Of course it's lucky when the ball crosses the line and the officials aren't sure, saving you a goal. It's also lucky when your opponents score a goal that's incorrectly ruled out for offside. You're confusing luck with the officials making howlers. Whether the decisions balanced themselves out or not, I don't know as I didn't see the game. If I was an Everton I would be more concerned with how they gifted Newcastle a goal right after retaking the lead rather than whether they were unlucky.
I'd much rather officials not give goals when they aren't sure (yesterday) than give them when they aren't sure (Mata v Spurs). We can castigate officials but nobody at that speed could tell if that was over or not, if officials make mistakes like that you can live with it, what people cannot live with is bias and inconsistent refereeing. I'd argue what the referee did yesterday was borderline cheating. He knew the linesman had ballsed up so deliberately denied Newcastle the opportunity to score in fear of outrage from Everton fans. I can guarantee you had that game been at St James Park the ref would have allowed the play to continue. Everton had numerous chances at 1-0 to kill the game off, had they scored the 2nd Newcastle would not have come back. Profligacy in front of goal isn't luck IMO. You always know a side of Newcastle's quality with players like Ba and Cisse will always get at least once chance and sometimes that's all it takes
I'm not saying the ref or linesman could've called it. What I am saying is that Everton had two goals wrongfully ruled out and that's unlucky, it doesn't need anyone to be to blame for it to be unlucky.
They brought mf'ers all summer and passed him by, (strangely, all Toon players were passed by, thought that was very odd myself not having to fend off a bigger club) papers may have linked him, one thing I've noticed is them slowly shifting ACON players, not getting them in. Its a pain in the Premier League arse that comp.
Why they can't follow the usual procedure of holding it every 4 years I have no idea, to hold it two years in a row is farcical.
They're moving it to avoid conflicting with the World Cup and the Euros, which is a positive thing for me, but I think it'd work better for the players if it were in the summer. Obviously a problem, due to the weather for a start, but the tournament would get more non-African viewers and most managers would be more willing to sign African players if they moved it.
I get the reasoning for moving it to 'odd years' to avoid the world cup and euros, but I would have preferred they waited till 2015 for the next one, rather than hold it in two consecutive years.
We have to wait 4 years for the Euros to come around, so I don't see why they can't wait 3 years for the next ACON...
Its a more than fair question, and I think the answer apart from the 'odd number' year shift is, it was agreed the winner of the 2013 comp is the representative from CAF that goes into the 2013 Confederations Cup in Brazil...again...as if they haven't got enough going on!
Diaby got booked after 21 seconds. That's quite an achievement. I'll be pleasantly surprised if Arsenal don't get something out of this game though, despite their poor start.
