'I haven't seen it' - Wenger's predictable answer over Wilshere-Fellaini headbutt clash

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger refused to be drawn on the confrontation between Jack Wilshere and Marouane Fellaini in Saturday’s defeat to Manchester United and claimed he did not see it.

England international Wilshere escaped punishment from referee Mike Dean when he appeared to headbutt Fellaini in the first-half of the clash at the Emirates Stadium, before an injury forced him off the pitch.

Yet his manager, who also saw Wojciech Szczesny injured after a collision in the build-up to United’s first goal, played down the physicality of the game and claimed he did not see Wilshere’s incident. 

"I haven’t seen it because it was on the other side and I haven’t seen what happened there well enough," he told reporters. "It was a fair game, physically committed but I didn’t see any bad things on the pitch.

"Wojciech is not bad [after his collision with Kieran Gibbs]. Jack I don’t know how bad it is because he tried to stay on and couldn’t. It could be an ankle problem, I don’t know how bad it is.

Defeat means the Gunners have now lost 11 of their last 15 meetings against their Old Trafford rivals, winning just one, but Wenger does not believe his side play with a mental block in this fixture.

"No [there is no mental block] because we played with freedom and we pressed them very high. We won balls back and we had plenty of opportunities to finish this game off.

"I think we made a big mistake on the first goal and when you’re 1-0 down you’re too impatient. We were not cautious enough and we gave the second goal away.

"We missed a few opportunities in the second half. You have to be efficient in top-level games and we were not efficient enough in our good periods, but there were a lot of positives in the game today.

"Even if we are very, very disappointed, we have to keep that and rectify. At the moment, defensively, we are a bit naive."