- Infantino in the dock once again, allegations continue to roll in
- “Yes, no, obviously”. Kane on the move, and that big question: “Why?”
By Tony Attwood
Xavi has blamed Arsenal for the record number of fouls that Manchester United committed against Arsenal in the recent friendly, stating in an interview that the pressure that Arsenal put Manchester United under was “not normal” and implies that the only thing they could do was put in a record number of fouls. So it wasn’t their fault.
It is indeed an interesting argument basically implying that it was Arsenal’s fault for using the game as a way of exploring new tactics – in this case pressure. But that is what friendly pre-season games have always been for – to explore how the new tactics work in matches against real-live opposition rather than just playing training games against team mates who know as much about the tactics as the players using them do.
Indeed it really it should not have come as any surprise how Arsenal would play as the Atheltic itself put forward the notion before the match that Arsenal will be “hunted” this season – and “being roughed up by Manchester United” proved the point.
Their argument was that “Mikel Arteta’s side enjoyed their casting as underdogs last season, but a summer of heavy spending and their new billing as Manchester City’s biggest rivals in the title race has changed all that — and … in New York, Manchester United let them know it.” Hence Arsenal will be hunted.
It is not difficult to compare Arsenal and Manchester United through a simple data table, but of course this is very much not the sort of thing that newspapers like to do, in the belief that English people can’t do maths. (Although the truth is that generally it is football journalists who can’t do maths.)
Last season Manchester United suffered the lowest number of fouls per game of any Premier League team. Quite why that was I don’t know – maybe clubs were afraid of them, or maybe they thought there were easier ways to get the ball away from their forwards.
| Team | Fouled pg | Fouled Position | Fouls PG | Fouls position | Difference | League position |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arsenal | 11.4 | 4 | 9.8 | 17 | -13 | 2 |
| Manchester United | 7.8 | 20 | 11,2 | 6= | +14 | 3 |
Arsenal were very heavily fouled last season but did not commit fouls themselves. From this Manchester United (and I suspect others) concluded that fouling Arsenal was the way to stop them. Indeed Arsenal were fouled 11.4 times per game while Manchester United were fouled 7.8 times per game in 2022/3. In other words Arsenal were fouled almost half as many times again as Manchester United. Exactly as happened in the American game.
Obviously endless fouling is a way of keeping the fast moving and ever changing Arsenal attack away from the goal especially where there is a huge difference in the quality and power of the two attacks. Arsenal scored 88 goals while Manchester United scored 58 last season, Arsenal thus getting a little over half again more goals than Manchester United.
So the Manchester United attack was not really seen as much of a test for the better defences in the league. Where Manchester United caught up to some extent was that their defence was as good as Arsenal’s – each side letting in just 43 goals – only Manchester City and Newcastle United doing better.
Obviously what Manchester United need to do this season is radically improve their goal scoring capability, and it would have been clear even from before the start of the game, if not in the first ten minutes, they were going all out on attack. Their aim this season must be to close that 30 goal shortfall behind the two leading clubs.
Arsenal obviously knew this and dealt with it as the could, by upping their tackling game. But Manchester United also knew that they had to deal with Arsenal’s attack – an attack which was as potent in the first 19 games of the season as it was in the second 19. There was thus no thinking that Arsenal’s forwards would not go at the United defence from the off.
So Manchester United went in hard on the tackling, and perhaps being taken by surprise by this, Arsenal’s own defence retaliated. And indeed we have to remember that Arsenal put in a lot fewer tackles than Manchester United both last season and in this game.
But what Manchester United and all other clubs have noticed is the fact of there being no one Arsenal attacker who scores but four, each one of whom got 10+ league goals in a season.
So what we have is a change of tactic by Manchester United in recognition of the way in which Arsenal could score last season. The Arsenal scenario last season was quite different from that at Manchester United where they had just one player in double figures in league matches – Rashford with 17. Only two more than Martinelli and Odegaard each got.
The importance of this observation is that it reveals what is probably going to happen in the months ahead. Arsenal were already the fourth most fouled club in the league last season – that is likely to rise. Unless referees make it clear that attempts to defeat Arsenal by kicking them will not be tolerated, they are going to be fouled a lot more in 2023/4 than in the previous campaign.
The big problem is, that notion depends on PGMO standing up for Arsenal, and that might be a bit of a long shot. It is much more likely that other teams will follow Manchester United’s experiment in the pre-season game, and Arsenal could rise up to top of the “most fouled clubs” table.
We can’t expect much help from the weasels but maybe Howard Webb has found religion.
Tony
“The big problem is, that notion depends on PGMO standing up for Arsenal, and that might be a bit of a long shot. It is much more likely that other teams will follow Manchester United’s experiment in the pre-season game, and Arsenal could rise up to top of the “most fouled clubs” table”.
For most fouled read, most ‘roughed up’, or ‘most bullied’.
And as I have said many times before, the media will be backing the tactic to the hilt. And lets be clear on this, the media do have an influence in this by how they report what is happening, and as we have seen already from the Athletics reporting of Man Utds tactics, it has already started.
In this case by using the phrase ‘roughed up’. Not FOULED you’ll note , oh no, just roughed up.
It’s similar to ‘in their faces’ ‘Letting them know your there’ ‘Left one on him’ ‘got at’, and my favourite ‘bullied’.
They fact is they are all alternate ways of describing a foul without saying foul, because fouling is cheating, where as ‘roughing up’ or ‘bullying’ isn’t. In fact it’s a perfectly legitimate tactic, and further more it’s our own fault for letting it happen!!
Rather than do it all again, this is how I made my point regarding what I believe is going on, straight after the United match.
———
And just to be clear about this, fouling IS cheating.
Laws Of The Game
“A foul is an unfair act by a player, deemed by the referee to contravene the game’s laws, that interferes with the active play of the game. Fouls are punished by the award of a free kick (possibly a penalty kick) to the opposing team”.
‘Unfair’ ‘Contravening the Laws of the Game’
So “…..being roughed up by Manchester United……” is not exactly true is it. Fouling is cheating. It contravenes the Laws of the Game.
But using the term ‘roughed up’ rather than ‘persistently fouled’, is actually an attempt to legitimise the cheating isn’t it?
I mean after all, if you admit that Man Utd persistently fouled Arsenal, or put another way, persistently broke the laws of the game, you have to ask how they got away with it don’t you? You have to ask, why didn’t the referee do something to stop it, don’t you?
But as I say, calling it ‘roughing up’ legitimises the activity, doesn’t it. And worse, it actually puts the blame on Arsenal for ALLOWING themselves to be ‘roughed up’.
_____
So yes, I too believe we can expect to be constantly fouled, but it wont be reported as such. Oh no. We’ll be bullied, ‘roughed up’ ‘got at’, in fact anything but fouled, and what’s more it will be all our own fault, and heaven help any referee who tries to put a stop to it.
It’s down to the referees. Could be 38 50th Matches. Wouldn’t surprise me.
there is also a new law coming in for the new season on time wasting. With no Xhaka to wind up by media and opponents it will be interesting to see how Arsenal will handle it. im sure Rice will not put up with that kind of bullying.
Well, if we will keep on going out there enticing teams to foul and with legs to break…
Big Raddy wore shinguards front and back, maybe we could develop lower leg armour.
Not so long back a player had his shirt ripped off his back and still the man with the whistle and white stick didnt respond .
The most worrying thing in all this is the fact officials failed to book foulers . So it follows that those pgmo chaps from the north of England won’t either.
Ben
“Rice will not put up with that kind of bullying”
It’s not about ‘putting up with it’.
The problem is what happens to our players if we do ‘give it back’.
Back in the day we had a certain Patrick Vieira whom I’m sure you’ll agree didn’t sit back and meekly ‘put up with it’. But what effect did that have regarding the assaults on us and how we were refereed?
Well Patrick Vieira ended up the most red carded player in PL history and we still had our players legs broken at regular intervals. And not only that, if I remember rightly the media still had a go at Ramsey following the assault on him. Arsenal as a team, and Gallas in particular were mercilessly criticised after the assault on Eduardo.
So I’ll let you make your own mind up on how ‘giving it back’ worked out.
I just grabbed this from the webby thing:
“But they also had a notorious mean streak. And while it’s now 14 red cards in 760 days in charge of Arsenal for Arteta, Wenger had amassed 19 by that point. By the time the club’s most successful manager left the Emirates in 2018, he had had an eye-watering 118 players sent off in all competitions.21 Jan 2022”
My point being, kicking back didn’t work. It didn’t stop people kicking lumps out of us, all it did was achieve the worst disciplinary record in Premiership history.
The very reason that Arteta has resorted to a ‘non tackling’ style of play must be because playing with the handicap of players on Yellows, or worse, less than the requisite 11 players on the park, is simply unsustainable, IF you want to challenge at the top.
Kicking back will not work.
Les sums it up pretty well:
“Not so long back a player had his shirt ripped off his back and still the man with the whistle and white stick didn’t respond .
The most worrying thing in all this is the fact officials failed to book foulers . So it follows that those pgmo chaps from the north of England won’t either.”
In other words, nothing has changed.
You can kick us with impunity and it’s just ‘roughing us up’. If we kick back we are an ill-disciplined mob.
Same old same old.
Spot on nitro,. All we can do is get our fabs to call them out every time and stay United
I found Xavi’s comments a bit rich. Yes, we were intense at the start of the Barcelona match. But, not in a physical way. We pressed and attacked quickly. From the outset, Barcelona was shocked and responded by fouling Arsenal. No yellows were forthcoming. Now, I suspect that most readers here have played football, as I have, and there is no way most of us would have stood aside and let them bully us. So, the game became a real game.
They fouled more in that game with no cards for sure
Please, can we stop using the terms ‘bullying’ us, or ‘roughing’ us up. They are fouling us. As Va Cong says, “They fouled more in that game with no cards for sure”.
They fouled us. They didn’t bully us or rough us up. Nor did Man Utd. They fouled us, and excessive fouling is clearly cheating. Bullying is not seen that way.
Even our own staff, ex players fall into this trap.
Sorry, but it riles me because it just feeds into this notion that kicking Arsenal off the park is a perfectly legitimate past time, because they don’t actually kick us off the park, they just bully us.
Come on, at least we should all call it out for what it really is. FOULING, CHEATING