Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger insisted he “didn’t see” Danny Welbeck dive to earn a Europa League penalty against Milan.
The Gunners had won the first leg 2-0, but Hakan Calhanoglu’s strike re-opened the tie in London until moments later Welbeck ‘earned’ a spot-kick, putting them on their way to an eventual 3-1 result.
“When I watch the penalty, I will give you an honest answer,” Wenger told BT Sport.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger insisted he “didn’t see” Danny Welbeck dive to earn a Europa League penalty against Milan.
The Gunners had won the first leg 2-0, but Hakan Calhanoglu’s strike re-opened the tie in London until moments later Welbeck ‘earned’ a spot-kick, putting them on their way to an eventual 3-1 result.
“When I watch the penalty, I will give you an honest answer,” Wenger told BT Sport.
“It was a good response from the team at 1-0 down. I don’t want to accuse Danny Welbeck of diving before I see it again.
"It's much better, we needed that to recover from our results.
"It shows how the team has responded. We had a difficult game but in the end we won it.
"It was an open game. We played backwards a bit too much in the first half to protect the result. We played a very good side.
"We have to improve defensively, but overall we are team with technical quality which is more offense-minded.
"We struggle a bit more when we have to defend. We finished the game more compact and more solid.
"We would certainly want to avoid Atletico Madrid, but we will see, we have no influence over that."
Wenger also spoke to Sky Sport Italia after the game.
“Milan have a lot of quality and we approached the game too defensively to begin with, as we wanted to protect the first leg lead.
“In the second half we played much better. I give my compliments to Milan, as they made life difficult for us. Gattuso has done an exceptional job with a club that was in crisis. The team is balanced and they are good in attack.”
Here again, the manager was asked about the controversial penalty.
“I don’t know if it was a penalty or not, I haven’t seen it. Perhaps we were a little lucky, I don’t know, but we replied well to Milan taking the advantage.”