I would like to ask our players "did you turn up to win this game or not?" One bright spot and that's dreadful!!!!
High foot - contact with the player. Lacazette may have ballsed up the shot, but this was a high, late tackle. What have I missed?
That a high foot is not listed as an offence in the Laws? There was certainly contact between the players as there is bound to be given the angle at which they were aporoaching the ball. It is usually deemed to be a foul by the defender if the attacker touches the ball but I don't see any listed offence that Sanchez actually committed.
It wasn't high - their feet are exactly the same height at point of contact, which happens to be the same height as the ball. It was late, yes. But here lies the confusion - a penalty kick is awarded due to the fact that the defending team have unlawfully prevented a goal-scoring opportunity to the attacking team. That is precisely why a penalty is more severe than a free kick. I have seen countless games where a tackle came in after the striker had shot and nothing was given. IIRC it happened in our 2-2 draw against City last season and I also recall it happening in Fulham v Chelsea earlier on this season. If the striker has had ample opportunity to get a shot away without being impeded unlawfully by a defender, in what way has said defender prevented a goal-scoring opportunity? It is a massive grey area that highlights how it is both lazy and clumsy to assume that everything that equals a free kick outside the box should be a penalty if occurring inside the box. The fact that Lacazette himself said he was "very lucky" to get the penalty, and the fact that Sanchez, who is a pretty quiet guy whose English isn't great was clearly discussing it with the officials after the game, tells you all you need to know. This wasn't and isn't clear-cut.
Spurs were awful first half, almost as bad as Michael Oliver, he really is one of the leagues worst referees and yet somehow has this reputation as being one of the best (he does have a tendency to favour teams in a red shirt, so this maybe explains it). The penalty decision was a complete joke, it was never a penalty as long as I have a hole in my aris (I am still waiting for Spurs to be gifted a penalty in similar circumstances, that we regularly see United, Pool and Arsenal gifted, but I suspect I may have a long wait), and Lamela`s 2 yellows were for cleanly winning the ball, and then handing off Tierney with a hand to the chest, which sent Tierney flying to the floor like a big girls blouse. Spurs were not good first half, but ultimately the referees decided where the points ended up, had the officials done their jobs properly, we may have come away from the game with a result despite not being at our best, something which good teams are often lauded for grinding out results in difficult games, yet when we are shafted by the officials it disappears down a big black hole of refereeing bias and incompetence. Football has turned into a non contact sport, with the slightest touches and subsequent falling to the ground being penalized, these are dark days indeed, the sport I love has been turned into a girls game (no offence to the girls).
The Law is completely explicit though...." A penalty kick is awarded if a player commits a direct free kick offence inside their penalty area". It is nothing to do with goal opportunities. I think the penalty area is a ridiculous concept because it encourages sumulation but it's been part of the game forever.
Come on, lads! Give it a rest... the decision to give the penalty was only debatable in its inconsistency with similar, previous scenarios. That's given as a foul anywhere else on the pitch. And as for Lamela, it was a justified 2nd yellow: stupid, petulentvand unnecessary. The fact that it actually got us playing for the first time in the game was to our advantage. I detest the overrated, sometimes questionably biased Oliver, but yesterday's loss is at the door of JM - and the likes of Doherty, Bale, Ndombele and Hojbjerg who either failed to put in a shift or incapable to do so. We move on... hopefully... to better days.
Whatever way you look at Sunday's game it was a massive step backwards that throws considerable doubt on the benefit of continuing with Jose. Many of us thought after the last few games that mindsets had been changed and Spurs had realised, what many fans have been saying for some time, that our strengths lay in attack and that's how we should set ourselves up. I was happy when I saw the line up that we would continue with the attack based plan. Why else would you pick Kane, Son, Bale and Lucas? Then the game started and basically Spurs didn't, we sat back and allowed Arsenal to attack, attack and attack. Maybe if you face a team like City there is an argument to play like this, I would still moan, but we faced an Arsenal team that is 10th in the PL, not 1st or 2nd but 10th! That's a pretty ordinary placing and should not command the huge respect shown from a team that was above them in the league. Jose said his players went missing, well if that's the case Jose it's your fault! You are the man being paid millions to get the squad performing at it's best so in effect you have just admitted that you have failed in your primary task.
I don’t understand why we reverted back to this type of game when we have experimented using both tactics and playing on the front foot has reaped us benefit. This Arsenal team is ****...we smashed a better Burnley...we just made it look simple. It’s on Jose this one...he’s tried both tactics several times and they always reap the same results so he needs to accept it and work with it or he’s gone by next season...he will get this season to see where it takes us but he needs to accept that these players aren’t made of the same stuff he was used to working with at his prime.
I'm linking to this clip for the quality of the footage, rather than the punditry or comments, which aren't really relevant. Dermot Gallagher disagreeing with a ref is about as rare as unicorn ****, but still... https://www.reddit.com/r/coys/comments/m533m5/wright_hoddle_and_owen_discuss_the_lacazette/ If you look at about 16 seconds in, it's clear that Lacazette kicks Sanchez somewhere around his shin. Another angle at around the 4 minute mark completely removes any possible doubt about it. How can that possibly be a foul on Lacazette? Kieran's dad clearly gets it wrong.
Never, never a penalty. But so what, doesn't help us. @littleDinosaurLuke - I understand why you think that is a penalty, given the ludicrous ones given to Utd, you of course think the decision to give is an easy one.
I don't care about the penalty decision because we played in such an ineffective way I don't want us to be let off the hook by refs decisions. Losing that game is what we deserved and Jose needs to be on the hook not let off it by poor refs. Arsenal had two shots hit the bar, both had beaten Lloris and we just lucky they did not go in. Arguing the toss about that penalty decision literally takes our eye off the ball and where the blame really lies.
I'm happy to do both. Performances don't guarantee results. We battered Newcastle and didn't win, for example. Incorrect penalty decisions against us in back-to-back games simply isn't good enough. They weren't even in the same competition. It's happening far too often.
I agree we didn’t play well enough to win, but their goals were a deflection that took the ball away from Lloris and a penalty that really shouldn’t have been given. Yes they hit the woodwork a couple of times but we hit the post too and had Sanchez’s follow-up pretty much cleared off the line. Football is a game of fine lines and we weren’t on the right side of them. Sometimes these things happen in football though and I’ve said before that (no-brainer) the best teams play well enough so that when these moments of luck or poor officiating go against them, they’re still ahead. We were nowhere near those standards yesterday and deservedly lost. While the way we conceded those goals is incredibly frustrating, especially after Lamela’s quality opener, the bigger issue is that the team just didn’t seem up for it, and we completely lost the midfield battle, and that too many of the forwards who started just weren’t on their games, whether from exhaustion like Sonny or just other factors. From the manager to the majority of the players out there it just wasn’t good enough, especially after we’ve seen some more dominant performances lately.
I agree with the ridiculous penalty given to Newcastle and even Bruce thought it was crazy. I am talking specifically about this game with Arsenal from which we deserved nothing.
I don't disagree with anything you say in terms of the game but for me it's the direction the game is taking us with the current management that is more important than this one game. Sitting back in this game just proves to me that Jose is a classic old dog that can't learn new tricks. I even think he's tried but as soon as he perceives a strong team he goes to his default position of sitting back. Even if he has told the players to attack at the first sign of difficulty they return to the shell he has taught them to adopt. As soon as managers are not having a positive impact they become a liability especially if they do not have the wisdom to know when to take a bit of a back seat and hire a clever assistant.
I agree with this too that he is likely to continue to revert to type in big games. Hugely problematic that he chose to do this against an Arsenal side who were I think 10th before the game and continuously looks vulnerable defensively, as they did after Lamela was dismissed and we went for it a bit more. Obviously this is a huge game but he needs to decide his tactics based on the relative strengths of the opposition, not just revert to type for certain matches.
The problem with reverting to type is that, at this point, he's had eighteen months to realise that he doesn't have players that allow him to revert to type Take the starting lineup for an example. If we're looking to take a game to opponents then Sanchez is the exact sort of CB we need as he has the pace that allows us to push up our defensive line - but if we're planning on sitting back he is a poor choice because, much like Aurier, sitting back greatly increases the chances of him making his guaranteed brainfart in the worst area of the pitch for him to make it, for example if he made his challenge 10-15 yards up the pitch it wouldn't have given Michael Oliver the chance to show us his well-rehearsed routine for giving nonsensical penalties, and that's the problem: the penalty call was ludicrous, but the way we were set up was damn near inviting something like that to happen As I said yesterday, in the previous NLD we got at them and choked their midfield, so while they did have lots of the ball they were unable to do anything with it because if it progressed to a certain point their options were lose the ball or have to send it back to recycle it, yet what did we do yesterday? Let them have the run of the pitch, and as a result we lost midfield, and while Hojbjerg being knackered can be held up as part of the reason the fact we didn't try and fix this takes the blame off the players pretty damn quick
