Wenger: Why I removed him
Arsene Wenger has revealed that fear of going down to ten men saw him make an unplanned change against Crystal Palace.
With 30 minutes left, Alex-Oxlade Chamberlain, who had surprisingly been dropped from the starting line-up, was brought on for Francis Coquelin as the Gunners protected a 2-1 lead.
Coquelin had already been booked by the referee and Wenger insists that pressure from the home crowd threatened to see the Frenchman sent off for another foul.
“Every time he intervened, the crowd were behind it and put the pressure on the referee. I felt that it was 60 minutes played, I didn’t want to take him off but I didn’t have much room,” Wenger said.
Arsenal’s much-praised defensive midfielder received some criticism on Sunday for not being cautious and lucky to escape a red card, but Wenger disagrees.
“I don’t believe so (that deserved to be sent off). He didn’t deserve a yellow card. The pressure was on to get him sent off. I had a hesitation at half-time but I felt that the pressure was already there. After the last foul I thought there was not much room for a decision.”
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That’s as biased an observation from Arsene as I have heard. No objective assessment of Coq’s fouls could arrive at any other conclusion other than the referee was overly generous. Both fouls were cynical and deserved yellow. Arsene is absolutely wrong on this one . Had this been a Palace player he would be besides himself . We deserved the win because we were the better side but it required a giant slice of luck.
Coq should be playing more in Bigger games and come in, in games like this wen we are leading and it’s 20mins remaining. Ramsey and Santi should play together centrally. We need our wide players like ox to start smaller games and kill the opposition off in the early stages of the game. The coach need to be more decisive. Look at Chelsea, or city, always playing their wide players. As for giroud olivier, I think he gives passes to opponents a lot in the name of one touch play. If arsene isn’t introducing a new striker then play Walcott, cus we don’t struggle and get nervous when theo is playing