Arsene Wenger has admitted he would regard it as a disaster if Arsenal failed to qualify for the UEFA Champions League next season.
Arsenal boss admits missing out on the top four would be a failure
Arsene Wenger has admitted he would regard it as a disaster if Arsenal failed to qualify for the UEFA Champions League next season.
The Gunners have suffered successive defeats at Fulham and Swansea to derail their drive up the table, with the gap to Chelsea at four points ahead of this weekend's fixtures which see Wenger's men host Manchester United on Sunday.
Arsenal have played in Europe's elite competition for 14 consecutive seasons under Wenger, but earlier this week, chairman Peter Hill-Wood admitted the club had a contingency plan for the financial blow of failing to make the top four, stressing "so it's not a disaster" if they did not qualify.
In Wenger's eyes, however, the benchmark has been set.
"For me it would be [a disaster]", the Arsenal manager said. "Because I want to play with the best.
Not good enough
"We want to be in there, in the top four, and to play in the Champions League, and anything else would not be good enough."
Should Arsenal lose to United on Sunday, they could be cast further adrift of the top four, while leaders Manchester City and arch-rivals Tottenham, who clash at the Etihad Stadium, already seem well out of reach.
Wenger, though, continues to focus on the positives. "It could be a good one [weekend]", he said.
"In the press you are now educated to see everything in black. You reflect the fans' fear, but you create it as well."
While insisting he is not looking for excuses for Arsenal's recent poor displays, Wenger believes his side have been on the wrong end of some key decisions, such as when Swansea were awarded a penalty for what the Arsenal manager saw as a dive by Nathan Dyer in a match they would go on to lose 3-2 at Liberty Stadium.
Right decisions
The Arsenal manager said: "We want the right decisions to be made.
"There are some people [in Sweden] who made a study of last season and we were second in the league considering the decisions of the referees and we finished fourth. It showed we were two points behind the leaders.
"There is no conspiracy, you can still win the game with a bad decision, but you want the right decisions to be made."
Wenger added: "If [Robert] Pires once dived against Portsmouth, okay, then for six months it was a story in the newspapers. Dyer dived on Sunday and nobody said a word.
"You cannot say it is exactly the same and it doesn't matter. If it doesn't matter when Dyer dives why does it matter when Pires dives?"
