Arsene Wenger has dismissed Tottenham’s complaints that Arsenal’s goals yesterday were offside.
The 2-0 win at the Emirates put the old enemy back in their box, and afterwards manager Mauricio Pochettino grumbled about marginal decisions, and even suggested that Granit Xhaka could have been sent off.
As you would expect, there wasn’t much sympathy from his opposite number who has felt aggrieved by officiating a number of times this season.
“Last week we conceded a goal that was not marginally offside, that was a yard offside and that nobody found a word to say,” said Wenger.
“I watched the one again and I’m not sure it was offside and it was a foul, so suddenly when we concede the goals it’s absolutely normal, and when we are a yard offside maybe you have to answer that in a press conference.”
And on the performance itself, one of the best of the season so far, he continued, “I think we played with purpose, good concentration, the desire to always be efficient and with great solidarity.
“From the first to last minute the quality of our concentration was very high, we never had a minute where we felt that we dropped a little bit of our focus. Overall it was a very intense game when you look at the physical performance of the two teams.
“It’s absolutely through the roof, so that means the with the distances the players produced, it was an immense performance on both sides.”
For more on the game – check out today’s Arseblog: Brilliant back three provide platform for delicious victory
I like the fact that Wenger is being more combative with the media. I’m sick of watching them do us down. Last match we had the increasingly ridiculous Alan Smith telling us that the City goal was onside despite the fact that Sky showed it to be off. Twice. About time Wenger started holding them to account and pointing out their, lets be kind, inconsistencies.
Watched the game on NBCSN for the first time yesterday. Maaan it was painful to sit through that shit! Tuned in roughly 20 minutes before kickoff and their “experts” were too fucking biased. It took them 60 minutes to appreciate Arsenal’s performance. About time Wenger starts giving it back to them!
I really struggle with how to feel about Smith, Merson, Wright, Adams, Dixon, Keown, Winterburn … it’s painful to admit that your childhood heroes are basically imbeciles desperate for attention with nothing intelligent to say.
Always felt Dixon was a very good (and largely underrated) pundit tbf. Agree with some of the others you mentioned, but you’d better leave Wrighty out of that list or we’ll hunt you down!!
we had Andy Townshend for our feed. He is so utterly biased against Arsenal every time he comments.
What was offside on the first goal anyway? A whisker of a beard?
I thought, on replay, Mustafi was definitely offside–but in a surging crowd of players that makes it very difficult for a linesman. In other words, the kind of excusable mistake that is part of football. I thought the second goal was onside (an arm was offside, which doesn’t matter) or so close as to be undecidable. I thought the Sanchez-Sanchez foul was a bit soft–but well within the sorts of fouls that are regularly called in every match. The Ozil “push” that cost us a goal early on was no worse.
He was like 6 inches offside. In the old days nobody would have ever said that was offside. Need to bring back the old emphasis on “tie goes to the attacker” and a lot of the whining would go away. Being offside by a inch really shouldn’t be something people get mad about, it should need to be a clear offside before it’s expected to be called.
The nature of the fabric was offside.
The moment any former footballer (or former unsuccessful manager) becomes a pundit, then they have their IQ reduced through a special electronic procedure, otherwise they’d make all the other pundits look bad. Occasionally a pundit comes up with a sensible comment which the producers take as the guy being in need of retreatment…
Its a cabal. They all give each other a wank job. And very few of them are even ex-managers. The only one that has had some (failed) experience managing and putting his money where his mouth is is Gary Neville. He tempered his criticism on Arsene some what after his stint managing. None of them have had extensive experience in the negotiation of contracts let alone transfer business yet they deem to pontificate as if they have done the business. Graeme Souness has had experience managing. Says some sound things in his criticism of the Arsenal. I think the take… Read more »
I love Ian Wright as a pundit. A very lively man, a passionate Arsenal fan, and still almost always fair-minded. How dare you call him an imbecile? Phil Neville is the imbecile.
Keown too in my opinion is a good pundit, but not sure about the rest you mentioned.
Wright is an imbecile. He is a poor pundit over-reactive and not collected. To be fair most of the ex Arsenal players are a little bit too overly critical of the club in a bit you feel to compensate for any inherent perception of bias maybe. BUT Wright has never helped the course at the club. Dixon is a more lucid voice. But the better pundit in fact are the United lads. I hate to say it but Gary Neville (not his poor imitation brother Phil) is largely spot on (he has been wrong) and Rio Ferdinand is fairly balanced.… Read more »
Dissapointed with Keown going that route.
He seems so soft now.
He should have gone into management or at very least come into the club as a hairdryer for Wenger instill some discipline.
agreed. i am not a believer in things evening themselves out also. statistical tests done on mike dean performances against us demonstrate that up to the time the test was done that it was consistently and patently biased against arsenal. whether a personal bias or not, for a referee ‘style’ to exert that much variance from the average of results for arsenal is an indictment on the game. once that was publicised the average went up I think. but the idea that these things ‘even themselves out’. Is there not a league table of ‘would be’ results but for refereeing… Read more »
Considering the amount of money spent in the PL, referreeing is still such an amateur circus.
How Mike Dean is still a referee for the PL is beyond me. He is a poor red by any standards.
Maybe Wenger has finally figured out how to work within the frame work of playing in a Mike Dean officiated game and getting desired benefit from it.
Ponch it would seem will have some work to do.:D
I read in a kind of jokey tweet I don’t know the veracity of. But it intimated that Dean would soon retire from officiating on the pitch and move to the VR room for video calls.
So if I were Arsene, I’d probably just get spikey too. I don’t see any significant improvement in refereeing in the future.
Those were never offsides so I’m glad that Poch and the gang are crying this morning
…uh Blogs, there’s an advertisement for Christians Ronaldo boys clothing on here right now called CR7 Junior and it has Ronaldo with his shirt off and an 8 year old boy with his shirt off. Do I need to say how wrong that is? I’m all for advertising but no one should be subjected to Ronaldo’s chest more then they already have too.
Think those ads a dynamic based on your browsing history… so I’m not sure what websites you’ve been looking at 😉
Blogs..that’s a nasty way to get your readers to pay for arseblog. Logging on to the page to give you a tenner next.
Both goals having a hint of offside makes the win even better imo
Haaaaaahaaaaaahaaaaaahaaaaahaaaaaaa , so nice my friend
‘Offside’ is the new ‘onside’.
This is the siege mentality we need as a club. Its them against us. Lets stand together and take them on. That was the Arsenal I love.
Loved hearing this from Wenger. ‘Giving the benefit of doubt to the striker’ isn’t just some phrase attackers use to get decisions in their favour. What it means is that the last thing we want is fourth officials second guessing every tight decision and running the risk of ruling out lots of perfectly fair attacks. If there’s any doubt from the linesman, then he has to let play continue. A side effect of that is moments like yesterday when Mustafi’s chest is literally inches offside. I certainly wouldn’t give a shit if Arsenal were on the other end of that… Read more »
Unfortunately video replay will eliminate giving the advantage to strikers.
But i will reduce the idioacy of football compared to other sports.
Like it didn’t give the advantage to the Man City striker?
I don’t even think they have a case to argue. Yes the free kick leading to the goal weren’t a foul but you still have to defend it and not give Mustafi space to plant a wonderful header in. And the second. Last time I checked you can’t be offside if you’re arm is the only part offside as you can’t score with you’re arm. And Xhaka should have been sent off?? Don’t make me laugh. If Xhaka had made the tackle Kane made he would have seen red. Cos its Kane was just a yellow. Know when you have… Read more »
Brings to mind McCarthy punditing a world cup game where some third world nation got knocked out and the players were on the pitch crying, screaming at the ref and tantruming it up in a way that would rival Elton John’s more extreme moments.
McCarthy said along the lines: “It’s hard having lost the game and being out of the cup but don’t lose your dignity as well”. I’d buy him a pint of he did the same to the spuds this time.
It was a foul, but the type that usually doesn’t get a free kick.
On top of this, it may be a small amount of payback for last season when vertongen should have seen red but walked away without any card.
If that was a foul then we should all go home.
Was it not a foul?
What about Dembele last year? He was on his way down when he was tackled inside the box by Koscielny.
Or is it too far in the past?
How about Sterling (last game at City)? He was on his way down and anticipating contact from Nacho. Sterling dragged his left foot on the grass, before Nacho even touched his leg. Watch it again…
Wasn’t foul my @rse
What about those?
This specifically was in no way a foul seeing as he cleanly got the ball.
It was a foul, a soft foul, but no softer than the foul called on Ozil that ruled out our first goal.
For once we reaped the benefit of playing to Mike Dean’s idiocy. Don’t go against him, exploit him. I was more than relieved that granit stayed discipline for most parts and did not get his second yellow. There was a moment when Kolasinac had contact with Kane in the box and the Ingelund man fell to ground like a sack of over ripe potatos Heart in mouth as I just as much expected the penalty to be given but Mike Dean surprised me. oh well. Maybe there has been a shift in power in Mike Dean, maybe he’ll now jump… Read more »
Year in and year out, Sp@rs players keep diving in our box and (as the Darlings of the English media and Referees) are awarded penalties…
Why don’t they ever bring those up during match- comments or MOTD?
Pochettino deliberately didn’t mention the fact that every tackle we made, Dean (the Sp@rs w@nker/ supporter) gave us a yellow.
I am suffering from a monumental hangover, so to cheer meself up I went on a spuds match forum and have spent the last hour reading through yesterdays game. I tell you now it is wonderful reading! I did it when they lost to Newcastle on the last day and it really is fantastic stuff!!! COYG! The shadow is vast!
I had a similar experience to you yesterday In a pub predominately filled with spuds who were jubilant until Mustafi’s header and then Sanchez changed their tune to recurring laments such as “come on ref, WHAT???, NOOOOO” and so forth.
The burger and Guinness in front of me tasted all the better for it.
Nothing better than to have watched it surrounded by imbeciles routing for the other side and the dissapointment thereafter…priceless.:D
I still can’t believe people are even suggesting the second was offside. I get the grumbling about the first but the only thing offside about Lacazette was his arm, the rest of him was being played on by the full back. I seem to remember pundits banging on about him being offside against Stoke using the ‘any part of your body you can score with beyond the defender’ excuse, praising the linesman to the hilt. As far as I’m aware you not allowed to score with your arm, where’s the praise for the linesman here? Also, didn’t everyone dismiss our… Read more »
Poo’ s comment is just cementing Wenger’s claims….when a good side loose it must not be the cause of refereeing biases…..we need good Reffs.
Ponchentino the latest football genius to fall to Wenger’s non tactic. To think we were ready to replace Wenger with Owen Coyle or for that matter Eddie How at Bouremouth. Even Martinez enjoying the riches at Belgium never was able to keep his clubs out of relegation but some how the media conspired to have him put on a pedestal as a brilliant innovator. or Klopp the one who is progressive because he listens to music from 70 years back and likes gesticulating like an imbecile on the sideline. Considering the number of Spurs managers who have challenged Wenger and… Read more »
Arsenal the Jekyl and Hyde of the footballing world.
Let’s see the the monster on a consistent basis.
Considering it was Mike Dean, we had a bit of the rub of the green.
First goal Mustafi was barely off side enough to present any advantage, he in fact dropped back to put the header in so there was no advantage derived from being ahead of the defender (which would have been marginal at best) They might take umbrage about the soft foul given against Davison Sanchez but hey we didn’t play to whistle last game against City in a way more obvious example of offside. In this case they had the opportunity to defend the set piece properly which they did not. And Mustafi kindly obliged showing Harry Kane (who moments earlier put… Read more »
Have to admit that I agree with pundits though that if we can’t replicate this and develop some semblence of consistency…we won’t win the title.
As is we are 12 points adrift.
Its consistency in effort that wins us the title.
Loving the effect of the win on the supporters its like a wave positivity
Pundits all trying to spare their blushes now. In what universe are Spurs players better than Arsenal’s? Even back in the day they had very close imitators to our best players. Remember back in the day we had Henry, they had Frederick Kanoute…a cheaper less talented version of our great man. They had the talented Berbatov (if sulk), we had the character flawed but even better RVP (if a complete twat in the end) They are Arsenal’s great pretenders, a faded version down to their colourless jerseys. They have Dele Alli, we have true world class in Ozil. They have… Read more »
Hold your horses there, we’re still sixth behind spurs.
Do people not learn? One swollow doesn’t make the summer. We have results like this every season. Last year it was against Chelsea, the season before Utd, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
The most worrying thing is this part of the season we’re generally ok and the wheels don’t start to fall off until the winter and the new year whilst we’ve already lost 4 matches already and the poor form hasn’t yet come. I full expect us to finish 5th/6th come May
Swallow*
Wenger’s a massive hypocrite that whys there’s an issue. The sooner he’s gone the better
Hey I almost gave a f*ck about what the media thinks about our “offside” goals. Almost, as in, not at all.
I think it was a fifa world cup interpretation a long time ago where they said that there has to be daylight between the player receiving the pass and the rest.
that is so much more better than this ridiculous half a hand offside nonsense.
why then does a part of the ball being behind the goal line not similarly count as a goal.