Referee Martin Hansson is incompetent or dishonest

    Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has clearly not calmed down much since his team's 2-1 Champions League defeat at Porto on Wednesday evening.

The game was marked by the Portuguese side taking - and scoring from - a quick free kick after Sol Campbell's back-pass to Lukasz Fabianski was inexplicably handled by the flustered goalkeeper.

Wenger feels that referee Martin Hansson was at fault for the goal rather than his players, with the Swede, according to Wenger, making at least five errors in his handling of the situation.

"The rule is quite clear and the referee - I don't want to go too much into technical details - but he made at least five mistakes technically for a referee," Wenger told reporters at his Friday press conference.

"He made the massive mistake that is you cannot give a free kick once the referee is in the middle of the action.

"The rule people play today for a quick free kick is that he [the referee] whistles, he is far from the ball, the guy puts the ball down and plays quickly.

"Once he's there in the middle where the free kick is, where the ball is, he cannot give anymore a quick free kick and has to make sure the opponent is at nine metres distant.

"In that case the opponent had to be at least on the goalline.

"Apart from all the others where he gave a free kick [was] at the wrong place, so the referee for me has shown his incompetence.

"I believe he's incompetent or dishonest. So I prefer that he's not competent."

Meanwhile, Wenger is sorry for the plight of Portsmouth and would like to see the club saved from their current financial problems so that this season's Premier League can retain its credibility and integrity.

He does not feel that the idea of allowing Pompey to sell players outside of the transfer window would be a sensible solution, however.

"I feel for Portmsouth and I would like this club to be saved," he told reporters at the same press conference.

"And it has to be saved at least until the end of the season for the sake of the reputation of our competition.

"They have to go at least in the Premier League until the end of the season, helped by the Premier League, certainly.

"I believe [selling players outside the window] would set a precedent that would be diffcult to cover after, because that means every mis-managed club after any season could then make the same request and we would be in a position where we could not forbid it.

"That's why I'm much more sceptical about that solution.

"For the credibilty of the competition, even if they get the television money for the next year or the parachute money they get in the next two years if they go down, they have some solutions to be found for the credibility of the Premier League.

"To sell the players for me anyway would be a bad solution, because now we go with no team and we continue to play in the Premier League with a team who is not Premier League any more."

Arsenal, having beaten Portsmouth 4-1 home and away this season, would be stripped of six points and see their goal difference adversely affected should the worst scenario - Pompey going out of existence and having their record expunged - come to pass.