Arsene Wenger is still fuming over referee Mike Dean’s decision to send off Gabriel and leave Diego Costa on the field during our 2-0 loss against Chelsea last weekend, but insists he won’t be making all his feelings known to the FA, as reported by the Daily Star.
Wenger claims that the FA reversing Dean’s decision does little to repair the damage, and suggests it’s a case of too little too late.
The retrospective ban to Costa doesn’t change the fact that we lost all three points to one of our fiercest Premier League rivals, and Wenger believes only 5% of the damage has been repaired by the FA’s u-turn.
He was clearly still furious about Dean’s actions, and refused to go into it in too much detail when asked about it following our 2-1 win over Tottenham in the Capital One Cup.
“It just shows that they decided after the game what should have happened during the game,” Wenger said.
“They repaired five per cent of the damage. Instead of playing 11 against 11, we still had to play 10 against 11. It doesn’t make too much difference for us.
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“There are some things that were really surprising in this game, some incidents were really handled very lightly and not seriously, and it is better I don’t talk too much because I am still angry about it.
“It’s difficult to understand some of the situations in the game but I won’t make the point to the FA.
“I’m in a job where I sometimes have to swallow things that are not right.”
It’s obviously great to have Gabriel back and available, as he has proven himself a top quality option at the back. He has arguably shown that he should be ahead of Per Mertesacker in the pecking order, and has certainly given Wenger a selection headache for the upcoming games.
Something clearly has to be done about the state of refereeing though, as these types of game changing decisions are happening all too often. We need to be embracing technology – as many other sports have done – and weening out the disgraceful behaviour that has snuck into football as of late.
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We can’t afford to wait until a hugely controversial decision brings the game into question before making these changes, so something needs to be done now.
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