Arrogant Arsène Wenger crosses the line
For a man who had spent the week complaining that his players are subjected to over-the-top physical intimidation, Arsène Wenger appeared to have no trouble laying a hand on fourth official Martin Atkinson at the Stadium of Light yesterday.
Sunderland’s Darren Bent had just slammed home an equaliser in the fifth minute of stoppage time, only four had been signalled, and so the Arsenal manager wasn’t happy. His latest bout of righteous indignation was just around the corner.
“If you have a watch, you can control. It's as simple as that,” sniffed Wenger post match, presumably tapping his wrist and glaring at his interviewer.
“It was outside the four minutes. I know the referee can give more than four, it's a minimum of four minutes.”
Correct Arsène, you’ve just solved your own problem, but that doesn’t justify the ugly shove on Atkinson on the Stadium of Light touchline.
The Arsenal boss would have been immensely frustrated. His side hadn’t played well, had scored a fluke goal, but they appeared to be closing out the match in a comfortable fashion. Correctly reduced to 10 men due to Alex Song’s persistent fouling throughout the afternoon – Wenger didn’t agree – Arsenal had passed up the opportunity to seal the points when Tomas Rosicky blazed a penalty over the bar, yet they still seemed set for the three points that would have taken them top of the table.
Then Bent struck – fifteen seconds into the fifth minute of stoppage time for those neurotic French managers who were counting – but instead of focusing on the defensive uncertainty from Gallic dilly-dalliers Sebastien Squillaci, Gael Clichy and Laurent Koscielny that led to the latest of late equalisers, Wenger preferred to take out his frustration on the blameless Atkinson. In this week of all weeks, it didn’t look good.
If you listen to Wenger – whose side committed more fouls than their opposition yesterday – then no-one is allowed to tackle an Arsenal player. As a result, both referees and many in the media react with more sympathy towards the Gunners when someone does; at least that’s the opinion of a growing number of Premier League managers including Owen Coyle and Sam Allardyce – who’s never exactly the quietest when it comes to discussing matters that have nothing to do with him.
Whether or not that’s accurate is a debate for another day, but while there is certainly a grain of truth to the beliefs, a greater allegation to level at the Frenchman is his increasing levels of arrogance.
He doesn’t share a drink with the opposing manager post match, routinely stalks the touchline ready to disagree with any decision that goes against his team and – as yesterday showed – doesn’t appear to respect the new “Respect” guidelines put in place to govern relations between managers, players and officials.
If Wenger was half as intelligent as he is supposed to be – and this isn’t a reflection on his skills purely as a football manager, where he is easily one of the best that the English game has ever seen – then he’d realise what is going on here.
It is his increasing isolation from the rest of the football fraternity that is the main problem.
He sees Arsenal – and their brand of football – as being above everybody else, and as such creates an “us and them” mentality. Opposition managers and players have an extra incentive to try and stop them playing, and when there is an extra incentive then that is always likely to result in one thing. Those tackles that Wenger doesn’t like will become harder and more frequent.
Whether or not an FA charge is forthcoming for his Atkinson altercation – you’d expect one would already have been issued if he were a less high profile manager – Wenger might be wise to mellow out a little.
He might find that it benefits both him and his team.
Tags: