Wolverhampton Wanderers used social media to underline concerns about Arsenal\u2019s approach to the closing stages after a 2\u20132 draw. The club posted an 80-second TikTok captioned ‘Game Management’ that stitched together moments from the match and framed them as a critique of Arsenal\u2019s endgame tactics.<\/p>\n
The video singled out Gabriel Martinelli\u2019s \u201cconfident\u201d decision to celebrate toward the crowd after a 2\u20131 gesture and then a lengthy delay before a corner was taken. Wolves also highlighted apparent \u201cconfusion\u201d over set-piece responsibility and added: “If only you could practice this before matchday.”<\/p>\n
Both Gabriel and Leandro Trossard were accused of faking injuries during the match. The Belgian went down twice from a head injury, allowing Arsenal to introduce Riccardo Calafiori as a substitute just seconds before the Italian defender turned Tom Edozie\u2019s effort into his own net.<\/p>\n
Back in 2023, Arteta went on a public crusade against time-wasting in the Premier League. That history has left critics noting a reversal of sorts, with complaints this season aimed at Arteta over Arsenal\u2019s management of minutes. Against Wolves, the pattern was visible: slow, sideways passes and deliberate pauses when the ball was out of play.<\/p>\n
Per Opta, Arsenal have used a Premier League-high total of 117 minutes to restart games when taking corners, and their average delay of 44 seconds per corner also tops the division. The attack on Arsenal centres on the optics of a title-chasing side employing delay tactics against a Wolves team rock bottom of the table.<\/p>\n
The debate is not new; after a Champions League win in November 2025, Lukas Provod pointed to Arsenal\u2019s set-piece preparation and said, \u201cArsenal prepare for set pieces for a long time, we knew that.\u201d He added, \u201cWhen they were leading, they didn\u2019t rush anywhere, the referee didn\u2019t rush them. I guess that\u2019s a compliment for us too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whether the measures were an instruction from Arteta is unclear, though the manager accepted his side lacked composure to see out the win. The accusation of an inability to handle pressure was recently laughed off by Bukayo Saka. Arsenal have little time to recover before the north London derby against Tottenham Hotspur.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wolves used an 80-second TikTok to mock Arsenal\u2019s time-wasting; Opta shows 117 minutes lost. Midweek<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6977,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[230,192,172,783],"tags":[1162,826,1481],"class_list":["post-6978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analytics-stats","category-arsenal","category-epl","category-wolverhampton-wanderers","tag-analytics","tag-bukayo-saka","tag-time-wasting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}