How many times have you seen him like this? Wincing and snarling; complaining and arguing, unable to understand why things aren’t going his way.
All had been well in Arsene Wenger’s world. Arsenal were nicely positioned in second, players in good form and offered a chance to make a mark as this title race starts to take shape. Beat out of form Everton and things would have ticked along smoothly.
Arsenal crumbled in the heat of a Royal Blue furnace. They had not lost away from home in the Premier League since February 28 but that run came to a juddering halt as headers from Seamus Coleman and Ashley Williams gave Everton the right reward for 60 high-intensity minutes.
By the time he left Goodison, Wenger was open book once again. He bemoaned a referee’s decision but really he should be asking questions of his own team. This was careless, reckless almost. This defeat may prove so costly in the final reckoning.
on whether it was a free-kick and then a corner in the build-up to the goal…
Of course, it was not a corner – you see it from outside that it was not a corner. But I think we have to live with the wrong decision and it doesn’t explain why we do not head the ball after you know.
“But I am really disappointed because Clattenburg was in a really good position to see that they headed the ball on and it’s not the first time we are unlucky with this decision this season. Overall, I do not want to speak about the referee too much, it’s not my problem.
on whether Arsenal allowed the game to get away…
No, I think we have to look at ourselves. We lost the game because I feel we started well and after that maybe we lost a bit of urgency because we were a bit too comfortable and then Everton made it very physical. Overall, I believe that from then on it disturbed our game and we created less flow going forward. In the end, we unfortunately didn’t take our chances or two. We didn’t create too many but we had clear-cut chances in the game that we didn’t take. After that you can be caught away from home on a corner like that.
on whether his side need to learn from the defeat…
We have been nine months unbeaten away from home so you have to take that a little bit with a distance as well. You can lose football games, especially in an atmosphere like that and especially as well when you play so many games.
“We played five of the six games away from home, we had to play the Champions League on Tuesday, we had a difficult game on Saturday. We have to come here straight away again on Tuesday, I think Champions League teams have a little bit of a more difficult schedule.
on whether Everton’s aggression was too much to handle…
A little bit, yes. They made the game very physical, they defended well – you have to give them credit. They played a cup game here, that is a big difference with what I saw recently from them. So they did fight for every single ball. I don’t think they can repeat that in every single game, but they did here.
on whether McCarthy did anything to Ozil at half-time…
He was very physical today, McCarthy. But it’s down to the referee you know, I cannot interfere too much in that. The referee has to make the game respected.
