image via daylife
Arsène Wenger reacted with fury on Wednesday night after Martin Hansson, the Swedish referee who missed Thierry Henry’s handball against Ireland, allowed Porto’s bizarre and hugely controversial winner.
“It is laughable,” said Wenger. “Has he ever played football? I don’t know.
“If you cannot build a wall then you cannot ever defend an indirect free kick. It’s better than a penalty because not even the goalkeeper is in there.
“You go from a situation where there is no free kick, to one taken quickly where there is no chance to defend. The referee gave them a goal. It’s difficult to swallow a defeat like that.
“I think it was a massive mistake, a double mistake. In a game of that magnitude I don’t understand his decision.”
The rules, however, do allow for a quickly taken free kick without a whistle, just as long as it has been approved by the referee.
Wenger, though, felt that Lukasz Fabianski should not have been penalised for picking up the back-pass.
“I believe first of all it was an accidental back-pass,” said Wenger. “The ball hit Sol – it was not on purpose. It has to be intentional to be a free kick. Then, in an indirect free kick, if you allow a team to take it quickly five metres from goal, how can you defend that?
“It’s better than a penalty. I’ve never seen that and I’ve been in the game a long time. You cannot defend that. You cannot organise.
“It is completely inappropriate in a situation like that. He has to give us a chance to defend the free kick if he gives it there, otherwise he may as well just give a goal.”
Even if Campbell’s back-pass had been involuntary, there was still no reason for Fabianski to pick the ball up and risk conceding a free kick inside his own penalty area. He also helped Porto by handing the ball to Hansson.
Fabianski had earlier been to blame for Porto’s first when he parried Silvestre Varela’s tame near-post cross into his own goal. Captain Cesc Fabregas was blunt in his appraisal of the mistakes.
“The goals were schoolboy goals,” he said. “After the second one, we were too soft. We were not strong enough to stand up.
“I have no complaints about the second goal. Maybe I would have done the same. When you let in goals like that, I’m sorry, you cannot go anywhere. What can you do?
“We have nothing to complain about. Sometimes we’re not strong enough to lift ourselves, and that’s what happened.”
Fabianski looked devastated as he left the stadium, but Wenger refused to attribute blame.
“I do not want to judge him in front of everybody,” he said. “We lose as a team and win as a team. I don’t doubt our character. We are still in the game.”
