Bolton's Muamba reflects on Arsenal: Wenger fury was an 'eye-opener'

Wenger erupted and smashed down the dressing room door two and a half years ago after a late goal from Stelios knocked the Gunners out of the FA Cup on the day Fabrice Muamba first witnessed Wenger’s fury at full throttle.

Bolton’s Muamba was then a 17-year-old at Arsenal who had just signed his first professional contract.

Bolton midfielder Fabrice Muamba is preparing to face former club Arsenal this weekend

He was rewarded with a rare appearance among the substitutes but could barely believe what he saw.

‘Wenger doesn’t lose it but that day he did,’ recalls Muamba, now 20, who joined Bolton from Birmingham for £5million in the summer.

‘It was an eye-opener.

'I’d never seen that side of him before.

'I was there in the changing room when everything kicked off. I saw everything in there.

‘Tea cups might not have been flying but the door certainly was.

'I was like: “Wow!” I’m looking forward to seeing him again, as long as he doesn’t break the dressing room door.’

Arsenal won at the Reebok last season to bury their jinx after having developed the same mental block with Bolton which they suffer on trips to former Soviet countries.

The Gunners failed to win a Barclays Premier League game at Bolton for five years and have taken only eight points from a possible 21 at the Reebok since Wanderers returned to the top flight.

When Arsenal were held to a 1-1 draw in Kiev on Wednesday, Wenger turned his anger on the physical tactics of his hosts, accusing them of trying to ‘destroy’ teenage winger Theo Walcott.

This will be familiar to Bolton, who have heard regular complaints about their aggressive style.

On Friday, Wenger was still grumbling about Dynamo’s treatment of Walcott, a message surely intended for Steve Bennett, who will referee  the clash at the Reebok Stadium.

‘It’s always the way when a player gets a name for being dangerous,’ he said.

‘The first answer he gets is harsh treatment,’ he said.

‘We do not expect presents from anybody but we want the right protection.

‘You do not want to put any special pressure on referees but it’s all in the rule book.

'If you allow the first bad tackle then the second one becomes difficult for the ref.

'I thought on Wednesday, for example, the target was not the ball.

Gunners boss Arsene Wenger feels Theo Walcott will become the target of some rough house tactics

'If a guy plays hard it’s down to Theo to deal with it.

'But if the guy targets Theo as an individual, he has to be punished.’

Wenger ordered a luxury plane with flat-bed seats to fly his players from Ukraine in a bid to minimise travel fatigue.

Their annual accounts unveiled on Friday explain such extravagance.

They showed a pre tax profit of £36.7m for the year ending on May 31 and group turnover up to £223m, although club debt also rose by 12 per cent to £318m.

‘The figures prove the club is well managed and we are responsible people in a business which is not always very responsible,’ said Wenger.

U.S. sports tycoon Stan Kroenke, who has a 29.9 per cent stake in Arsenal, has been welcomed on to the board as a non-executive director by chairman Peter Hill-Wood, who once said the club did not need ‘his sort’.

Kroenke will not increase his shareholding for 12 months but is not part of the board’s ‘lockdown’ agreement to protect against a hostile takeover.