{"id":277841,"date":"2016-12-19T07:10:40","date_gmt":"2016-12-19T07:10:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=277841"},"modified":"2016-12-19T07:10:40","modified_gmt":"2016-12-19T07:10:40","slug":"referees-are-protected-like-lions-arsene-wenger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=277841","title":{"rendered":"Referees are protected like lions &#8211; Arsene Wenger"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"sp-story-body__introduction\">Arsene Wenger has said referees are protected like &#8220;lions in the zoo&#8221; after saying that bad decisions cost Arsenal in their 2-1 defeat by Manchester City.<\/p>\n<p>Wenger&#8217;s side led before Leroy Sane equalised, although replays showed he was offside by the finest of margins.<\/p>\n<p>And David Silva was in an offside position when Raheem Sterling scored the winner, but it was unclear whether he hindered goalkeeper Petr Cech.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s very difficult to accept in a game of that stature,&#8221; Wenger said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But, as it is well known, the referees are protected very well like the lions in the zoo, so we have to live with those decisions.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Gunners took the lead at the Etihad Stadium thanks to Theo Walcott&#8217;s early breakaway goal before City fought back to triumph with two second-half strikes that sent them above Arsenal and into second place.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"sp-pullout\"><\/aside>\n<p>Asked to clarify his comments about the officials, Wenger said: &#8220;I want them to be very well protected, and I want them to be safe, but if they could make the right decisions it would be even better.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He added: &#8220;I can understand City look very happy &#8211; I would be as well &#8211; but I think the goals are offside.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Arsenal slipped to fourth, two points behind City and nine behind leaders Chelsea, after suffering their second defeat in six days.<\/p>\n<p>Wenger had also blamed the first loss, at Everton on Tuesday, on the officials &#8211; leading Toffees manager Ronald Koeman to mock him for questioning referee Mark Clattenburg&#8217;s decision-making.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It has been an absolutely horrible week,&#8221; added Wenger, whose side now have two home games in a row against West Brom on Boxing Day and Crystal Palace on New Year&#8217;s Day.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What is worse is that out of two good performances we got zero points and, out of two leading positions, we lost two games.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That of course is very disappointing. Before we think about being nine points behind Chelsea, we have to think about why we have not kept a clean sheet.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Arsenal had looked in assured form in the first half at the Etihad Stadium but, just like at Goodison Park, they were overpowered after the break.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I felt we were in control before half-time and it did not look like we could lose the game,&#8221; Wenger explained.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We were caught cold in the second half but I felt as well that we dropped physically in the second half.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think that is because of the accumulation of games we have played recently, especially away from home &#8211; four of the past five have been away.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We also had one day less recovery than everyone else before we played at Everton. I felt there was plenty of big teams who don&#8217;t play in Europe who could have played on Tuesday.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Arsene Wenger has said referees are protected like &#8220;lions in the zoo&#8221; after saying that bad decisions cost Arsenal in their 2-1 defeat by Manchester City. Wenger&#8217;s side led before Leroy Sane equalised, although replays showed he was offside by the finest of margins. And David Silva was in an offside position when Raheem Sterling [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":277843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-277841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=277841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=277841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=277841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=277841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}