- Clubs are showing signs of fighting back at journalists
- Are Arsenal really making progress, or are we starting to slip back?
Apologies for the lack of coverage of the Villa game, although seeing the result perhaps it was best to miss it. I’m now in Australia with part of my family, but meanwhile I unfortunately have also picked up a bit of a problematic back injury which is curtailing events.
So now six of the big seven are indeed in the top seven with Chelsea resolutely outside the clique. The interlopers are of course Aston Villa.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liverpool | 16 | 11 | 4 | 1 | 36 | 15 | 21 | 37 |
| 2 | Arsenal | 16 | 11 | 3 | 2 | 33 | 15 | 18 | 36 |
| 3 | Aston Villa | 16 | 11 | 2 | 3 | 35 | 20 | 15 | 35 |
| 4 | Manchester City | 15 | 9 | 3 | 3 | 36 | 17 | 19 | 30 |
| 5 | Tottenham Hotspur | 15 | 8 | 3 | 4 | 29 | 22 | 7 | 27 |
| 6 | Manchester United | 16 | 9 | 0 | 7 | 18 | 21 | -3 | 27 |
| 7 | Newcastle United | 15 | 8 | 2 | 5 | 32 | 17 | 15 | 26 |
Now I am settled in my daughter’s house, with her family, I should be able to start picking up on reality again – it is somewhat difficult when one is on the other side of the world in a country where much of the popuation don’t have much interest in English football, and night is day and day is night as it were. Although I am rather happy to have missed the Villa defeat.
Unfortunately, I’ve managed to pick up an injury myself which is causing some difficulty so where there was always going to be some sort of different time span in publication, now that is even greater. But treatment is being arranged for this morning.
It’s going to take me a little time to pick up on the details of what happened and of course you’ll know about this more than me. But here’s something that struck me. We get a regular stream of negative commentaries about our game previews and reviews on this site, so given that I am away and awake when you are asleep and vice versa. if you fancy writing a commentary for Untold Arsenal on anything to do with any of the regular topics we cover, please do.
Write on any Untold related topic and send it to Tony@schools.co.uk headed by the headline you want and your name as you want it to appear.
All you need to know Tony is that the PGMOL/ VAR hsve been at it again.Surprise,suprise.This time they’ve disallowed a clear goal/ penalty,take your pick ,at the tail end of the match.Deeming that Havertz handled the ball in the build up.Completely ignoring that it hit cash’s hand/ arm first.So basically it goes like this.Opposition can handle the ball with no action but for Arsenal it’s an offence.
Ive said for years thst the powers that be will never allow Arsenal to win the league. The PGMO referee matches with all the impartiality of American Professional wrestling and us winning simply isn’t part of the script.
I just hope for better officiating for the second top of the table clash tomorrow when our Women take on Chelsea at a packed (if not sold out) Emirates tomorrow at 12:30. The game is on BBC2 so should be readily available worldwide – albeit at an unsociable time in the Antipodes.
I was watching with my Villa friend he said Cash handballed it, and the first one he said I say like you thats a 50 50 penalty , I said they hate Arteta no penalty for sure. As I guessed we get screwed again in one viewpoint its going to be a hard season. Liverpool get all the ref and media backing. The hate is real for Arsenal.
It so clearly it the Villa players hand first…. funny how sky didn’t replay that at all!!
Tony, you deserve the break. Have fun.
Gillett is a self confessed Liverpool fan and can never referee them. He can, however, have influence on their rivals. Yesterday at Villa Park and at Chelsea when he was on VAR and didn’t alert the visually impaired Kavanagh that Jesus had been wiped out by the Chelsea goalkeeper seem to be prime examples.
I was always under the impression that a supporter of a Premier League team was not allowed to referee matches involving direct rivals.
Given that Liverpool were top of the PL before Arsenal’s kick-off on Saturday, there was a clear and obvious conflict of interest.
seismic says:
“I was always under the impression that a supporter of a Premier League team was not allowed to referee matches involving direct rivals”.
It seems they aren’t, but only in the Spring it seems, if you can believe that?
This is what Michael Oliver, a Newcastle fan, told the Mail in 2022:
“I never referee Newcastle games. We have to declare if we have an allegiance to any club or if a family member works at a club. You can’t do any match involving that team and I can’t do Sunderland, either, for obvious reasons. Because Newcastle are invariably involved in a relegation battle, when you get to March or April, it means I can’t referee anyone around them towards the bottom three”.
I CANT REFEREE ANYONE AROUND THEM
Now I know he said when it comes to March April, but what FFS difference does that make? if there’s a risk of bias in March or April, which the PGMOL obvious acknowledge there is, why not in December? Is bias, or cheating time sensitive?
Honestly the whole thing is a joke.
Nitram,
To summarise, PGMOL are allowed to use hostile referees to target Arsenal during the first 2/3rds of the season, so that they have no hope of making up lost ground when a more neutral referee has to officiate their matches. It also allows them to manufacture a situation where we will be in a fight for the top 4 places until the final day of the season.
Dermot Gallagher’s unwavering support for bad decisions on Sky is “embarrassing” to watch.
Why does ESPN (specifically Dale Johnson) always come down on the side of the referees against Arsenal?
Why are current PGMOL referees consistently failing to punish career-threatening fouls these days? Who has instructed them to ignore the laws of the game?
Hackett, Halsey and Clattenburg seem to be the only referees (current or ex-) whose opinions are correct these days.