Despite Ronald Koeman desperately trying to take the spotlight off the fact it was just his second win in twelve games by attempting to ridicule Arsene Wenger’s comments about the referee last night, the Arsenal manager says his team have only themselves to blame for the 2-1 defeat.
The Frenchman was critical of Mark Clattenburg for the award of a corner that ultimately led to Ashley Williams winner, but was making no excuses for his team’s defending.
Speaking after the game, the Everton manager said, “I am not surprised about Wenger and his comments. It is the third time in a row I won at home against Arsenal as a manager and three times in a row it was about the referee.
“I’m sorry, Arsenal – we won through the referee’s decision. I’m sorry.”
Having won just twice since mid-September, you’d think the Dutchman might show a little more grace than that, but clearly making it about Wenger takes the spotlight of his team’s fairly dismal run and his hand in that.
The Gunners, meanwhile, lost their first game since the opening day of the season, and Wenger pointed the finger of blame at his team’s inability to defend in their own area.
“In football you have to defend well,” he said. “We knew exactly what was happening and the first goal is exactly what we planned not to do.
“We have to look at ourselves tonight because we punished ourselves by not respecting completely the rules that we put out the night before we played.
“We lost the game because I feel we started well and after that maybe we lost a bit of urgency because we were a bit too comfortable and then Everton made it very physical.
“Overall, I believe that from then on it disturbed our game and we created less flow going forward. In the end, we unfortunately didn’t take our chances or two.
“We didn’t create too many but we had clear-cut chances in the game that we didn’t take.”
So, a disappointing evening all in all, and it’s now going to be a real test of this team’s mettle when they face Man City on Sunday.
Unfortunately the Press are all about “narrative” and so creating ructions between managers generates clicks. Disappointing result, but first league loss in 4 months, I’ll take that.
Had nearly all the play but never looked like scoring Ozil had very poor game not his usual standardbut we never seemed to have nothing up front Sanches had a poor game really never looked like the player we have seen lately but when is he going to give Perez a chance give him a few games to settle in then think he will score a lot of goals to be honest with you I know Wenger has been a great manager but think now he has had his day I cant wait for the season to end and hopefully… Read more »
Is this a poorly veiled wind up?
It’s an opinion, which I believe he’s entitled to. We agree, or we don’t.
pretty sure its a wind up
That is one big sentence.
Doesn’t look like it has ended yet. (.)
And breathe
Is that you, DT?
I for one am happy for this wake up call before City. Looking forward to Alexis and Ozil and others coming out all guns blazing against City.
I would have preferred to win yesterday and then eventually receive the wake-up call in Manchester, than to lose now and eventually still lose on Sunday.
Stay positive brother. Being miserable just means people don’t want to be your friend
I’m looking forward to seeing the reaction from Wenger’s team.
I think he needs to rest a couple of players for the Man City game.
Is Wenger brave enough to rest players like Ozil and Sanchez?
Neither had a good game.
I see Ozil thriving at the Etihad. City let you play. Ozil struggles when it’s time fight more than it is a game.
*Ozil struggles when it’s a fight more than it is a game.
Just like Man City fought at Bournemouth, eh?
I expected him to rest them against Everton. Giroud and Perez ought to have started in place of Ozil and Sanchez
I am so accustomed to wenger’s gentleman way of handling controversial things that nowadays every other manager seems a cunt to me..
Good point that. But… Everton were trying to ‘get in our faces’ a la Big Sam’s Bolton and Pulis’s Stoke and succeeded. A lot of mid-table teams must have taken note of how Arsenal withered. This might lead to more teams mimicking this approach which could mean (a) more lost points (b) risk of Arsenal injuries from ’50-50′ challenges. There are times one needs cunts in a team (sly bastards, rabblerousers, scrappers). Sharp end of the stick and all that. Every good team has at least one. We are too earnest sometimes. Per and Kos are gentlemen… in the mould… Read more »
Walcott looks a kid playing a man’s game to me some times. TW makes that tackle or blocks the cross we stay 1 – 0 up.
Best comment here.Koeman is a cunt.Not his first time trying to rile Wenger.He needs to be more gracious when he wins.
Fuck Koeman. Onwards to City.
Kidman is a fat cunt
Is that Nicole?
Who knows how things are interpreted and perhaps misunderstood in the heat of post battle. Plus the press loves a fight between camps. Maybe it’s true but then possibly not. Koeman seems alright to me and a good manager at that. Albeit a struggling one at the moment.
Virtually every manager in the game complains about refereeing decisions when results don’t go there way more than Wenger. The man has other weaknesses, but he very rarely blames the ref. Koeman must know this. Of course the press were trying to start a fight and probably posed the question to Koeman in a goading way, but he’s been in football long enough to know that the press were likely to have also done this to Wenger, and he was probably not hearing all of what Arsene had actually said. And yet, he still chooses to go out of his… Read more »
If he acts a cunt too much his time will come and I hope we show him on the pitch next in the next game. His lot did alright against us Tuesday night but next time let’s take them apart.
It’s litterally Cowman, the fat fuck.
I think that Everton played really, really well last night. I have seen far from all of their games this season, but yesterdays performance was the best I’ve seen. I they do have good players and a good manager and sometime our positive and their negative run had to come to an end. We can’t begin to moan already. We’re still second in the league. There’s loads of games left. Our bad form in november still enabled us to climb to first for a short, short while in December. We’ve scored the second most goals, let in the third fewest.… Read more »
Support the team… what a ridiculous suggestion!
Comment of the day
wasnt there a penelty on alexis in the last min before their counter attack?
No-I just checked the newspapers
Yet somehow that’s irrelevant to how the result turned out, according to Koeman. And how DARE Wenger talk about refereeing incidents in the game that just finished when the press ASK HIM ABOUT THEM.
You don’t think other managers–Pardew, Hughes, Pulis, Fat Sam, Moyes, Mourinho of course–wouldn’t have been complaining about that penalty decision, Ronald??!?
This the same Koeman who, at Southampton when a few of his players moved on, said that there is no loyalty in football. Buffoon.
If I recall correctly, he moved because he was in last year of his contract and negotiations were stalled, the club wasn’t prepared to make any sort of big signing, and he didn’t have as much input on player signings as he would have liked.
Southampton are very much a “system” and focus on academy development over external signings. The fact that they continued where they are is very much a product of how they do business.
we should work on corners. Both defending them and scoring from them. We are weak in both departments. We almost never score from them, which is weird – surely it’s just practicing routines?
I thought Perez would’ve been a better sub than Iwobi. Giroud needs crossers of the ball.
I don’t think Arsene said anything wrong, there were some awful referring decisions, but mostly the fault lies with the team. Look, last night in perspective was disappointing but not as fatal as people make out. Regardless of form, I always hate going to Everton. They are mostly a team of cloggers who run alot and play long balls (the ying to our yang if you like), and can beat most teams at home. They started very well this season lest we forget, and even though they were poor recently, their home form was still decent and they were always… Read more »
Sanchez needs to stop his nonsense of him and Ozils telepathy and knowledge of where each other are on the pitch! He was still trying to cross to him when Giroud was in a better position! There was no other service/crosses for Giroud because Ox and Theo were taken off, and Monreal didn’t get up the wing because Sanchez wasn’t covering as well as the Ox did!
*defence
Yeah the subs actually made us worse. Though it is probably the first time this season wenger got them wrong. Can’t understand why we didn’t bring in Elneny/Gibbs/Perez earlier as Xhaka and Monreal looked really tired from maybe 65 min.
Used to kind of like Everton earlier. Koeman has transformed them to a Stoke with better players.
Tbf the referee was shocking when we lost at Southampton last season. Not an excuse but if I remember correctly 2 of their goals were direct results of really bad misses by the refs.
Koeman’s a pathetic loser who always takes delight in beating Wenger because he counts that as being his only achievement in football management.
Has zonal marking ever worked for us? I do not remember.
We’ve conceded one goal from a corner in the league so far. If zonal marking is so useless, how come it has stopped our opponents from scoring from a corner from 98% (I did the maths) of the corners taken against us?
Need our lucky Mustafi back ASAP.
You can’t rationalise underperformance: There is something about Wenger that is reflected in the performance of the teams he has managed: he is too tolerant of sloppiness and he lacks the killer instinct of other so-called “top” coaches. There is a similarity in how his challenge for the premier league falters: poor defending set pieces, giving undeserving opponents score gift goals and the chronic failure to kill off opponents using the minimal chances presented, as Diego Costa did against a resolute West can compile a dossier of information with a solitary chance. In addition, do not know how to prevent… Read more »
Yet Walcott was there applying pressure to prevent the cross. He was in fact so over eager to block the cross that Baines’ dummy attempt fooled him, shifted onto his right, and floated his second attempt into our area. It should have been a harmless cross on his right boot, but Colemans run wasn’t spotted.
So the real question is who would you class as a top coach in the Premier League, because I have seen every single team ship goals like that?
Don’t use our 1st away defeat in 9 months fuel your agenda too much pal.
The reason Theo was so eager was because his starting position was so narrow he had to sprint to get to Barnes. It’s that kind of organisational discipline that is the main problem with our defence, not the individual abilities of the players.
I think you are hinting at a truth that supporters of a team, including Arsenal supporters, seem to forget: the old cliche–there were two teams on the pitch. When Alexis skips past a defender and passes to Bellerin who one-touches to Walcott who brilliantly beats the keeper near post–well, we say it was brilliant. We don’t go on and on about how no one was blocking the pass to Bellerin and why the defenders gave him so much space and why was the keeper not better positioned. So, Everton (a team in the top division of English football) has players… Read more »
I don’t think you’ve seen Monreal or Bellerin play. Monreal blocked at least 3 dangerous crosses last night.
Are you serious? None of those things have applied to arsenal this season. Monreal and Bellerin are actually really good at those things. Also, according to the press and certain “fans”, for Arsenal every match is a “test for title credentials” and if we lose a match, we “bottled it” or “don’t have what it takes”. Also if we go almost 4 months unbeaten and lose one tricky away match with some luck for the opposition, Wengers tactics are suddenly naive and we can’t defend. According to this logic we must go unbeaten for the season to be considered “mentally… Read more »
It’s alright to lose a battle, so let’s win the war !
The team looked exhausted. It happens. We lost. We played badly. It happens. The problem is that chelsea isn’t losing. If we beat city on Sunday all is right with the world and wenger is a genius. If we lose it will be wenger out.
Arsene Wenger blamed his team for lacking urgency. True, but Wenger’s gamble cost us the game. You have been in the Premier League for 20 years now and you should know Everton is a physical team. You cannot use Alexis Sanchez as a lone striker against such a physical team, simply because he has been scoring goals from that position this season. Wenger, you should re-adjust your winning formula depending on the opponent, and not behave like a one-sided footballer. You should have paired Sanchez with a natural striker to give us early goals and the psychological edge. With the… Read more »
Sanchez up top wasn’t the problem, lack of rotation was as we didn’t match their energy levels. Özil and Xhaka looked tired already in the end of the first half and no wonder as it was their 3rd match in 8 days. The same with Monreal. We could have used Elneny to bring energy to the midfield. Also Lucas could have done the same to our attack who looked like missing that cutting edge that day. Wenger has rotated so well this season that you have to wonder why he didn’t do it for this match.
There is only one dutchman with grace blogs.
I’m more disappointed that a scary looking Chelsea side with that cunt up front will probably take a six point lead at the top of the table more than anything else. Given our performance I don’t think we deserved to win last night but Everton did get a lot of luck with their winner. I’m confident that we’ll have an improved performance against City and will take the win.
@Gi-
So Arsenal have the first loss in 14 matches, and you call for Simeoni from Atl. Madrid.
Have you looked at the laliga table recently? Or he’s just your latest flavor of the month?
This just gets tiring.
No disrespect but if you watched the game properly clattn brk made a load of refereeing errors how many everton high footed challenges banging into arsenal fc players i know a tough game but coquelin got alot of silly warnings anyway we must sought the subbing game a gd bench v everton yesterday
I’m afraid every other team will attempt to take a dig at us now on. Happens always when we lose to a small team. Everton just demystified us.But I don’t know why I still have this feeling we’ll catch up, looks to me that Chelsea is firing cos we’re breathing on their shoulders, I guess it will be different henceforth.
Understanderbly, there’s a lot of focus on the defending since we conceded two goals. But what really frustrated me during the game was the complete lack of patience in our build-up play, especially in the second half. As the half wore on, we had trouble stringing together just 3 or 4 passes. It seemed to me that everyone was either trying the long ball or just having a run at an opponent as soon as the ball was ours. I can’t help but think that we were impatient because, to some extent, we underestimated Everton. I thought we were past… Read more »
Even i’m pretty sure that was a penalty on Sanchez… My Twin is a twat!
Koeman, what a fucking dick.
but for a couple of desperate clearances on the goal line late on, and the non award of a penalty, we missed out on one point. Wait till May before we start imploding on here. If Wenger doesn’t win the league or CL or maybe the FA Cup, he’s gone. Fact
Is it safe to say we miss mustaphy thereby conceding our first set pieces in the 1st game he’s unavailable???
What pissed me off the most was that we switched off and allowed a 5ft 4in Coleman a free header. Just not good enough. You could just see it coming.
When oh when will Arsene drop the diplomacy and ask why these refs do not giv us pens and are only to quick to give highly dubious pens against us, secondly why do these pricks allow us to be kicked to bits in these scummy pro Brexit Northern slum towns, and if we dare retaliate we”re sent off, come on Arsene drop the nice guy tag, remember Rafa, fact.
Only the second League defeat of the season. So nothing much to worry about. But the attempt to spin this as a Koeman foul up, is itself pretty feeble. Just concentrate on us. Not on his comments.
SOunds more like the media trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill.:D The only reason they cannot completely gloat is the fact that the fabled chasing pack haven’t entirely been able to take advantage. But for Liverpool drawing level, City, UNited, Spurs have all slipped up too. The worrying thing is Chelsea has started to put a 6 point gap between us. Still the main thing is to WIN the next game. City are looking vulnerable but so were Everton. We will have to be at our very best. Wenger is correct that we have to only… Read more »