Credit: The Brighton Base
Brighton manager Fabian Hurzeler has slammed Arsenal’s tactics following his side’s defeat at the Amex Stadium.
The Seagulls were beaten 1-0 by the league leaders on Wednesday evening, with Bukayo Saka’s strike, which deflected off Carlos Baleba to wrongfoot Bart Verbruggen, in the ninth minute proving decisive.
Arsenal were forced to dig in throughout the contest to keep Brighton at bay, failing to register a shot on target after taking the lead. The Seagulls dominated possession throughout but were unable to create many clear-cut openings.
But it was not just Brighton’s end product that was the source of Hurzeler’s frustrations at full-time. The German was also left furious with how Mikel Arteta’s side ran down the clock on the Sussex coast, especially via David Raya, which was an overall issue that he had already touched on in his pre-match press conference.
Speaking after the defeat, Hurzeler said: “I ask one question. Did you see one time in a Premier League game a goalkeeper go down three times? No? We shouldn’t waste too many words on that. We should focus on us, our performance, we can’t control these kind of things.
“In the end, it’s about the rules. If the Premier League, the referee, allows everything, then it’s difficult. They (Arsenal) make their own rules, no matter how they are playing. I will never be that kind of manager who tries to win in that way. I want to develop players, players that keep improving and play football on the pitch.”
The former St. Pauli boss went on to call for the Premier League’s higher powers to consider making some rule changes to stamp out time-wasting.
He continued: “In the end, every team will manage and waste time, but there has to be a limit, and the limit has to be set by the Premier League, by the referees. At the moment, they (Arsenal) just can do what they want.
“If I ask everyone now here in the room (of his post-match press conference) ‘did you really enjoy this football game?’, I am sure maybe one raises his arm because he’s a big Arsenal fan. Besides that, no chance.”