According to the Evening Standard, Arsene Wenger could face a disciplinary charge from the FA after angrily confronting referee Neil Swarbrick in the tunnel after Saturday’s 2-1 defeat to Watford.
The Frenchman was left incensed by the decision to award a penalty to the home side after Richarlison took a tumble in the box under pressure from Hector Bellerin on 70 minutes. Wenger later described the decision as ‘scandalous’ when he faced the press.
The FA are expected to review Swarbrick’s decision to award the spot-kick and could hand the Brazilian a two-game ban if it’s deemed he dived. That will come as little consolation to the Gunners who saw momentum swing away from them after the incident. Troy Deeney scored from the spot before Tom Cleverley snatched three points for the Hornets in stoppage time.
Whether Wenger earns a ban will depend on evidence from Swarbrick. As the Standard article makes clear, there’s no formal rule against managers entering a referee’s room.
We’ll wait and see.
UPDATE – He’s not in trouble, the FA aren’t pressing charges.
Couple of games (good couple) from not managing this Team would be an ideal ban.
What a surprise. Had nothing to do with his team bottling it. Wouldn’t be surprised if he blames the pressure cooker environment that televised games induce next.
So it is no different if we are 1-0 up or 1-1 due to a dive and a wrong decision? That doesn’t change a thing?
of course it does, but a team who completely collapses when conceding an equalizer against fucking watford, have nothing to do in the top 4.
Nobody is disputing that the referee made a mistake and incorrectly awarded a penalty, the Watford player dived, that’s football it can happen. But ultimately we lost the game because we didn’t take our chances. We probably should’ve been 3 nil up before Watford got their penalty. And even if they did bring it back to 1-1, again, that can happen, its football, you’re always going to have set backs like that in games. But it was the fact we just gave up. We didnt fancy trying to hold our own and show a bit of mettle against Watford, just… Read more »
He didn’t just blame the referee. He blamed our inability to take our chances too…
I blame Wenger’s inability to have ability
It wasn’t a dive as there’s clear contact, and the player won’t get a ban because of that.
The question is was there enough contact for him to fall over like that? Probably not, but if Sanchez, Welbeck or Walcott were in the same position i’d be very disappointed if they didn’t go down in the same circumstances.
We benefitted only a couple of weeks earlier from not giving away a clear penalty so be a man and accept that some decisions go your way others don’t
No John. He dived. Its blatant. I would be disappointed in our players when eventually they get banned (as hopefully should richarleson).
It’s not blatant, he was touched, it’s very clear unless you’re blind.
Football is a contact sport (please feel free to correct me). Did he foul him? than answer is a clear NO.
It was the slightest brush against. C’mon don’t be rediculous. Even someone who hates arsenal should be able to say “yup, that is a dive, but f*$& arsenal”
How much of a touch would be needed?
How much of a touch would Sanchez need to go down for it to justifiably be a penalty?
When Ozil hit the ball right at Gomez a minute or two earlier despite being offside, had he scored would you be complaining?
There were 2 instances of poor officiating that lead to one on one’s with the goalie, we missed ours they took theirs, deal with it, there’s no conspiracy
No one’s saying it’s a conspiracy. Everyone is more or less saying the referee sucked. But Arsenal sucked even more. Everyone is arguing the same argument, but we’re all so upset it sounds like we’re on different sides.
This club…
He didn’t suck, most people looking at the incident at full speed thought it was a penalty. Only zooming in and in slow motion can anybody come to the conclusion it was a dive, which it wasn’t because he was touched, however minimally.
I appreciate that you don’t think it’s a foul. But he didn’t dive. He embellished. And there is a difference if you’ve read the laws of the game. Diving is an infraction. Embellishing isn’t.
There was no contact from Belerin. Swarbick came from behind, in a rush to make a bare contact with Bellerin and dived.
I not saying it was a penalty, i’m saying there was contact, which there was
There is no problem diving even tho there is contact. Actually most dives are constructed by kicking into opposing players to create contact. However, there is no more contact than the Welbeck chance where he went over due to a shoulder vs shoulder in the box. I did not expect or shout for a penalty there, and Welbeck didnt make the most of it either.
Clearly then more contact was made on Richarlison than Welbeck, but of course there’s no objective way of saying for certain that that is the case, which is exactly my point.
THere was absolutely no contact.
So no penalty unless he fouled him… did Bellerin foul him?
No contact at all. A clear dive.
There is contact, he’s looking to go down, he does. Does it mean it should have been given, probably not, but as Wrighty said on Match of the Day, he’d want it given if it happened to him.
Give it a rest John.
Yes his team bottled it at the end, but the penalty decision made the act of bottling much easier. That’s what’s made him angry.
As the stats have it, Watford scored with their first attempt on goal, which was the penalty. That means we had them at arms length up until they equalized, which i’d say was a good indication we kept Watford at arms length until they gained a momentum from the goal.
Ofcourse also means that our team is a bit brittle, but no doubt Swarbrick swung the game in Watfords favour.
brilliant of me to not read through my post prior to actually posting it. actually posting it 🙂
Twice?
How much trouble?…….. Can they sack him?!
Please.
He’s not used to things not going his way, so he throws a hissy fit when they don’t…. God I cannot wait for this man to be as far away from this club as possible.
I was really disappointed by the result too, but some of our fans are just man-babies.
I’m not disappointed by the result. I’ve been disappointed by the club for a long time now. It’s boring. I don’t even care if we win or lose any more. The games give me something to watch with my dad when I visit my parents over the weekend. We bet how many we’ll concede or whether it will be from set pieces or open play… We don’t expect anything from games anymore.
You’re blaming the fans for reacting to a loss? How’s that different from what Wenger did? If some fans are man babies then the manager is a man baby too.
I’m not criticising the reaction, but the manner of it. It seems like whenever we have a result like that a lot of our fans simply discard any sort of fair judgment. The team’s performance was terrible in the last 30 minutes, but it took an injury to Welbeck, a clear dive and our best defender coming off for us to lose.
But we lost. So I don’t really care. I think it’s become a bit of a theme. I think I’ve just accepted that we are no longer the team we once were, and once you accept that, the burden is off your shoulders and the game is more enjoyable.
Wenger is the only person who genuinely bugs me that is involved with the club, because he is tiring and annoying to listen to and I wish he would just shut up and accept defeat and stop being in denial.
You’re the Arsene Wenger of fans.
You’re a man baby
Okay.
“Fans discard fair judgement” Can this be the same ForeignGooner that just called fans “man-babies” talking about fair judgement? Read tons of comments from fans analysing what went wrong and what we could have done better.
You’re the first person I’ve read insulting other fans. And for what, the crime of wanting Wenger replaced?
I don’t understand this logic where insulting our fellow Gooners is good, but don’t dare criticise the club or Wenger.
I’m sick of fans like you. We had a tough loss – let Gooners express their disappointment and engage with the debates instead of insulting people.
Thinking about the game still makes me very angry. Banning the Watford player wouldn’t make any difference. Three points is already in the bag for them.
Agree that it was a dreadful decision but we looked dead in the water well before that point. We lost because we put in a lacklustre performance for 90 minutes and focusing on the referee is just trying to deflect from that. We know the standard of refereeing is atrocious and we know that we often get the short end of the stick. It’s unlikely that will change soon so we need to make sure we put in performances that will at least attempt to counteract any errors on the referees part.
We don’t often get the short end of the stick we just choose to forget the favourable decisions that go our way
Anyone surprised that the first ever ban given retrospectively for diving should be given after a dive against us?
No? Didn’t think so.
He won’t get banned because he was touched and that’ll be enough to prove he didn’t dive, much in the way we successfully argued that Eduardo didn’t dive years back against Celtic.
It’s the love googles mate. Over the years, we’ve had decisions go our way and just last game, a penalty wasn’t given for a blatant foul by mustafi. Sanchez has gone down for lesser than this and he was defended on here. This whole, “they are out to get us” just gives us an excuse for failure
Too many are paranoid and are happy to accept the good fortune when we benefit but don’t have the ball’s (much like the team) to accept it’s a door that swings both ways.
People are very quick to criticise Ozil for missing his chance the other day but had he scored wouldn’t have been complaining that he was offside, bunch of hypocrites.
I thought their attacking player did something we find so hard to do – pin a defender down one on one and beat him in the box. And he beat one of our fastest players! Fair play to the young lad.
There was clear contact on the back of his legs by Bellerin, and I’m 99% sure he won’t get a ban or anything like that.
I agree, part of me has absolutely no problem with the player going down because of the situation he found himself in. In fact what disappoints me the most is that we don’t do it at all, for me it’s a fundamental of professional football. Make the opposition player make a decision, he isolated him and beat him for pace in the box, Bellerin certainly didn’t get the ball even if contact was minimal. All round I thought it was intelligent, professional behaviour and don’t get all the outrage. The Arsenal fan base has unfortunately been brainwashed over the last… Read more »
I recommend Wenger googles the term “external locus of control”.
I’m sure the FA can find a way to make the club guilty as opposed to the incompetent official They’ve had years of practise.
The manager sets up the team, picks the players and tells them how to play. Watford are not on our level and they beat us. If the players aren’t good enough Wenger has had 20years to get the right players. He should leave, it is embarrassing for everyone. He’s a French Brian Clough
I like the Brian Clough comparsion. More on the fact that he has become more ineffective the older he has become. But don’t think that he’s doing a bottle of Scotch a day….
Also think that to say that he hasn’t the right players for “20 years” is a little bit inaccurate as well.
I remember a Forest fan on another board posting the comparison a few years ago. I found myself agreeing at the time. It was obvious some time ago that his skills had waned and that the club was only going to get worse. The problem is that nobody in a position of power at the club has any idea about football and couldn’t see further than “we finish top 4 every season” so didn’t make the right decision. It’s like when Nigel Adkinson was doing well for Southampton and loads of us said “that’s a disgrace, why are they sacking… Read more »
Give him a two year ban, no new contract with arsenal………happy days.
Look for a new decent manager.
I don’t know why everyone’s being so flippant about this.
Arsene might get a touchline ban, now. What are we going to do in tight situations without him being able to make tactical changes and substitutions that might alter the course of games?
I was there!
Man, Wenger just walked up to Swarbrick and gave him two pimp slaps “Whack!, whack!” and walked away. Swarbrick didn’t say a word, a single tear rolled down his face as his bottom lip quivered slightly.
Incredible!
68 game ban seems fair to me
Wake me up when we have a new manager.
If Wenger managed teams that didn’t have 200 million payroll, someone like West Ham, Burnley, Brighton, Huddersfield, Bournemouth, he’d get them relegated.
10 years ago that wouldn’t be the case. But it is now.
We shouldn’t have to rely on the referee to get a result. The fact remains thst we were shit in the 2nd half – ultimately, that’s why we lost!
Viera , Parlour, Berkamp,Petit, Gilberto, Edu…………..Deeney shaking it about with these characters…….doubt it.
What has happened to our team?
Reduced to whingeing about referees, that’s what.
Come on, he was doing it when we were good as well.
If we had any confidence in him to win in the long run we’d be right behind him. It’s only because we know the same crap is going to happen time after time that we can’t even be bothered to complain about bad refereeing against us any more.
Its true. This sums up my sentiments. It was a bad call (although there was [minimal] contact) it was a dive. But we sucked. Even the first half. There was about 10mins before half time I thought wow this is decent stuff as we pushed the tempo and scored. The rest of the game barring 1-2 other short periods of direct play (e.g. when Ozil first came on) we were rubbish. Watford outplayed us for most of the game – WATFORD! I couldn’t be bothered blaming the ref because we should be spanking this team if we want to be… Read more »
Can I be more disinterested?
Let’s hope AW confronted his team with as much vehemence! We have a great squad ‘on paper’ but theoretical quality doesn’t win matches. It’s clear that there are too many players who are incapable of giving their all every match. As good as Özil can be, for Watford to see his coming on as an opportunity to ‘have a go’ at Arsenal speaks volumes. Whilst he is the focus of us fans ire, there are too many like him. AW signed all the players and it’s up to him to get the best out of them. It seems to me… Read more »
Quote from Szczęsny today. “Whether it was [Luciano] Spalletti at Roma or Max Allegri here, the preparation for the game is different to what I was used to in England. You work on the shape of the team for a particular match all week. At Arsenal you’d just prepare physically for it but here you watch film analysing a specific opponent before the game and afterwards we’ll watch again to see what worked and what didn’t. “I enjoyed working with some great coaches at Arsenal, Roma and here, but the goalkeeping school in Italy is very different, it’s very technical… Read more »
Speaks volumes. I hope he’s joking. If preparing for an opponent is just doing laps and practicing free kicks…
That was a clear dive…. No contact at all
Made up news based on a made up article
The top teams ( we’re not included in this term) , would have taken the dive goal, turned up the pace and intensity for a while, got 3-1 and then killed the game.
We collapse and will continue to do so until AW,stoneface Steve Bould and all the obsolete training staff are gone.
What make me both sad and angry is that AW is wilfully destroying his legacy by continue in this manner. Stubbornly trying to fit a square peg Into a round hole, instisting that the way to improvement is to never change.
It’s been reported that the Brazilian will not be penalised for simulation meaning it’s okay to dive. Our players should learn a thing or two to shed our “too nice” image.
he is foolish,nothing else
Generally speaking, Wenger has completely run out of Coaching ideas. Our style of play is so mediocre that we barely have an impact against any opponent. It is a curse, just after Henry and group left. Our team looks so average that you can tell by halfway if it will be a loss.
I am sick to the stomach.