Brighton manager Fabian Hurzeler has ensured the discourse will be entirely unbearable for the next three to four business days after furiously tearing into Arsenal following their Premier League clash on Wednesday, accusing the Premier League leaders of not trying to play football and insisting he wouldn’t want to win their way.
Arsenal won a scrappy, bitty game 1-0 thanks to Bukayo Saka’s early goal, which coupled with Manchester City stumbling against Nottingham Forest has seen the Gunners stretch their lead at the summit to seven points.
Key flashpoints in the game included Brighton being denied a penalty late in the first half, and Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya hitting the deck for treatment more than once in the second half.
But with the Modern Football Is Rubbish discourse – and Arsenal’s prominent place within it – already swirling out of control, Hurzeler’s suggestion that ‘only one team tried to play football’ and that he would never try to ‘win in that way’ will keep the news cycle ticking over.
Speaking after the game, per the Daily Mirror, Hurzeler said: “There was only one team that tried to play football today. I ask one question – do you ever see in a Premier League game the goalkeeper going down three times?”
“We should focus on our performance, we cannot control these types of things. I made my point before the game.
“We shouldn’t concentrate on these things… let’s talk about us. The Premier League needs to look at rules. There were so many [periods of time wasting].”
Let us all stop and marvel at the sheer futility of that “let’s talk about us”, a moment in which Hurzeler attempts to shut the stable door after he has himself sent the horse bolting into the distance.
At which point Hurzeler promptly got back upon his bolting hobby horse anyway.
“If they win the Premier League, no one will ask how they won it. In the end, it is about the rules,” he added.
“If the referee allows everything, at the moment they are doing their own rules. It is difficult to judge that. I will never be that kind of manager who tries to win in that way.”
It’s an astonishing rant. It’s a war of words. It’s all you’re going to hear about for a while now, at least until whatever Igor Tudor’s got up his sleeve if Spurs lose to Crystal Palace tomorrow night.
