Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur vs Arsenal - Matchday Thread

Absurd decision. Should have been a yellow for diving. Xhaka didn't even touch him.

 

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I said on your match thread that Xhaka should have been sent off for that, but PNP, come on. Be honest with yourself.

You know full well that, in the two league games between us this season, you have been the beneficiary of the more contentious decisions. This surely isn't even up for debate.

At The Emirates:
1) Eriksen's delivery for Dier's goal was from a free-kick that should never have been given in the first place. It was extremely soft to say the least.
2) Son quite blatantly dived to win the penalty. Kane scores. It's then 1-2 going into half-time.

Thankfully, those two incidents didn't cost us the 3 points, but on another day, they very much could have done.

At Wembley on Saturday:
1) Kane's offside penalty. I know that there is a lot of debate around it, and I've seen yours and Brian's posts on it. You could be right. But when ex-referees are coming out and saying that it was the incorrect decision, when Alan Shearer is saying the PGMOL have come out and said it was the wrong decision, what are we supposed to think when these are experienced officials of the game? The fact there is so much debate around it suggests it isn't that clear cut.
2) Sanchez's childish kick out at Koscielny. Red card offence. Referee says he saw it and didn't give proportionate punishment. Ridiculous.
3) Rose flykicking Leno in the chest. I'm sorry, but if Torreira's tackle on Rose in the 95th minute was a red card offence, when he got the ball, then Rose should have been sent off for missing the ball and connecting with the man.
4) Vertonghen's encroachment in the penalty area. Penalty should have been retaken. You can argue it shouldn't have been a penalty in the first place, and you'd have a fair argument, but it would have been sweet justice for the Kane penalty in the 75th minute.

I am sure you will take issue with my analysis of those incidents, but across the two games, I seriously do feel like you've been quite fortunate to have had some of those decisions go in your favour.

 

Well said mate, but if Auba took a poor penalty, and it should have been retaken as player in the box. I guess that he couldn’t miss twice

 

Nope. I'm not going to break all of your points down, as you're simply not going to agree.

We couldn't buy a free-kick in that first half, as the Xhaka foul clearly illustrates. He should've been off and it wasn't even given as a foul.
There was absolutely nothing else going on at the time and nothing else for the officials to focus on, yet you're hard done by?
He hacked away all game and finally got booked for dissent.

As for Shearer and the ref's association backing their own, there's also Clattenburg and whichever ref writes for the Telegraph disagreeing.
The rule is clear, though. The foul comes before any attempt to play the ball, so it's a foul.
They're disagreeing with their own laws. It's farcical.

 

You have journalists, pundits, ex-players and referees saying completely contrasting things about the incident. Surely it can't be that clear if its caused this much discussion?

And whilst you say the ref's association are merely backing their own, I am sure there is more to it than that for why they've said it's not a penalty.

This is what I mean though when I say the officials need to be 100% clear on the rules in situations like that. There doesn't seem to be any consistency. Look at all the uproar it's caused.

 

The rule is clear. The foul is committed before Kane plays or attempts to play the ball, so it takes precedent.
How else can you interpret that? People simply don't know the rule or have decided that they don't like it, so they'll ignore it.

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Mark Halsey said that it was offside, then posted this, which completely contradicts him:

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Keith Hackett and Halsey argue in this thread:

Hackett points out what the law says and how it explicitly contradicts Halsey's interpretation. He still thinks that he's right and blames the law.

 

The law needs changing on this then. If a player is offside when the ball is played then it should be called offside.

Mustafi fouled Kane because he was ahead of him, due to him being in an offside position.

 

Also from the Twitter thread PNP posted:

"A player moving from, or standing in an offside position, is in the way of an opponent and interferes with the movement of the opponent towards the ball. This is an offside offence if it impacts on the ability of the opponent to play or challenge for the ball" - Law 11.

This is also what happens with the Mustafi-Kane incident.

So it really isn't as clear cut as it seems.

 

Let's assume the rule is interpreted correctly that it WAS a foul and NOT offisde. Sort of ludicrous. What is a foul being called for exactly? What has Mustafi stopped Kane from being able to do? How has Mustafi inconvenienced Kane? A goal scoring opportunity for Kane wasn't prevented from being had. The opportunity for Kane to gain possession wasn't prevented. The opportunity for Kane to lay it off wasn't prevented. Mustafi didn't stop Kane from doing anything.

 

Pundits too. Spurs and Liverpool seemingly can do no wrong.
This is probably best illustrated by the 9 year trophy less spell we had under Wenger. Constant reminder (just about everyweek on MOTD, newpapers articles etc.) of the last time we had won a trophy; despite a Champions League final, several runs at the league and a consistent top four finish - we were under constant scrutiny.

Spurs & Pochettino get praised to high heaven for a similar level of performance.

 

So it’s offside then and PNP is wrong

 

Not forgetting the inane 'lucky Arsenal' tag we've been burdened with for years

 

To be fair, and I hate to do this, but I think this is more to do with where each club had come from previously and the expectations each set of fans had.

I agree that the media did overplay our 'barren spell', as we'd reached 2 cup finals, a Champions League semi-final and an FA Cup semi-final within the 9 years we didn't win anything. So it's not like we were never in contention for anything.

The difference is though Spurs fans had a tumultuous relationship with their previous owners, they appointed some subpar managers and were a mediocre Premier League team. They'd occasionally finish in a UEFA Cup spot, but they'd also finish mid table or below. The bottom line was, they never had a team who were challenging towards the top of the table. They'd never really been competing for trophies, so naturally, the media were never on their backs.

In recent years, they bucked that trend and have been able to create a side that regularly finishes in the top 4, in addition to reaching 3 semi-finals and a cup final since Poch took over in 2014. Their net spend has been negative the last few years, too.

In contrast, we were a side regularly competing for trophies, challenging at the top of the league, were one of the most feared teams in Europe...and we'd gone from that to then competing with the likes of Everton and Aston Villa for a place in the Champions League. To the point where Wenger in 2012 said that finishing in the top 4 was like a trophy. If that statement from our longest-serving manager wasn't an indicator that our standards had slowly withered away, I don't know what was. Obviously the move to The Emirates meant we shifted our priorities, but it was still sad to see the fall from grace we had. Then the likes of Chelsea and City emerged as big spending competitors, which couldn't have possibly been forecasted.

So, although I agree the media did embellish our 9 year wait for a trophy, there is a reason why it was mentioned so regularly compared to Spurs.

 

He might be, he might not be, as there seems to be a lot of debate over the interpretation of the rules.

But what I don't agree with is him making it out like it's a clear and straightforward rule, when all the evidence demonstrates that simply isn't the case. There wouldn't be all this discussion about it if it was that clear!

 

That's not actually how I remember things.. You seem to have forgotten the Redknapp 'we will get into top four ahead of Arsenal' then the Andre Villas Boas 'the next big thing' eras. Both of which we were constantly bombarded with eager articles about our demise and the eminent rise of Tottenham. The pro Tottenham hype started well before Pochettino.

Everytime we finished ahead of them - we received nothing more from the press than sarcastic 'top four trophy' jokes.

 

Bear, you're proving my point here mate.

Previously, we were always winning things and were finishing miles ahead of them. They were only rivals to us in geographic terms. When AvB and Redknapp were there, we were competing with them for a top 4 place, thus the gap was closing compared to when they were finishing 8th/9th/10th and below. So they weren't just geographic rivals anymore, they eventually became rivals in the league, too.

The expectations for each club were different based on where each club was at pre-2006. We were top of the pile, then our standards dropped. They were in mid table obscurity, and worked their way up.

Obviously they are still miles behind us in terms of trophy haul, and I doubt they will ever catch us in that respect, but in terms of league position, they have caught us up.

 

I get what you are saying but that would only really make sense for a few Seasons. 8-9 years later we were more criticised than ever.
Also during this whole period we were financially compromised, had to sell our best players yet STILL remained above Tottenham and Liverpool.

If anything it was a feat worthy of praise. There is a clear bias in the British media.

 

Mustafi didn't foul Kane IMO. Kane did not have possession of the ball and Mustafi is allowed to take an aggressive live to cut Kane off from the ball. You see it 500 times in a regular game with the ball on the ground. He got between Kane and the ball. That is all. He is close enough to the ball to do that. But I already said that I wouldn't have given either penalty.

I have never seen any other team in the Premiership given a penalty against them for something like that. When we play there are people hanging all over our players on free-kicks like that. Giroud would be practically giving 2 defenders piggy backs, or having the shirt pulled off his back and it wouldn't get called.

I don't think the ref was crooked though. As I said he was just bad. For both teams. English referees are atrociously bad, which is why we don't get many referees making through the World Cup. They are far too subjective and inconsistent. You cant let as much go as he did, and then give 2 penalties for picky fouls in the box.

This is why they are bad and you cant look at the incidents in isolation. A referee has a huge range of discretion, so you cant argue any of the calls, but what makes them bad referees is that they make one extremely soft foul and then let a really aggressive foul go by for no apparent reason. Either you call everything or you let stuff go, if you do both inconsistently the players haven't got a clue and referees end up deciding the game, and we have debates like this which are pointless.