Adebayor ‘never wanted to leave Arsenal’
• Togolese striker claims ‘Arsène didn’t want me anymore ‘
• Predicts hostile reception at Emirates Stadium on 24 April
The Manchester City striker Emmanuel Adebayor knows his return to the Emirates Stadium will be “hell” but says he never wanted to leave Arsenal.
“Arsène Wenger can never say that I wanted to leave,” Adebayor told the French television channel Canal Plus. “It was because Arsène didn’t want me any more.”
Adebayor’s move to City was shrouded in mystery, with reports of dressing-room bust-ups. The Arsenal manager has always maintained the forward asked to leave.
“The most annoying thing about the whole story is when people say I wanted to leave for the money,” said Adebayor.
“If I had really wanted to, I would have left two years ago for the money and gone to Milan or Barcelona.
“I read that it was me who was the troublemaker in the changing room. That’s unbelievable. If one player can say that I, Emmanuel Adebayor, spoke badly to anyone in the changing rooms then I’d honestly like to know who it is. It has never happened in my life.
“If Arsène has a big heart we can go on a TV show to have a debate and he will never say I told him I wanted to leave the club. He’ll never say that. He knows it full well.”
Adebayor spent three and a half years in north London before moving to City for £25m last summer.
“It will be 90 minutes of hell,” he said of City’s scheduled trip to the Emirates on 24 April. “The fans will boo me, insult me, because, until now, they haven’t understood why I left. I’m the bad guy.”
The Togo international caused a row in September when he ran the length of the Eastlands pitch to celebrate a goal in front of Arsenal fans.
He said: “I shouldn’t have done that [the celebration] but we are all human. I made a mistake, but who doesn’t?”
Adebayor, who scored twice in City’s 4-2 win in that match, was also found guilty of violent conduct after an incident involving a former team-mate, Robin van Persie.
Wenger angry at tackle that caused Ramsey horror injury
• Midfielder suffers horrific injury
• Arsenal come back to win match
The Arsenal manager, Arsène Wenger, was upset at the tackle that caused Aaron Ramsey an horrific injury during his side’s 3-1 win at Stoke.
Ramsey was injured in the second-half in a tackle with Ryan Shawcross, who was sent off and left the pitch in tears after seeing the extent of Ramsey’s injury.
“I’m not very happy with the tackle,” said Wenger. “We know what we are expecting, a battle everywhere, but we have now lost three players on horrendous tackles and I refuse to believe it’s always coincidence.
“I don’t believe it when you are hit as many times as we are. I just believe in what I see and when you see a player getting injured like that it’s not acceptable. Commitment is right, but that is not right.”
Wenger added that he expected Ramsey to be out for a lengthy period: “I’m very proud and of course very sad because of what happened,” said the Arsenal manager. “We know it’s a bad injury. We have to transfer him to London tonight to see if he needs emergency surgery. We don’t know how long he will be out but it’s certainly long term.”
The game was level at 1-1 when the incident occurred but Arsenal somehow regrouped and scored two late goals to secure victory. “We could see the team was shocked but this team is very strong mentally and we will do it for Ramsey as well because he deserves it,” Wenger added.
Cesc Fábregas was saddened at yet another serious injury suffered by a team-mate: “In five years I’ve seen three of them, Abou [Diaby], Eduardo and now Aaron. What can I say? It’s difficult.
“You could say we are not protected enough. We are sometimes victims. I’m not complaining, football is like that.
“There are things that are a little too much but three times in five years is a little bit too much.”
Martin O’Neill ridicules Arsène Wenger’s dismissal of League Cup
• Martin O’Neill accuses Arsenal manager of hypocrisy
• Aston Villa manager taunts rival over 2006 Wigan loss
Martin O’Neill has reignited his feud with Arsène Wenger by strongly disputing the Arsenal manager’s claim that winning the League Cup does not qualify as a trophy and accusing the Frenchman of hypocrisy.
The Villa manager, who has lifted the League Cup twice as a player with Nottingham Forest and twice as a manager with Leicester City, reminded Wenger that four years ago he was so desperate to win the trophy that he picked his strongest available side for the semi-final second leg against Wigan Athletic, when Thierry Henry made his first appearance in the competition in more than six years alongside a host of other stellar names.
O’Neill suggested Wenger had conveniently forgotten about his approach to the Wigan match when he recently disputed the significance of tomorrow’s Carling Cup final between Manchester United and Aston Villa at Wembley. The Arsenal manager said: “It’s very important that we win something, we’re here to win trophies, but it depends on what you call trophies. Is it the Champions League, the Premier League, the League Cup? If you win the League Cup you cannot say you win trophies, for me.”
Wenger’s comments, coming on the back of his criticism of Villa’s style of play last month, have further antagonised O’Neill and prompted the Northern Irishman to issue a robust defence of the League Cup on the eve of the final. O’Neill pointed to the titanic battle between Manchester United and Manchester City in the semi-final this season, as well as Chelsea’s decision to “treat the competition with the utmost respect”, as evidence that Wenger is alone in believing that the League Cup has no status in English football.
“I think that if you had seen or experienced any of the two semi-final matches from Manchester City and Manchester United, if somebody had said to any of those two football clubs that this trophy is not a trophy, then I think you would have got short shrift,” said the Villa manager before recalling Wenger’s selection policy for the tie with Wigan in 2006, which Arsenal lost on away goals.
“I know that the Arsenal manager has been pretty scathing all the time in the League Cup. It would be interesting to see the team that he played against Wigan Athletic in the semi-final [second leg] of the competition. I don’t know it off hand but I would have said that it was very, very strong. So when it suits, then it’s a great competition. And when it doesn’t suit you, then it’s not. That’s not my view. It’s an important competition.
“Manchester United, I’m quite sure, will field as strong a side as they possibly can on Sunday so I think with all their games that they have – they’re contesting the Premier League, they’re in the Champions League again – and they will be treating this game with the utmost respect. Now if Manchester United and Chelsea can treat this competition with the utmost respect then that would really be enough for me.”
Arsenal 2-0 Sunderland | Premier League match report
After Arsenal’s casual, at times lackadaisical, win against Sunderland Arsène Wenger was asked if, in view of Manchester United’s defeat at Everton, he thought his team were back in contention for the title. “We are,” he replied, “but all we can do is win our games and hope that others drop points.”
Should Arsenal lose at Stoke City this weekend, having already gone out of the FA Cup there, their manager will doubtless be asked if he believes they are no longer serious contenders and could give an almost identical and equally plausible answer. This is the nature of the present contest. It may be Chelsea’s to lose but the jostling for position behind them is likely to continue for a while yet.
With Manchester United at home to West Ham tomorrow, Arsenal will probably have to play catch-up at Stoke. That said, Arsenal have completed their season’s fixtures against United and Chelsea. As Wenger said: “The top two will drop points because they play each other. And there are plenty of teams against whom you can drop points.”
Like Sunderland, for example. Saturday’s defeat extended their barren league run to 13 games without a win since beating Arsenal at the Stadium of Light in November, and Steve Bruce’s team should have been beyond help before half-time. Yet a combination of sloppy finishing and erratic defending by Wenger’s side kept them in the contest with hope that they might get something out of it.
Arsenal’s second goal came from Cesc Fábregas’s penalty in stoppage time after he had been brought down by Fraizer Campbell, Nicklas Bendtner having put them ahead just before the half-hour, and their narrow lead wobbled more than once as Sunderland wasted chances to bring the scores level, most notably when Kenwyne Jones dragged an excellent chance wide.
“When you come to Arsenal you’ve got to take those,” Bruce said. “We’ve had more chances today than I’ve had coming here in 10 years as a player or a manager. It’s disappointing that we haven’t taken something from it. This last two weeks we just haven’t had a rub of the green.” The way they are heading Sunderland may shortly need the rub of a magic lamp.
Arsenal’s more immediate concern is staying in the Champions League and Saturday’s performance, slick at times, slack at others, suggested that the return leg of their tie against Porto at the Emirates a fortnight tomorrow will be a close-run thing. Following last Wednesday’s 2-1 defeat in the Estádio do Dragão Wenger made six changes yet the frailty of Arsenal against pace through the middle, combined with a well-timed pass, andseems to be there whoever is playing. That said, they will trust that William Gallas’s calf strain clears up in time. As much goes for, likewise Andrey Arshavin’s hamstring and Abou Diaby’s knee.
With Robin Van Persie a long-term casualty, Arsenal will continue having to make do in attack and the likes of Arshavin and Diaby, along with Fábregas and Thomas Vermaelen, are always likely to come up with a goal. Bendtner, however, has yet to fall into this category. His goal against Sunderland was a two-yard tap-in after Emnanuel Eboué had advanced from the right against a retreating, confused defence and found him at the far post. Otherwise Bendtner was the usual lofty presence let down by clumsiness at crucial moments, like the guardsman who drops his rifle when ordered to present arms.
Eboué rather stole the show in circumstances which should have offered Theo Walcott a huge opportunity to impress the watching England manager, Fabio Capello, against the sluggish left side of Sunderland’s defence. But while Capello would have been impressed by the way Walcott frequently sped past George McCartney, the continued timidity of the winger’s crosses may have left him with doubts unresolved. Then again, this used to be said about the young Ryan Giggs: good pace, no end-product.
Last season Eboué was taken off to spare him the Emirates’ jeers but Saturday’s performance confirmed the Ivory Coast player’s restoration. “The people who booed him a year ago love him now,” said Wenger, who may some day learn to love Swedish referees.
Arsène Wenger steps up attack on ‘incompetent’ referee Martin Hansson
• Arsène Wenger details five ‘wrong’ decisions over Porto goal
• Arsenal manager says corruption still a problem in Europe
Arsène Wenger has risked the wrath of Uefa by mounting a renewed attack on the Swedish referee who presided over Arsenal’s defeat in Porto on Wednesday, claiming Martin Hansson is “incompetent or dishonest, I prefer to think incompetent” and unfit to work at the highest level.
Although Wenger stressed that he believed Hansson was guilty of nothing more sinister than ineptitude, he went on to claim that he has been a victim of corruption in the past and hinted that the governing body has not done enough to eradicate it from European football.
The Frenchman’s main gripe with Hansson relates to the mistakes he claims the referee made before Porto’s winning goal on Wednesday. Hansson awarded Porto an indirect free-kick after judging that Lukasz Fabianski had picked up a deliberate backpass from Sol Campbell. As Arsenal players disputed that decision the referee handed the ball to Porto’s Rúben Micael, who passed it to Falcao to score. Wenger said he sought the opinion of other referees after the match, who he claims confirmed that Hansson had made “five technical mistakes in that one moment”.
“For me the backpass is accidental but he has judged it is voluntary. OK, we have a difference there; I can accept that,” said Wenger. “But afterwards he makes so many technical mistakes that are not linked to judgment.”
“I wanted to understand what happened on the free-kick, so I got some information from professional referees,” he continued. “They explained to me that he made five mistakes. First, he did not give the free-kick at the point where it happened. Then he was not in the right position. Then he did not put the players at the proper distance. Then he should never have given a quick free-kick once he is in the middle of the action. And finally he didn’t raise his arm until after the free-kick was taken, which is too late. These are technical points, so I believe he is incompetent. He has shown he is not up to it.
“I never criticise referees. I say just on that point he was incompetent. You see the referee take the ball and say, ‘OK, score a goal.’ How can you be a referee with common sense and give goals away like that in a competition like the Champions League? It makes a complete joke of the competition. But we were naive too, I don’t deny that.”
Wenger called on Uefa to clarify the criteria it uses for selecting officials, saying that this was particularly important in view of past incidents of corruption around the continent. “A lot of things have to be clarified at Uefa,” he said. “They have to be much more open about how they rate referees. Nobody knows really how or why they name them or how they rate them. The history of refereeing in Europe over the last 30 years is not very good for football. Too much has gone on.”
European football has been afflicted by many incidents of corruption. One of the best known surfaced in Portugal in 2004. Following investigations into the so-called Golden Whistle scandal officials from two clubs, Porto and Boavista, were found to have bribed or attempted to bribe referees. Porto were subsequently docked six points in 2008 and banned from competing in the 2008-09 Champions League, though the latter sanction was overturned on appeal.
Wenger himself was the victim of corruption in France in 1993, when his Monaco team finished runners-up in the league behind Marseille, who were subsequently stripped of their title and demoted after it emerged that the club’s president, Bernard Tapie, had mastermindeda plot to pay players from an opposing team, Valenciennes, to throw the last match of the season. Wenger’s first-team coach at Arsenal, Boro Primorac, was the manager of Valenciennes at the time. No one from any other club was implicated in that scandal. Wenger yesterday revealed, however, that he has managed a team in which players have been corrupted by opponents. “I’ve seen much worse [than Hansson's alleged mistakes] in my life, my own players were bought,” he said. “I didn’t become paranoid. You have to trust people in my job.”
Wenger refused to identify the team or players that he believes were bought, saying, “I do not want to come out about the past.” Asked whether he believes corruption is still prevalent in Europe, he grinned and said: “In my job you always have to prove what you say. I don’t have anything to say. That’s good work for you to do. You can make good inquiries, it’s a very interesting subject.”
Officials were not the only object of Wenger’s ire. He also took aim at Porto’s players, accusing them of systematically fouling Cesc Fábregas. “They were rotating fouls [on him],” said Wenger. “I was a little bit concerned that he would lose his temper because he was quite provoked. To be targeted a little bit, and be under pressure, I think he handled it remarkably well.”
Arsène Wenger demands Uefa overhaul the way it selects referees
• Wenger still angry with Martin Hansson’s display at Porto
• Manager accuses Swedish official of not being competent
Arsène Wenger believes Uefa needs to overhaul the way it chooses referees after accusing Sweden’s Martin Hansson of not being competent. The Arsenal manager insists Hansson was wrong to allow Porto’s second goal against his side in the 2-1 Champions League defeat in Portugal on Wednesday after giving an indirect free-kick in the penalty area following a touch by Sol Campbell after which goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski picked the ball up, with the referee deeming there had been a back-pass.
“It has to be clarified first of all how they [Uefa] nominate referees for games,” Wenger said. “They have to be much more open on how they rate their referees. Nobody knows really how they name their referees.
“Where is the ranking of the referees? I believe too much has gone on in the last 30 years. What has happened is not good for football.”
When asked if Hansson, the referee who missed Thierry Henry’s notorious handball in France’s World Cup qualifier against the Republic of Ireland, should be refereeing at Champions League level, Wenger said: “I don’t know. Usually I trust the referee. But he missed a 100% penalty on [Tomas] Rosicky. That is a judgment in a second that I can accept. For me, the back-pass of Sol Campbell was accidental.
“He has judged it is voluntary. That I can accept. Technically so many mistakes. His body position. Where he stands is completely wrong at the moment he gives a free-kick.
“He takes the ball from Lukasz Fabianski. They score. What he does doesn’t make common sense and is against the rules of the referees. So when a guy makes so many technical mistakes that is not even linked to judgment, I believe he is not competent.”
Wenger added: “I trust the referees to do their job and to do it well. I never ask who the referee is before a game but in this case I cannot say that he made everything right because he was wrong. It’s not my job to judge is he good enough or not, I just feel in that game he has shown he is not competent.”
Wenger, meanwhile, has backed the under-fire Fabianski but refused to say whether he would play against Sunderland tomorrow. Arsenal’s first-choice goalkeeper, Manuel Almunia, was due to have a fitness test on his injured finger today.
“We have to show support to him [Fabianski] and solidarity,” the manager said. “It is a good opportunity for us to show that we are a special club and that we have a special togetherness and that we win and lose as a team. I believe in the keepers I have.”
Arsène Wenger calls on Premier League to safeguard Portsmouth
• Frenchman says club should be given ‘minimum payment’
• ‘A team cannot stop competing in the middle of the season’
Arsène Wenger has called on the Premier League to provide Portsmouth with a “minimum payment” to ensure they complete their remaining fixtures this season. A high court hearing on 1 March will decide on a winding-up petition issued by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs against the club and Wenger believes it would damage the integrity of the division if that led to their instant dissolution.
“The Premier League must guarantee a minimum payment,” he told the Arsenal magazine. “You cannot pretend you are in the best league in the world if a team stops competing in the middle of the season. It’s impossible.
“I think they [Portsmouth] have at least to play until the end of the season. It would be completely unfair on the rest of the league otherwise. The league would not make sense any more if Portsmouth did not complete their fixtures.”
Wenger says he is “pessimistic” about Portsmouth’s chances of coming through their current financial crisis, the latest twist of which saw the club yesterday ask the Premier League to allow them to sell players outside the transfer window.
“I worry for their future,” added the Frenchman. “It’s terrible that some clubs will go out of business because it’s part of the history of the country.”
Video: Arsène Wenger furious at referee’s mistake
Arsenal’s manager, Arsène Wenger, accuses the Swedish referee Martin Hansson of giving Porto a goal but Porto’s manager Jesualdo Ferreira says the goal was fair
Wenger blames defeat on referee’s ‘massive mistake’
• Arsenal manager claims official’s blunder ‘gave’ Porto a goal
• Campbell’s back-pass was ‘accidental’ and free-kick ‘laughable’
A furious Arsène Wenger accused the Swedish referee, Martin Hansson, of “giving Porto a goal” last night with the Frenchman incensed that Porto had been allowed to take a quick free-kick inside the Arsenal penalty area after Lukasz Fabianski’s handled the ball.
The visitors’ Polish goalkeeper had inexplicably picked up Sol Campbell’s back-pass – though Wenger disputed whether the defender’s touch had been deliberate – and, in his disappointment, had given Hansson the ball. The referee duly handed it to Rúben Micael who touched it for Falcao to score, with Wenger describing that decision as “laughable”, though he overlooked the fact that Thierry Henry had taken a controversial quick free-kick to score against Chelsea at Highbury back in 2004 with Wenger’s blessing.
“First of all, it was an accidental back-pass,” said the Arsenal manager. “The ball hit Sol and it was not on purpose. It has to be intentional to be a free-kick, so it’s difficult to understand why the referee interpreted it this way.
“Then, for an indirect free-kick, if you award it five metres from goal and then allow a team to take it quickly, how can you defend that?
“It’s better than a penalty. You cannot defend that. It was a massive mistake. It’s laughable. Has he ever played football? I don’t know. If you cannot build a wall then you cannot ever defend an indirect free-kick. You go from a situation where there is no free-kick, to one taken quickly where they is no chance to defend or organise. The referee gave them a goal. It’s difficult to understand, but maybe I’m not intelligent enough.”
• Dominic Fifield’s match report: FC Porto 2-1 Arsenal
• Amy Lawrence: Keeper undoes Campbell’s nous
• David Pleat: Ebb and flow football at its best
• In pictures: All the best Champions League images
While he was scathing of Hansson – the referee who had awarded William Gallas’s goal against the Republic of Ireland in the World Cup play-off in November despite Henry’s handball in the build-up – Wenger preferred not to criticise the error-strewn performance of his 24-year-old goalkeeper, Fabianski, who was culpable in Porto’s opening goal. “It is difficult to swallow a defeat like that,” Wenger said. “The goals we conceded were difficult to imagine in a Champions League game.”
However, the Arsenal captain, Cesc Fábregas, admitted that his team’s defending had been substandard, leaving their continued involvement in the competition in doubt.
“The goals were schoolboy goals to give away,” Fábregas said. “When you let in goals like that, I’m sorry, you cannot go anywhere. What can you do? I have no complaints about the second goal – I’d have done the same, myself – but after that we did not stand up to them. Sometimes we’re not strong enough to lift ourselves. We were too soft.”
“But we are still in the tie,” Wenger said. “We have an opportunity to turn it around. There was a strong penalty appeal on Tomas Rosicky that was turned down, and the repeated fouls in midfield [on Fábregas] were not punished enough. They played well, but we have a chance to overturn it in the second game. I’m convinced we will do that.”
Referring to Campbell he said: “Sol scored an important goal which can prove to be vital now in qualification. We will give everything in the second game at home.”
Porto’s coach, Jesualdo Ferreira, had little complaints about the manner of his team’s victory. He said: “It was a legal goal, one born out of the intelligence of a Porto player. Thierry Henry also did the same thing when he played for Arsenal. It gives a definite advantage to Porto now in the tie.”
Losing like that to Porto is difficult to swallow, says Arséne Wenger
• Arsenal manager rages at interpretation of back-pass
• Cesc Fábregas laments schoolboy goals
Arsène Wenger strongly criticised the referee Martin Hansson for allowing Porto’s controversial second goal in the first leg of their Champions League tie against Arsenal.
Lukasz Fabianski, deputising for the injured Manuel Almunia, was involved in both Porto goals. He had been caught out of position to give Porto an early lead, allowing a straightforward cross to bounce off his body into the net with no one challenging.
Sol Campbell, playing his first Champions League match since the 2006 final in which he put Arsenal ahead, equalised in the first half. But the pair then combined soon after half-time in a moment of confusion that gave Porto the second goal of their 2-1 win.
Campbell, under pressure as he shielded the ball, played a heavy touch that Fabianski picked up in what was deemed a back-pass by Hansson – the referee who missed Thierry Henry’s infamous handball in France’s World Cup play-off win over the Republic of Ireland. The Swedish official then allowed the free-kick to be taken quickly and Falcao swept the ball into the net with Arsenal still arguing the award and in no way defending their goal.
“It is difficult to swallow a defeat like that,” said the Arsenal manager. “The goals we conceded were difficult to imagine in a Champions League game. What can you do about the second goal? The back-pass was accidental, whenever do you see the defender kick the ball back with his toe?
“The ball hit Sol, it was not on purpose and it has to be intentional to be a free-kick. It is difficult to understand how the referee can interpret that. Then, on an indirect free-kick, if you allow the team to play quickly, just five metres from the goal, how can you defend that?
“It is better than a penalty. It was unbelievable that he allowed Porto to play straightaway and push the ball into the net. I have never seen that and I have been in the game a long time. It is difficult to understand. It is completely inappropriate that he allows that in such a situation.
“When the referee gives the free-kick he has to allow us a chance to defend it, otherwise it is better to give a goal straight away. From a situation where there was no goal chance at all, and no free-kick as well, the referee gives them just a goal.
“It is difficult to understand but maybe I am not intelligent enough.”
In the build-up to the game Wenger maintained he had complete faith in Fabianski, who was less than impressive in the recent FA Cup defeat at Stoke.
“I do not want to come out individually on Lukasz’s performance tonight and judge him in front of everybody. You have to accept you lose as a team and win as a team. Any individual performance has not to be analysed publicly.”
Arsenal’s captain, Cesc Fábregas, maintained his team must cut out costly errors.
“When you concede these goals you cannot go anywhere, schoolboy goals, what can you do?” Fábregas said on ITV1.
“Maybe we are still a little soft in that aspect, as a team when we concede we are not strong enough to lift ourselves, we were not strong enough to stand up and play well.”
Despite the defeat, Wenger maintains all is not lost in the tie.
“It is unfortunate we lost this game but we are still in the tie. We have a good opportunity to turn it around in the second game. There was a strong penalty claim for us on Rosicky which was turned down and the repeated fouls in midfield were not punished enough.
“But Porto played well and we have a chance to turn things around in the second game. That is what we will try to do and I am convinced we will do it.”
He added: “Sol scored an important goal which can prove to be vital now in qualification. We will give everything in the second game at home.”
Porto’s coach, Jesualdo Ferreira, had little complaint about the manner of his team’s victory.
“It was a legal goal, one born out of the intelligence of a Porto player,” said Ferreira . “Thierry Henry did the same thing when he played for Arsenal. It gives a definite advantage to Porto now in the tie.”