• Premier League

Parlour: Chamakh and Arshavin are dead wood

ESPN staff
December 13, 2012
Marouane Chamakh has flopped at Arsenal © PA Photos
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Former Arsenal player Ray Parlour has told Arsene Wenger he must clear out Arsenal's freeloaders in order to save his own job.

Parlour won three Premier League titles and four FA Cups during a trophy-laden career with the Gunners, and he is adamant the current squad is not matching expectation levels.

Arsenal are without a piece of silverware since 2005 and crashed out of the Capital One Cup to League Two side Bradford on Tuesday. They remain in the Champions League and FA Cup, but the league title already looks beyond them with Manchester United 15 points ahead.

Fellow ex-Arsenal player Stewart Robson says Wenger should have been sacked years ago by the Gunners, but Parlour says the key is to remove the "dead wood" sitting on hefty wages at the club.

"It's going to be so important this January window," Parlour told Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast on talkSPORT.

"The performance the other night wasn't good enough. You go to a place like Bradford and you have got to be on your game. Every single player has got to go out there like they are playing Manchester United.

"He needs to get the dead wood out, he needs to get rid of people that don't want to be there. The likes of Marouane Chamakh and Andriy Arshavin.

"They have got so many players who are on about £75,000 a week. They need to get them out. Sometimes they bring players down if their attitudes are not right in training.

"Arsene Wenger has to look at his players and really up the quality because he has lost some unbelievable players in the last few years."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
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