By Dominic, with a bit by Tony at the end
I was saddened to hear that Holloway had left The Eagles earlier this week – I despaired when Pulis was named the bookies favourite to replace him.
With odds as low as 2-7, a bet on Pulis would present practically the most depressing weekends gambling imaginable. Imagine it: you put 7 pounds down, your reward is 9 and Tony Pulis back in the Premier League. Still one must count their blessings; he won’t be doing his ridiculous lap around Selhurst today, but he might be doing it in a few weeks time.
When a club changes manager, they are apparently lifted by a strange phenomenon. You may have heard of it: “The New Manager Factor”. It is likely that we will be told on many occasions today that so and so is playing to impress the new manager, that Palace are clearly boosted by the ‘Pulis Factor’, or that the new manager will have ‘plenty to work with’. All of which represent a narrative that football craves and therefore looks constantly to create.
I’ve come up with a narrative in fact. Flamini is back and ready to reignite his arch feud with Dean Moxy. It all began when the Frenchman saw Moxy in Waitrose and grappling for the last baguette, some stern words broke out. Moxy believed Wellington a better general than Napoleon – Flamini opposed. A heated exchange about tactical nuances at The Battle of Waterloo took place and the feud found its way to a fork in the road. Flamini went to get pack of crisps, Moxy a chocolate bar, and so conflict postponed- until today!
A few lines on Holloway, as I’ve always liked the man. Not in the usual sense of what a hilarious accent he has, but more that he is an enthusiastic and thoughtful bloke. Always worth a listen and never one for the usual bollocks.
With him an intelligent opinion would be promptly dismissed as a rant for its quirky delivery. A credible view on Uefa would fall on deaf ears, but his accent certainly wouldn’t. Couple that with the hopeless situation of his team and you can see why he would want to get away from it all. A bit like if Wenger managed a struggling team, I doubt he’d be able to deflect the nonsense he gets as easily as he does.
Back at the game, it seems that the Daily Telegraph (not the normal Untold cup of tea, a bit too right wing with naughty vicars) is predicting 1-5 to the Arsenal. Don’t know if we have seen many predictions in the press like that before.
Szczesny
Gibbs Koscielny Mertersacker Sagna
Arteta Flamini
Cazorla Ozil Ramsey
Giroud
The Cazorla Ozil format seems to be developing and evolving and I should think that most of the time it is going to scare the hell out of everyone. OK, not wholly on tuesday, but it just needs a bit of time.
Subs: A selection from Fabianski, Monreal, Jenkinson, Vermaelen, Wilshere, Rosicky, Gnabry, Bendtner,
And just in case you are interested here is the injury update:
- Walcott (2 November),
- Zelalem (2 November),
- Sanogo (16 November),
- Podolski (30 November),
- Ox-Chamberlain (December),
- Diaby (March)
Here’s the other bits from the Telegraph: Aaron Ramsey has scored more goals for Arsenal (9) in all competitions than the entire Crystal Palace squad combined (7).
Most of the people round here (North Somerset) speak in the same way as Holloway, and I can assure you that as a born and bred Londoner I (and my ex pat friends & neighbours) find nothing hilarious about it.
Are you being facetious?
Dom’s point, as I read it, in relation to the accent and his commentary on football, is that he has always been portrayed by the press as a comedian or oddball because of how he speaks, and this of course is just the usual media shorthand to cover the fact that they can’t be arsed to think.
Laughing at accents is just a cheap joke – although I must admit I find that fellow on BT Sprout a bit hard to disentangle.
Arsene Wenger says that Ozil had suffered from a virus for two days before the Dortmund match and was not quite his usual self.
So hopefully today he will have got over it and be back to his brilliant best.
In the same press conference Arsene Wenger has a few words on Pizzagate and Mike Riley. Highly recommended!
Tony
Which fellow?
In the press conference Arsene Wenger says about the Aston Villa match: ‘The defeat at Aston Villa was under exceptional circumstances and didn’t reflect the game.’
About Pizzagate he says: ‘The Pizzagate I think it was a little unrest in the corridor after the game, after the 49th game, refereed by Mike Riley at the time, who is now responsible for the referees, and I think on that day he had not his best day, and that brought a lot of frustration on because on that day Rio Ferdinand should have been off after 20 minutes, and so I believe that’s what created all the problems in the corridor. Yes it was aggressive, yes, because to lose after such a long unbeaten run the way we lost was not acceptable for me and that’s why everybody was frustrated.’
@ Pat, yet some will say Tony and Walter are biased in their referee’s review! Or that they are not right in being suspicious of Mike Rilley? Thank goodness Wenger said something about it. Can’t wait for his own book though.
To the game, wish we start Rosicky today instead of Wilshere. Hoping for a good entertaining match with a positive winning result for us. COYG
Ian Holloway:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJB3-vEKQDc
Hope we play well $ let the defense be very careful and we need early goals.. Kudos to all arsenal fans
My work involves having to speak regularly to young British audiences in my African but very clear accent. My accent has been mocked by unruly teenagers to get easy laughs from their peers from time to time. Accent based jokes are indeed cheap and dumb. I usually get back at my antagonists by making them write words on the whiteboards. They always fail at spelling basic English words. They don’t mock my accent anymore; at least not in my presence.
Many of those mocking or focusing on Holloway’s accent instead of the content of his opinion may not even possess half of his intellect as they regularly demonstrate. If they could process his ideas, they would focus on those instead of how he sounded when he expressed them.
Am I mistaken or did we get the team right? (Not that it was hard)
Szczesny
Sagna
Mertesacker
Koscielny
Gibbs
Arteta
Flamini
Ramsey
Ozil
Cazorla
Giroud
Substitutes
Fabianski
Monreal
Vermaelen
Wilshere
Rosicky
Gnabry
Bendtner
Like many here I thought ( and rejoiced !) that we’d seen the last of Pulis in the EPL ( still hoping !) .Shame that Holloway has resigned – was always good for a laugh in his interviews .Best of luck to him .
@ Bootoomee – Well done in reminding the youth of their ignorance. They’ll do well to listen and learn.
I too don’t suffer fools gladly ,and while I don’t say it directly to their faces; I don’t leave them in any ambiguity of what I mean.
Sadly sometimes it does go over their heads . Sigh !
Could’ve had two penalties right there. Have we ever been awarded a penalty all season? Just wondering.
Arteta sent off
Scandalous red, these refs’ incompetence is shocking. Michael Owen is starting to make me sick now.
Was it a red?for godsake whats happening?
Arsenal player sent off for a 50/50 challenge by a ref who never sends anyone off. Same old shit
Atkinson isn’t fit to ref even a pub game.
It’s Foy !
A good win despite some very biased refereeing – not just the sending off, but a lot of fouls were not called.
Well done the team, and another three valuable points banked.
Yassin,
It was never a red, Chamakh gave Arteta a shoulder barge just after the halfwa. line into the Arsenal half. That barge caused Arteta to lose his balance, and Chamakh lost some balance as well. Both men got their legs tangled and tripped each other as the fell but the ref showed Arteta a straight red. It was so far out an near the touchline, that even if we were to concede Arteta was at fault, that could never be deemed denying a goal scoring opportunity. The Palace that player who conceded the penalty wasn’t even shown a yellow. Gnabry could’ve had another penalty, too many talking points in this game. Just glad we won despite the bad decisions.
Oh, sorry Mr Atkinson. Foy and Atkinson confuse me, with their white hair and laziness:)
Thx Al,
Just saw that foul, and its unbelievable, how could he give a red?
BT sport pundits are clowns, but fair play to Steve McManaman for stating Chamakh is the one who went and initiated contact against Arteta. I think the club should appeal. But he was probably going to be rested for the CoC match.
Dubious red card decision.
Debatable who initiated the foul in the first place.
So long as Arsenal remain a threat this season you can expect plenty more ref shyte decisions like this one.
Chamakh seemed to initiate contact by using his arm to try to hold Arteta off, after that it was 50:50.
In case someone was wandering,it was a 0-2 win for Arsenal. Arsenal got her first penalty off Gnarby’s felling in the area. Undisputable. Yet, for a fearful few moments, the ref. hesitated before pointing to the spot. That was in the 46th minute. Arteta put the ball firmly in the net.
Then the sending off happened. I’ll leave the verdict on that to experts. It looked like a 50-50 ball to me but once the ref. decided to blow, I knew that he would make the worst possible call against Arsenal. I feared that the game was heading to a 1-1 conclusion
Giroud made it 2-0 off a Ramsey lay up and to the relief of all fans worldwide.
I thought that we played at a slow and low pressure pace which was a help to Crystal Palace’s game plan but I believe that Wenger made good changes when we lost Arteta. He brought in Wilshere and Monreal for Gnarby and Carzola. A workman game and good result for us.
Being able to watch the game on a TV, the problem I had was that I’m with a Liverpool supporter who keeps himself busy by texting – therefore missing every contentious decision. So there was a near assualt on Giroud, near the half way line, OG12 still managed to get the ball to Ozil who couldn’t control it, so the ref just gave the throw in to Palace. It should’ve been a foul to Ars.
Ramsey has at least 2 fouls given against Ars which should’ve gone the other way… The commentators muse that Ramsey should be getting a card under the ‘totting up’ thing
I’d written the above before half time. As you’ve seen, things got worse on the reffing front, even though poor Chrissy couldn’t deny us the penalty early in the 2nd half.
I really hope those of you who only watch MOTD, and were able to watch this full game – have seen the utter bias the officials displayed, and if you weren’t fortunate enough to listen to foreign commentary – you should have noticed the imbecilic ****ing DRIVEL those ****s were talking.
Chamakh it was that committed the foul. Artetta gets sent off. It’s no wonder Arsenal are always written off as title contenders or winners of anything. It’s OK to KTSOOA, Kick the shit out of Arsenal. There was one point where Ramsey was near the CP goal line, juggling the ball. If Aaron hadn’t jumped his leg would’ve been snapped off. Foy, the ****, ignored it, and the cameras panned away enough that most folk wouldn’t have seen the 2 CP players’ trying to mash him up.
Really – those bastards, along with the total prat who “watched” the game with me – really, really spoiled my enjoyment. I just started shouting at this guy, who can’t even watch his full scouser game. You should have heard the shit he was coming out with. “Oh well, maybe the ref couldn’t see that, he’s only human”. **** off you ****!, I thought, but actually, desperately wanted tell him.
The thought that probably most “fans” think like this, especially if they only watch highlights, is, for me, depressing.
Fortunately, a friend who I’d tipped off about the match being on TV – called me to commiserate. Would you believe it, at the end of the match I couldn’t even smile,such was my anger at what I saw on the field, heard from the drivellers, and that stupid ****face I watched the match with.
I’m so sorry for my written outburst. It’s an off-load.
Very well done the Gunners. I’ll watch it all again when matey pisses off, and then maybe I can enjoy it properly (with the sound down).
This game was massive. Tiny, bobbley, shitty pitch, and biased officials couldn’t stop The Arsenal.
Now see how many fouls against Arsenal are shown on MOTD, tonight – if you can stomach it.
I’d still love you if you’d succumbed to all of that. Again, well done Arsenal. (And again Sorry, I had to get it out).
x
rantetta
I too have a friend who supports Liverpool, he’s a sharp individual in all other aspects but all rationale seems to fly out the window when he dons his footballing hat. No doubt that’s due to the constant brainwashing he’s subjected to daily in the media. As a consequence we hardly discuss football.
rantetta,
I feel you man. As Jambug, myself and a few others here have been saying, it’s the media (including sports writers, TV pundits and match commentators) that are the real problem. Virtually every Arsenal premier league game that I have ever watched with an English commentator(s) have come off like Arsenal was a foreign team visiting the home of an English team.
Have you ever noticed that virtually all commentators are always giving advice to our opponents on how to beat us? I’m ever wondering when watching Arsenal play in the EPL that: isn’t the commentator supposed to be neutral and just commentate on happenings on the pitch? Today, there was no doubt who the asses wanted to win (or get a draw after Arsenal went ahead). The second goal made me happiest as it shut them up for good. They then started some forced and unconvincing praise of Arsenal. I thought, just stick it up your asses, you assholes.
It’s the media man, it’s always the media!
Thank you AL and Boo2me. I really appreciate your comments.
Matey is still in tow and he’ll be cock a hoop at the scouser result. I was hanging on to the idea that Stoke were gonna beat ManU but it wasn’t to be. I wonder if there was any ref tilting in that game? Who cares? I do, but still, the story of the day is the superb fortitude of our Arsenal.
Heard Hernandez got away with a foul on Huth that would’ve been a straight red anywhere else apart from the old toilet. That was before he scored the winner, so you may interpret that as tilting if you like. Sure there must have been more than just that one incident.
1st half. There seemed to be at least 3 or 4 phantom fouls called against Arsenal. The replay would show Ramsey (at least twice it was him) going to ground to tackle and missing both the ball and man. The man falls and a fould is given. The palace fouls were not egregious so I couldn’t say I was too upset but Foy called back Arsenal when we had a clear advantage at least twice.
2nd half. Didn’t think we would get the penalty.
Arteta. I’m OK with it being called a foul on Arteta. Don’t get me wrong. I think Chamakh initiated contact and then the legs got tangled but a foul wouldn’t be a horrible outcome. However, a red card was incredibly harsh. The ball was nowhere near in a dangerous position and if I remember correctly Mertesacker was equal with Arteta in the middle of the field. The rest of the half, I thought Arsenal played very professionally. I was actually pretty comfortable.