Arsenal Thread

[bebo]

Fabregas said " How could I be the MOTM , I didn`t score the penalty" good result . We are defending as a team too!I notice this in the CL match on Tuesday vs. Shakhtar Donetsk , Arshavin tracking back

 

[PLF]

Good result yesterday.

Lots of the usual nice quick pass/movement too.

Although Jack has the thighs of a racehorse, I have heard he has the penis of a hamster

Chamakh's mom caught on camera.

Lol what is this?!

 

[BobbyBox]

nice result for us lot tonight

Walcott's finishing is getting better and better.

our young keeper didn't look too bad aswell, from what I saw.

 

[bebo]

I wasn`t impress by any player they seem to gel very well as a unit. I rather JET get more minutes though , 1 more match to bring back Jack

 

[beachryan]

New keeper already looks better than the others. Worth keeping an eye out.

Good finishing from Theo, but weird goals all around really. Still can't work out how Bendtner got away with his 'screen' of the defender.

 

[BobbyBox]

New keeper already looks better than the others. Worth keeping an eye out.

Good finishing from Theo, but weird goals all around really. Still can't work out how Bendtner got away with his 'screen' of the defender.

Yeah that was a bit dodgy, even though I don't think that defender would of got near Walcott. But if it happened to us, I would be a bit pissed off

Bendtners goal though was really nice, well taken.

 

[Jumbo_]

Yeah that was a beast of a strike. Walcott was very cool infront of goal too, which is good for England.

Main positive for me though was that Eastmond moves like a baby deer. Hilarious to watch.

 

[bebo]

Wasn`t aware there was a new offside rules. btw the ref was very lenient .

 

[n4p4st4]

that last gk punch at the end of the match was wonderful. would love to see more of these power interventions aka real goalkeeping at arsenal...

also, how cool is theo now in front of the goalkeeper? he proves to have always been more of a forward than a winger.

 

[tc811]

Wasn`t aware there was a new offside rules. btw the ref was very lenient .

That was a strange call for me. How was Bendtner not flagged for interfering with play?

 

[BobbyBox]

oooh left it a bit late, but got the 3 points in the end

Good stuff! why couldn't Chelsea just draw?!

At least Man City lost

Hopefully Man United Spurs is a draw.

 

[bebo]

wow Song is becoming the Toure of Barca didn`t see the game just the MOTM highlights. Green made some top drawer saves!

 

[gerd]

Green is having a very good season after the WC and that goal. I'm happy for him.
Also very happy that Song scored the winner and what a beautiful assist from Clichy. It seems Vermaelen injury will keep him longer off the field than foreseen...

Off-topic, but i have to write abiut it somewhere...what a dreadfull second Man Utd goal...it seems that Spurs have a habit of suffering simlar goals...is there a link with a lack of concentration. You also saw a nice example of how some established players are allowed more than others. Clattenberg sent all Spurs players away before consulting his assistent and then Ferdinand had the nerve of interfering. I thought he would get a yellow card, but no...

 

[BobbyBox]

Green is having a very good season after the WC and that goal. I'm happy for him.
Also very happy that Song scored the winner and what a beautiful assist from Clichy. It seems Vermaelen injury will keep him longer off the field than foreseen...

Off-topic, but i have to write abiut it somewhere...what a dreadfull second Man Utd goal...it seems that Spurs have a habit of suffering simlar goals...is there a link with a lack of concentration. You also saw a nice example of how some established players are allowed more than others. Clattenberg sent all Spurs players away before consulting his assistent and then Ferdinand had the nerve of interfering. I thought he would get a yellow card, but no...

Yeah that was ridiculous the way he let Ferdinand stay over near them both.

 

[bebo]

Did you remember last weekend, when Capt.Fabregas got close to Sir Clatten he was ushered out like he was a fan. (sent off, decision)

 

[cfdh_edmundo]

Green is having a very good season after the WC and that goal. I'm happy for him.
Also very happy that Song scored the winner and what a beautiful assist from Clichy. It seems Vermaelen injury will keep him longer off the field than foreseen...

Off-topic, but i have to write abiut it somewhere...what a dreadfull second Man Utd goal...it seems that Spurs have a habit of suffering simlar goals...is there a link with a lack of concentration. You also saw a nice example of how some established players are allowed more than others. Clattenberg sent all Spurs players away before consulting his assistent and then Ferdinand had the nerve of interfering. I thought he would get a yellow card, but no...

This happens regularly with Premier League refs at Old Trafford, Man Utd players are allowed to crowd around the ref and bicker at him. It looks like the linesman was telling the ref it was a handball, but the ref got nervous and just gave the goal anyway, probably afraid of what Fergie would say.

 

[tc811]

Wow, it's like this team has transformed over the past summer. When did this group of kids start to play 1-touch and 2-touch football? I remember distinctly in 2008-2009, this same group looked so clueless against the same opposition, just passing the ball square or backwards for a majority of the match. Now they're doing it like Barcelona, just creating chances at will. Nasri, Wilshere, and Denilson have all grown up. Well done.

May I continue and heap the praises onto Chamakh and Squillaci? Damn good buys, I still can't believe we got Chamakh on a free transfer. Show 'em how to wheel and deal, Wenger.

 

[Milanista]

What about Koscielny? I think £12m is a lot of money for someone that's not too proven.

 

[Jumbo_]

This happens regularly with Premier League refs at Old Trafford, Man Utd players are allowed to crowd around the ref and bicker at him. It looks like the linesman was telling the ref it was a handball, but the ref got nervous and just gave the goal anyway, probably afraid of what Fergie would say.

Come on Edmundo, you're better than that. From reading your other posts you're clearly an intelligent guy but that's just rubbish.

All teams crowd round refs. Period. And quite often the home team will get a dodgy decision in their favour (eg. Stoke's perfectly legit goal ruled out at Everton this weekend. And they lost). Give me 2 recent examples where United have benefitted from poor decisions and I will give you 5 where we've been 'sinned' against. The biggest one is Drogba's winner last season from a yard offside, at Old Trafford, which effectively won them the title. Work that one out.

That one particularly unsavoury incident 10 years ago seems to have clouded people's perspective and allowed you to kid yourselves into thinking that it's only United who surround refs and that only United benefit from poor refereeing decisions.

In fact, in this instance, the ones who were crowding around the ref were the Tottenham players. The only United player there was Ferdinand and he wasn't exactly screaming in Clattenburg's face like Bale and co were.

Also, the linesman didn't even put his flag up until Gomes had ran up to him and (wait for it...) screamed in his face!! Apparently raising the flag straight up as he did does not mean he thought there had been a foul, just that he wanted to speak to the ref. I'm not 100% sure that that's correct, just something I read earlier, it certainly makes sense with what happened though.

If the officials really wanted to give us a goal, then why not just blow up for a penalty when Nani went down in the first place? There was more than enough contact for them to justify it.

 

[cfdh_edmundo]

Come on Edmundo, you're better than that. From reading your other posts you're clearly an intelligent guy but that's just rubbish...

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/09042010/58/premier-league-manchester-united-saints.html

I don't think it can be dismissed as "rubbish", most people who follow the Premier League with a degree of objectivity (i.e. neutrals) can think of numerous incidents such as the ones listed above. Occasionally another team might crowd a ref but I can't think of an example (let alone multiple examples from the same team) akin to the above.

The irony of all this is that Ferguson had the hypocrisy to call Bayern's players "typical Germans" last season when they crowded the ref.

Give me 2 recent examples where United have benefitted from poor decisions and I will give you 5 where we've been 'sinned' against

Well, lets assume recent is this season, I would say the Nani debacle of the weekend is one, and then for others you could say the Duff handball in the Fulham game at the start of the season was dubious (certainly the Daily Mail ("extremely harsh") and the Mirror "a harsh penalty award" - suggest it was a dubious decision. So that's two, you could add the farcical ending of the match at Goodison Park (when the ref allowed Man Utd to have an attack in the 93rd min, but stopped it as soon as Everton counterattacked).

 

[gerd]

Well jumbo, to me the way Clattenburg let himself be influnced by Ferdinand is "class justice".
But Untd deserved the win and it is also extremly stupid of Spurs players to concede goals like that.

Sorry to hijack this thread for discussing this.

 

[jonneymendoza]

What about Koscielny? I think £12m is a lot of money for someone that's not too proven.

12m is nothing nowadays when darren bent was once worth double that.

 

[Jumbo_]

Well jumbo, to me the way Clattenburg let himself be influnced by Ferdinand is "class justice".
But Untd deserved the win and it is also extremly stupid of Spurs players to concede goals like that.

Sorry to hijack this thread for discussing this.

It seems pretty clear to me (and other reports) that Clattenberg had already decided to award the goal and was just conferring with his assistant. That's why he immediately ushers away all the screaming Tottenham players as he had already made his mind up. Ferdinand did not influence his decision at all, it was already made.

And of course, Spurs have never tried to do that themselves.
YouTube - Huddlestone Goal V Fulham
0:35 is particularly interesting.

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/09042010/58/premier-league-manchester-united-saints.html

I don't think it can be dismissed as "rubbish", most people who follow the Premier League with a degree of objectivity (i.e. neutrals) can think of numerous incidents such as the ones listed above. Occasionally another team might crowd a ref but I can't think of an example (let alone multiple examples from the same team) akin to the above.

The irony of all this is that Ferguson had the hypocrisy to call Bayern's players "typical Germans" last season when they crowded the ref.

Well, I agree that was totally hypocritical of SAF but which manager isn't hypocritical at some point? And I can't argue with the first few examples on there, we clearly have surrounded referees before but that's not the point. The reason you can't think of many other examples of other teams doing it is because nobody bothers to highlight it like this person has. It happens in nearly every match at some point, with every contentious decision, regardless of who is playing. Though, generally speaking when something unjust happens to a smaller team against a slightly less small team, it's forgotten about very quickly. Watching this match now, Bursaspor have done it twice and only over small fouls in the middle of the pitch.

Here's some FC Twente players harassing the ref when he awards Spurs a penalty for a debatable handball a few weeks ago. Funny that nobody was up in arms about this, and two dodgy decisions for Spurs in the space of a few weeks... something fishy going on here.

Here's some Chelsea players surrounding Mike Riley

And taking the card out of Mike Dean's hand

And more surrounding

And again

And we all remember this

But as you say, nobody does it quite like United do.

Well, lets assume recent is this season, I would say the Nani debacle of the weekend is one, and then for others you could say the Duff handball in the Fulham game at the start of the season was dubious (certainly the Daily Mail ("extremely harsh") and the Mirror "a harsh penalty award" - suggest it was a dubious decision. So that's two, you could add the farcical ending of the match at Goodison Park (when the ref allowed Man Utd to have an attack in the 93rd min, but stopped it as soon as Everton counterattacked).

Ok fair enough, although most non-hysterical reports have agreed that although it was handled badly by Clattenburg, the goal was legal and Everton still went down the other end and had a shot from 8 yards out (which Van Der Sar saved), so that's not quite as bad as was made out.

Against Spurs, in the first half Bale was in the box, the ball went out of play (and was missed by that same lino), Bale continued on and Tottenham nearly scored. They also could have scored from the resulting corner, luckily for us they headed over. If Spurs score there would we be having this same level of commotion? I very much doubt it.

Against Stoke we could quite easily have had 2 penalties. Huth handballed in the box, but nothing was given and later on Evra was blatantly shoved over in the box by Delap, making no attempt for the ball as he attempted to meet a cross that ended up with Sorensen.

Against Liverpool we could also have arguably had a penalty for various shoves and manhandling in the box and the freekick Torres won for their second goal was pretty soft. He was never getting the ball and the collision looked accidental and Torres threw himself over.

That's 5 from this season, plus like I mentioned before the Drogba goal against us was a good yard offside which had huge consequences compared with Nani's which the 2nd goal in a 2-0 win.

Found this elsewhere, I know it's not all about ingame incidents, but people often like to say that United have the FA in their pocket etc:
- Manchester City’s Christian Negouai was fined £2k and received no ban for missing a drugs test around the same time the FA fined Rio Ferdinand £50k and an eight month ban.
- Manchester City’s Robbie Fowler scored a late goal against United and celebrated in front of our travelling fans, holding up his five digits to represent Liverpool’s success in Europe and received no punishment. A week later, Gary Neville celebrated in front of Liverpool’s travelling fans following a late goal and was fined £5k.
- Liverpool’s Steven Gerrard and Neil Mellor were sent off in the pre-season friendly Amsterdam tournament and received no punishment. Wayne Rooney and Paul Scholes were sent off in the same tournament a couple of years later and were banned for three league matches.
- Craig Bellamy hits a restrained fan in front of the world’s cameras and receives a warning. Patrice Evra allegedly punched a Chelsea groundsman, although there was compelling evidence to the contrary (the CCTV footage which recorded the incident showed no punch) and receives a four match ban.

All true and clear examples of United being singled out by the authorities and made examples of.

Further to that on Rio's ban... The FA and FIFA actually tried to extend it to 12months!!!! Just for missing a drugs test, which he then passed, clean, the following day. Players like Mutu, Stam and Guardiola, who have actually failed drugs tests were only banned for 3-7 months and fined much less. And then there's times where someone's not been banned at all, like Frank De Boer (Nandrolone) and Roman Bednar (charged by police for buying cocaine/cannabis - yet no FA ban).

This is anything but pro-United bias.

This season when Man City beat Blackpool one goal was offside, the other there was a foul in the build up. When they beat Newcastle the week before they scored from a penalty that should never have been given, but nobody says anything.

Apologies for the non-Arsenal chat.

 

[bebo]

Good Lord!!! Jumbo

 

[BobbyBox]

Jumbo was on a mission!

 

[cfdh_edmundo]

And I can't argue with the first few examples on there, we clearly have surrounded referees before but that's not the point. The reason you can't think of many other examples of other teams doing it is because nobody bothers to highlight it like this person has.

No it's because it's not done on anything like the same level, i.e. as frequently as Man Utd. How many other premier league teams have done it so frequently that a major pan-European sports channel publishes an article about it ? (See the Eurosport article in my previous post)

It happens in nearly every match at some point, with every contentious decision, regardless of who is playing.
Here's some FC Twente players harassing the ref when he awards Spurs a penalty for a debatable handball a few weeks ago. Funny that nobody was up in arms about this, and two dodgy decisions for Spurs in the space of a few weeks... something fishy going on here.
Here's some Chelsea players surrounding Mike Riley
And taking the card out of Mike Dean's hand
And more surrounding
And again
And we all remember this
But as you say, nobody does it quite like United do.

Indeed - it's not done anything like as frequently by other teams, as I say when you can pull out major media articles discussing other teams doing this repeatedly (I dont mean some blog written by a half-wit) then you might have an arguement.

Everton still went down the other end and had a shot from 8 yards out (which Van Der Sar saved), so that's not quite as bad as was made out.

He blew before Everton took the shot when they were 25m out from the Man Utd goal see the daily Mirror or Daily Post Quotes here not after the save.

Against Spurs, in the first half Bale was in the box, the ball went out of play (and was missed by that same lino), Bale continued on and Tottenham nearly scored.

Didn't see this on Match of the Day, do you have a link to it, as there is no mention of it here nor here, so was it really that much of a major contentious decision ?

Against Stoke we could quite easily have had 2 penalties. Huth handballed in the box, but nothing was given and later on Evra was blatantly shoved over in the box by Delap, making no attempt for the ball as he attempted to meet a cross that ended up with Sorensen.

The Huth handball was 50-50 at best, it was more ball to hand than deliberate, so it could easily be deemed no penalty. Interesting you bring up the Stoke game, as I was going to use Neville not getting a red card as an example of yet another uneven decision, two years ago in the same fixture Wilkinson was sent off for a challenge that was in no way worse than Neville's 2nd.

Against Liverpool we could also have arguably had a penalty for various shoves and manhandling in the box and the freekick Torres won for their second goal was pretty soft. He was never getting the ball and the collision looked accidental and Torres threw himself over.

For the Torres one your defenders leg went out and tripped him, is was almost identical to the Spector / Giggs tackle from the West Ham game in August when you got a pen, not really a conentious decision.

That's 5 from this season...

4 of them are hardly noteworthy, not mentioned in major news reports, even the Evra one is more of a function of the inability of Marriner to control the game.

Well, I agree that was totally hypocritical of SAF but which manager isn't hypocritical at some point?

There are plenty, the likes of Trappatoni, Hiddink, Ramon Diaz, Javier Aguirre, Gurban Berdiyev, Hitzfeld, Carlos Bianchi, even Sven Eriksson are all managers who have won considerable trophies but have never been as hypocritical or as derogatory as him. Let's face it saying surrounding a ref is "typically German" is borderline racism.

 

[gerd]

I surrender jumbo...but Huddlestone versus Fulham was also class justice, because in that match Spurs are the big team. It happens all the time in football and that is a pity (also when it happened in the match against Fulham).

 

[jonneymendoza]

sorry gerd but jumbo certainly put you in place mate

 

[gerd]

This is not the first time and neither will it be the last time...but since Spurs beat Inter yesterday nothing can spoil my day.

 

[beachryan]

Sorry Arsenal fans - and good luck tonight, but I have to take CFDH to task here...

1. Your way of judging if something is controversial or not is whether it was printed in a match report, by a red top. To call that naïve would be a dramatic understatement.
2. Your justification of why United are worse than other teams is because a media programme was made about it. That’s some serious proof right there. Because in no way would a media programme about Man United having an unfair advantage sell over a programme about Stoke City having an advantage. And in no way would that give a journalist an agenda.
3. You’ve chosen to completely ignore the 5 examples of when the FA have treated United much more harshly than other teams, that Jumbo provided. I’ll add a 6th – Harry just got away with calling Clattenberg about 5 names, incompetent and so forth. SAF got a ban last season for calling Alan Wiley unfit. Which he was.
4. Anytime United get anything going their way, it is replayed ad nauseum by the media. When the opposite happens, it is merely forgotten. Case in point – you take the media view that Gary Neville should have gotten a second yellow card in the Stoke match, yet take no view on how ridiculous his first yellow card was. You take the media view that Everton should have had more time, yet ignore that the Sunderland match ended a second before the minimum added time, after 2 extra time substitutions.
5. Have you ever seen a match in either South America or Italy? You want surrounding of the ref? Good lord.
6. Actually, it seems your entire argument is about how often the media say bad things about United. Here’s a hint – the English media hate overachievers. They’ve hated United for 15 years now. There hasn’t been a season preview in the past 10 years that didn’t predict United would be out of the top 4, that Fergie has lost the plot and that we’re a done force. Negativity sells in the country.

So please, think for yourself. Don’t let the media do it for you.