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What They Said: Wenger awaits Gervinho scan

ESPN staff
October 27, 2012

Arsene Wenger revealed Gervinho could be facing a spell on the sidelines after damaging his ankle in Arsenal's 1-0 victory over QPR, which came courtesy of Mikel Arteta's 84th-minute winner.

Wenger saw Jack Wilshere return after 17 months out of competitive action, but now Gervinho faces a battle to regain fitness. The Arsenal boss confessed Arsenal were helped by the sending-off of Stephane Mbia in Saturday's win:

"It became easier when Mbia was sent off," Wenger said. "Apart from that, I feel the team sometimes has to go through that and come out with the points, and that's what we did today.

"Overall it (Wilshere's performance) was, if you consider he was out for 17 months, quite positive. Of course, he still lacks the rhythm of that level but he will get that with competition. It's an ankle problem (for Gervinho) and how damaged the ankle is we will have to wait 24 hours to know more but it doesn't look good."

Mark Hughes berated the referee after Arsenal's winner, which the QPR boss claimed was offside. He also accused Thomas Vermaelen of getting Mbia sent off:

"The sending-off, that changed the make-up of the game," Hughes told Sky Sports. "Stephane was on the floor and he has swung the leg, there is very minimal contact and Vermaelen is going to make the most of that situation. He dives and rolls around, and makes sure the referee makes a decision.

"When the referee sees [the goal] again he will understand he has made a huge mistake as the lad is clearly offside on two occasions leading up to the goal. I've been in to see the referee and he has conjured up some story about Ryan Nelsen that, because he left the field of play he played everybody onside, but I've no idea what he's going on about because Ryan Nelsen didn't at any stage leave the field of play."

Roberto Mancini blamed tiredness for Manchester City's lacklustre performance in their 1-0 win over Swansea, which came courtesy of Carlos Tevez's second-half thunderbolt:

"It was important we won this game because we have just played a difficult Champions League match and now we have a few days' rest because we have no midweek game," Mancini said. "We were tired and I think it showed in the first half, but we played better in the second-half so I am happy."

Paul Lambert disagreed with Joe Bennett's sending-off © PA Photos
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Swansea boss Michael Laudrup felt his side should have taken something from the game after they wasted several good chances at The Etihad:

"City didn't create too many chances and we were in the match throughout - but then Carlos Tevez scores a goal out of nothing," Laudrup said. "We had two great chances of our own with Michu but Joe Hart saved well on both occasions. When you come away to the champions and restrict them to just one chance, you can't be too down-hearted. Great teams take their chances and City did - we missed ours and that was the difference today."

Norwich boss Chris Hughton felt his team deserved all three points in their 1-1 draw with Aston Villa, which saw Michael Turner cancel out Christian Benteke's opener:

"I think on the balance of the game, and I am not even talking about being down to 10 men, I thought we were the better side over the 90 minutes," Hughton said. "Of course when they went down to 10 men we used the advantage of that and we pushed and we had opportunities. They had one very good chance in the 90 minutes and the quality of the player (Benteke) put it away but I thought we got into the better areas, were more consistent and had the better chances so yes I'm disappointed we didn't get all three [points]."

Paul Lambert was unhappy with the sending-off of defender Joe Bennett, which came for a second bookable offence early in the second period:

"I think the sending-off changed a lot," Lambert said. "That changed the game. At first thought I thought it was a sending-off, because when you commit a foul and you go to do something, then you put yourself in a position where you can get the red. But, looking at it again, I think Elliott [Bennett] has hold of Joe. It was a bit of an even contest and I think the two of them were at it. I haven't had the chance to talk to the ref (Phil Dowd) about it yet. I've only just watched a tape of it."

Fulham boss Martin Jol - who revealed Dimitar Berbatov may have suffered a broken rib - was disappointed to draw 3-3 with Reading. The Cottagers were denied despite strikes from Bryan Ruiz, Chris Baird and Berbatov:

"It is definitely two points dropped. We should have won the game," Jol said. "When you score three goals away from home, against Reading, you deserve to win. We were the better team, we kept the ball and had more purpose to our play. But you have to exploit that."

Reading's Brian McDermott expressed a similar complaint after the Royals failed to protect Mikele Leigertwood's opener. In the end they needed equalisers from Garath McCleary and Hal Robson-Kanu:

James McArthur scored Wigan's winner © PA Photos
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"When we get to 1-0 we need to keep playing our game," McDermott said. "I have been the manager for three years and that's what we have done. We need to keep doing that."

Stoke boss Tony Pulis revealed Marc Wilson had to go to hospital after a challenge with Steven Fletcher in the 0-0 draw with Sunderland at the Britannia Stadium: "He's been sent straight off to hospital so we will wait and see," Pulis said. "We're hoping, fingers crossed, that there's nothing really critical but we won't know until later on. The one thing I will say, there was no challenge involved there. I think Marc's done that himself. It was a competitive game. Martin [O'Neill]'s brought [Lee] Cattermole in for [Stephane] Sessegnon and made it really, really tight in midfield and difficult and they defended very well at times."

Sunderland boss Martin O'Neill urged his side to give more support to striker Fletcher after they failed to register a shot on target:

"I think that is absolutely vital now, it's something that we've been talking about for the last few weeks," O'Neill said. "He's exceptional at holding the ball up, he's also our goalscorer and we need to score a few goals from other players. I think - I've been saying this for a couple of weeks now at some press conferences - that I think that we can do that, I genuinely think we can do that."

Sam Allardyce blamed his West Ham players after goals from Ivan Ramis and James McArthur helped Wigan to a 2-1 win at the DW Stadium:

"We never got going today, " Allardyce said. "We never got to our level, never passed the ball properly and never stopped Wigan playing. The first goal was a great volley, I do think that there was push on Reidy (Winston Reid) for the first goal, but the referee didn't see it. It wasn't about Wigan for me today. It was about a lack of our ability to produce what we have got."

Roberto Martinez joked that he does not like scoring from set-pieces after Ramis' volley sent Wigan on their way to three points:

"I don't think we're that prolific as a team at scoring from set-plays but that was as good a set-play as you are going to see so I'm very pleased with that," Martinez said. "But I don't get satisfaction from scoring set-plays. We've got people on the staff who work on the set-plays - I prefer open play goals. I would give half a goal for a set-play and a full goal for open-play goals."

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