RONALD KOEMAN WAS unhappy that Arsene Wenger blamed a mistake by referee Mark Clattenburg for Arsenal’s 2-1 loss to Everton, claiming that the Gunners boss is using the official as an excuse.
Arsenal missed the chance to go top of the Premier League on Tuesday as they surrendered a one-goal lead against an Everton side who had Phil Jagielka sent off in the closing minutes.
Alexis Sanchez’s deflected free-kick had Arsenal on course to leapfrog leaders Chelsea only for Wenger’s team to suffer their first league defeat since the opening weekend of the season.
While he had no issue with Seamus Coleman’s equaliser before the break, the French manager felt the officials missed a touch off Dominic Calvert-Lewin before awarding the corner that led to Ashley Williams’ headed winner in the 86th minute.
Of course it was no corner. You could see it from our side that it was no corner,” Wenger told the media.
“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.
I think I’m really disappointed because Clattenburg was in a really good position to see that play and he gave the ball out, and it’s not the first time we’ve been unlucky with decisions this season.
“Overall I don’t want to speak about the referee too much, it’s not my problem.”
However, Everton manager Koeman reacted to Wenger’s post-match comments by claiming his opposite number had a habit of blaming defeats on officials.
‘I’m not surprised at Wenger’s comments. It’s the third time in a row I have won against Arsenal at home, and three times in a row it was about the referee,” he told reporters at the post-match press conference.
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GAA don’t care about anything but the airgead
The CPA proposals are not realistic. The month of April for Club fixtures? 1. It’s right in the business end of the National leagues. 2. Clubs aren’t and shouldn’t be ready for championship at that time of year. The finals are not until October.
The club finals work well on St Patricks day. It gives them the publicity and spotlight that they deserve. The alternative as proposed is to play them in late November/December. That’s not acceptable imo.
@Tim Dawson: club leagues should be started in early/mid February and ran off every week (or pretty much every week) which would have most leagues ran off by the end of April. Semi finals and finals to be ran off and completed by May/June. Club championships can then be started in April, not sure why you think this is too early as every club will be training since January? Not sure why if you start a champing April you couldn’t have it completed early August at the latest, which would allow provincials and all ireland series played out before the end of October.
Have a rigid fixture list in place and lose this nonsense of having 3/4 week gaps between games.
@Robert Callaghan: hem! Because there is also the intercounty league and championship and clubs will not play without their county players. The national league is played in April. That’s why you can’t have club championship then. Or are we now talking about punishing the county player for being better and flogging them to death?
@Tim Dawson: grand, start it in May then, or move National Leagues to March and get rid of the O’Byrne/McKenna cup preseason comps to freely time. The General point being that we have less gaps between games and a rigid calendar. The whole thing from intercounty down needs to be restructured because it’s broken.
Are you happy then to leave the fixture system the way it is and ignore the overwhelming opinion of club players? For what, because the club championship final has to be played on St. Patrick’s Days because it always has?