‘I’m angry because we see it again and again’

When Alexis’ heavily-deflected free kick flew in with seven minutes remaining at West Brom, we looked to be on our way to a hard-fought win.

But a controversial handball decision against Calum Chambers in the closing moments allowed the hosts to equalise from the spot and deny us the three points.

Arsene Wenger was unhappy at the incident, and this is what he said in his post-match press conference:

on the penalty decision…

I think the referee has not even seen it. He has not seen it.

on why he was so angry…

I’m angry because we have seen the same things again and again and I said down there that we have fought very hard for the referees to become professional many years ago with David Dein and we did a good job to allow them to become professional and I see no improvement. At the end of the day there are two countries in Europe where there are professional referees, in Italy and in England, but not one English referee will go to the World Cup, but everything is alright. We cannot say a word against because they are untouchable, it is the case and the truth as well, it is a reason for it. It’s not only me who judges them.

on the referee not seeing the handball…

That is my opinion, he will tell you he has seen it.

on whether his assistant told him or he guessed…

I don’t know, ask him. I don’t want to waste my time and we have to live with the decision. You will go home and have your normal thing and we have to live with it and swallow it for the next game. There are two things that are not normal in the Premier League, the schedule and the referees. Maybe we haven’t played well enough, that is down for you to judge, but with those two things you cannot have West Brom with five days to prepare while we have three. I am ready to play every day as long as our opponent has had the same recovery time over Christmas, it’s not normal. We have the same problem against Chelsea, they played yesterday, we played today. They have one day more.