Wenger taken aback by furore over tackle

ARSENE WENGER says he cannot believe the furore which has surrounded William Gallas’ tackle on Bolton midfielder Mark Davies – and is “absolutely amazed” nobody cares when Arsenal get kicked off the park.

Bolton manager Owen Coyle also admitted labelling the challenge “akin to assault” in the immediate aftermath of Wednesday night’s 4-2 defeat at Emirates Stadium was perhaps a “bit strong”.

Gallas will not face any retrospective disciplinary action from the FA, as it is understood referee Alan Wiley viewed the challenge at the time as two players coming together when going for a 50/50 ball. That, though, has not stopped the incident from being analysed over and over again, from every conceivable angle, with everyone happy to weigh in with an opinion.

“There was a bit of an over reaction with the way it was treated, yes,” Wenger, who will rotate his side for tomorrow’s FA Cup trip to Stoke, said. “If it is a bad, malicious tackle I can understand that it is shown every half an hour, but the way that happened, it can happen every game.

“I said after the game if Gallas has injured the player, we are sorry, we will have a look at the tackle and if it is malicious we will come out and make a statement. We looked at it carefully and we saw that it was just a mistimed tackle.

“I cannot say that all the tackles that we have got in the last two games were completely accidental.’’

Wenger believes his players often receive rough treatment.

“Some people say before the games, ‘we know how to play Arsenal. we have to kick them’ – and nobody in the whole country is absolutely upset by that,” Wenger declared.

“I am always absolutely amazed that people get away with that. When we get kicked and lose the game, the question I get from the press is ‘oh, you did not fancy that.’ Nobody is upset or shocked by it.

“They find when we are kicked, it is absolutely all right.”

Bolton manager Coyle retracted his comments yesterday that Gallas should have been sent off.

“Having looked at it I don’t think William Gallas purposely went to hurt Mark Davies,” admitted Coyle.

“I think it was badly timed, simple as that but we have to move on.”

Wenger also maintains the incident surrounding Eduardo in their Champions League qualifier against Celtic, when the Croatia striker was charged by UEFA with diving to win a penalty before then having that overturned on appeal, means the Gunners do not get key decisions in the box.

“I can show you since the start of the season how many penalties we have been denied,” said the Arsenal manager. “We have one penalty since the start of the season, and we play always in the box of our opponents.”