Arsène Wenger promised he would talk to Danny Welbeck if he felt the Arsenal striker was guilty of diving. The manager said he did not see the 38th-minute flashpoint that turned this Europa League tie against Milan decisively in his team’s favour when Welbeck went down inside the area under minimal contact from Ricardo Rodríguez.
Welbeck scored the penalty to make it 1-1 on the night and 3-1 on aggregate. Granit Xhaka and Welbeck would add second-half goals for a 5-1 overall win, although it was a little less comfortable than the scoreline suggested.
“I haven’t seen it again,” Wenger said. “Do you want to accuse the English players to be divers? Was it a penalty or not, I don’t know. The Italian players were not happy with it and I can understand that because I don’t really know what it was. After that, Danny took the penalty in a convincing way. I will watch it again and give you my honest feeling about it. I will give him my honest feeling as well, don’t worry.”
The Milan manager, Rino Gattuso, refused to criticise the officials. He pointed to the error that his goalkeeper, Gianluigi Donnarumma, made on Xhaka’s goal as evidence that anybody could make them – including referees.
“Welbeck is a striker, he has to do what he does,” Gattuso said. “We cannot use that as a reference for the whole of English football – there is a great deal of fair play here. Even when I was a player, I tried to take advantage of individual situations. I don’t want to talk about the referee. I don’t want any alibi.”
For the perennially under-fire Wenger, this was a tonic. “Certainly for the climate around the team, it was a vital result,” Wenger said. “We have targets now to finish as close as possible to the top four and why not benefit from a miracle? But as well focus on the quarter-final.
“We had a nightmare week when we lost twice to Manchester City and at Brighton. To recover from that you need to be solid and mentally strong and show a response together. That’s what we did. Many people didn’t expect us to respond like we have. It shows the team is healthy.
“The team who is biggest favourite in the Europa League is Atlético Madrid but if we get them, we get them. We have some time now to recover and prepare for it.”
