With the Gunners out of the title race following back-to-back Premiership defeats to Watford and Chelsea, critics have been lining up to take potshots at Arsene Wenger – and it appears the players are also beginning to question their manager's judgement.
According to the Daily Mirror, Laurent Koscielny has queried the team selection for Saturday's visit to Stamford Bridge, a match that ended in a 3-1 defeat for Arsenal.
"I think we played some players in front of others and I think we should have played more as a team and there was space to do so," said the centre-back. "They hit us on the counter."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Latest Videos FromThe Week
Koscielny's criticism will raise eyebrows because he has spoken loyally about his manager in the past.
He is also, along with striker Alexis Sanchez, the only other Arsenal player who could claim to be fully committed in every match.
Chilean Sanchez is allegedly fed up with the attitude of some of his teammates, and Koscielny's comments will be taken as further evidence of a malaise within the Arsenal dressing room.
As Metro reports, there was a social media frenzy at the weekend when Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain "liked" a post on Twitter calling for Wenger to be sacked in the wake of the Chelsea defeat, which left the Gunners trailing the Premier League leaders by 12 points. The Arsenal winger subsequently removed the tweet from his likes, but "not before the damage was done", noted the paper.
Meanwhile, the latest former Arsenal star to stick the boot into the club's recent performances is Sol Campbell.
Speaking to Sky Sports, Campbell blamed their plight on a lack of strong personalities within the squad to manage things on the pitch. "I don't know what's happening now, but when I was there we used to police it ourselves," said the ex-defender. "We had the characters to police it ourselves…
"The guys who will say something on the pitch, you don't need one, you need almost four or five saying their stuff if things are not going right."
Arsenal haven't got those players, said Campbell, and as a result he fears Arsenal may miss out on a top-four finish this season. "Top four, if they keep going like that, is going to be extremely hard to get," he said. "Maybe they might just scrape it."
