Arsene Wenger apologises to Arsenal fans after Aston Villa loss

Wenger has apologised to Arsenal supporters after his side lost to Aston VIlla at home in the Premier League opener

Arsene Wenger has apologised to Arsenal fans after the Premier League season began with a a 3-1 home defeat to Aston Villa, a team who were fighting against relegation last season.

Boos rang out at the Emirates Stadium at both full time and half-time, although some of them may have been directed at referee Anthony Taylor, who made a few contentious decisions, including the awarding of two penalties to Aston Villa.

“What hurts me is to disappoint people who love the club,” said Wenger.

“I’m here to make them happy and when I do not I can only say sorry, come back and make them happy in the next game.”

Early in the summer, Arsenal’s chief executive Ivan Gazidis came out with a bold statement, proclaiming that Arsenal were ready to match their domestic rivals in the transfer market with an “escalation in our [Arsenal's] firepower.”

So far, however, 27 players have been let go, either permanently or on loan, and the only incoming transfer has been the signing of French U-21 international Yaya Sanogo on a free from Auxerre.

Wenger insisted last week that Arsenal would be busy in the transfer market right until deadline day on September 2nd.

The crowd turned on Wenger after Aston Villa scored to make it 3-1, aiming a chant of “You don’t know what you’re doing” at the three-time Premier League winning manager and calling for him to spend money.

Lambert came out in support of his French counterpart, saying: “It’s never nice to hear it, you need the fans to stick with you. Mr Wenger certainly knows what he’s doing.”

Arsene Wenger told the press that he thought he’d named a squad good enough to beat Aston Villa and added that he was willing to spend money on the right players.

“I’m there to buy players, if we find them we’ll do it,” he explained. “I’m not the only one working on that – it’s not my money, it’s the money of club and we’re ready to spend it if we find the right players.

“We could have won the game today with the players on pitch, I’m convinced of that. We started well but after that everything went wrong – injuries, decisions, going down to 10 men and the chances missed.

“It was a bad day, not on the quality of our display but everything went against us. That [injury to Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain] did disrupt us at half-time already and especially when we went down to 10 men.

“It was difficult but I must praise the spirit – until the last minute the players gave everything and the team showed great quality. It’s a great disappointment but the spirit and attitude of the players was fantastic.

“I’m unhappy with the spirit the referee let the game [go in], I was quite amazed. But it’s not my job to talk too much about that, I have to take care of the team and, despite that, we could have won the game.”

Arsenal face a trip to Turkey in mid-week as they play Fenerbahce over two legs with the winner qualifying for the Champions League group stage. The Gunners look a bit short on numbers as they suffered four injuries against Aston Villa and Wenger will struggle to name an orthodox back four as Arsenal finished the match against Aston Villa with Lukas Podolski at left-back and Aaron Ramsey at centre-back.

“We’re not happy, we’ve got to look at ourselves,” said Gunners midfielder Jack Wilshere. “We’ve got a big qualifier coming up and there can be no mistakes now – we’ve got to push on. We’ve got to pick ourselves up.

“It [the crowd reaction] is understandable, they pay their money to watch us and we need to put in better performances and win games. My message to them is to stick with us – it’s a long season.”