From The Times:
Sir Alex Ferguson will have enjoyed the sight of Arsenal’s manager reacting in such an irrational fashion to this defeat
Nothing about yesterday’s momentous victory is likely to please Manchester United more than the sourly irrational reaction of Arsène Wenger. According to the Arsenal manager’s comments at the end of the enthralling hour and a half, the league leaders were beaten by opponents who took an undeserved lead through an illegal goal and then concentrated almost exclusively on stubborn defence. It was, to say the least, an idiosyncratic interpretation.
In fact, Wenger’s view of events was too eccentric to be explained by the bias that is the prerogative of anybody in his position. There had to be a suspicion that his usual intelligent urbanity had been marginalised by angry disappointment over the 2-0 defeat. He sounded like a man who had been rattled.
The jolting effect the result had on him may have had less to do with the intensification of pressure at the top of the Premiership than with the identity of those inflicting the setback. United and Sir Alex Ferguson obviously rank among the adversaries to whom Wenger least enjoys yielding and after the home-and-away double his men achieved in the league last season this scoreline was bound to hurt.
Yet the extent to which Wenger re-wrote the narrative of the game was remarkable. He may have been justified in suggesting that the first goal was a turning-point, though it was struck by Juan Sebastian Veron as early as the 22nd minute, and he had undeniable grounds for complaining about how Ruud van Nistelrooy helped to control the ball in the build-up by employing his right arm. But the criticism of United’s performance that Wenger constructed on his resentment of that goal was a strangely extravagant edifice. Amid sarcastic musings about whether footballers should be allowed to indulge in a little basketball, he said bluntly of the opposition: “I can’t say I was impressed by their offensive game today. They defended well. After they got the first goal — and there was a definite handball — they could afford to concentrate on defending and that made things easier for them.”