Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger to face FA rap after angry confrontation with match official at Sunderland

By Rob Draper for The Mail on Sunday Updated: 01:48 EST, 20 September 2010

Arsene Wenger faces the threat of a Football Association charge after appearing to place his hands on fourth official Martin Atkinson after his side conceded a dramatic 95th-minute equaliser at Sunderland last night.

The Arsenal manager confronted Atkinson after Darren Bent had scored some 15 seconds after the allocated four minutes of injury time had been played, having initially laid hands on the official to attract his attention.

Making intentional physical contact with any official is regarded as taboo by the FA, although Wenger denied that he had pushed the official and will doubtless argue that he was merely making contact so as to speak to Atkinson.

'Take the pictures and look at it. I complained to nobody,' said the manager.

Wenger had also patted Atkinson, again seemingly in frustration, after Alex Song was sent off after 55 minutes - the 50th red card under the Frenchman - and he admitted his frustration at being denied victory in the time added on by referee Phil Dowd.

'I know it's a minimum of four minutes but nothing happened in those four minutes to justify them adding more,' he said. 'But there's nothing I can do.'

Arsenal also lost Cesc Fabregas, who had opened the scoring after 14 minutes, to injury and missed a penalty when Tomas Rosicky shot over in the 74th minute.

'It's a hamstring. How bad it is I don't know,' said Wenger when asked about his captain. 'I believe we battled very hard and in the second half we were the better team but in the first half we had difficulties. With 10 men we were dominating. It is frustrating but we still take a lot of positives.'

Speaking about Song's dismissal, he added: 'The first yellow card was very harsh and on the second, he makes an obstruction. We adapted quite well after that.'

Sunderland boss Steve Bruce said: 'The complaint is that we played 15 seconds over but to be fair to the referee we had to get the ball out of the stands for the corner, so the referee's well within his prerogative to play more. It's a minimum of four minutes. You have to play to the whistle.'