Arsene Wenger on Sunday accepted leaders Manchester City would be “hard to stop” in their quest for the English Premier League title especially if they continued to get the rub of the green from referees.
The Gunners manager accused City forward Raheem Sterling of diving after he won a penalty in his team’s 3-1 victory over Arsenal at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester.
Veteran French boss Wenger was furious with the performance of referee Michael Oliver, who awarded the spot-kick and a dubious goal, which the Arsenal manager claimed was offside.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“I believe it was no penalty,” Wenger said. “We know that Raheem Sterling dives well, he does that very well, and the third goal was offside. I am very upset because at 2-1 we were in the game. The third goal was the killer and it is by coincidence that mistakes always go for the home team, as we know.
“It is unfortunate that the game finished the way it finished. I am disappointed. You can accept it if City win in a normal way, they are a good side, but this is unacceptable,” Wenger added after a match that left his side 12 points behind the league leaders. “Last season, we lost two offside goals and it has happened again. City will be hard to stop.”
City have 10 wins and a draw from their opening 11 league games this season, prompting speculation they could emulate Wenger’s “Invincibles” that went the whole of the 2003-2004 campaign without losing a league fixture.
“Look, can anyone stop them?” Wenger asked rhetorically. “It will be difficult this season with the way they have started, the way they are on a run, they quality they have.”
Wenger had grounds for complaint when Laurent Koscielny was judged to have brought down Sterling for Sergio Aguero to make it 2-0 from the penalty spot and television replays suggested he was especially hard done by as David Silva appeared offside before setting up Gabriel Jesus for City’s third goal in the 74th minute.
Kevin de Bruyne gave City the lead and while trailing 2-0, Arsenal were briefly given hope when substitute Alexandre Lacazette pulled a goal back.
City manager Pep Guardiola was understandably delighted to have beaten a title rival so emphatically.
After winning just two games against the top six clubs last season, City have already won all three this campaign, previously hammering Liverpool and outplaying champions Chelsea.
“All know is everybody can beat us, that is a principle in all sports,” Guardiola said. “It doesn’t matter what happens in the past. You can win the [UEFA] Champions League and lose the day after.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier