Arsene Wenger has accused the press of ignoring a great game of football in their quest for controversy, as once more he was questioned at length about a contentious penalty decision in last night’s 2-2 draw with Chelsea.
The Arsenal manager, already on edge of because of what happened with Mike Dean and the subsequent FA charges, labelled the decision by Anthony Taylor to award Chelsea a penalty as ‘farcical’.
Naturally enough that shaped the line of questioning, however the Frenchman railed angrily at the media’s insistence on focusing on those issues rather than the match itself.
Having been asked about the charges he’s facing, Wenger said, “Look, what I find terrible is that we have just seen is a great football game and we talk only about things that are nothing to do with football.
“At some stage, you stand up in the morning and you say ‘we have seen a great football game’ but you are not interested in that.
“For me, that would be nice, that at some stage we speak about football again. What are we talking about? It’s nothing to do with football.
“I would love to talk about football, because that is what I love. We have seen a great football game tonight, but what are we talking about?
“Not about football.”
Wenger also accused the press of picking and choosing which incidents they highlight when it comes to refereeing, suggesting there was little coverage of two bad decisions in the Sp*rs game the other night which went basically unreported.
“I’m fed up with that,” he said. “The referees get away with you, the English press, no matter what they do.”
I’ve been against him for a few years now and normally the type of shit show we’ve been going through this month would strengthen my beliefs against him but seeing passion from him has made me regain some of the love I had lost for him.
What passion. If anything using the word ‘great’ to describe a game where 2 more points where dropped at the Emirates, makes me even more convinced that he needs to leave.
He didn’t say it was a great result. He said it was a great game. It was a great game of attacking football.
That he didn’t win – AGAIN.
Arsenal were not defending, that’s for for sure.
Chelsea were actually defending just couldn’t handle Arsenal flamboyant attack.
So let me see he has now upset the refs association,the FA and now the media in the last few days.
He’s outmaureeninhoing maureen in his attempt to detract the attention from HIS defensive issues.
Fact is last night a decent forward would have scored at least a hat trick against our defence had it not been for Cech. Everytime they attacked I thought that they might score and that has got to be worrying.
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A decent forward would have scored a hat trick but he didn’t. The penalty in the last two games was a load of wank and it’s fair enough to point it out.
A professional referee should have enough awareness to know the “I’ve just been double fisted” face and ridiculous rolling around for a minor touch is the definition of simulation. I’ve seen better acting in porn and Hazard is habitual with this shit.
Had it not been for Cech???
Why do you think Arsenal FC pay him for?
He’s only stepped forward to be counted in last few games…
hate him or love him…. He’s speaking the truth on this one, and I like that so much… plus an extra kick on Sp*rs arse….
Looks like the boss is willing to fight those days ;-))
I love this siege mentality. Let’s spread it in the team now
OMG I would love to see Wenger use his obvious intellect like that.
Counter to our playing style he needs to be more offensive off the pitch with his players, and other managers too.
Go on Arsene, play the game!
Classic distraction tactics perhaps? But i don’t care, go on Arsene tear into them.
I fucking love this bloke, always have, always will…I do advocate change on all levels from manager to boardroom as the time has come but Wenger has my utmost respect regardless of how tough things have been and he will do until he finally leaves us. The ridicule and abuse he’s had over the past few years has been disgusting, shameful. And it hasn’t helped when it comes to media outlets dedicated to Arsenal specifically – the birth of Arsenal Fan TV and its rise via a bunch of disrespectful plebeians desperate for 15 minutes of fame on Youtube has… Read more »
Brilliantly put and couldn’t say it better myself
Could not agree with this more. I would love for ‘Arsenal Fan TV’ to fall down a hole somewhere and never get out. I have watched it for 2 minutes and genuinely thought I was watching some kind of spoof comedy thing. Turns out not.
I honestly thought they did fall down a hole, I haven’t seen or heard from them all season
Hey but Robbie is a nice guy
I wanted to like this more than once but it wouldn’t let me.
Arsenal ‘fan’ TV is a joke, only fans from other teams watch it to take the piss out of us. I wish they would fuck off bruv. Innit cus.
Wenger is on a salary to do a job and he is failing woefully at it!!! That is the only matric that matters! nd I am often amazed when people pander to other irrelevancies to make a case for him!! He was not hired to show passion but to win games and so far he is shit at it!!! Arsenal has performed so poorly against the big teams this season (i dont consider Spurs as one) and we are now in Burnley category!!! We have promoted and justified mediocrity for too long and that is whu we have Wenger, Walcot… Read more »
What is failing?
I would say the club hasn’t lived up to expectations that are reasonable. I wouldnd’t say he has failed.
Who are you to ridicule arsenal fan tv? They go to every game home away and abroad. They have every right to vent.
Your comment stinks of self-entitlement. ArsenalFan TV make money off fans, and they use that money to follow Arsenal – it is a business. It does not give them the right to condone/promote abusive behaviour at our club.
Only an abusive fan wont be able to understand why that infuriates supporters who actually turn up to support.
Arseblog makes money off fans, what’s your point again?
Now, hold out your hand and let ChrisGoona slap it.
lol are you mad? Wenger is the one that moves the discourse to referees. Every time a result goes against hhim it’s referees, referees, referees. Anything rather than talk about the specifics of the game, which would naturally result in analysis of his failed tactical and coaching methods. Your naivity is astounding.
The referees scored two goals in two games against us, they’re up for team of the week at this rate.
While I think he’s not the right man for us from a managerial standpoint. This man is football through and through. His passion for the game is real because he puts the game before trophies, controversy and media drama, more so than any other person in the game right now.
And he’s right, it was fucking infuriating to see ANOTHER penalty decision cost us 3 points. That’s 4 points lost in 2 games which would put us 3 points above Spurs and one behind Liverpool. Fucking farce.
We went into the game with Kos, Ramsey, Kol, Nacho and Giroud all out due to injury. Chelsea on the other hand are the champions and have a full and healthy squad. After our futile exertions at West Brom and the fact that we only had two days off; that we got a draw is almost miraculous. Do you remember a short time ago when Chelsea would thrash us both home and away? I would gladly have taken a draw before the match as I would now. Yes, we are dropping points but we haven’t been beaten since the Man… Read more »
Well said. He has stabled the ship in the big games, we can actually compete with the likes of Chelski again. The defense is still a concern (even with everyone available) but the system issues we have faced may be a cause of it. The 343 seems to give us more stability, but we lack any real fluidity and combinations in midfield when using it.
True, but the Man United game was the anamoly. A game we should have won, but lost due to circumstances unfathomable. But we played shit against Liverpool, should have lost but managed to draw. And this game against Chelsea, we let more chances than probably the whole of December combined. Thanks to Morata, we had a chance to get a draw and boy we did. Let this not cloud the fact that we are no better than last year or the year before or the year before and so on and not change our stance against the change we crave!… Read more »
He’s doing a good job of deflecting attention from the teams slide down the table. If he was such a great manager still why are many, many players not renewing their contracts in the near term? Why do we struggle to find potential or persuade the world class to stay? He is trying to create a siege mentality just like Fergie did so brilliantly. However, it doesn’t fool me, it isn’t one bad penalty decision that has cemented our position to 6th and our title challenge over by October, it has been years of poor decision making on and off… Read more »
Nobody’s trying to pretend we’d be sustaining a title challenge if the refereeing was fairer. But from the last 2 games alone we could be up to 4 points better off, which would leave us just a point behind Liverpool in 4th (and most importantly ahead of Sp*rs). Decisions like these do define a season, especially if they don’t even out – which they certainly aren’t so far.
Add in some of the appalling decisions we’ve has earlier in the season and we’d be closer to 2nd (still a long way off the target of 1st though).
Yeah we’ve struggled to find potential. Not like Maitland-niles, Rob Holding, Eddie, Nelson. The list goes on. We need better defenders, the rest of the team is fine.
We have very good defenders, they just cannot defend efficiently/effectively. They need to be worked on, coached properly.
Defence is an art just as much as attacking is…It’s obvious one has been neglected for a long time.
When we were at Highbury we stole a march on the competitors by Wenger having an in depth knowledge of the European and World markets, especially the French market. That is why we could bring in these talents, because other teams weren’t aware of them. The game is VERY different now, every team has scouts and the internet, football media coverage has increased dramatically as has other teams ability to pay for the top players. This isn’t a fault of Wenger just a matter of fact. Do I believe we could have done better? Of course I do but to… Read more »
I disagree with your blanket statements. 1. Why are many many players not renewing their contracts? Are you saying it’s because of wenger? I think the situation is far more complex. Let me give you a few alternatives: 1. Wages other clubs are paying 2. The Club and the player don’t agree on valuation 3. Something else going on in the background related to all the new back office staff coming in and changes that we all can see coming which will include a shift in playing personnel as well. 4. Information that we just don’t have based on conversations… Read more »
Before the season I’m sure you thought Everton was going to be ahead of us or any other “it” club at the moment. Now its Burnley.
Everyones title challenge is over. Until Man city slip its over.
Brought in world class players on the cheap usually. Like you said Arsenal never was the big spending club. Landscape has changed. There are more clubs willing to spend into debt to win. It fortunate or unfortunate depending on how you look at thats not how Arsenal operate. Deal with it. I’m not saying that in a negative way just thats the reality.
Look around the PL and you’ll find most teams have players that aren’t renewing their contracts. It’s the way the PL is going unless clubs throw money at the players agents, which isn’t possible unless you’re rolling in money and bare no responsibility for how it’s used.
Arsenal should have done this ages ago, in fact when Riley was made the head of refs. Needed to cut off the snake’s head long time ago, been biting us in the arse at every opportunity since. But then again… what is the only consistent thing in football over past hundered years?? Blind hatred of the Arsenal (the 1st side from the south to break the football monopoly in the north). Hatred for Arsenal runs deep….. very deep in parts of this country….. passed from grandad to son to grandson…. Fuck them all I say. One thing I know about… Read more »
Great to see him finally standing up against the media and their infatuations with certain clubs. I hope the board and hierarchy back him fully on this. Spoke to a Chelsea fan this morning who didn’t see the game but listened on the radio and was told Bellerin had “scythed down” Hazard. When I showed him the video he said “Why do they lie? It’s clearly not a pen”.
Keep right on Arsene.
Everyone in the media seem adamant that it was a penalty. If slightly flicking the bottom of someones boot is a foul then as Arseblog said, we would have 50 penalties a game. AMN’s trip was therefore a penalty too. The narrative and media bias has long been having a detrimental affect on the officiating and state of the game. They officials and the FA are a fragile bunch who cannot be questioned. Even installing VAR may be pointless when you got such daft decision makers watching on. The FA and PGMOL need gutting – simple as. They have failed… Read more »
Then what? The team you assembled have won 3 games away out of 12. Referee has helped us too. Burnley, Westbrom at home to name few. It is not rosy every game. The performance of the players in the pitch is atrocious and we are focused on referees. Please look at the goal conceded. Its 28, more than Brighton. Liverpool conceded 25 so far and they are bolstering their defense. We don’t care because we are focused on couple of referee decisions. Total disaster of a manager.
The WB game at home the ref decision didn’t change the whole course of the game like the latter two decisions we have had against us. The Burnley one was a penalty – we are being made to believe it is controversial. One forgets the blatant one against Welbeck that wasn’t given at Utd which may have put the pressure on to get a draw.
Nevertheless, as blogs says, on one hand we can acknowledge performances are not up to scratch but please don’t deny the obvious impact of poor poor poor ref decisions.
What about this team? Yes, referees have bad performance but are we playing good ? We need to be more concerned on what we can control. We cannot control referees. If our defense consists of two 20 years defenders, even league 1 team will score.
Fergie controlled the refs pretty well, the media buzzing their pants over Spurs doesn’t harm Alli and Kane opportunities to kick the shit out of their opponents. It’s about time we put some pressure on.
And learned basic defending and how to save a fucking penalty.
You can have the best team in the world if the referee feels like being a prima donna well then you’re basically fucked especially in a league where any team can give you a game.We argue that this is the toughest league in the world and yet the standard of refereeing is disastrous.If it’s tough to referee a game than start introducing VAR technology.If VAR slows the game down than get better referees mate it’s not rocket science.The norm can’t be that a referee will always make mistakes however he will never be reprimanded for doing so.If I continually make… Read more »
Hold them subject to a league table with three getting relegated each season.
Other countries really do have it worse though, we have seen it in the champions league and europa…. incredibly weird and conning red cards for no reason…. RVP springs to mind. Anyway i get you recently its been a bit weird…video replay needs to be in place to insure diving and conning the ref is found.
That has been the case in years gone by, but I really don’t think that’s true anymore. The best refs are not in the PL, but as all other leagues use many more refs than we do (to stop potential corruption) they do have a few really poor ones. But their best refs are far better than the dross we’ve had in recent years.
Would you love to talk about defending :)?
Would that somehow make the refs start calling decisions correctly?
I like this Wenger for a change
Ok. One cannot argue with Wenger here; every word is the truth. Unfortunately, it is only 50% of the problem. The other 50%, regrettably, is the man himself and his unchanging failings in transfer dealings, team selections and coaching, particularly defending. The media, in general, are a rabble of thick, idiotic, clueless cunts who wouldn’t know the first thing about football management if it got into bed with them, but Wenger would probably get an easier time of it if he would only have the humility to occasionally admitting his failings with a genuine intention of changing his stubborn ways.… Read more »
30+ years ago there used to be 2 types of football journalist. The ones who actually knew a thing or two about the game (although rarely enough to be really insightful), they genuinely liked the game and tried to keep their biases in check. The second type were just sensationalist about what happens around the game. They weren’t really interested in the game its self, and did the job because it earned them decent money. If they did really have a team, it was usually pretty clear where their allegiance was. Regrettably the former group has diminished dramatically and now… Read more »
He is bang right but fighting a losing battle unfortunately. In this multi billion pound unregulated industry, corruption is rife. It starts right at the top with Fifa. I am sure referees are incompetent but anyone who thinks they aren’t taking bribes to top up their modest wages (compared to footballers) have their heads in the sand. This is not some conspiracy theory, if you look at all the statistics in the last 20 years, they are quite damning. Also, I should point out we are not the only ones to suffer the consequences of corruption. Anywhere there is money… Read more »
I know it’s hard for a lot of us to do this, but think for a moment about what the picture would look like it the previous two officials hadn’t stolen 4 points from us: We’d be in in 5th place with 43 points, 4 clear of Spurs (who are on a tear), 1 behind Liverpool (also on a tear), 2 behind Chelsea (scoring goals like crazy), and 4 off of Man United for 2nd place. I know it really shouldn’t be looked at that way because results are results, but things would look drastically different if the referees didn’t… Read more »
What if they’d called the games against Stoke, Watford and $iteh correctly as well?
I know it’s a dream scenario but you have to dream…
Wenger is so right. The English press are so picky and sentimental.
i love football but we are not talking about football. but.today football, we had a great footballing game of football. and what are we talking about? not football that i love and not the footballing game of football that football footballed. you not interested in football? i love football and today was a footballing day where football footballed and we footballed well. but you care not of football unlike i, a football manager at a football club in a football league who just watched my football.team kick a football in a footballing football.game. And what do you call yourselves? football.journalists.… Read more »