On this one Tom, I definitely make you right. Fair play to the ref for using common sense. A sending off in those circumstances would have ruined the game unnecessarily.
Their defence was comically bad. Which is a shame really, because going forward they looked almost as good as Liverpool; what should have been a brilliant game was all over by half time.
Vote Ides. That unbeaten run narrative covered up the fact that Arsenal are really not very good, but that's why they're gonna finish 5th.
After they went 3-1 down they lost their way. Up til then they looked pretty threatening, not pedestrian at all imo. At 4-1 they had no idea what to do.
Oliver would have got crucified by his assessor if he had sent off Xhaka. I know how assessors think, I've met enough of them. All assessors hate red cards for technical offences such as delaying the restart of play. If Xhaka had booted it all the way down to the Kop then he probably would have gone because that's too obvious too ignore. Xhaka kicked it what, 20 yards? He didn't kick it far enough to warrant a second yellow.
Well beat, but Arsenal didn't get any favours from Oliver today. Four big calls went against them. (but he did keep GX on the pitch!)
They are definitely not good enough for a top 4 finish, and look just about worthy of the EL place. Emery needs to be ruthless with the dross that he has inherited in that dressing room. I am sure he is a good manager because the Sevilla side he had, cost a fraction of the one that Arsenal have assembled.
I don't know that I'd call Arsenal "dross", but they are in a position very similar to where Liverpool found themselves a few years back: their attack is good enough to challenge for the title, and their defense is good enough to challenge for mid-table. Liverpool sorted it by signing van Dijk (who has been worth every cent they gave us) and through the emergence of some of their Academy players, while Arsenal has spent nearly 150m on CBs, defensive mids and keepers in the past three seasons without improvement. If they can solidify, they have the ingredients to be excellent, but the clock is ticking; that isn't a young squad.
You can see why Rafa doesn't trust Shelvey. He'd only been on the pitch for three minutes when he decided to not bother tracking Doucoure. Un-did 80 minutes of good (Shelvey-less) work. With Rafa trying to extract every ounce at of that poor Newcastle squad, he won't want to carry defensive passengers. They'll miss Ki whilst he's at the Asian Cup.
