**** game, **** refereeing, **** night. Made worse by results elsewhere. ============== No excuses, but in a multi-billion pound industry it is amazing that such important decisions are made on the opinion of someone whose view could easily be modified by incompetence, bias or just being in the wrong place to see. All the commentators creaming over Chelski as usual, saying they don't see how they'll drop many points, and forgetting that they should have conceded a surefire penalty in the Hull match. Last night Rodwell could easily have been sent off. These decisions affect the end of season places, and the during season mentality (Chelski being two points nearer to everyone would surely change something), and are far too important to be left to the often incompetent idiot in the middle. Sure we've benefited from poor decisions, but I think we've generally lost out.... but in the hope of getting fairer results I'll take my chances with more video evidence.
As mentioned earlier Mason was only 10ft away looking directly at the assault. All TV replays from whatever angle showed the incident clearly so that leaves only incompetence or bias. His decisions were perverse throughout: in particular I remember a foul against Kane for jumping early on the back of a Sunderland player but never giving a foul the other way on the numerous times that Evans and (Climate Change) Denayer jumped all over Son, Dele & Kane....
Pochettino is saying in the interview there appears to be a problem in recent games, but he chose the starting XI. As others have said, the line-up against WBA seemed to be the perfect remedy to the anti-football that makes Spurs go all AVB 2013-14. If the back three was not on because Wimmer was not fully fit for 90 mins and you didn't trust Davies to play it, fine. But was that actually the case. The big concern is we have loads of these types of teams to play in the final third of the season. The Goons bully them into defeat and get the points to preserve their precious 4th place. Spurs do it too infrequently. With the top 6 as it is, go figure.
Well said. The other problem is that so many teams are now beginning to play this 4231 system as it's become fashionable and theyve seen other certain clubs have decent success with it. These more recent sides that are now playing it more frequently are also figuring out what works and what doesn't. Therefore they figure out the ways to play against us successfully. This is why the 352 has worked so well for Chelsea and us this season, as it's not been such a popular formation to play against in recent years. Other clubs are struggling to work out how they defend against the relentless pressing nature of it. I don't know why we're bothering with 4231 anymore. It doesn't work for us with Rose and Walker, and doesn't utilize their strengths, IMO.
Very rare but I did decide not to watch it as I had an inkling as soon as I saw the line up. So many wanted Son to start-but there is no room for him in the starting 11-we have to sacrifice the formation. Rodwell's lunge was GBH.
And now we might be without Rose.... The Goons cheat their way to wins over defensive teams- Burnley twice this season.
The more I see that challenge the more it pisses me off. Arsenal fans are right to complain that Xhaka got sent off for a lot less than that. Yes Xhaka's was cynical but this wasn't just cynical, he actually looked to hurt Dembele. Surely this is exactly the type of thing that should be zero tolerance and straight red? This isn't sour grapes as we only drew, even v 10 they way we were playing we probably wouldn't have scored, it's more the fact we could have been without one of our best players for the remainder of the season.
Surely the Goons winning would have made it worse. We didn't lose any ground. Missed opportunity no doubt, mitigated only by the other results.
Wimmer's form makes it hard to justify that 3-4-2-1 would've been any better last night. I agree that the formation is our best one but that's providing Jan is fit or Kev finds the form of last season. Can anyone honestly say they'd have been comfortable seeing Wimmer, on recent form, face Defoe? Sorry but that would've been a disaster waiting to happen. When a player like Jan is out of the side, we have to look at the best alternative route to go down, seeing as Wimmer has been poor and Son has been playing really well, the latter deserved the start with the formation being changed to accommodate. He actually justified his start too, as of the three attacking midfielders, he was the only one to have played reasonably well, which is why I was annoyed at Poch taking him off. His cross should've resulted in a goal, Wanyama well and truly fluffed that header, if he scored that no one would really be be speaking of the formation today, that's the sort of fine margins we're dealing with. Unfortunately too many on the pitch under performed, coupled with the fact Sunderland played with most of their side in their own half to contain us, it was going to be a struggle to break down regardless of what formation we played. Like I said, I agree 3-4-2-1 is definitely the best formation and the future for this side, no arguments here on that point but until Wimmer sorts his act out, we should either give Davies a shot at LCB or stay at 4-2-3-1 until Jan returns. 4-2-3-1 hasn't suddenly become a bad formation for us, many of our draws earlier on this season were down to having a depleted squad where the rhythm was being disrupted due to too many injuries, while we've butchered the likes of Stoke, Southampton, Hull, Swansea, Gillingham and City (home) all with that set up.
Yeah that's more what I meant to be honest, it was a night we could've capitalised on the teams around us which just resulted in a **** night overall.
This "rule" about not taking retrospective action when a yellow has been given is utterly and complete bollocks. Firstly it isn't a rule because the FA can ignore it whenever they want and have done so before. Secondly it's their own rule so all they have to do is change it. Thirdly, as has already been said, it leads to a complete unbalance of punishment against offence. Stuff that does no damage whatsoever but doesn't "look good" gets a three match ban, but potentially career threatening assaults that were wrongly carded at the time get no further punishment. Oh, and who thinks that if this had been done on Pogba or Rooney at OT we wouldn't be hearing a lot about it today and beyond. You can be sure that Rodwell's assault won't be discussed at all today.
I don't know whether anyone has noticed but we are second in the table. The negativity on here is ridiculous
There's a story running today that Madman Van Basten is looking at introducing sin bins into football's disciplinary options. Why bother? The current options don't work. Not because they're insufficient or unsophisticated, but because the officials and governing body aren't doing their jobs. Rodwell's assault on Dembele was dangerous and encourages thuggery if not punished correctly. The result? The FA would rather that the official's failure wasn't put right to attempt to bolster the authority of the incompetent than retrospectively act to send a message that such challenges are not to be tolerated as player safety is paramount. On Saturday, I watched the Liverpool v Wolves game. As the Mousers chased the game, their 17 year old forward. Woodburn, perpetrated an appalling dive in the Wolves penalty area. It was the most obvious incident of cheating and needed to result in a yellow card. The official did nothing. What's the point in having sanctions designed to prevent cheating if they're not going to be used? I don't know if the officials are incompetent or biased or visually challenged but the current set-up isn't working. Let's take the 4th official away from his current role of being an opportunity for out of control managers to behave inappropriately and give them a role of improving the game. If decisions are correct and players are sanctioned properly, so much falls into place. It does away with arguing with referees and managers disrespecting the officials. There will be less injuries and cheating. Now that we have technology to settle 'did it cross the line or not?', the players just accept whatever decision is made instead of ranting and raving at the officials. Get it right and things fall into place.
Loved the goons getting beat and turning on Wenger again, gives z Sutton hope,lol,I regard our result as 2 points dropped,and we always seem to do it when we have a chance of putting a bit of space between us,and the chasing pack,so frustrating
But that is just because we are only about as good as the chasing pack so we get about the same number of points as them on average. We are getting better with time as we have a young team though.
The thing that worries me is that Middlesbrough will come and park the bus and look to hit us on the break so I hope potch takes note and picks the right formation to get the job done.we couldn't break down Sunderland which was so frustrating I just hope we can get an early goal and make them come out then we can finish them off.
