A questionable free-kick in Arsenal’s first half against Sunderland led to an own goal, which allowed them to equalise, has left Arsene Wenger with a bitter taste in his mouth.

The boss appeared irate at half time after the free-kick resulted in an own goal from Giroud and after the match, although he admitted he’d been told he was wrong, he spoke about how the Black Cats were deliberately trying to earn free-kicks.

“I felt Sunderland would be very good on the day on the counter-attack and at free-kicks,” the manager said.

“We played to not give many free-kicks away while they played to get free-kicks so they did that well.”

The free-kick also led to a yellow card for Koscielny, who supposedly pushed over Fletcher, although whether there was anything in it is debatable.

Wenger’s implication that the Black Cats were going down a tad easily is bound to go down like a lead balloon over in Wearside.

It’s far more useful to focus on improving on the glaring discrepancies in our overall performance, especially in the first half, than the tactics of the opposition after the match. Maybe if we learnt to defend set-pieces a bit better, we wouldn’t even be talking about this now.