Wenger fuming over red card incident

Last updated : 20 February 2005 By Chris Parry
After the game he had this to say:

"We will appeal against the sending off. We will appeal on the grounds that he didn't hit him, he pushed him. But I must say I was shocked by what I saw against Fabregas. Their number 32 hit him on the head.

The intention was there although he didn't hit him hard, but I don't like to see that. He hit him on purpose. We will accept everything the FA does.

We have no other choice but we do not want to lose Reyes. Reyes may be a yellow card but I don't see why one case should be linked with the other. The FA look at the whole game anyway."

He went on to make cooments about the performance of the team:

"I feel we had to face a situation that was difficult in the second half but I am quite happy because the boys responded very well. The second half was all us and we had three good chances to score a second goal. In the end we got caught.

"We were guilty on that because we had a free-kick just before they scored, played it short and lost the ball through lack of experience, but overall the performance was very good with 10 against 11.

"I feel with 11 against 11 we would have got through quite comfortably in the second half. It is a good learning process for the young players. They have shown great technical qualities and mental strength.

"We are very young and we lost Dennis who can calm things down. Suddenly you are exposed and when you look around the team, there is only Freddie Ljungberg who is experienced. All the rest were between 17 and 21 more or less.

"At half-time we calmed down and came out and tried to play football. In my opinion we did very well and the young lads can be very proud of their performances."