Yes there was a bias against Arsenal but is it justified?

By 1970's Gooner

What do us Arsenal supporters expect from the media and ex player pundits when they see a match lost 3-1 by Arsenal at home with a possession statistic of 75% and 30 attempts at goal!

We've all heard that story before haven't we? Dominate possession, the opponents park the bus and then do us on the counter attack usually through a defensive mistake.

Even we were and still are extremely critical of our players, especially Mustafi and Koscienly, after the Man Utd debacle let alone the media and MOTD who make their money by highlighting these faults and sometimes using hyperbole to transmit them to the mostly neutral masses.

It is a fact that we were terrible in defence and one would have thought that Wenger would have prepared the players for exactly this sort of thing happening. So for my money Wenger should get some of the blame.

In addition it seemed that we were not prepared to face, from first whistle, the full court press on our defenders. They were not mentally tuned in to deal with it. They were under the impression that Utd would sit back  from the first minute and play their waiting game.

Still you would have thought that Arsenal's players could pass their way out of it! Instead they were passing to the opponents!

Were the media (and pundits) failed imo is that they did not spend enough time to analyse the fantastic attacking display by Arsenal and how two terrible decisions by an inept referee and assistants changed the course of the game.

How would the game have panned out if the decision on the clear foul on Welbeck was given? It would have been 2 2 of course with lots of time left to snatch a winner (for both teams).

The media would then have been more eulogistic and even euphoric towards Arsenal coming back from 2 0 down so impressively....

Which brings me to the referee (and his inept assistants). They were lauded on BT for their fantastic refereeing!!!!! They brushed aside the two clear penalty incidents as though they were a minor element in the game....

This and Clattenburg's recent statements of devising a game plan before the game and sticking to it smells to me.

May be the referee for Arsenal's game did not want to award a penalty for the same reasons.

You may say that he did give a red card to Pogba. But that was right in front of him, he did have a clear view so he couldn't just ignore it and it was a clear red card after all.

Still we should focus on the positives. We have a fantastic capacity for attacking play which blew Utd away and would have blown Man City away too. We played with intensity, beautiful movement and Lacazette is an amazing forward.

Can you sort out the defence Mr Wenger?