Arsene Wenger Disagrees With Pep Guardiola’s “Extra Protection” Call

By The Editor
on 24th February 2018

Arsene Wenger doesn’t back Pep’s call for specific protection…

Arsene Wenger says he doesn’t back Pep Guardiola’s call for extra protection and has instead called on the referees to “respect the rulebook” and protect players across the board.

Guardiola has felt that his players have come under specific harsh treatment in terms of dangerous challenges, and the Citizens have even requested a private hearing with referees chief Mike Riley.

The champions-elect have played a wonderful brand of football this season which has often lead to opposing defenders adopting a more rigid style to combat that.

In all fairness, the likes of Raheem Sterling, Leroy Sane and Kevin De Bruyne have been lucky not to suffer the kind of injuries that became synonymous with Arsenal Football Club last decade.

“Extra protection? I don’t know what it means,” Wenger told James Olley from The Evening Standard.

“Protection yes, but we just want the referees to respect the rule book, It is all in the rules, we don’t need any extra protection.

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“You want the referees to make the right decision, that’s all.

“[Pep] is maybe concerned by one or two situations where his players were tackled against Wigan on Monday night, which I can understand. But you don’t want extra protection, you want protection and that is just by the referee making the right decisions in the situations,” Wenger added.

It’s rather ironic that some reporters can even muster up enough front to question Wenger on if he agrees on such a topic, especially after the trauma we endured.

Wenger was constantly told to stop whining while the opposition openly claimed before the match that they intended to “kick us”. It resulted in three broken legs for our players inside three seasons, one of which was effectively career-ending.