BLAST ACTION HEROES
Dyche accuses Ramsey of diving as Sanchez fires 92nd minute Arsenal winner
FURIOUS Sean Dyche claimed Arsenal were gifted a last-gasp penalty purely because they are a big club.
Burnley lost to the Gunners in stoppage time in controversial circumstances for the third match running when Alexis Sanchez made no mistake from the spot.
“A lot of me inside is raging a
ARSENAL do not do straightforward wins over Burnley, and this one was not even their latest or most controversial.
But this could be seen as the Gunners’ most significant victory yet over the Clarets, because it dispelled a few myths, showed something about their cojones, and proved Alexis Sanchez is priceless.
Last season, Arsenal won at Turf Moor with Laurent Koscielny’s 92nd-minute winner, which the hosts claimed was both a handball and offside. At the Emirates in January, Sanchez struck a 98th-minute winner from a controversial penalty.
So this win was tame by comparison, and Burnley boss Sean Dyche has suffered so much in the past against Arsenal that he actually seemed resigned to his fate.
Dyche admitted he was “raging inside” after the penalty award against defender James Tarkowski for a push on Aaron Ramsey.
But, in reality, he chose not to do any of his raging in public because he knew, in his heart, it was a penalty.
Tarkowski was outstanding but he put both his hands on Ramsey in an injury-time scramble and the midfielder went down and the visitors howled for a spot-kick.
Home fans were screaming blue murder but referee Lee Mason pointed straight to the spot. Up stepped Sanchez, kept his cool, and stroked home another 92nd-minute winner to push Arsenal back into the top four.
And it was done on the sort of afternoon which Arsenal, according to Watford skipper Troy Deeney, do not fancy. It was bitterly cold, windy and raining up north but, after a sluggish start, they really dug in to take all three points.
They had to do it without Mesut Ozil, who had been sent home after waking up ill. They also arrived with just over 50 minutes to spare after their bus got stuck in traffic. Hardly ideal preparations and you could almost hear Arsene Wenger readying the excuses ahead of another crisis.
Arsenal were sluggish in the first half, Burnley were the better side, and it took a brilliant Petr Cech save to push Johann Berg Gudmundsson’s 15th-minute shot onto the post.
The hosts bombarded Arsenal with heavy aerial artillery and Wenger’s back three survived a major test as Koscielny, Nacho Monreal and Shkodran Mustafi held firm.
At the other end, Tarkowski and defensive partner Ben Mee headed, kicked and tackled everything Arsenal threw in their direction which, in all honesty, was not a lot.
But the Gunners came out a different side in the second half and it was Sanchez who really drove the transformation. The Chile star was quiet before the break, but was a bundle of energy, desire and non-stop work rate in the second half.
The visitors kept pressing and Sanchez was getting increasingly frustrated. One petulant, childish strop led to the home fans chanting, “You’re gonna cry in a minute”.
But actually it was Burnley who were left in despair. The visitors kept going, Sead Kolasinac headed the ball into the box, Ramsey went for it and was pushed.
Sanchez stayed calm and fired in the winner. He is out of contract at the end of the season and Arsenal were criticised by some fans for not accepting a £60million bid from Manchester City on deadline day.
Well, maybe now they will begin to understand Sanchez’s importance to the team over the profit on the balance sheet.
With performances like these, the forward can help Arsenal get back into the Champions League, and it is the reason why they cannot afford to sell him.