Arsene Wenger refused to talk about referee Jon Moss’s decision to award Nottingham Forest two penalties as Arsenal crashed out of the FA Cup at the third round stage for the first time in his tenure.
Speaking to BT Sport the boss admitted that a below-par performance by his weakened team was deservedly punished. Here’s what he had to say…
On the result…
We played against a Nottingham team who was very sharp, more dangerous than us and dominated us at the front. After that, it became a difficult game. We were a bit unlucky as well but overall, they were sharper and more incisive and won more challenges than us. We lost too many challenges to win a game like that.
On his team selection and players not performing…
That’s the inevitable question that comes with a cup game. We had many players on the edge, we have to play on Wednesday again. We’ve played Sunday, Wednesday, Saturday. Many times we got away with it…not today. Is it a selection problem? Maybe. Is it a performance problem? Maybe, as well.
On the two penalty decisions…
I don’t want to talk about that. I’m a bit tired of that.
On picking themselves up…
Yeah, of course. We have to respond quickly on Wednesday, we have a big game. Let’s focus on that one. It’s the semi-final of the League Cup and I think we of course have to respond quickly.
On going out at third round for the first time of his tenure…
You never put disappointments behind you. The only thing that can help is to focus on the next game. It’s true that we won the FA Cup three times in the last four years so it hurts even more. It’s a competition we love, that’s why it is disappointing that we were not at the [required] level today.
AW has been getting away with it for a long time now
Why wasn’t he asked if he is considering resigning after this embarassment of a season?
Because somehow his position is somehow still unshakeable at the club. Wake and smell the coffee you bunch of clowns also called the Arsenal board.
(Off camera) Jon Moss is part of the conspiracy.
Soon as I saw him (moss) I thought lucky to get a draw!
As soon as I saw the line-up and the bench I thought “lucky to get a draw”. We were on the wrong end of a couple of decisions but our shitness would still have lost us the match.
The ball is going backwards, the players are going backwards, this team is going backwards.
Allegri , Where are you?
I like everyone else is outraged by the result today. Not just because of how bad we played but due to the shocking mistakes made by the referees employed by the FA. I feel it’s time to show the Arsenal and Wenger that we have their back and to force the FA to have a look at themselves. It’s not just one game but the course of the season which is just diabolical. I feel organising a protest outside the FA headquarters is a good idea to get their attention if people are willing to.
What an idiotic idea!!!
Would you be as incensed if we were the beneficiaries of those poor calls? I didn’t think so.
We didnt play good against West Brom, though Ref made the result too bad.
Against CHelsea, we could have easily lost thanks to Morata, penalty was 50-50 decision.
For Today Jon Moss also made some mistake, but it was the performance which is seen which is not improving, which si against a CHampionship Bottom club side and conceding 4 goals which pushed out of our beloved FA CUP. and Ofcourse No Wembley this year. this what makes us sad even more.
At least Prince Harry doesn’t have to worry about match conflict on his wedding day?
Wembley two games away! Two legged SEMI FINAL starting on Wednesday!
What team do we put out?
Wembley 4 weeks away too – will need to get performance back by then.
Were you outraged by the award of the free kick we equalised from which was a shocking decision too?
RL7 – cut the ref vendetta and just recognise that we deserved to lose today. We played against a younger team that was still better organised defensively than we have been for 14 years.
We’ve been the beneficiaries of some poor refereeing too, both this season and previous ones. Even the Invincibles began with a penalty versus Portsmouth that we’d have been up in arms about.
Yes – twas the refs fault we were rubbish. Really, where do you people come from ?
Beford the shit penalty we were 3-2 down against a poor Championship team with 5 minutes left. We had scored from a free kick that shouldn’t have been given & a goalkeeping howler. Other than that, we barely created a chance & they missed quite a few…. despite us having a hugely more experienced & allegedly more talented team than them. (certainly a much, much better paid team than them)
If the referee is your biggest concern as a Gooner after that you are living in a fantasy world.
Why dont you organise protest to arsenal training ground and demand these bunch of clowns how hard they need to work, raise the performance and get the required results
Once in 21 years. We have been spoilt.
Though we were poor today.
We’ve never been relegated either. But it’s cool I guess. There’s always a first right?
We are in danger of relegation? I’m missing something.
Arsenal is closer to Stoke in relegation position (19 points) than to Manchester City (23 points).
I still think relegation is too pessimistic. If the players could find a little form, sixth is realistic.
If he doesn’t dip into market to reconstruct this January, it really is an indictment on his own hubris.
Hell, if the players find some form and a reason to show up 4th is a realistic goal. Liverpool and the shit will drop more points and give us the opportunity to get back in.
Not that we deserve it as things are, but it’s there to get.
That 4th place is the limit of our ambitions as a club is bloody scandalous ! Would you have given up last season’s FA Cup win for 4th ? I damm well wouldn’t have ! We have NO chance of the title that was over by the end of September! ! We DO have a chance of a trophy in the league cup a competition Wenger has never won though he has spurned it in the past! We DO have a chance in the Europa League too but no doubt Wenger will save our below par “first ” team in… Read more »
Thank you Arsene for saying why we lost today.
Now, please go demand money from Kroenke to address the squad with players who will perform on days like today.
So he can buy another Dhaka or Walcott? No thanks. WENGER LEAVE !
Another Xhaka – not Dhaka!
I assure you money spent buying the capital of Bangladesh would be more useful in a footballing sense some of his signings.
Why do people slate the signing of xhaka? Quality signing from Wenger on the face of it. Xhaka was captain of club and country by 23! The type of signing we all crave don’t We?!?
What we needed was a DM. What we got was Xhaka.
The sad truth is that Wenger would not know what to do with a DM. He is clueless on defense.
Delusional half wits like yourself still think it’s Kronke’s fault that again we are the laughing stock.
Wenger will see this club in the bottom half of the table before he leaves. A decision that shouldn’t even be his.
we are a mess. conceding 4 to forrest a team without a manager is shocking.
when we won in 89 it was after an 18 yr wait.
we are now at 14 yrs we are miles away. we need some drastic changes with a view to competing again at 2019/2020. its painful at the moment and has been for some time.
it will get much much more painful before he is either forced out or doesn’t get a new contract, Wenger will leave us in footballing terms ‘in a mess’…
He has seen it all, from his point of view, he needs to focus on next games as usual and ffs rectify the mistakes we have made till now which he doesn’t correct. Why cant we put our experience players on bench, Cant they play even 30 minutes of the match. Hope he doesnt make thi mistake in Europa League. Steve Bould, I dont know why he is there, the amount of goals we are conceding is worse. and the defense and the midfield look shambles. Since there would be no more fixtures pile up thanks to fa cup early… Read more »
I never liked this one team plays this competition the other play these. Proper rotation and having depth for each position solves this issue, if the players are not good enough to play in the league there not good enough for any competition.
And there goes our trophy…
It’s over!
‘We have to respond quickly on Wednesday, we have a big game. Let’s focus on that one’
No, lets focus on your monumental fuck up today instead for a bit longer…
16 months more of this, folks. 16 months.
Quit whining get off your arse and force him out
And how would he do that dumbass?
And how, may I ask, do you propose that we, as supporters and little more than a cash-cow to the majority shareholder and the board of directors, do that? Seriously, what power do the fans have over the board, if the board have already made up their minds that Wenger will see out his contract? No amount of empty seats, booing, demonstrations, placards or anything else will change that. This isn’t a whinge – it’s the truth. We’ve got 16 more months of this.
sign Mahrez and keep Ozil/Sanchez/Wilshere and all will be forgiven
Don’t you get it? Wenger is the problem. This isn’t Fifa
We play three games a week and we should all swallow that? One line up plays one competition, other line up play another competition. So that means everyone has 1 week rest from the first team. The so called senior players today barely played some games and how could he say that is a problem. Todays team was waaaaaay waaaaay waaaay and well rested. So, Arsene please shut up. Better dont show yourself in front of the press. He always has something to blame for his expensive mistakes.
Wenger out
He keeps on ‘ focusing on the next game’ and ‘correcting mistakes’ after every defeat, only for the cycle to start all over again.
When are we going to stop correcting mistakes?
When are we going to start correcting mistakes ?
Wenger is beyond anything – at least he can concentrate on a new contract now. Nothing comes before what he wants, especially not arsenal.
Best man for the job hey Ivan
Who do we want to replace Wenger? Klopp went to Liverpool and Guardiola is managing some other team up norff. Whose that bloke in charge at Atletico? He seems like the cunty type we could do with to change the direction of this ship of fools.
Haha, they couldn’t handle Simeone. Never happen. Guardiola only goes to teams already in possession of expensive toys. And Klopp, well, he’s got the same defensive issues as Wenger.
Doesn’t that make Simeone the right candidate though?
Believe it or not, I’ve actually got some sympathy for Wenger tonight.
He’s clearly going for it big time in the League Cup, so he decided to rest the big names for Chelsea in Wednesday. He figured that the team he put out should be able to see of an average, manager-less mid-table Championship side. But they couldn’t. I suppose the big guns should have been on the bench to come to the rescue: that’s where he made the big mistake.
If we see of the Chavs and then beat City at Wembley then I’ll forgive him for today’s debacle.
It wasn’t the team selection in itself that was the problem. It was the team’s lack of preparedness, mentally & tactically….we were disorganised and disinterested… so I have no sympathy for Arsene. It’s his job to prepare the team.
Sorry but I won’t forgive him for this in the same way I won’t forgive Lehmann for giving away stupid penalty at Shite Hart Lane to cost us a win, even if we did win League that day.
By all means rest some players but do it after we’ve won the game in first half.
Forgive him for yesterday’s debacle? How many debacles are you willing to forgive? The 2-8 at OT ? the 0-6 at Chelsea ? The 1_5 and 0-4 at Anfield? The two 1-5 defeats to Bayern ? The losing of a 4_0 half time lead at Newcastle? 4_2 up with 5 minutes to play vs the scum then end up 4-4 ? The 0-5 at home to Chelsea in the league cup ? The 1-6 at OT ? The losing of a 3-0 lead to Anderlecht with 15 minutes to play ? The 1-5 in the league cup 2nd leg semi… Read more »
Well the future doesn’t look bright that’s for sure, maybe under someone else it may do, but not under Arsene.
16 more months. Feels like 16 years at the moment.
Never finished below Spurs, never not played in CL, Never out of the FA Cup in 3rd round. All happened in matter of months now. If that’s not an indication that a change is needed, then what is?
Kind of sums up the situation the club is in. Add on to that 3 key players can leave us on a free. AW holds all the strings so this is on him
This is the really worrying part. When Ozil and Sanchez leave, they will not command high transfer fees (none, if they stay until the summer). If Kroenke & Co really want to have a top European club, they must invest £200 millions just to replace those two. And there are many other places in the team that needs reinforcement: The central midfield, the whole defence, to mention a few.. Arsene leaves with a debt of at least £300 millions.
Agree 100% Andy have been saying this a while to deaf ears Andy closed minds. Wenger will leave us in a position of mediocrity for anything up to a decade unless we have a miracle worker after him because the investment required for the squad would be of Cityesque levels from a standing start. On top of the culture change necessary. This man has always said h would leave the club in a position of strength but his arrogant pursuit of renewing his own legend has seen him foresake that, slag off the fans and take the club for a… Read more »
The troubling thing is not necessarily so much that those players are leaving, but that the Wenger/Arsenal pitch to any players they look to replace them with has never been weaker. Without Champions League football what players of Sanchez or Ozil’s class would even consider coming to Arsenal? I can’t see their departure being the end of the decline… Realistically, Arsenal must now rank as only the fifth or sixth most desirable Premier League team for players to come to. As long as Arsenal are not willing to outbid the others it is hard to see how this state of… Read more »
It’s not the spend that’s important – it’s using the players properly in a defensive system. Every team we’ve played this season has looked better at the back than us and have players who cost next to nothing and do not rank as world class. Forest had a better defence than us ffs and the whole lot cost less than Mustafi!
Change at the management level is now essential.
Arsenal fans are their own enemies now just bcos they hate Wenger. They can easily turn against their team.
“We had many players on the edge”
Players on the edge,
Wenger’s career is dead,
Player’s on the edge,
Wenger’s career is deeeeeeeaaaad.
Aw,
F*ck you man! Qualityn of bench showed you had no plan-B at all.
Wenger needs to leave but i don’t know why all the outcry is coming from this particular game. We have been far worse this season many times. It is the first time this has happened in the FA Cup to a lower team. Maybe Wenger is really trying for the League cup as a last hoorah..I really hope it works out for him…Win the league cup for the first time, win the Europa and leave….That would be a good way to bow out…Taking Welbeck, Walcott, Elneny and the other bang average trash that is taking up spots of what should… Read more »
The outcry is here because of the team selection. It was absolutely reckless. No measured quality or in form players anywhere on the team sheet to insure a win.
I cant see us winning either, especially the Europa
This is the kind of match after a string of awful performances that usually gets a manager sacked. Not at Arsenal though, Wenger has all but lost it at this point.
To be fair to the gaffer, you’d think we should have enough in the locker to take apart a team lying mid to low in the championship that comprised mainly teenagers and rejects from PL and who just lost their manager. Sure Wenger should have prepared better for his own predicted banana peel but some senior players really let the side down. Welbeck’s touch is horrendous and Walcott is a one trick pony. Elneny is a mediocre player. Debuchy lacks commitment. Complain about Granit all you like but the alternatives in midfield are even poorer. Beyond Ozil and Alexis, we… Read more »
He has been getting away with poor tactical decisions before because he bought well in the market. But that advantage has eroded over last two decades particularly with new money teams pressing from above and the rest of the league shedding their foreign inhibitions and more importantly having the resource to spend with new TV distribution deal. Therefore our qualitative edge has been steadily reduced. We are currently at least one creative/technical player away from competitive depth going forward never mind defensive issues. To rely on Little Britain project Welbeck and Walcott says it all about the quality and technicality… Read more »
Is it a selection problem? YES.
FFs, Iwobi, Welbeck, and Walcott have the most minutes of anyone on the entire team sheet, and they’ve all been out of form and practically useless for several weeks now. You can’t put a training ground lineup out there with virtually no competitive play with no insurance on the bench and expect to progress in a cup tie. You’re playing a Championship side – committed play is 90% of their game! What the fuck do you expect?!
This ones all on Wenger for not seeing the fucking obvious.
By saying we got away with it before implies that we have made the same mistakes previously and still got results. Not exactly covering youself in glory with comments like that Arsene.
Our performance was abysmal.
how many nadirs can one guy stoop to? hes completely losing his reputation and its a bit painful. its like a slapstick joke turned a bit sad and awkward. this whole season has seemed like a shadow of itself. so many of us a passively going through the motions now. this guy really needs to leave. its ugly and sad, this whole thing. i am really sick of it.