I think it would be selfish of us, not to mention boring if we didn't let the other teams score now and then. A bit like one bloke winning all of the GP races.
Felt sorry for Jose on Saturday. He stood there, metaphorically without a leg to stand on, looking into the distance knowing full well that he shouldn't have pulled Mertesacker's shirt, even though it was the most half hearted tug he'd probably ever indulged in; that Mertesacker made a bloody feast of it, never mind a meal, and that 99% of the time he would have got away with it anyway. Shirt pulls are just not usually given because much worse goes on in the penalty area, but on Saturday a shirt pull was given as a foul and Jose couldn't say a word against it because a shirt pull is a foul. It's so unfair when the referees shift the goalposts [groan] like that.
Fonte grabbed his shirt rather than really pulling him back, and that was part of the problem. Mertesacker was still able to separate from Fonte, which made it all the more obvious. Quick, violent tugs back, you might get away with, as the ref may not see it...grabbing a handful and hanging on for dear life really gives him no option should it be seen.
Also don't pull the shirt in a perpendicular direction to the ref or he will easily see it. Might as well use your body to block the ref's line of sight. These are all legitimate defending techniques
The thing that irritated me was that Mertesacker was moving away from goal and would have struggled to even get a touch on the ball and flick it into a more dangerous area. These things happen though.
Should have been a 6-6 draw after all if your giving penalties for shirt pulling at corners we had 6 and they had 5. Happens at EVERY corner. Oh and I didn't spot that the poster put except on purpose. Went straight over my head. lol
My point was that we are generally defending so well, it's just galling that the last 4 goals against us have been really bad errors - Wanyama and boruc, plus the bizarre goal kick (I don't blame him) and the ridiculous penalty Jose gave away
Perhaps a fairer penalty would be for the shirt puller to have a small weighted manakin attached to the back of his shirt for the rest of the match? Nothing too heavy, more irritating and inconvenient. Could even make it smell bad to put the player off, rotten meat or something. That way it would punish the player and reduce fouling.
Or you could say that no one scores against us without us making a bad error. Doesn't sound bad that way.
Exactly. Every corner, every game. A Marseille defender nearly ended up wearing Giroud's shirt just now.
They do it because if they do it well, the keeper commits his weight to one side, thereby making it almost impossible to dive in the opposite direction quickly enough. Although the rule for a penalty is that the keeper must not move from his position until the ball is kicked, there is leniency when the kicker is trying to get the keeper to move. Unfortunately, this allowance means that the keeper often moves in the wrong direction anyway. Do it badly, and yeah, the kicker gets himself all twisted up and confused. His problem entirely.
Giroud started it, he was using a straight arm (similar to what he was doing against Jos) against the Marseille player, who responded by shirt tugging, but Giroud was penalised because his foul was spotted first by the extra official behind the goal.
