Kasper Hjulmand’s Bayer Leverkusen gave Arsenal a taste of their own set-piece medicine
Arsenal Football Newsletter
Kasper Hjulmand explained his exchange with Arsenal's set-piece coach Nicolas Jover during Bayer Leverkusen's draw with the Gunners.
Leverkusen were impressive on home soil in the first leg of the Champions League last-16 tie and took the lead early in the second half.
A corner was swung to the back post, Ibrahim Maza blocked Eberechi Eze and Robert Andrich was left free to head in at the back post.
In his pre-match press conference on Tuesday, Leverkusen head coach Hjulmand had drawn attention to Arsenal's blocking tactics from set-pieces and questioned whether it should be legal.
After Andrich scored, Hjulmand went over to speak to Jover. He revealed the Arsenal coach was keen to emphasise Leverkusen were using the tactics Hjulmand had criticised the day before.
The Dane said: “I’m just questioning, is it actually in the rules that you can bodycheck and take players out without the ball?
"So he was just looking [and saying], ‘you do it too?’ Yeah, we are doing it too. So it is the same for all teams, we are all doing it.”
Mikel Arteta was frustrated with how his side conceded that goal. The Leverkusen corner came after they had run at the Arsenal defence straight from kick-off.
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The Arsenal boss insisted he was expected that routine from the hosts, but bemoaned how his players responded to it.
"There's always two sides to that," Arteta said.
"One is the element of the opponent that they picked that weakness, and that lack of attention or urgency in both situations.
"The the other one is us, because we knew, we showed them three clips from last weekend in three different ways, and we weren't ready for it, and we got caught."
Hjulmand, meanwhile, was also left frustrated with the manner of Arsenal's equaliser.
Havertz levelled things up from the penalty spot after Noni Madueke had gone down under a sliding challenge from Malik Tillman.
Replays initially showed there was minimal contact but there was one angle that indicated Tillman had landed on the top of Madueke's foot.
“There’s no contact and then he goes down," Hjulmand insisted.
"It’s not a penalty. That’s a situation where if the referee doesn’t blow his whistle and VAR checks it, then there’s no penalty."