“There was something refreshing about Arsene Wenger’s take on the red card shown to Laurent Koscielny nine minutes into Arsenal’s 2-0 loss to Manchester City on Sunday. For once — and this is a criticism directed at virtually all managers, not Wenger in particular — he didn’t take the easy way out and blame the referee. It would have been simple — justified up to a point, even — to say that the game had effectively been decided by Mike Dean’s decision to send Koscielny off. That the defender committed a foul by hauling Edin Dzeko down is beyond doubt, but there is a question as to whether Koscielny denied him a clear goal-scoring opportunity; Dzeko, after all, did not have control of the ball and would have had to bring it down before Wojciech Szczesny came to clear.” SI – Jonathan Wilson