Press conference

‘It looked like a clear penalty to me’

Three days after a penalty call went against us in Cologne, we’ve seen a big decision go in our favour.

The push on Aaron Ramsey that earned us a stoppage-time spot-kick against Burnley was the talk of Turf Moor after the game.

And Arsene Wenger was unequivocal: he thought it was the right decision.

“From outside, it looked like a clear penalty,” he said. “I felt there was one on Bellerin as well. I can understand that [Burnley] are disappointed with that, but from outside it looked like a penalty.

“When you speak to him [Ramsey], he didn’t throw himself on the ground. He said he wanted to go back and flick on the ball. He was pushed in the back and he has a problem in his neck from the push. He said it was a very strong push.”

Burnley started strongly on Sunday but we eventually got the measure of them, and the boss had praise for our opponents.

“I felt we played a bit slowly in the first half but in the second half our pace was much better, even if we missed the final ball,” he said.

“Is that down to us not being able to find the right ball or because of them defending very well? What is for sure is that they defend very well, they are very well organised and they are very clever, very clever, very direct as well. You understand when you play against them, why they have 22 points.

“In the first half it was a very even game with them looking a bit sharper than us,” he added. “It took us a while to get into the pace of the game.

“We were more decisive on 50:50s in the second half. In the second half I felt it was all us and they had many more problems coming out. We made some changes but we also pushed ourselves a bit higher up.

“For us, after the win against Tottenham, it was very important to go away from home and play a very difficult game and win it. That’s what we did. For the belief of the team, it’s a very important win.”

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