Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger did not pull any punches last night after branding Bayern Munich’s Arjen Robben a “very good diver” during Arsenal’s 1-1 draw with Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena that now sees the Gunners knocked out of the Champions League after having lost the first-leg at the Emirates 0-2.
Arsenal showed plenty of desire to win the match as was evident from England international Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in the centre of midfield, unlike club record signing Mesut Özil who put in a dreadful lackadaisical effort once more.
Arsenal came back after falling behind to a Bastian Schweinsteiger goal early in the second-half when Lukas Podolski got a goal against his former club before the drama late on when Lukasz Fabianski saved a Thomas Muller penalty after what appeared to be a soft challenge by Laurent Koscielny on Robben.
After the match talking to Sky Sports Wenger was not impressed at all by the Dutch international.
“Robben is very good at getting the maximum of nothing and he is a great player and as well a very good diver, but it is part of it,” the Arsenal manager said.
“He is a fantastic player, I would not deny that, he’s one of the best players in the world.
“But he gets in front of a player and then he slows down and goes down. He gets the free-kicks.
“That’s where we spoke about yesterday that the referee, if he gives him a yellow card on the first one when he goes down, he will not do it again.”
Wenger then brought up the incident at the Emirates that saw Szczesny sent off.
“Even UEFA has come out and said that they have to rethink that problem,” said Wenger. “First of all, for me, it was not a goalscoring opportunity because if Szczesny is really shrewd, he can get a foul against him as well for a high foot off Robben.
“This situation can be analysed in both ways, where you can as well give a foul against Robben for his foot being too high. If you look again, where the ball goes after the control, you will see that he never had a goal chance because the ball was at the feet of Sagna. So it was never a goalscoring opportunity.”
As for last night’s results Wenger thought that Arsenal had chances to pull off an upset.
“We had to defend a lot in the first half, but we knew that being in the game at half-time we had a good chance to win the game,” he said.
“I believe that in the second half the opportunities were there, but overall over the two games I feel that what made the difference is the decision to send our goalkeeper off in the first game.
“We played a 1-1 tonight and that decision had a huge impact.
“It was on the same player who got a penalty again tonight and that’s the regret we have.
“Spirit wise, we have everything until the end.
“Good luck to Bayern, they are a good side but I think they are this season more vulnerable than last year.”
Wenger continued: “Our defending, our spirit was good. The frustration we had was the last 20 minutes I felt that Bayern was very vulnerable defensively and that we didn’t take advantage of that.
“We always missed the first pass, but I felt the situations were there where we could have made more of it.
“At the end of the day, we never got them really under pressure.
“Even at 1-1, you could see they became suddenly nervous, but because we never managed to make it 2-1, of course you could not really see how they would have responded.
“They are a good team, they are a great side with great players. They played well but we still have regrets over the two games.”
