Former Melbourne City goalkeeper Thomas Sorensen has explained why he called Arsenal ‘spineless’ during his Premier League stint at Stoke City on the latest episode of A-Leagues Download.
THOMAS SORENSEN ON HIS “SPINELESS” ARSENAL JIBE:
(Starts at 7:45)
Sorensen was talking about the war of words between Anthony Pantazopoulos and Rhyan Grant that bookended this weekend’s Sydney Derby, and brought up his 2008 comments that kicked off a stoush with legendary Gunners manager Arsene Wenger.
“When I played at Stoke City, we were playing Arsenal and we were the total opposite obviously,” Sorensen said on A-Leagues Download.
“Arsenal loved playing football, and Arsene Wenger had some comments in the papers about our playing style, the physicality, he didn’t like it.
“And Tony Pulis (Stoke manager at the time), he put those paper clippings up on the wall.”
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Sorensen suggested that he got wrapped up in the atmosphere surrounding the perceived ideological clash with Arsenal that he made the comment after a game between the teams.
“It came to a point where… we had beaten them at the Britannia (Stadium, Stoke’s home ground), and I slipped out that they were spineless,” the 101 cap Danish international said.
“I put a bit more gasoline on the fire… I heard a couple of years later he (Wenger) was very sour with that comment.”
Sorensen made his comments after Stoke’s 2-1 win over the Gunners on November 1, 2008.
“They are just lacking that bit of physicality,” the big Dane – who played for 99 times for Stoke – said at the time.
“When Chelsea came here they matched us in the challenges, whereas Arsenal weren’t quite there.
“That’s the difference: they lack that bit of spine you need.”
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Wenger responded by labelling Stoke players “cowards” and alleging that they had set out to deliberately injure his players.
“The only intention is to hurt,” Wenger said at the time.
“The brave one is not the one who tackles from behind the player who tries to play football. That is the coward.”
On the Sydney Derby, Sorensen suggested that Sydney FC would have used Pantazopoulos’s midweek comments – he said the Sky Blues were “weak as piss” in the last derby – to motivate them to an eventual 4-1 win over the Western Sydney Wanderers.
“You gotta know that you’re providing motivation for the other team, and it clearly hit a point in the Sydney squad,” the former Melbourne City man said.
“He was definitely high on the motivation list to winning that derby and proving that they’re the top dogs in that city.”
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Sorensen said that ultimately incidents like Grant and Pantazopoulos’s exchange of words were integral ingredients for keeping the Sydney Derby healthy.
“We need these stories,” he said.
“We need these rivalries, we need villains, we need heroes… I think this game had plenty of it.”
