As last night’s game 1-0 win over Leicester City entered its final stages, the visitors were awarded a throw in down their right-hand side.
Alexis Sanchez repeatedly stood close to the line, which seemed to rather upset Christian Fuchs who ended up throwing the ball directly at the Arsenal man.
This caused the Chilean to tumble to the ground holding his face, Leicester went mental, Alexis got booked and somehow Fuchs avoided a second yellow. Watch the full incident here.
Arsene Wenger was asked about it afterwards, and said, “I did not see where he was hit, but I saw on the first two attempts when Fuchs tries to throw the ball in, Alexis stood next to him.
“I don’t think he knew he had to be further away. As well, I must say that the referee didn’t tell him. After the first attempt, the referee didn’t tell him he needs to move away so he thought he was in the right position.
“After that he got a yellow card because he didn’t respect the rule. I accept that because he was not the right distance. The referee or the linesman should have told him.
“On top of that Fuchs was lucky not to get a yellow card because he threw the ball at him on purpose.”
It was arch-gamesmanship from Sanchez, who succeeded in winding-up the opposition as they sought a late equaliser, and the Arsenal manager wasn’t worried that he’d be in any way affected ahead of Sunday’s North London derby.
“If you know Alexis, you don’t worry about what happened there,” he said. “He will be the same tomorrow and the same on Sunday.”
Maybe it’s just me, but I’d love for us to be in such a good position on Sunday that he could do something similar. Or even more annoying to wind up Sp*rs and their fans.
It’s a long-shot but we can live in hope.
Not only that, let’s hope he up’s his game for Sunday too Blog’s…!
I hope one of his dogs joins in on the fun and bites a Sp*rsy head off and dribbles to their goal with it…
nah.. too graphic..
You flush shit down the toilet, you don’t decapitate it and give it a funeral procession and a party afterwards.
Very good, honest, and fair response by Monsieur Wenger
To be honest….i hate this sort of shite…reminds me of barca vs madrid games. Just a diving competition. Just seems odd seeing an adult acting like this. Id rather he just took the hit, and then just laughed at him, and said we’re winning haha, or kicked Fuchs in the knackers. At least he still has moral high ground and everyones respect.
As much as I dislike this kind of behaviour too, I understand why he did it. The goal was to save us time, make them angry and don’t let them push us in the final minutes. He achieved all of this and I’m much happier we are having this discussion than being angry and sad because of a late equaliser.
Brinkmanship like that, or the ‘dark arts’ aren’t really deployed at Arsenal. To be honest I am all for it. Unfortunately its kind of a necessary evil in todays game. Look at all the other teams doing it. What Alexis did is no different to what Diego Costa does at Chelsea, or what Burnley do when they come to Arsenal and their keeper takes about 15 minutes taking a goal kick. Or what about Leicester last year? Jamie Vardy practically swan diving into defenders all over the shop, initiating the contact and going down looking for the peno. He did… Read more »
I hate cheating in the game but I can’t see what Sanchess did as cheating? Diving and playacting is cheating so his grabbing his head in agony was cheating, pretending to be injured, that was. But blocking an opponent from getting the ball to your goalpost that’s called defence. How often do you see any ref had to observe the rule of distance between thrower and opposition player? I did not even know theres such a rule until now, let common sense prevail you may think but common sense is no rule is it? Yes its time for Gunners to… Read more »
Me too. Not sure why people defend this kind of behaviour. It’s fucking stupid. He could have kicked the ball into row Z to waste time. When will we get men playing football?
I was happy that he did it, as they were dangerous from their long throws. Letting them have the free kick in the end was the better option IMO. Plus it pissed them off!
It should have resulted in their ‘Long Thrower’ being sent off with a second yellow, if the ref had done his job correctly.
Yep. If someone from a rival club did this to us, we’d be ANNIHILATING them.
I like the scene Xhaka protecting Alexis who was sitting on the ground surrounded by Lei players.
Exactly! I guess that’s been missing a lot in our teams of late (like half a decade or more). I remember last season Alexis being pushed into camera pit when he was mid air and no one from the team bothered – that’s not gamesmanship and that’s certainly not team unity! Xhaka is a guy with fight and I hope Wenger doesn’t blunt him. We need combative characters around – I’d have preferred Alexis (& our team in general) running to linesman/ref and complain about this guy and waste time rather than clutch his face & whine. Gab is another… Read more »
Granit did it earlier in the season against spurs too! Give ol’ theo a hand
Gave*
Oh Blogs come on! Really? That is awful. Can’t believe you’re condoning and encouraging that kind of behaviour from one of our players. If that happened against us you’d be lambasting the opposition and rightly so. Embarrassing. Tut tut
interesting when often we hear ‘we need to win dirty like chelsea’. Just look at the fuck-games the likes of diego plays when they’re counting down the timer..
We are not Chelsea, we’re not scum, we are Arsenal. Like the gentleman said below there are plenty of other ways to delay, annoy and be “streetwise” to make sure we get the win, however there is a line and this kind of behaviour crosses it!
Exactly.
Yeah, but it’s different when we do it because fuck the opposition!
Disappointed with Alexis with this. Hate to see it. I hope the club have dealt with it. We are the Arsenal and should be better then that
Do you hate it more than an equalizer from Leicester?
I loved the way Xhaka pushes Simpson away from Sanchez when it looks like he is having a go at him. We could do with a few more of our players sticking up for each other like that.
It was wrong. Plain and simple. There are other ways to lose time. If you want to lose time there are other ways, but don’t do a Rivaldo. Just horrible.
Anyone notice Petr Cech coming over to Alexis amongst the fracas?
Alexis went to get up and Cech told him to stay sitting, he must have felt like Atom or Humber in that moment.
I thought it was fucking hilarious. If it was against respectable opposition, I would’ve been embarrassed, but I think Leicester are cunts, so it was fully justified.
Actually Leicester are time-wasting cunts when they come to the emirates.
Got to disagree with Wenger here. The referee did tell him to go back, and Sanchez was aware of it. But he did deserve his yellow card.
Very disappointed with the simulation however. That’s not what I like to see.
But Wenger has a point that Fuchs was very lucky to still be on the pitch – coupled with the fact that a player could go in studs up on Giroud’s back – it wasn’t a good night for the Referee’s team.
exactly! too many people on here bitching about what sanchez pulled, talking about dirty play, but don’t seem to recall giroud intentionally getting shanked in the back and the offender only receiving a yellow.
Isn’t this the kind of gamesmanship and dark arts for which the likes of Whoreinho and Spuds have had their dicks sucked, but when we do it, it is embarrassing? I personally loved every second of it. Piss off the opposition, get under their skin… We have definitely missed that aspect of the game for a long time. Sometimes you have to do everything to get the win. We don’t do it often enough.
As expected
“I didn’t see it”
You can stand where you like for a throw in. Therefore, Sancez was booked for play acting. And Fuchs can throw the ball where ever he likes. No question of a booking for him.
Not correct. Laws of the game state he had to be two yards back from the line.
Also, throwing a ball like that at a player is, I assume, violent conduct, and really should have been a second yellow.
Why’s it violent conduct, if it was a free kick and ball was smashed into the opposition wall the free kick taker wouldn’t get a yellow card and don’t see why this was different, in fact i’m not entirely sure why Sanchez got a yellow card, i think the ref should have played on.
The incident was embarrassing but i’m not entirely sure what rules were broken, i remember Dean Saunders scoring a great goal after throwing the ball on the back of the retreating goalkeeper a while back and that was allowed to stand.
Throwing the ball directly at an opponent is surely a yellow card. Ungentlemanly conduct, if it’s not violent.
I remember that Saunders thing actually – not sure if you’re still allowed to do that.
It’s all a bit ambiguous, if a player kicks the ball at the legs of a player who hasn’t retreated 10 yards at a free kick he never gets a yellow card but the retreating player does, is there much difference here with the throw on?
This is gold.
I love how fucking blatant the dive was. I love how Xhaka took care of Alexis. I love how Alexis completely screwed with their heads when they should have been completely focused on scoring.
Brilliant.
When you have a look at recent title winners, they all have one thing in common.
They’re cunts.
Cunts win shit.
“When I look at the Wanyama tackles last night, continuous and very nasty, it’s a little bit interesting to me that he wasn’t sent off”
AW
Why is it a long shot?
It’s no different to when a player stands and blocks the taking of a free kick. That happens every game every week . Lighten up and give him some credit. At least his gamesmanship doesn’t entail kicking the granny out of the opposition.
Also I don’t hear anyone complaining about the filth kick in the back of hfb by Benaldouane. Should’ve been red not a yellow too. Usual dirty shit by Leicester all night
Exactly. Fuchs should have gotten a yellow as well for unsportsmanlike behaviour. Alexis unsettled the Foxes with his antics. Having said that, it was risky as later he challenged Huth for the ball and could have got a second yellow unecessarily which would have put a severe blow to our top 4 chance if he should have had to sit out several games. Far better we learn to play a bit of keep ball. I don’t understand our panic. You have 5 minutes to wind the clock down, take the ball into the opponent’s half and kick it to a… Read more »
This i where hockey has it over football. Makes you wish we had a goon on the squad for a quick substitution. Beat the shit out of Fuchs and the Kung Fu twatwattle who did in Giroud.
There’s no way Alexis didn’t know the rule, it was shithousing at his finest and I love him just a little bit more for it.