realistic as well.”