Arsenal’s Wenger reacts to comeback at PSG, Giroud’s red card

A nightmare start for Arsenal didn’t kill the Premier League during Champions League play at the Parc des Princes on Tuesday, but it sure didn’t help.

Edinson Cavani scored 42 seconds into the game for PSG, and Arsenal didn’t find the equalizer until late in the second half through Alexis Sanchez. But thanks to David Ospina’s heroics in goal and Cavani’s poor luck in finishing, the Gunners bagged a big point from a 1-1 draw.

[ MORE: Match recap ]

Laurent Koscielny said the Gunners “slept” at the start of the game, a potentially worrying trend given the start to their weekend visit from Southampton.

“When you start so badly against a team of that quality you need experience,” Wenger said, courtesy Arsenal’s web site. “If you are too young, you can be caught. I thought that we didn’t panic, and overall we were resilient enough, and the resilience comes through experience.”

Wenger was also asked about the second half red card given to Olivier Giroud, who was already on yellow before a stoppage time altercation with PSG’s Marco Verratti. Giroud appeared to be shown a straight red card, and Verratti a yellow and a red.

“The ball was on the other side, I did not see what happened. I think the first yellow card [for Giroud] was very harsh already, it wasn’t a foul. The second, he tells me he has done nothing at all and Olivier is honest so I believe him. And Verratti told me as well that he has done nothing, so I said look, ‘go together to see the referee and tell him you did nothing’.”

There’s a bit of “Dad telling his kid to talk to Mom” in that one, no?

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