It was a football game that was as exciting as you’ll ever see, followed by a post match interview session with Arsene Wenger that was about as testy as humanly possible. Arsenal and Chelsea played an extremely entertaining 2-2 draw at the Emirates tonight, the ending of which featured many twists and turns.
Shortly after Arsenal’s Hector Bellerin leveled for the hosts, Blues striker Alvaro Morata blew a golden scoring opportunity that would have given the visitors all three points. It was immediately followed by a Davide Zappacosta shot that blasted off the crossbar.
“I would have committed suicide,” Wenger told his post match news conference when he was asked what he would have done had the shot gone in.
Video of the entire news conference is embedded above, and you can see Wenger’s throwaway line about committing suicide around the 6:30 mark. It made many in the room boisterously laugh, but don’t be surprised if the Frenchman catches some heat for this. These kind of remarks often don’t go over well.
The atmosphere of laughter towards the end of the session was in stark contrast to the prickliness of the beginning. Wenger took aim at the officiating, calling the penalty decision “farcical.” He also slammed the media, perceiving them as enablers of poor officiating.
“It was a great football game, we have shown great mental resources, I knew the last 20 minutes would be tough,” Wenger said.
“Because we have a big disadvantage with the schedule. And we got again a farcical decision on the penalty, but we knew that as well before, so we have to deal with that.”
“The referees get away with you, with the English press, always no matter what they do,” the Gunners boss continued.
“You have watched the game last night, you couldn’t read a line about it today. So nothing will change. So we have to deal with that and we have to live with that. A refereeing decision influenced the game, no? But nobody talks about it. So that means nothing will change.”
The Daily Mirror has more transcriptions from the Arsene Wenger session at this link.
Wenger made another analogy involving death just last Thursday, when he brought up Russian roulette and bullets to describe the career of managing. Wednesday saw him continue his attacks on both the officials and the schedule makers, a prevalent theme in his post match press opportunities on New Year’s Eve.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
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