The ex-Arsenal and Wales striker John Hartson has one of his little outbursts and he reckons that “people” are sick of Arsene Wenger always blaming the referee when his team gets beaten. The Gunners have one of the worst disciplinary records in the Premiership this season and Wenger thinks that it purely down to the refs picking on his players, rather than coming out and blaming his own players.

Hartson, who scored 14 goals for the Gunners as Ian Wright’s strike partner, said today: “People are sick of it. You want Wenger to come out and say ‘look, my players were ill-disciplined’.

“Over the years at Arsenal the discipline has been woeful under Wenger. You want him to take it [the blame] on the chin.

“We all know Arsenal should have won the game, they go 1-0 up but that’s a dangerous score line, they needed that second goal. Fulham are always thinking, one more goal and we’re back in this.

“I’m getting sick of excuses from Wenger. I don’t know how you can defend his comments really. I genuinely feel Djourou deserved to get sent off.

“The first tackle on Dembele was a definite booking, and a rash referee could have sent him off. Then he gets away with another one on Frei that could have been a booking and then the third one on Zamora.

“Zamora’s a very clever player and if you’re clean through and then pulled back, clever players go down. You’ve seen Arsenal players like Samir Nasri, Cesc Fabregas and Robert Pires all go down under Wenger.

“This is was what clever players do. If they are touched, if they’ve felt a little bit on the shoulder, they go down. It’s not cheating, it’s clever.”

The fact is that he is correct. Wenger never seems to bring his players to task when they do something wrong or have a bad game, in fact he has supported some of Arsenal’s worst ever players in the last few years.