Sky Sports are reporting that after Arsenal’s 3-1 defeat to Sevilla, in which a second-half penalty was awarded to the Spaniards and converted by former Spurs player Fredi Kanoute, Gooner defender Kolo Toure said:
“I don’t like to talk about the referee but tonight he was a little bit difficult for us. The ref sometimes helped them but when you go away it is always like that but they deserved their win. We gave everything but that’s the way football goes.”
So a little bit of a mixed bag from Toure, who continued the latest Big 4 trend of slamming referees but also threw out the fact that Sevilla deserved to win. So was ref Eric Braamhaar deserving of Toure’s criticism, or has ref bashing just become second nature to players and managers in the Big 4?