Leicester had penalty claims waved away when Danny Drinkwater and substitute Ahmed Musa went to ground during the closing moments of each half, although referee Mark Clattenburg was fittingly uninterested as he oversaw a match that did little to fire the imagination.
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“The referee made a very good performance and for me a penalty is when the referee whistles”.
Speaking to BT Sport after the match, Wenger was non-committal on each incident but highlighted Leicester’s record of winning regular spot-kicks on their way to the title last season.
“Leicester felt they should have been awarded two penalties and Wenger added: “It’s very hard to know. You have to watch it in slow motion to see what’s happened”, he said of Koscielny’s lunging tackle on Drinkwater”.
With Arsenal dominating possession on a blustery East Midlands afternoon, it also allowed Leicester to adopt the counter-attacking formula that saw them storm the table in the first half of last season.
“So you never know, is it really a penalty or not?” “Every game we play we want to win the game”, he said.
“On that front, after we conceded four goals last week we have shown a great defensive performance. They are a team who are very organised and it’s very hard to create chances”.
“You could see last week we lost Aaron Ramsey with an injury and now he’s out for one month”, Koscielny told arsenal.com.
Koscielny was restored to the team before the scheduled end of his proscribed period of post-UEFA EURO 2016 rest to bolster Arsenal’s defence but Wenger’s men spent much of the opening stages on the front foot, with full debutant Granit Xhaka and Francis Coquelin controlling midfield as Hector Bellerin and Theo Walcott threatened down the right. “You should be happy because he’s English, 20 years old – but I’m sorry he didn’t cost £55m, so he can’t be good”.
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“He had an outstanding game”.
