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Arsenal Thread

I agree, we should get over it. But as long as those inbreds at Stoke won't let it go I don't see why we should. At least we can rightfully blame Shawcross for being a reckless idiot, it's not like Ramsey can help it he broke his leg.
 
Godotelli said:
TBF, the way Arsenal treated Shawcross wasn't exactly fair either.
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The way Arsenal treated Shawcross? Do remind us, please.
I don't remember Arsenal doing anything in particular to the player. Or should they have released a statement thanking him for breaking the leg of our player?

What are people on about! Arsenal didn't treat well the poor boy who broke Ramsey's leg, oh heavens... Stoke fans expecting 'muted celebrations' from Ramsey? They can fuck right off.

For a bunch who like to be regarded as toughies, they do sound like pussies.
 
Well that was crap, wasn't a pen imo, but we played shit anyway.

Stoke away is always hard but I expected a better performance.
 
it doesn't matter anyway we played like crap we didn't deserve anything from the game, I dread to think what will happen this month with the games we have coming up.
 
The ref did us no favours, as the match was officiated in the 'Stoke' way. A lot of uncalled fouls in midfield breaking down our movement.

But then again, Arsenal were lousy today. Even when you do catch a break and the ref spots a foul on Giroud on the edge of the box, what do we do? Roll it for Arteta to have his shot blocked by a wall of rushing Orcs. It's a sin to waste a free kick like that, when you have people like Cazorla and Ozil to take it.

It looks as though this squad spends very little time on the training ground practicing set pieces.

Arsenal have themselves to blame mostly. Once again the team created not enough, and a lot of it was our own fault.

One would try to look at it not so negatively, as Chavski and ManU both lost there too. But the raw truth is that we're now 4 points behind and have a tough sequence of fixtures in March.
 
Rentboy said:
The way Arsenal treated Shawcross? Do remind us, please.
I don't remember Arsenal doing anything in particular to the player. Or should they have released a statement thanking him for breaking the leg of our player?

What are people on about! Arsenal didn't treat well the poor boy who broke Ramsey's leg, oh heavens... Stoke fans expecting 'muted celebrations' from Ramsey? They can fuck right off.

For a bunch who like to be regarded as toughies, they do sound like pussies.
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I'm not arsed enough to go digging things up. I remember being disappointed with the reaction towards him and what was quite obviously an accident.
 
Godotelli said:
I'm not arsed enough to go digging things up. I remember being disappointed with the reaction towards him and what was quite obviously an accident.
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I can't be bothered either, but the things that I'm aware of include only supporters reaction to Shawcross. Arsenal FC didn't say anything officially or mistreated Shawcross in any way as far as I know.

Supporters reaction was always going to be negative, wouldn't it? You wouldn't receive with an ovation a player who broke a leg of one of your players. This was all expected.
What is surprising though, is the hostility of Stoke fans toward Ramsey. This is what puzzles us and shows just how classless the majority of their fans are.
 
Don't agree with the reaction of some Stoke fans towards Ramsey (no need to generalize it).
On the other hand, i think it was fairly Obvious that Shawcross didn't do this on purpose...if you don't see that you are very, very biased.

So what are we talking about: some fans from both teams were making a meal out of this...

I also prefer watchingSwansea to Stoke, but they are not the villains some people make of them...they are one of the teams that make the EPL less predictable, so i want them to stay up and i don't care if Spurs loose points against them...i prefer an even league in the long term to my team winning it...remember that i used to be a Man Utd fan...i got pretty bored with all their wins in the end...unfortunately life is much more about loosing than about winning.
 
I dont mind the tactics from Stoke, but what really annoys me is the leniency they get from the ref's. 9/10 of their tackles would be a freekick and after a few a yellow card in all the other games, but not at the Brittania! They get away constantly with roughhouse tactics and you can see it gets to the other players as they are never protected by the ref like they would be in other games. So when some neanderthal comes running at them at 100mph you can see they are scared and want to get rid of the ball because when they do get clattered they get sod all. It was the same with Liverpool, although they have the players who can take it and will put that crap to good use (Suarez). Look at Adam, how often has he been standing on ankles this season and gets nothing. He got punished for that at Liverpool.
 
I wrote some thing similar in the CL thread, imo this is the reason why English clubs tend to have (relatively) a lot of sending offs in Europe. But then i got reaction that this is what makes the EPL attractive.

I don't agree that only Stoke is unpunished, take any England international and he will be protected by refs, when have the likes of Gerrard and Rooney (for example) have had red cards ? Can't remember...
 
If Shawcross had the intention or not, it doesn't even come into the equation. The fact is that the supporters of Arsenal will always hate him for that - you know how it is, fan reaction is similar to mob mentality, people don't analyse things before expressing themselves. Regardless of the circumstances it's more like "he hurt one of ours, let the hostility begin". With the added aggravation that Shawcross got a standard 3 match ban, while the injury robbed Ramsey of 1 year of his career, plus the period when he had to readjust to playing and getting his confidence back. So the sense of injustice makes matters even worse.

You see, I'm trying to detach myself as much as I can from being an Arsenal fan and only trying to understand the mindset of the fans.

When I try to put myself into the place of Stoke fans booing Ramsey, I cannot come up with any argument to justify it. It really defies logic IMO.

They just want carte blanche for their players to run wild and reckless over the pitch no matter what happens.
The referee bias in the Brittania Stadium is very real. I guess it is sheer pressure from fans that gets into referees heads. So they end up getting away with a lot.

Charlie Adam got away scot-free from a studs up against Arteta's thigh when they were only contesting a header! It's that kind of stuff they resort to.

Furthermore, their fans... I have no good words to describe their moronic attitude. Gerd, I'm sure you would catch my drift if you find footage of how their fans reacted to Arsene Wenger in the last 2 or 3 visits to Stoke, bar yesterday.
I had never seen a manager being taunted and disrespected like that before.
 
Even yesterday Stoke got away with several yellow and borderline 'orange' situations, simply because they're Stoke. The ref barely even called fouls half the time.

At one point a defender (Wilson maybe?) just full on kicked Giroud as the striker slid in to take the ball. The defender realised he was going to get it but would 'try' to boot the 'ball' up the pitch anyway. So he was a second late and just kicked the striker, who had nicked the ball.

In Spain, that's probably a red card. Not least because a player from different climes would probably have done about 13 somersaults, cried the pitch soaking and called an air ambulance, but because that's just not allowed in football. But because its Stoke he's just a 'limited, honest defender' who got done by skill.

And yeah, of cousre we had Adam - leading with his studs into an opponents knee on a header. He of course is that type of player - he's single handedly done Bale about 3 times a lone.

But for some reason when refs go to the Britannia, they seemt o revel in it. There were less fouls called yesterday than most matches I've seen tis season, despite there being a significant amount more fouls taking place and not being called.

I just look at the CL this year. Fellaini got sent off in the group stages for committing 4 fouls in a match. None of which were anywhere approaching the 'badness' of a single one of the uncalled fouls from yesterday. But it's easy to send off the big curly haired fella playing from that 'dirty' English league. Whereas for whatver reason refs at the Brtiannia almost want to show how 'hard' they are by telling everyone to 'get on with it' at all times.

And that's why Ramsey got done. Not because Shawcross is evil or snide (like Adam) but because he's a Stoke player, and the manager tells them to play like that, and referees let them.
 
Charlie Adam was subbed around 70 minutes without going into the book. If you watch what he did, that is mental! He stepped on Giroud's leg and then there was the studs up against Arteta when disputing a header. And there was more from him during the match. So the raw truth is that he should no longer have been on the pitch by the time he got subbed.

The kick on Giroud was pretty bad too. As a matter of fact, it was a similar move to the one that broke Ramsey's leg. Their defender knew he couldn't get the ball but went in hard anyway. This time around Giroud's leg wasn't firm on the ground, otherwise the result could have been just as bad.
Stoke defenders took turns into kicking lumps out of Giroud all day long and didn't get nearly enough words of caution from the ref.
But Giroud was loudly booed and jeered by all Stoke fans... for being kicked out of the park.

I simply cannot stomach that kind of stuff. The double standards and the culture of playing dirty (there's a difference between being tough and dirty). Because this isn't how football was meant to be played.

Lenient refs leads to violent players feeling unrestrained, which can lead to serious injuries and talented players feeling unprotected and intimidated.
And you know the immediate implications for English football: not many flair players with outstanding offensive talent; and an emphasis on physicality and brute behaviour from defending players. And the next thing you know, the whole nation is up in arms at a World Cup or Euro wondering why an English player got a straight red, and feeling paranoid and persecuted. Not to mention that the English teams that play these tournaments are not very good technically. Then the whole nation ask themselves where it all went wrong.

Football in England has to come closer in approach to continental Europe's style. You would hope that a star studded Premier League that features or has featured players like Cristiano Ronaldo, David Silva, Sergio Aguero, Mesut Ozil, Eden Hazard, among others, would help mould a more 'continental' style of refereeing and playing... but seeing what happens at places like Brittania stadium, I lose a bit of hope for that.
 
I don't think it's to do with "style" per se. I think it's more like the overall standard of refereeing seems to be getting worse and worse in the Premier League.
 
Abou, on the continent we are also complaining about the standaard of refereeing.
IMO referees need more help.

English players will always be more vulnerable for red cards because the English refs admit more physicality. Like i already said, the FA should think about this.
 
When you have Stoke players saying openly to the media "we kick them a little bit to make things harder for them", you know just how bad the situation really is.
http://www.football365.com/news/21554/9194258/-Kicking-Them-A-Bit-

In the past, when Tony Pulis was the manager, players talked to the press about "getting stuck in", "if we get in their faces they don't like it", etc. But now, their players left metaphors behind and talk openly about kicking the opposition. What a disgrace.

The issue is wide open. If only the FA wanted, they could do something about it.

PS: Adam might get retrospective punishment for his antics on Saturday.
 
No needto blame Stoke (and yes Adam should have been sent off) because Arsenal's performance was abysmal.
In the past Samir Nasri got a lot of stick for being a coward (Van Persie's free kick in the Manchester derby), but it seems as if this Arsenal team is intimidated by physical play.

IMO the truth is somewhere in between : Stoke play it rough but Arsenal are far too easy intimidated.

I hope for Arsenal that Bayern will be consider already being qualified otherwise it might be a night quicklyto forget in Munich...
 
I think it's impossible to reason or defend Stoke's way of playing, as the way things are right now. It simply ain't football.
As I said before, this thing is so blown out there that their players don't even use metaphors anymore, they just outright say they "kicked them a bit". If these words, along with Ramsey's injury in the past, plus the retrospective punishment of Adam, don't draw a big magnifying glass over fixtures at the Brittania stadium from now on, then I don't know what will.

At the end of the day, anyone can play as thugs. They're all grown men with football boots equipped with studs. By this standard, Mertesacker and Koscielny could spend all afternoon grinding Crouch's knees and ankles until he becomes disabled. But I doubt they'd get away with it, after all we're talking about two foreigners giving a striker of the English National Team a hard time.
On the other hand, if two Brittish centre halves do the same to Giroud at the Brittania, the refs turn their heads. Good job Giroud is French too.

Furthermore, as beachryan said, Stoke is regarded as the little team who can't make big signings, who has to "play to their strengths" and a disgraceful challenge like that kick on Giroud (or the one that broke Ramsey's leg) is always a mistimed tackle, not malicious, but the player was "too fast" for their limited defender.

This leniency seriously distorts the way football is perceived and played. When I see the moronic attitude of Stoke fans shouting "Cheat, Cheat, Cheat" to Giroud as he limped back from that blatant foul, it just becomes clearer that this standard of refereeing encourages that mindset.

I'm not complaining about the result, cause Arsenal was indeed lacklustre.
I have no problems to acknowledge when Arsenal is poor and the team is well beaten, as it happened against Swansea 1 or 2 years ago.
I just regret to see a team like Stoke employing such methods and reaping the rewards. If they beat Man United and Chelsea too, I'd wager they resorted to the same tactics.

PS: I looked up for Nwanko Kanu's status, but got no further news about his health. Maybe that's a good thing. Here's wishing him a speedy recovery.
 
Other thing I dislike about Stoke - they play less football than anyone else. Their matches have the lowest 'ball in play' time of any team in the league. They systematically waste time.

But one day they'll be relegated back into the 'agricultural' leagues where they belong.
 
Rentboy said:
I think it's impossible to reason or defend Stoke's way of playing, as the way things are right now. It simply ain't football.
As I said before, this thing is so blown out there that their players don't even use metaphors anymore, they just outright say they "kicked them a bit". If these words, along with Ramsey's injury in the past, plus the retrospective punishment of Adam, don't draw a big magnifying glass over fixtures at the Brittania stadium from now on, then I don't know what will.

At the end of the day, anyone can play as thugs. They're all grown men with football boots equipped with studs. By this standard, Mertesacker and Koscielny could spend all afternoon grinding Crouch's knees and ankles until he becomes disabled. But I doubt they'd get away with it, after all we're talking about two foreigners giving a striker of the English National Team a hard time.
On the other hand, if two Brittish centre halves do the same to Giroud at the Brittania, the refs turn their heads. Good job Giroud is French too.

Furthermore, as beachryan said, Stoke is regarded as the little team who can't make big signings, who has to "play to their strengths" and a disgraceful challenge like that kick on Giroud (or the one that broke Ramsey's leg) is always a mistimed tackle, not malicious, but the player was "too fast" for their limited defender.

This leniency seriously distorts the way football is perceived and played. When I see the moronic attitude of Stoke fans shouting "Cheat, Cheat, Cheat" to Giroud as he limped back from that blatant foul, it just becomes clearer that this standard of refereeing encourages that mindset.

I'm not complaining about the result, cause Arsenal was indeed lacklustre.
I have no problems to acknowledge when Arsenal is poor and the team is well beaten, as it happened against Swansea 1 or 2 years ago.
I just regret to see a team like Stoke employing such methods and reaping the rewards. If they beat Man United and Chelsea too, I'd wager they resorted to the same tactics.

PS: I looked up for Nwanko Kanu's status, but got no further news about his health. Maybe that's a good thing. Here's wishing him a speedy recovery.
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good post :))
 
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