Tottenham are time-wasters says Arsenal boss

Arsene Wenger was happy with the Arsenal players performance against Tottenham yesterday, despite their failure to turn dominance of possession into three points on the day. He admitted that it was defensive errors that gifted the Spuds the lead, but he seemed most upset about Tottenham’s time-wasting tactics all the way through the 90 minutes.

Wenger said after the game: “Yes, we lost the ball in our half. But I must give credit to my team because once again we came back and we put a huge effort in with a high workrate all together. It’s one of the few times that we’ve had so much possession against a Tottenham team since I’ve been here, but they defended well. You have to give them credit. Younes Kaboul and Jan Vertonghen did well, as well as Hugo Lloris. They took every second they could again, to make the game last as little as possible. I would like to see the referee deal with that in the proper way for once.

“They tried to make it as simple as possible – they tried to gain time. Slowing the game down is normal and I understand it completely. But the referee is there to make the flow of the game respected and I would like an English referee to do it for once. People pay money in the stands to watch football. It’s as simple as that. It’s only a respect of the people who pay money to watch football.”

When asked if the referee should punish time-wasting more often, Wenger was quite clear: “Book them straight away. When the keeper gets the ball and walks from one side of the goal to the other side to keep the ball out, give him a yellow card and then the next time he’ll take it where the ball is.”

In the second half, Arsenal had nearly 80% of the possession as Spurs sat back and soaked up the pressure, and to put it frankly they should have scored more than once in the time allotted. Spurs may have wasted time, but Arsenal wasted their goal-scoring chances!

Tags Kaboul Wenger Lloris

53 Comments

  1. This game was perfectly set out for Olivier Giroud. Crosses and corners were plenty apiece for AFC. He was sadly missed..

  2. No reason to go overboard guys obviously we shouldve won but didnt and thats football. Sometimes the result doesnt reflect the performance but were still undefeated and we need to look forward and concentrate on the next 2 games while fully getting behind the team.

    Were still in the thick of it, we get a result at chelsea and things are looking up and we can get a result at the bridge. COYG

    1. Yeah we have just seen the spirit of the “fans and supporters” after thumbing down of your moral raising confidence boosting comment?

  3. I feel we should be more direct at times especially in the last ten minutes of such games…too many sideways passes…its so frustrating

  4. And Sanchez shud have started…how do you leave out your best and inform player for a such an important game…Ozil shud have played behind Welbeck from the off…Wenger logic..smh

  5. I’ll say it again, we lack a proper DM and this is what essentially cost us the goal.

    Another thing is that we take too long to shoot. Too many of our players want to run the ball into the back of the net instead of having a crack. I have to hand it though to Lloris, he is one heck of a keeper and was a big pain in the butt yesterday.

    1. How did a lack of DM made us draw against the spuds? Do you hear yourself? We were totally unlucky and pressed them for most of the game as we should. The possesion and number of passes, corners etc says it all. Deal with it. I am also not happy with the result but when we end up with three injured players you can’t say we did not put a fight.
      Besides, that one on Wilshere was penalty clear as day.

      1. Unlucky???
        Spurs had the better chances.
        We only had about 3 clear cut chances one which we scored, we were awful till around the 65th min and should have been 2-0 down a decent counter attacking side would have destroyed us.
        Possesion, corners and Shots mean f*ck all, go and look at those stats for when real murdered bayern.

        1. I suggest you check the game stats. I am not putting possession because it doesn’t matter for me either. But I will put shots and blocked ones because these show exactly what Wenger says : Spuds came to defend and waste time.

          Shots : 16-6
          Target: 6-4
          Blocked : 7-0
          From outside the box : 8-2
          From inside the box : 8-4

          1. You watched the game.
            How many clear cut chances did we actually have??
            And how many did they have??
            Shots from distance mean fck all.
            They had 4 on target we had 6.

            1. Lloris stopped 3 balls having goal written all over them only in the second half. They had also 3 and one where Mertesacker actually headed to Szcesny in total. And these were only the shots. We had 15 corners all of them conceded from a very dangerous cross. Sorry, we were on them but they simply defended and wasting the time when they had the ball. Lennon is a speedy player yet no one heard of him after he entered until he got the yellow. Hopefuly we learned the lesson and know how to defend with average players as Spuds did. Chelsea game will tell. If we lose then all will say is Chelseas season and write us off. I actually like it like that.

  6. Sometimes, inserad of blaming someone, you just have to accept bad luck rather than having a scapegoat all of the time. We need to get behind the team fir Galastaraay. We had all of the possession, 15 corners and plenty of shots on on goal. 1 goal was juayt bad luck.

  7. Scum came with a game plan to fustrate us yesterday none of our players played bad and none played really great but was a good team performance but I think it suprised us how much lack of ambition they had even palace had more ambition wen they came to us their bus was even bigger then Chelsea’s COYG

    1. a problem we have been facing quite some time.

      but think about what was happening this time last year. Ramsey. Clucking Ramsey. the fans and the rest of the squad fed on Ramsey’s energy and we went on a winning rampage. He and ozil were just dominating the middle together and no team can keep him from scoring/assisting. Unfortunately we have not seen that same guy this season, I dunno if some pressure is getting to him. but we all know what Ramsey is capable of doing and he can make a huge difference to our squad this season. Time to start showing him more support and to somehow get him going.

      1. Ramsey has been good imo with foward thinking passes when he’s not scoring. We need to stop the attitude of sell him when a player isn’t on form.

        1. i never said he should be sold… and he has been good, i agree. i just believe that he will be the player to give us that extra push towards glory.

          sell Ramsey? are you out of your mind?

      2. @61 never again
        “Scum came with a game
        plan to fustrate us”
        Its hard enough with our own team
        frustratin us every week 🙂

  8. We will get destroyed by chelski next sun they are better and stronger in every department i think they could hit us for 4 or 5 again and then our season is over and just left fighting for usual top 4 finish. Know i will get loads of thumbs down but these will be from supporters that are pure dreamers and not realistic ones that know the truth!!

    1. How is your season over after 7 league games? Just bad luck against Spurs. Players will surely raise their game against this Chelsea team.

    2. Reckon it will be a lot closer
      this season at the Chavs.
      As Bully on Arsenalfantv.com said
      “Kill em kick em so they
      don’t ever get up”.

    1. he should start with ditching the suicidal 4-1-4-1 formation can you imagine fabregas vs flamini and per vs costa?!…

      1. Costa gona make mince meat out of Per…..

        Fab will tease and turn Flamini inside out….

        its over before it begins….

        hopefully we can keep the score low….

      2. The 4-1-4-1 formation is being played this season to put more players in the middle as we don’t have a dominant physical presence to play there other than Diaby. Teams were playing 3 against our 2 and we were getting massacred without a dm.

  9. Wenger is the real time waster….

    he refuse to buy players we need

    refuse to strengthen our weak positions….

    refuse to play the players at the right positions

    these have cost us games….

    every season is the same shit……

    1. Don’t givw me downvoted for common sense and logic but how has Wenger refused to strengthen weak positions? We spent 78 million quid net on 6 players that need to get used to each other and yhe last thing we need are negative ‘fans’ l ike you. Alexis has just joined the club and probably spoke no English like Ospina and needed time to settle in. We bid for players like Carvalho (24 million with clauses) plus Nastasic and Manolas didn’t want ro sit n on our bench and all you do is complain that Wenger is blind. People have said that Wenger should rotate a back 4 which is madness! Teams that rotate em concede the most. Chelsea played the same back 4 last season and conceded the least. Our back 4 conceded the least set pieces last season and maybe players need getting used to the new tactics.

    2. hafiz my mate , this might be ur best and wisest comment ever….
      totaly agree with u on this one.
      i saw the match highlights today though..
      we were not that bad.. but unlucky again..
      such a pitty 2 more points wasted..

    1. @Tony Montana
      I like your setup, very realistic, play 2 goalies and nobody leaves our half to keep the score down!!!

  10. very very disappointed….

    just feel like giving Wenger the hair dryer treatment…..

    this is real unacceptable….!!!

  11. Or swap welbeck and Sanchez both will work hard and track back same with ox on other flank know taking huge risk with diaby but with injuries plus looking for a more solid midfield def worth taking a chance with him its us that needs to park the bus!!

  12. Gibbs out of position for the goal not tucking round.
    We looked toothless at times yesterday still unbeaten invisibles 2 lol.

  13. so wenger is saying then that arsenal dont waste time !!!. what a deluded old hypocrite and fart is he . he can never see past his big nose when it concerns arsenal, he is now at the point of embarassing our great club each time he decides to open his dried up mouth.perhaps heis suffering from a loss of memory when he talks about other teams wasting time , be gone with you wenger .

  14. poor wenger says tothenham are time-wasters. 48 minutes in first half + 50 minutes in second half all equalls to 98 minutes on the field of play, your boys failed to do the damage over these long period on the field yet the old coach with old ideas stil opens mouth and call totenham time-wasters. What a stupid excuse! If you are too old, too wise, too unchanging, too stingy, too uncorrectable to lead our dearly club to where it belongs, then quit.

  15. and how many of those crosses and corners he used to convert to goals on consistent basis?. giroud is sadly missed in what way!

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