By Walter Broeckx
I couldn’t write down my minute by minute report of this match.
So I will solely focus on the main events. Because in fairness we didn’t play well. We dominated but too many loose balls and lost balls. Lacazette looked the more lively of our strikers but didn’t find a team mate most of the time.
With no goal chances at all in the first half hour it didn’t look good viewing to be honest. Arsenal dominated and Watford could hardly get in the Arsenal penalty area.
After 38 minutes Arsenal got a corner after Iwobi rushed towards goal. Xhaka with the corner and Per headed it over the line. GOAL 0-1 to the Arsenal after 38 minutes. Gomes then had to make another save on a Xhaka shot but that was it. A mediocre performance but just good enough to get the lead.
In the second half more of the same. Watford unable to get to real chances. And Arsenal also not really making things happen and just mostly gladly to see things out.
Welbeck was send away but went down under a challenge from a defender in the penalty area. Rightfully the ref gave nothing.
Özil came on for the injured Welbeck ho had hurt himself when going down. Özil with a great ball to Iwobi who fired at the far post but Gomes with an amazing save.
A bit later the roles were reversed. Iwobi to Özil who was one on one with the keeper but shot straight at Gomes.
Minutes later Swarbrick decided to give Watford a big BIG helping hand. Richarlison from Watford ran towards the goal line in the penalty area and as he felt the presence of Bellerin he threw himself to the ground. And unlike the fase with Welbeck this time Swarbrick for no reason clear to anyone with eyes in his head pointed to the penalty spot. No way was there a foul from Bellerin. There was as much a foul as there was in the Welbeck situation.
So why did Swarbrick decide to give a penalty? Was it to make up for the Man City cock up the PGMO team had done a few weeks ago? For those of us following Untold this was just another example on how the PGMO are a bunch of Arsenal hating cheaters.
Deeney accepted the gift with both hands and levelled the score. 1-1 after 72 minutes.
Giroud came on for Lacazette and I must say that he was most of the time invisible. Unlike Lacazette who had worked hard.
The penalty gift swung the match around. Arsenal now suddenly on the wrong end of things and Watford lifted by the Swarbrick gift turned it on and put Arsenal under pressure. Mertesacker turned a shot against our own goalpost with Cech being send the other way.
It was written in the stars that it would turn out bad for Arsenal. Koscielny had to come off in injury time and Wilshere saw his return crossed as Holding had to rush on. And in injury time Watford managed to make the winning goal after a bit of the ball bouncing around.
To make it clear we didn’t play well. But until the Swarbrick intervention we didn’t look like conceding a goal at all.
I really would like to know what Swarbrick was thinking (I think I can imagine it) and I would like to know if he looks back at it he still stands by his decision. Time to apologise mr. Swarbrick. After the WBA defeat last season in which he played a major role he has managed to do it again.
I think our ref preview was even soft on him. We now can put him in the category of Dean, Taylor and other Atkinsons.
Arsenal players: up your game. Ref bow your head in shame.
Second goal, wasnt it an offside?
Yassin
I don’t know as my TV channel suddenly decided to give an advert for other programs and so I missed about 2 minutes just after they scored. So I couldn’t see any replays
At the point Swarbrick intervened we wers fourth in the league. Clearly that is too high for those behind the PGMO whose minion had to intervene. There are times I honestly thing the EPL is as honest as American Wrestling. Today’s refereeing was just bent.
The tandem Elneny-Xhaka is not at the same level as Ramsey-Xhaka for the moment. I think we missed Ramsey a lot in this match. His forward runs in the penalty area were not made by others today
With respect Walter, I didn’t feel the second half was “more of the same”.
I thought we totally conceded much of the possession and went on the defensive as though “what we have, we hold”. I could hardly believe the drop in our performance from the first half. 😉
“until the swarbick intervention we didn’t look like conceding a goal at all”, jeez, they were attacking us from all angles, why is it hard for you to hit the nail on the head, they played better and they won. maybe you need to check the game Stat again.
the next match is around the corner. COYG, smash the opposition and make the haters quiet
We were in control from the middle of 1st half until Mesut missed his sitter. We had to put the game in bed by then. Ozil’s finishing was… I’m sorry, 350k of what per week?! Then Leo Messi should ask for 800k come January. Alexis played v Stoke and Watford last season and won both games. He didn’t play in neither fixture this season and we lost both. He has to play every game as that’s the whole point of keeping him under the contract.
However, that doesn’t take away from what Walter said. Swarbrick was shit and it looked to me it was offside for their second goal as well. My hate for PGMO is getting bigger and bigger and I think I will cry the tears of joy once UK finally stop putting scandals under the carpet and make a Calciopoli-action that will end with a lot of arrests, lifelong bans and stripped titles.
@josh
Did you watched the same match? In the second half Walford were still nowhere near scoring. The only thing they did before that dive was send bad crosses after bad crosses into the box. Actually the “closest” they came to scoring was when Cech had to punch a cross behind the line for a corner
By the way the last two Arsenal matchs refereed by Swarbrick, the opponents were wrongly awarded FOUR GOALS. Not one, not even two, four goals in just 180 minutes.
At what point will some people start to realize what Arsenal is up against?
So Deeney wasn’t offside here, but Laca was against Stoke. So no penalty for the Welbeck penalty push, but their cheating players dive was ok. Swarbrick, just another fat, sweating, unfit pgmol fool.
A sitter? The ball comes behind him, he can’t look at the GK, the GK stops it, the guy hasn’t played for one month and it is THE sitter of the History of football? And where does this 350K come from? From the Sun or the Daily Mail?
So far the “the refs seems to not have it in for us anymore”. As soon as we look to get in to the top 4 it starts again….
@Alex
It was a sitter. It’s nice that you want to find an excuse for his poor finishing (not for the first time he missed a clear chance) but there is no excuse for that one. I’d have expected 17-year old Nelson to put it away, never mind an experienced WC winner who has outstanding technique.
Reports of 350k popped out. I don’t know if they are true but from what I’ve seen this season, Ozil doesn’t deserve half of it.
I thought that we had managed to call a halt to the poor displays after international breaks that we have been prne to for years. It seems I was wrong.
I have considered why it should be that we should have been consistantly poor in such circumstances, even in this case when the inetrantionals were at the beginning of the week.
My thought is that the playing styles of our players when they are playing internationals are so different from the one at club level that they find it hard to readjust.
However, to lose to an injury time goal is unforgivable.
During the buildup to this our Watford match, I commented in my comments posting on this site on Thursday and Friday that Le Prof should not start Koscielny, Kolasinac & Welbeck for this match because of the injuries they’ve picked up which I believe hasn’t healed up well enough to allow them starting this match despite their been passed okay to play in the match by the Arsenal medical. But Le Prof to my surprised start them for Watford today and we all saw they were not at starting level but at substitute level in their game playing against Watford as Welbeck and Koscielny even had a reoccurance of their injuries they picked up not long ago. Why did Le Prof do this as if there are no capable senior Gunners beside them in his squad who can start in this match?
Yes! It’s true referee Swarbrick should have awarded a penalty to Arsenal when Welbeck was body forced to crash down in the box. But he didn’t. Why? But when Bellerin was chasing that Watford player who was racing with the ball into the Arsenal box but fell down under the slightest of foot checking by Bellerin, Mr Swarbrick pointed to the spot awarding Watford a penalty. And Cech did not give himself a chance to save the penalty kick as he was player watching instead of to be ball watching when the kick was being taken. I advocated on my twitter handle on Arsenal twitter at half time of the match that Le Prof should bring on Ozil to give creativity edge to the Gunners game which was lacking as they were mostly playing direct. And Ozil did provide one moment of magic assist for Iwobi to score when he came on, but Iwobi did not bury his chance when given to him on a platter as he only shot to the goalkeeper’s hand to parry into touch for a corner kick to Arsenal. Why? And again the same Iwobi after collecting a long pass on right wing from the back raced toward Watford goal and found Ozil who missed a sitter by shooting the ball to the goalkeeper’s hands to save his shot. Why? And he was the one who didn’t give Bellerin a good defensive cover which led to that Penalty against Arsenal as Bellerin raced back to defend.
The defeat in the outcome defeat in this match against Arsenal has left me cry when I watched my hopes to see Arsenal go 4th in the table dashed. With three defeats now in the PL all at away out the total 8 matches they’ve played now, do I still have the confidence Arsenal will win the PL title this season? Well, Arsenal still have 90 points to chase down in 30 PL games after collecting 13 points from the 8 games they’ve played already. If Le Prof can turnaround the form of the Gunners, moreso when Koscielny, Mustafi, Kolasinac, Sanchez, Ozil, Ramsey and Welbeck have fully recovered from their nagging injuries currently bedevilling them and become fully fit, inform for a long time during the season, my hopes to see Arsenal win this season’s PL title will not become wane.
Shit happens and despite the slanted officiating we need to see goals from Ozil,Lacazette, Giroud and Alexis! It was a hard game away but we have the ability to win these handily, however we don’t seem to be getting the offensive displays we are capable of. City stomped all over Stoke and are steamrolling their oponnents. Enough about not being ¨mentally prepared¨after an international break, these guys are paid zillions every year and aren’t mentally up for their club side after playing what amounts to a meaningless international competition? This is pure BS…..and Wenger is the first to admit it!
opponents!!!
Until they got the penalty gift Watford had no clear goal scoring chances. Arsenal had apart from the opening goal excellent chances for Bellerin, Iwobi and Özil.
And we were creating the chances, Ozils was the last one.
Three chances that should have been scored and all came before the penalty incident. We lost today because of our inability to make best of our chances. And Watford played like they wanted the win more than Arsenal.
Some place is publishing a piece of crap from yet another ex-Arsenal (Keown), pushing the medja objective.
Apparently Keown truly feels that it must have been a penalty, because Bellerin did not act annoyed (in his eyes).
Arsenal have been getting crap decisions from these so called “professional officials” for how long? And so because the players are starting to not react to yet another crap call, this is now ammunition for idjuts like Keown to get on our case?
Keown, will you please go to Tesco and apply for a job stocking shelves, so that you can give up this pundit shit!
“I’ll learn to work the saxophone. I play just what I feel. Drink Scotch whiskey all night long and die behind the wheel. They got a name for the winners in the world and I want a name when I lose. They call Alabama the ‘Crimson Tide’. Call me Deacon Blues.”
Those out there in the Untold world hopefully will figure out the above lyrical genius in relation to the defeat we suffered at the hands of Watford.
I just cant understand how we can make the same mistakes over and over again.
From the first 10-15 mins i was aware we would lose because of the way Arsenal played, the way we were on field and the general behaviour of our team.
Still, i was hoping i was wrong, but alas the pre-signs do show the truth, always.
I keep saying it;
Going to defence mode is suicide with 10=20 mins to go. There is more chance of the opposition scoring in defence mode, and it does usually happen, which it did, so 3 points lost really.
How can we support a team that falls into the same trap over and over and over and over and over and over and over again?
How?
Yes, we may have played badly again. However, with a fair referee we would have won.
When other teams play badly and win, this is praised as the mark of potential champions.
Critics on here should not claim that our poor performances should let biased referees off the hook.
Some want the player to kill their ownselves to win a game, and yet they dont bother defending the team when the ref makes a mess out of the game!
Agree with John’s point here, we should have won with a neutral referring.
We other team plays poor and wins they are praised, but when we are on our way to do the same and referee screws us it is termed as our mistake.
Gord I don’t know if you have seen the whole Keown “interview ” which actually were his post match comments. He said clearly that it was a dive , he said that the referee had got it wrong , . Graham Poll also said it was not a penalty but Keown said he did not understand why Bellerin did not get upset. That is the comment taken out of context I would imagine that you have read.
Okay, thanks.
Deeney quoted in the news, saying Arsenal lack Cojones. I gather part of that; was admission that he is a cheat. He purposely performs actions on the field that are considered fouls.
When Arsenal are on top in a game, you never know if they’re going to win it because they struggle to create chances to score the killer goals. Yesterday was another example of it. The longer it was stuck at 1-0, the more I was fearful that Watford would come back into it. I see Xhaka was just standing at the edge of the penalty area leaving Cleverley completely free to score the winner.
Just saw the last few moments of the game when it was still 1-1 ,but felt that we were poor and that Watford might just nick it , and it came to pass.
No complaints from me . It was another’ bad day at the office’ performance from us.