Two refereeing mistakes changed match in favour of Arsenal, insists Pochettino
Mauricio Pochettino claimed referee Mike Dean changed the course of the north London derby with two mistakes in the build-up to the first of Arsenal’s two goals in what was a major victory for Arsene Wenger’s team at home to their rivals.
The Tottenham Hotspur manager said that Shkodran Mustafi’s goal had been offside and, before that, Dean had made a mistake in wrongly awarding the free-kick that led to it, against Davinson Sanchez, Spurs’ best player in a below-par performance.
Pochettino said: “If you analyse the game until we conceded the goal [in the 36th minute], the team was doing well. We were better than them but in the end it is a massive mistake like this.
“In the end, it is not one mistake, it was two mistakes. It wasn’t a foul and it was offside. It was very clear.
“In that moment, all of our plans changed and that affects the team, then we conceded quickly for 2-0 and to come back in this type of game is always difficult. When you analyse playing a team at the same level, the team that scores first in games has a big chance of winning.”
He dismissed the statistics that show Tottenham struggle against big-four opposition away from home, having won four of their last 86 away games at Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool. “We are in the same situation as everyone,” he said. “For Arsenal, it was difficult to play Manchester City in their last game, for Manchester United it was difficult to play against Chelsea. There is always an advantage for the team playing at home.
“It is not just Tottenham that struggle to compete with the big sides away from home.
“We need many things – we need to win trophies, we need to build the new stadium, we need to build a good squad, we need to play young players.” Pochettino denied a rift with Danny Rose, who was not even on the bench and trained alone at the club’s base in Enfield. He did not feature in an under23s game in which Erik Lamela played. “When you are 10, 11 months out and then you start to play, sometimes the better decision is to be training,” Pochettino said of full-back Rose. “[Better] to prepare for the next game rather than be on the bench and wasting time because it’s not the same.”
Wenger said that he still believed Alexis Sanchez, scorer of the second goal, and Mesut Ozil, also outstanding on the day, could stay at the club.
“The quality of the contract has to be good and enough for them as well. They’ve shown their commitment again today. I’ve never questioned their commitment. I am convinced they love the club, they love the team but I don’t really know when the rest will be decided.
“It [money] is part of it, the whole thing has to be right. They have to be happy. I believe they love the club and want to stay but other top clubs offer good contracts as well.”
Arsene Wenger has had the best part of two weeks to brood upon that previous defeat by Manchester City, and so when it came to the point that the legitimacy of his team’s two goals in this North London derby were called into question the Arsenal manager already had his answer.
This had been a vintage Arsenal performance, conjured from who knows where, one of intensity supported by good organisation – ruthless when they had to be, stubborn at other times. The only caveat was that both goals, scored in the first half by Shkodran Mustafi and Alexis Sanchez, were marginally offside, and when that was pointed out to Wenger a whole international break spent fast-forwarding and rewinding that 3-1 Etihad defeat was brought to bear.
His team, he said, had been the victims of David Silva’s offside goal on Nov 5 and if no one else remembered it then Wenger was going to make damn sure that they were reminded.
He ended his press conference thinlipped and quietly furious but that is the way it can go at Arsenal, even on these days when they look every bit as impressive as they should do given the undoubted quality of their players.
The balance of power in North London stays very much where it has done for all but a small part of the last 21 years of Wenger’s reign, with Spurs resisted and conquered, just 17 days after they beat Real Madrid, champions of Europe, at Wembley.
Harry Kane and Dele Alli were substituted before the end; Christian Eriksen got no closer to another hattrick than striking a post with a shot that Petr Cech had covered, and the unstoppable rise of Mauricio Pochettino was slowed.
The young Spurs manager took a couple of steps on to the pitch after the final whistle and then seemed to think better of it, turning back down the tunnel while his players went to thank an away support that had all but emptied before the end. He too was fuming afterwards with Mike Dean’s decisions for both goals, including the free-kick for Mustafi’s header.
The inquest into the nerve of this Spurs team begins again with, among others, their former striker Gary Lineker pointing out that in 86 games away to Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea, Spurs have won just four. Not since 2010 have they won in the league at the Emirates, and instead of being the day they changed that it was Arsenal who extended their winning home run to 11 league games, a record for the Emirates.
This was Wenger’s first victory over Pochettino in a North London league derby and the Frenchman was not prepared to countenance that he had had the benefit of the referee’s decisions.
“Suddenly when we concede goals it is absolutely normal,” Wenger said, “even when they are a yard offside, and when we maybe [are offside] I have to answer that in a press conference.
“I believe we do not listen too much, as much as you think, to the national debate. That is among you. We live inside our own club and focus on what is important for us.
“People have a perception of us and the game and we have to live with that. We can only give one answer and that is on the pitch.”
It was a great derby, with no margin for error on either side, and although Arsenal might have surprised their own fans with their quality, the old tensions were not far from the surface. The home support reacted furiously to Wenger’s decision to replace Alexandre Lacazette with Francis Coquelin 17 minutes from the end.
For his part Pochettino was angry that he had to field questions about the absence of Danny Rose, who was not even selected on the bench and instead trained alone at the club’s Enfield base while Spurs’ Under-23s took on their Chelsea counterparts. The full-back came on for England against Brazil on Tuesday night and Pochettino said that his eight-month injury absence meant that he was better served working on his fitness.
In Rose’s place, Ben Davies had a tough game at left wing-back, an area which Arsenal attacked relentlessly in the first half and from where their second goal came. The scorer, Sanchez, was a key figure in the game and so too the other contract refusenik, Mesut Ozil. Mustafi was exceptional.
In the first half in particular, Arsenal pushed up into space and pressed as a single unit. They were on top by the midway point of the half and Spurs looked stretched. The crosses from their left side required some drastic interventions from the Spurs defence and Hugo Lloris had to be quick off his line to tackle Sanchez outside the box.
The opening goal originated with a questionable free-kick awarded by referee Dean for a foul by the impressive Davinson Sanchez on his Arsenal namesake. It looked like a clean tackle, although in the aftermath Dean seemed to point out that the Spurs defender had grabbed his opponent’s shirt at the shoulder.
“It is so difficult to explain when you lose in this way,” Pochettino said. “Some small details maybe are big details in football and change everything. Until that moment, maybe [Granit] Xhaka should be sent off [he was booked for just his second infringement].
“The foul [by Davinson Sanchez] was not a foul, the goal was offside, but in the end we lost. We need to go home and then keep going.”
Ozil’s free-kick was headed back past Lloris by Mustafi, marginally offside, with the goalkeeper flat-footed. By this time Arsenal were well on top. They got their second goal before half-time when Hector Bellerin released attacker Lacazette down the right and he crossed to the near post, where Sanchez’s strength and determination saw him finish. Again, Lacazette looked marginally offside.
In the second half Pochettino rang the changes and brought on Harry Winks for the struggling Mousa Dembele, and later Heung-min Son and Fernando Llorente, but his side continued to play in front of Arsenal rather than get behind them.
There was a fine save by Cech from Eric Dier’s header although precious few chances were created by Spurs. If anything Arsenal, and Sanchez in particular, looked the more likely to get another on the breakaway.
‘People now have a perception of us and the game. We can only give one answer and that is on the pitch’