Koeman takes a dig at Gunners’ Wenger

liverpool — Ronald Koeman reacted sarcastically to opposite number Arsene Wenger after Everton ended Arsenal’s ninemonth unbeaten away run in the Premier League in an eventful 2-1 victory at Goodison Park.

Arsenal manager Wenger, defeated for just the second time this season, blamed referee Mark Clattenburg for awarding the first of a series of corners from which Ashley Williams headed in the 86th-minute winner.

But Koeman responded bullishly and claimed he had targeted Arsenal’s weak points by instructing his players to adopt an aggressive approach against the Premier League title hopefuls.

“I’m not surprised about Wenger’s comments because it is the third time in a row that I won as a manager at home against Arsenal,” said the Everton manager after Tuesday’s game.

“And that is three times in a row that it was about the referee. OK, sorry Arsenal. We won through the referee tonight, sorry!

“Their weakness is if you go face-to-face and win battles and you run and you go. Then you need a bit of luck and we deserved that.

“If you fight for every ball and are aggressive, you see the reaction of the crowd and with a lot of aggression, you can make life difficult. Then it is really difficult to beat Everton here.

“We showed that after 20 minutes. We went face-to-face against them and that’s what you have to do against teams like Arsenal.”

Williams struck from Ross Barkley’s corner after Alexis Sanchez’s 20th-minute opener for Arsenal, a deflected free-kick, had been cancelled out by Seamus Coleman’s 44th-minute header.

Citing Clattenburg’s decision to award a corner despite the ball appearing to have gone out off Everton substitute Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Wenger said his side had been hard done by.

“Of course it was not a corner,” said Wenger. “It was the wrong decision.

“You could see from outside that it was no corner. I’m very disappointed because Clattenburg was in a very good position to see the player had the ball out. — AFP