Don't wait 30 years - sign up for our daily football email newsletter today! Sign up Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Former Gunner Paul Merson was particularly outspoken, ­accusing his old club's players of being "tactically clueless" after they looked like they were on track to qualify for the last 16 against Anderlecht.

The game changed dramatically in the final 30 minutes, as the Belgian outfit staged a stirring ­comeback to snatch a draw that leaves Arsenal a point short of going through with two games to play.

Merson, 46, who won all of the game's domestic honours as well as the Cup Winners' Cup when he played for the club between 1985 and 1997 said: "I think they are tactically clueless.

"This is not the first time it's ­happened, it's happened a lot.

"The players are all internationals, they're not little kids. They play in World Cups and the Premier League but they are all bombing forward. Clueless."

But Wenger was at his bristling best as he contemptuously swatted away his former player's remarks.

He said: "I managed him. I tried him. I'm not interested in Paul Merson.

When reminded that other pundits had backed Merson's claim that Arsenal's defence had played like 12-year-olds, he added: "Honestly, it does not matter to me. You are free. You can say what you like.

"These debates that I hear are a joke, a farce. People who have managed zero games, they teach ­everybody how you should behave. It's a farce. Honestly, I ­cannot even be upset about it."

Wenger knows he must get it right for the trip to Swansea today but claims he will not change his simple philosophy.

He said: "It means you have to defend well and attack well. Why should you stop playing one of the ­aspects of the game?

"The solution will be the same against ­Swansea. To defend well and attack well. Every time you have the ball you do not refuse to play and when you haven't got the ball you defend well.

"People love to criticise. It's much more about bitterness than any real objective facts. If you have facts, like for example at Dortmund we were caught on counter-attacks then, yes, it's naive. But on Tuesday night? Not at all.

"We are the only English team to have scored three goals in the ­Champions League. Where we are guilty is that we ­conceded three goals.

"Nobody speaks about their first goal being offside. Not one person.

"Why? You have to sell your newspapers. If I tell you you're great, that doesn't sell ­newspapers. If I say you are ­absolutely stupid, you will sell newspapers.

"I'm animated because of the fact the we didn't win the game. The criticism? Honestly, if I ­really cared, do you think I would have survived 18 years?

"What I care about is when players are criticised in an ­unjustified way. I don't tell them, 'You're an ­absolute idiot'. I ask them, 'What should you have done there?'

"That's the difference between newspapers and people. I don't criticise. I rectify.

"My job is to give a player a job to do and trust them to do it. If you cannot do that, you cannot be a manager. I can trust someone I give a job to - and that is what I will do again on Sunday.

"Look, you cannot say you don't care because everybody prefers to be told they are great. Time tells you that as a manager you are never as great as people say. And you are never as stupid as they say."

Wenger offered advice to ­Swansea manager Gary Monk, who is at the opposite end of his career.

He said: "Get on with your ideas. Resist the pressure and ­criticism and make your ideas be dominant. You have to believe in what you do, that is all."