I was waiting to see what would happen in this game before saying this. The way I see it we have a dilemma. 4-2-3-1 seems to be the way to go against teams that sit back against us. But against the better sides it's very risky. Conversely we dont seem to have the options in midfield to pull off 4-3-3 either, mainly due to a lot of the reasons discussed above.
Lets just enjoy those goals again Goal 1. depressingly simple. Ball is lost up top. See below. No real press out of the front 4 really, thats ok i suppose, two were trying to attack. The key here is Thaigo. White has the ball here. thiago comes haring out of midfield at white and note tsimikas position. See now: thiago hasn't completed his press. he's stopped and given white lads of room to make his pass. Tsimikias has also continued on forward. Note also trent in position is already reacting to the situation. This is interesting. note the positions. Thaigo is already trotting along out of it. White is sprinting. henderson, whats he doing? Why is he ahead of the man in midfield when his partner has already charged off. whats vvd doing. he's not really reacted to the guy at all. he's headed back into his area and frankly the video shows his lack of urgency more clearly. Again.... thiago out of picture Henderson. Drifting towards ball. you can clearly see the man has moved across him and headed for trent. he is now actively ball watching isnt he? VVD: zro pressure on saka. Zero. trent is on his way back and martinelli is well behind trent. Note how tsmikas is working back but white is in picture but thaigo is not, minute 1 and he can't keep up with white. Now: VVD has never closed down saka. he has a free pass in. Matip is buying space. Jesus has dropped off him to have space, matip can't do much else. Henderson is still heading in towards the ball. he's never really looked to mark a man. Trent has got back in. fair play to the lad but now he is stating to tie himself in knots in body position. we get a view of thaigo trotting back now: henderosn has his arm in the air pointing at trent. the man hefailed ot actually track has got the ball off jesus. trent now has two men piling down on him. Martinaelli ok but who has failed to follow the other guy. Someone has failed to work back here. The rest is obvious. trent looks a fool again trying to cut out the ball. Henderson: ball watching, ahead of the player despite being left by thaigo. compounds it by not simply following his man. His man gets the assist. thaigo. lashes up the pak, doesn't actually apply pressure and les white have easy pass. Vvd: zoro pressure on the ball. afraid to be skinned by saka.
now trying a collage, just for saint this might be harder to see. I dunno. Pictures. 1. Martinelli actually reads the fact its a **** ball in. Hs actually in front of the box running already to go on break 2. We see thaigo. their player heads it out 3. Thaigo makes a really poor effort at a tackle. please note where ben white is look at our guys far stick 4. Man beats thiago easy and has freedom of park to play ball. 5. its 3 v 3, not disastrous so far. Martinelli reading of this break was amazing. he's gone as the first ball was played. he knows its too deep and they ae on for a break before matip is even near it. 6. note ben white coming into picture below. nobody has tracked this lumbering cb playing RB. nobody. henderson has martinelli. Trent is being trent. has zro awareness of what is behind him. the final player is tsimikas whos not exactly burs a gut to get to the line. hes worked but hes let partey run ahad of him so when trent makes he mad dash he can then do nothing but try to get to partey. 7. final image is trents lunacy coming home to roost. we all know that Henderson ****s it. trent knew he was going to **** it and cut back to his right foot. once trent goes here its an open goal. tsimkas is on partey and theres saka who was with tsimikas open for a tap in. the fac tis two arsenal players could have finished just showing how bad we are a getting back Its very clear on this occasion that Thiago ahs again ****ed it. you barge in to that man and foul all day long. In fact at 40 mins you take that free short rather than pump it in fomr that wide. We let them break and score. a 3 v 3 is ****ed by lack of trust, stupid decision making and just rank defending. Henderson had martinelli going wide. you've Alisson in the net. let him go wide all day. the trend however is lads jogging back again and a lack of real aggression in the tackle.
well i can only conclude he "said something" cos if you didn't say something it'd be pretty damned hard to report you. I have not head whats what but i presume "said something" either means racism or homophobic comments? cost if its merely accusing the ref of being corrupt then we all do that weekly.
do you really think the "handball" was dodgy? if that was awarded against us fomr that close i'd not be happy anyway. I thought it was a bad hand position but its 1 yard away. It is accidental but he did gain advantage so i was surprised it wasn't refered to monitor but i'd not call it a pen really. I cant see how hat is a draw but am laughing at the arsenal love in. Arsenal fell back on themselves against a side shot through totally. They dominated 7 mins of second half and conceded a terrible equaliser. Arsenal should be disappointed they didn't win by 4 or 5 here.
He stopped the cross. With his hand. He knew what he was doing otherwise he wouldn't have had his hand in the air.
Then why did he immediately point to his chest if his hand was in a natural position? He knew he'd handled it, and so did Oliver, the ref who had to admit (two months later in the S*n) that he didn't the rules of serious foul play when he didn't send Prickford off for the Virgil assault.
lets leave the pickford stuff out and judge by what you saw. The ref's view is x. he clearly didn't give it. why who knows The player has decided to lie. all players are liars. the VAR has not even sent ref to take a second look. why? cos the thing is a yard max fomr the player when we kick the ball. VAR offical has decided thats not a clear and obvious error. Do they talk? I don't know. If we could all hear ref saying stuck hand but too close to body and var says ok yeah thats not clear and obviously wrong then fine. If the ref says didn't see it hit any hand and var sees hand then the question is why not Ref veiw on moniotr to mak his own mind up and tell us? I do not buy thats a clear pen. I would like a pen, don't get me wrong but if that was awarded v tsimikas i would be unhappy.
The ref would have sent him off for that, not stopped the game and gone over to the managers to say he was reporting it. But listen, we boo the anthem, a few soft-arses interrupted Liz's silence, we caused the Paris game to be delayed by trying to get in with forged tickets, and we supplied the U-boats in WWII to torpedo our own 16-year-olds in the merchant marine: and that's all without Suarez. I think you'll find Hendo is guilty of whatever was and wasn't said.
I'd prefer to know what was said as nobody can seemingly work it out but i'm sure we will get some lip reading interpreters of sunderlandese soon. it should be made very clear and henderson should be the first one to deal with it.
Thing with the handball is watch the Newcastle Brentford game. Look at the pen given in that game. Now I didn’t think that was a pen at all. Cross comes in, guy tries to head it and goes over his head guy a yard behind him heads the ball against his arm which is up in the air (I’d say that’s natural as your arm goes up when trying to head the ball). He had his back to play so def wasn’t deliberate. Yet that was given. One yesterday, yes was close. Olden days id say no pen, but given that doesn’t seem to matter much these days. Arm was out from his side, up around chest high. He’s facing the ball and it’s bouncing so the ball wasn’t gonna go on the ground. Gomez was given a pen against with hand in very similar position against city few years ago and eveyone said it’s a pen because he made his body bigger even and his hand was lower down that Gabriel’s yesterday.
and we were all raging that gomez one was given. they keep changing the goal posts on these rulings but in the end no pen.. close is fair but there you go. not the reason we lost imo. How asenal didn't thwack us by 4 or 5 i don't know. at times we were all at see so that kind of defins where they are at. Napoli 4-1. asenal just 3-2.
It's a yard but his hand is in the air. I remember that one against Klavan in Rome four years ago that was ludicrous - that was a yard and they were running alongside each other. Even the on against Newcastle on Saturday was ****e. But this was a bouncing ball and his arm is head high. As said, he knew straight away it wasn't a natural position, and that's why he farcically pointed at his chest. But that's Oliver, consistently the most over-rated referee this country has ever produced, especially when it comes to us. I remember, when he was first touted as some wonder boy by the PGMOL (and whom the late, lamented Astro never gave an inch to) he gave a pen to West Brom at the Anny Rd end against Lovren that was two yards outside the box. True, it was the days before VAR, but even to the naked eye in real time there was only him and Alan Smith that thought it was anywhere near a pen. He's the Emperor's new Clothes. All that said, we didn't lose yesterday because of decisions, we lost because Arsenal are on the rise and we're in decline. Decline so fast that it seems like we've fallen off a cliff.
a likely only really agree when it favours us. yes there's inconsistency and really thats the issue. for me we can't call hat a dodgy decision when we've seen plenty not give as well. var clearly didn't disagree with the ref and for me this is the point of var and the English disease. Its seen as a sign of weakness to have to review it yourself. I am and always have been one that if a ref was forced to review fully using a manager review and justify their answer publicly they'd be much clearer decisions.
Yeah, the Gomez one. Wasn't that Oliver? Or was it Manchester-based referee Anthony Taylor, the ref who referees both Manchester clubs games?
no the point is that is how most refs interpret the "handball" guidance for incidents in the box hence Neville being surprised it wasn't given .
The inconsistencies regarding handball in the penalty area are simply mind boggling. One minute they would give it and the next not. Burns handling was no different to Gabriel’s yet one is given the other chalked off. Absolutely subjective and at the discretion of the referee and the VAR. Goal was chalked off for accidental handling in Everton game yet West Ham benefitted from 2 clear handling before their goals and by the scorers. There was absolutely no difference between Rashford’s and Antonio’s handling and goals yet the first goal was rubbed off and second not. We can understand that pitch referees in the heat of the moment can give different decisions and different views. But VAR? They are supposedly examining the action calmly in the studio coming up with objective decisions. Yet their decisions are more ludicrous incomprehensible and inconsistent than the pitch referees. Talk about sheer incompetence of refereeing in this country.
