Arsene Wenger slammed Raheem Sterling for diving against Arsenal on Sunday, angering Alan Shearer.
The Gunner succumbed to a 3-1 loss at the hands of Manchester City yesterday, losing to the superior side on the day, but the manner of the loss seemingly angered Wenger.
The Frenchman is likely to be punished by the FA following his full-time rant about the officiating of the match, citing a number of decisions which went against his side, but Alan Shearer insists Wenger was wrong to chastise Sterling also.
“I think it’s totally wrong,” Shearer said.
“It’s one thing to deflect from his own team’s inadequacies and deficiencies, it’s another one to question someone’s integrity and be wrong.
“I think he owes Sterling an apology there. There’s no way that’s a dive and that’s a penalty.”
The penalty was not the only decision which angered Wenger however, with the Citizens closing the game out at 3-1 thanks to a goal which clearly looked offside, and replays proved there was in fact two players behind the last defender at the time the ball was played, including the receiver.
It was Wenger’s comments about Sterling which provoked the above reaction however, with Wenger accusing the winger of diving when he claimed: “We know that Sterling dives well, and he does that [win the penalty] very well.”
Were we hard done-by by the officials? Did we deserve a point for our performance? Did Sterling dive or is it too close to call?
it was a penalty but when you are old and senile you tend to talk crap so that will be wengers excuse.
Even if city didn’t get the penalty they would have still won the match. Had they not gone 2-0 up wenger would not have brought on lacazette so soon. Besides city could score at will. We never stood a chance.
And for all those wondering why alexis play striker. It was because it was his audition for city. The club wanted to showcase their showroom of players to man city, so that city would pay decent cash for him in jan..
Pep likes ramsey.I think ramsey is top quality. He just needs to be allowed to play. City would have already added ramsey, iwobi and kolasinac to their summer transfer target list.
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Remember Resource – it is rare to read sarcasm so close to the truth! As a supporter of the Arsenal for 55 years through highs and lows, I have never felt so frustrated at the direction of this great club.
When i saw the team sheet with ozil and xhaka i new the outcome, so i watched from the 80th minute onwards and was not surprised.few points,
1. Watching replays it was a clear penalty
2. Alexis thinks hes a Messi which is not true
3. Were down 3-1, and these guys back and side pass, no long balls to the box
4. Poor team selection, excuses for the result as always
Can someone just bring George Graham back just like bayern brought back Jupp H. and their doing quite well
Alexis did well…. He was there to drop deep and track back.. Basically Wenger wanted players to close down city quickly
But the bad part is that Ozil was the odd one out. People are berating Iwobi who did exactly what he was asked to do
Xhaka was the next weak link. . Besides this another mistake was to ask the defenders to constantly press the City attackers which was suicidal.
The pressing has to be done by your midfielders while the defenders have to constantly maintain their shape & keep it narrow at the back.
Monreal missed an interception which led to the 2v1 chance which Sterling missed. Basically if defenders miss their interceptions when fully committed, there is a big hole behind them…
That’s the error in our tactics… Not Alexis starting instead of Laca
In a nutshell Wenger intended to set out a team a to counter attack & press City but simply messed it up coz his defence & midfield did exactly the things that go against the fundamentals of counter attacking football.
Fans ignorant of this will naturally blame Alexis but like I said the real problem lies elsewhere.
The pressing and closing down game of the 2 teams was completely different. City’s was excellent and gave us a lot of problems. City often had time ans space to work in. Why … because Wenger has never given enough emphasis to how we play without the ball – which might be 50% of the game (or a lot more when we play a better team !)
Alexis losing the ball lead to the third offside goal. If I was Wenger I would have bench him until the end of the season. But then again, if I was Wenger I would have sold him in the summer.
And Mr. Cojones owes who an apology?
But he was right
Yes, see how his Cojones have got him playing for the three lion’s.
Off topic here but is anyone going to mention the number of empty seats at the emirates every game? Its even worse for Stan across the pond with his LA Rams team. The stadium less than half full and i mean less then half full. This has got to be affecting Arsenal football club big time
Off topic you say. Well , only in a strict sense, since the classless way that Wenger badmouths everything but his own faults is REALLY the topic- and blaming Sterling is what Wenger does; Sterling , the refs, bad luck,bad scheduling of fixtures bY the PL or FA(as appropriate), fan abuse and so on and so on, into senility and the asylum. “they’re coming to take me away, ha-ha, he-he, ho hoo, etc” Oh if only they would! Wenger is a huge embarrassment to our club , rather like the black sheep uncle at family parties is too and watching the remorseless mental decline of a once ground breaking and innovative manager is too painful to bear. My former adoration for him, many years ago now , has long turned into detestation , and in my nicer monments, pity too. I am cdetain many thousands feel thr same way. Some 60 years ago, I became an Arsenal fan and the then thrrd generation in my family to fall in love with this ground breaking , classy, “Arsenal way of behaving and doing things” great club. And for decades to follow, from the mid fifties, (in my case) that remained the case, despite only moderate league and cup positions, on the whole. Good players came and went with occasional honours(notably the 1971 double) but I was always proud to support the CLUB, not just the team, and with justification. We were owned and run by ethical people who were real fans. Until around a decade ago, when David Dein, a legendary fan and visionary successful vice chairman, who in practice ran the club(not the team of course) and the club was a proud and classy top world wide name, representing all that was good and honourable in football. One catastrophic day in 2007, everything changed for the worse. DD was forced out and betrayed by directors who sold out to Kroenke , betraying all the club stood for. Under Kroenkes malign influence, all the former good turned to mildew and filth. Wenger who had been a God, morphed, under the temptation of huge salary assurances and supreme power gifted to him by an owner and a board without honour and crucially, any understanding of modern football, into a tinpot dictator, ageing and descending into early onset dementia, rather like Robert Mugabe. I fervently wish, that I could shed this passion for our club, which is now cancerous from top to bottom of those in charge. I want to be free of this torment and find it incredible that I still suport and care for something whch I now roundly despise and detest, except on the field.
Wow you’ve been a fan for a very long time, seen a lot of changes. I’ve been a fan since 92… never have I been so frustrated as I have recently. I’d love to just forget all about football if I could but it’s a big part of my life….. plus I’ll always be a gooner! Argh!!!
In spirit(if you pardon the unintentional pun) I will join you in drinking to our formerly honourable club. We must hope and pray that the current cancerous people will be cut right out of Arsenal and honourable people , who know about and care about football, and ethics, installed in their place. After his latest rant – and in fact for a decade before it too – I am totally ashamed that we have Wenger, Kroenke, Chips Arrogant Keswick and snake oil Gazidis making self supporting decisions whilst shaming and embarrassing us fans; the ONLY ones who REALLY have Arsenal in our hearts and souls. If I were a very young starting to choose a club to support today, Arsenal would be nowhere even on the list to choose from. How can you love something but not like it, and for many years , without the dislike eventually killing your love? That is what I feel like now and have for some years past too.
It’s so depressing Jon……sigh…. when will it ever end?? Surely if we get stuffed by the spuds then he has to go!
Paradoxiically, I would not be at all surprised if we beat Spurs. They will likely be without both Dele Alli and Lloris, two key players. But beating Spuds will not change the position , except very short term. We need all the cancer cut right out of our club.
Jon, I respect a lot of your articles and most of the time you speak a lot sense, however you recently had a go at me for calling Alan Smith a Judas, an ex player whose berated and criticised our club at every opportunity ever since he began working for Sky Sports back in the nineties. Like you I’ve also been regular at Arsenal since the late fifties, the 5-4 defeat by the original Busby Babes being one of my first games at Highbury and after 25 years on the terraces and now still a present season ticket holder for 36 years I’d like to say to you I find your recent article comparing Arsene Wenger with Robert Magabe a bit hypicritical to say the least. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been a Wenger out man for several years but I certainly wouldn’t compare him to the Dictator Magabe.
No that’s right Robert Mugabe would have never left lacazette on the bench, I’m only joking of course, I think so many of us are so annoyed,depressed and frankly really jacked off we’re venting our frustrations and saying and doing things that aren’t in our nature, I know I have and that’s the real calamity of all this, a few old men have managed to divide our massive fan base in half, we all care about the Arsenal and have our own ideas of what’s going on and the saddest thing of all is it’s only going to get worse. EIE
Yes! Your comment perfectly sums up the frustrations of being an Arsenal fan in this money mad, honour nowhere, corporate era. Don’t get me wrong; I see no alternative to ethical capitalism, but the key word there is ETHICAL. And modern Arsenal doesn’t do ethical, sadly!
Well Kenny , It is good to hear from another long term fan. You and I go back to the same era and if I offended your sensitivities by comparison of Wenger to Robert Mugabe, then I certainly apologise. Of course all the football world knows that Wenger is not a true despot and a murderer and human of that evil. Of course not! But I use emotive language deliberately to make my point and I make no apology for saying that my prime object is to remove first Wenger, then Kroenke from our club. It looks as though Gazidis will be on his way, (hurray) ere long, from the many rumours. Nearly all our fans want Wenger gone; some today, as I do, some in Jan or season end. Others are resigned to waiting til his contract expires, mainly because they do not want to cause further upset, as they see it. I respect all those opinions. But I have seen no post at all saying they want Wenger to remain , after the present contract and I actually think the vast majority would have been glad/ delighted /relieved had he gone last summer, as a 3 in 4 years FA Cup winner but all wanted him gone. But he stayed, selfishly, though he knows full well Arsenal would be better off with a fresh start. I admit to trying to stir all fans into rising up against Wenger, the board and esp the owner. I am not able to do this by treating this, to us fans, vitally important matter as if I were talking while eating cucumber sarnies at the Vicars tea party. SO, TRULY SORRY TO YOU AND ANYONE I OFFEND but I intend to carry on in my quest to get the cancerous people out and honourable people in. And I have cancer myself, long term and wish no physical harm to anyone in sport, but I will carry on in this mode. And I stand by what I said about your Alan Smith and Judas comparison. This to me was also very offensive to a fine and honest commentator who always did right in his long career here. Unlike Wenger, Smith has never set out to hold Arsenals progress back. We are , by the way, allowed to disgree. After all we are not at an Arsenal AGM!
Apology accepted Jon and I’m 100% with you as for getting rid of the present regime. Oh for the old days when Dennis Hill-Wood was in charge, United, City and Chelsea were changing in corrugated iron changing rooms when we had palatial underfloor heated dressing rooms and Liverpool was a second division side.
And Tottenham never had a proper programme,just a piece of paper with the line up’s only
On a tangent Jon my son (he’s 4) asked me why he should support Arsenal, I said “well because I do,you’re granddad does and your great granddad did” I was going to say its because of the values and principles that our club has but then I stopped myself because I have no idea what they are anymore other than paying a has been manager and over hyped players a fortune for non achievement while being owned by a majority shareholder that has no interest in the club other than as a business and having a board that view the fans as the gift that keeps on giving. Do you know what the values that Wenger keeps on banging on about are?
A heart rending dilemma for you and your son. Naturally you want what is best football wise for your son but how can you with honour recommend our club, with the current people in charge. I was also about 4/5 when my Dad first took me to Highbury and I doubt any such dilemma ever entered his mind. My family are now into fifth generation Gooners – my late Grandad used to go to Woolwich by tram and I well remember him telling me of those days. A totally different and I must say, a more honourable and clean football world back then. Those teams however would not live if playing against their modern equivalents but they could hope their heads up high and be proud they gave their all. I only wish we could say the same of modern footballers, noit merely at our club. Huge, disgustingly gross salaries and corporate doublespeak have done for our top level sport and IMO ruined it by making it into big business. I sometimes feel like an old fogie, believing as I still do, in honour and truth. Sad beyond words to have to write this truth Simon, as I personally see it.
Oh no Jon it’s more than fine, he’s a Gooner and he’ll learn to realise a football club is more than it’s current owners, manager and players. I’m only 3rd generation (my family started watching after the move to Islington and moved out from Islington into the suburbs after the war but carried on going to Highbury) but I do agree and feel that the disconnect some fans feel with the club isn’t going to go away any time soon
Never ever have I seen Wenger take blame for defeat. Always someone else’s fault, every time.
When we get lucky with refereeing, “he didnt see it”.
This guy just cannot lose inside his head. Must be frustrating to play chess with.
“Check mate”
“No, it is not”
“Yes,it is!”
“I didn’t see it”
Seems like nobody actually watch and analyse the game and the strategy of our game….
What?
Arsenal have a strategy?
I don’t consider hoping for the best to be a strategy.
Wenger, strategy hahahahahahaha
Simon, Surely you mean”Wenger strategy, weep, weep, weep.”
it’s a penalty any second, any minute any hour,any day of the week month or year
Forwards now work penalties to deceive the referee …. as in this case. The attacker causes a collision by putting his body where the defender is bound to impact it … throws himself down … and appeals. Technically the ref. had to award a penalty but the incident was caused by the attacker NOT the defender. Monreal ran in a straight line, Sterling did not. Watch it again.
Yes, some forwards DO INDEED DIVE and engineer positionS where the defender has no choice but to run into them. But although Sterling and some of our players too have form for this, on THIS occasion Monreal ran into him , not the other way around. Blaming refs and opponents “skulduggery” FOR OUR REGULAR AWAY DEFEATS esp to top teams, is what Wenger always does. Why lower yourself to his level, Chris! Seriously, WHY?
Did Sterling also force Monreal to push his leg down on his calf pushing his foot into the ground? How did he engineer that? Clever this Stering chappy
Desperate men do desperate things..
Arsene Wenger will never accept the cold truth, never!
He will make all the excuses possible. Hell, it’s bordering embarrassing now!
Delusional, hypocritical and irrational just about sums him up i’m afraid. The man must have lost his sanity or simply in denial of his own failings (and the teams)!?
Could you imagine Arsene Wenger managing Network Rail?
Well, yes I can imagine him running Network Rail for a FEW hours, that is until all the trains smash into one another , killing everyone. I would not put this delusional, embarrassing man in charge of even a whelk stall!
No one in this site is an actual Arsenal fan , everyone is bashing Wenger and not the media or refs ! it’s very pathetic ! i’m a Wenger Out person myself but the way people are talking about Arsenal in this site is more like they hate Arsenal rather than just wenger !
I’m not gonna come to this site anymore.
Nonsense , you silly man. Can you not see that we all LOVE our club and want what is bad for it, WENGER, removed? It is pointless asking him ever so nicely if he would please mind retiring! We have no choice but to be scathing and make all those cancerous people who run our club, WELL AWARE of how we hate him and them. Live in the real world man, not in Enid Blyton land!
I also hate the fact that Wenger has so little class making libellous accusations to try to cover up his own incompetance.
Ivan, A true point and were I Raheem Stereling I would be taking Wenger to court for slander and winning huge finabncial damages. I hope he actually does this , as he would be certain to win. Only this sort of action might prevent Wengers legendary petty behaviour and spiteful excuses for his own incompetance. The spineless football authorities will perhaps give him a token fine and a slap on the wrist, since they too are complicit in keeping the game from becoming honest and ethical. The best example of this is how refs are constantly allowed to be berated, shouted at and scorned by players. In rugby union or cricket, players would be severely punished and would certainly learn better. IN GOLF , cheats would be ostracised by other players and banned , possibly for life , But football lingers in the gutter, kept there by slanderous and spiteful statements from Wenger, among a multitude of others too.
I don’t think you understand what slander is! Sterling has been known to dive to create a foul from thin air, and this was probably one situation in which he let himself go to the ground as soon as he felt Nacho’s Shoulder. The ref had no other choice but award him a penalty, no matter how infuriating this was.
Also, it is just plain ridicule to suggest that Referee should not be held accountable when making (clear) mistakes! Football is a business, referees should perform or find a new job
It was a trip not a barge. They have shown it 100’s of times today. Watch again you Wenger apologist. And it IS libellous if you say it was a deliberate dive and it it was a trip. Get it right fella.
Totally agree Jon
Ha, l have read a lot of comments saying it was a penalty. But I want you to know that Arsenal will not get that kind of decision in a shoulder to shoulder challenge, it was a 50/50 which the referee would’ve signal play on, this also affected his judgement on the third goal. I think it is time for Video Assistant referee VAR. City were truly better but it’s not good to be winning in such manner. I think the referee is against Wenger and not Arsenal.
If there is VAR it’s still a definite penalty you silly sausage! Every pundit, ex Ref and un bias Arsenal fan will tell you the same. If there was VAR Arsenal would have coincided an earlier penalty and had a player sent off as maybe Monreal should have been for denying goal scoring opportunities. But Silva would be offside meaning the score would be ……. oh 3-1! Well probably more as you’d be down to 9 or 10 men, useless these officials eh?
It all evens itself out over a season. So for example what about the West From game? We got a dubious one then. Did Wenger complain about the refs decision that went for us? Of course not because he is totally without any class. Officials do their best. They will always get some wrong but they showed the penalty 100’s of times today and all that have seen the replay say penalty. The offside was wrong marginally but credit the officials for getting the penalty right and berate Wenger for his embarrassing comments.