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Stoke City shock title-chasers Arsenal

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A Jonathan Walters second-half penalty was enough to give Stoke City a shock, but deserved 1-0 victory over Arsenal this afternoon at the Britannia Stadium, which now leaves Arsene Wenger’s men four points behind league-leaders Chelsea.

In what provides to be an always feisty affair due to their recent history, Stoke and Arsenal once again did battle with the atmosphere as hot as ever in Stoke, and it was the hosts that came away victorious after Laurent Koscielny conceded a penalty for a blatant handball.

Walters, who won the penalty, is known for missing most of his spot-kick opportunities, but with this one, he made no mistake as he rolled it past Wojciech Szczesny.

Despite throughout the game having 10 attempts, Arsenal only managed two on target and despite also having most of the possession, they failed to make that count, and they now will be looking over their shoulders for rivals, rather than look ahead at Chelsea.

If Liverpool see of Southampton in the late kick-off, The Gunners will slip to third, which will most likely see them slip to fourth if Manchester City win both their games in hand.

Here is some match reaction from after the game.

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger: “It’s a big worry to lose a game like that, it was a massive setback.”

“I felt we had a good defensive performance and overall we are unlucky to lose this game. Offensively we didn’t create enough and our offensive game was poor considering our standards. At the end of the day we didn’t score because of that. We conceded a goal that was a nice gift from the referee but it can happen.”

“He [Koscienly] is one yard away. How can he take his hand away? He has no time to take his hand away from the ball. There’s is no intention at all but I feel we cannot influence the decision of the referee. I feel going forward we were not good enough to create chances and that’s why we were punished.”

“You have to give Stoke credit, they defended well with resilience and made the game very physical. But we didn’t cope well enough with it and we got punished.”

Stoke manager Mark Hughes: “I thought we were excellent from start to finish. We restricted Arsenal to very few opportunities. We had really good chances ourselves as well, apart from what was obviously a clear-cut penalty – I think there’s no doubt about that.

“We’re delighted. It’s difficult when you go up against a team like Arsenal – they will try and probe and create, but I thought we coped fairly well with them. I thought we had more intensity and drive in our play than they did, and as a consequence we were able to nullify them quite easily.”

“I just saw it as the ball bouncing around there, then it bounces up – it was awkward obviously for Koscielny, but it’s clearly hit his hand. I’m surprised that Arsenal think it isn’t (a penalty).. then again, maybe I’m not!”
 
Written by Alex Batt – @AlexBatt – @AlexsArticles

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