If Dean had done his job, he would have sent Costa off and thus the Chelsea man wouldn’t have been on the pitch to get Gabriel sent off. But Dean does not bear the ultimate responsibility for Gabriel’s actions.
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Although, Wenger noted Gabriel shouldn’t have risen to Costa, the Arsenal boss still believes Costa should have his fair share of punishment.
“No one said this job was going to be easy and we didn’t think it would be”, Newcastle manager Steve McClaren said.
The Brazilian-born Spain global is no stranger to controversy and he attracted a lot of headlines at the weekend for his antics which earned Arsenal defender Gabriel a red card in the Blues’ 2-0 win at Stamford Bridge. It was less the Koscielny incident (I am a big proponent of the physical game) but more the childish and petulant way he pressured Mike Dean to bring out the red card that irked me.
He added he felt Costa always acted belligerently and often got away with it.
Wenger also suggested the foul that led to Chelsea’s first goal, headed home from a free kick by centre back Kurt Zouma in the 53rd minute should not have been given.
“It was an incredible feeling for me – when you play big derbies you are always excited and for me it was an awesome game because I scored a goal and we won again“.
BeIN Sport’s Carrie Brown asked: “Of course Arsenal will feel hard done-by, they will claim you should have had a player sent-off in Diego Costa but this is a player that’s famed for riling other players isn’t it?”
“He knows the relationship, he knows that he’s my man. He knows that if I need to choose one out of 25 to be my man, he’s the first”. You can spit in my face and if it’s in a game then I will not respond.
Arsenal now sit fifth in the Premier League table with 10 points from six games, trailing leaders Manchester City by five points.
“We expect that kind of game of course”, he said.
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Mourinho meanwhile has backed Eden Hazard to bounce back from his poor start to the season where he has yet to score for his club and missed a penalty in the 4-0 Champions League win against Maccabi Tel-Aviv on Wednesday.
