Arsenal: Jack Wilshere complaints have no place in aftermath

Arsenal had a lot to blame for their horrid loss, but Jack Wilshere has gone and complained about things that have no place in the complaints department.

Arsenal’s loss against Manchester City showed us a lot of problems we’ve been seeing for quite some time. While the Gunners looked ready to give City a fight early on, as soon as something went wrong, i.e. the first goal, there was no coming back. They looked defeated as soon as the second half began.

This weak mentality is why I am categorically rejecting all of what Jack Wilshere has said in his post-match thoughts.

Wilshere pegged three refereeing decisions as the reason why his side lost. According to him, the first is that Shkodran Mustafi was fouled by Sergio Aguero. The second was that Kompany’s goal was offside and the third was that Fernandinho didn’t get a second yellow.

All of these, according to Wilshere, are facts and not up for interpretation. To be fair, he did say that they now need to respond as well, but that was hastily thrown in at the end after he said people would just label these as ‘excuses.’

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Only that’s just it, these are just excuses. Mustafi was fouled? Give me a break. He was made to look like an absolute nonce. A goal kick straight down the middle cuts open a defense? That is pathetic defending, foul or not.

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The second goal was not offside unless we are counting Leroy Sane, who made no play on the ball.

And I’m not even sold that the second tackle was a yellow. Wilshere does not have a resume of diving like some players do, but I hate to say that it looked like he made the most of it. A foul? Sure, Fernandihno lunged in. But a second yellow? I’d beg to differ.

Even so, let’s assume that Wilshere is right and all these calls were missed. What’s the excuse for the other umpteen times we’ve seen this kind of result happen? It’s not always down to the referee. Against Tottenham, why did it look the exact same? Against Bournemouth, Swansea, was the referee also unfair?

Arsenal have gotten some poor decisions against them – Watford for instance – but to pin the loss on that is to ignore the massive problems deep within this club that go beyond any of this. The inability to recover from setbacks is simply amazing with this club and I hate to see that problem cast aside and pinned on a couple calls that may or may not have been missed.

Next: 5 Things Learned Against Manchester City

Own the mistakes the team made because there were plenty of them. Don’t pawn them off on someone else.

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