- What every football club (and most certainly Arsenal) is aiming for.
- The apparent decline of Tottenham and the question of care for players elsewhere
By Tony Attwood
Today’s game in the FA Women’s super league, once again sees Arsenal stadium sold out – the last home match for Arsenal’s women’s team created the record crowd for a league game – now it is happening for a second successive match with two 60,000 + games in the league consecutively.
Kick off is at 12.30 and in the UK the game is live on BBC 2 . Here is the league table as of Sunday morning.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester City | 15 | 12 | 1 | 2 | 38 | 9 | 29 | 37 |
| 2 | Chelsea | 14 | 11 | 1 | 2 | 41 | 13 | 28 | 34 |
| 3 | Arsenal | 14 | 10 | 1 | 3 | 32 | 14 | 18 | 31 |
| 4 | Manchester United | 14 | 7 | 3 | 4 | 31 | 18 | 13 | 24 |
| 5 | Liverpool | 14 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 18 | 19 | -1 | 22 |
| 6 | Tottenham Hotspur | 14 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 21 | 28 | -7 | 19 |
In the team news it was announced that Vivianne Miedema requires what is described as minor knee surgery and will obviously be unavailable for several weeks. However, Leah Williamson, Victoria Pelova and Katie McCabe, who are all in contention for the game, but Amanda Ilestedt is still out. along with Lina Hurtig, Laura Wienroither and Teyah Goldie
Also absent are Emily Fox, Cloe Lacasse and Sabrina D’Angelo because of the CONCACAF Women’s Gold Cup. In fact the international removal of players from clubs is working in the women’s game just as in the men’s; we build a team and then the international sides take them away, often get them injured, hand the players back and imperiously instruct the club to have them ready again for the next game.
One might have thought that with the insanity of international football so evident in the men’s game the women’s game might have fought against it, but it seems not.
In terms of league games this year Arsenal have knocked up three wins (against Everton 2-1, Liverpool 0-2 and Manchester United 3-1), and just had the one defeat 2-1 away to West Ham, at the start of February.
In fact the last six home games have all been won and a win today will mean that Arsenal have won seven conseuctive home games in the league for the first time.
Also for the very first time, we have officially sold out Emirates Stadium for back-to-back Women’s Super League fixtures.
Adding to all the records is also the fact that this is the third time the women’s team have sold out at Arsenal stadium, having done so for the 2023 Champions League semi-final against Wolfsburg and in the last game against Manchester United on February 17.
There is just one more game left at the stadium for the side this season which is against Leicester City on April 21 and it would seem tickets are still available for that game.
And just in case you want to note what the next match is, that is also at home and is against Aston Villa in the FA Women’s League Cup. It’s the semi final.
Huffed and puffed a bit but got the win we definitely deserved.
Off topic, but in the Burnley v Bournemouth match I’ve just seen a very similar goal to Newcastle’s goal at St. James Park disallowed for a push that was far less a foul than the push on Gabriel. In fact I don’t think it was even a foul, as the attacker just got up first. But of course the commentators both agree with the referee.
My frustrations are 2 fold.
The utter inconsistency of what is and isn’t a foul. The complicity of the commentators, nay the media in general, to simply agree with whatever they feel like at the time, or perhaps whatever the team is.
If it stays like this I’ll be very surprised if Kompany/Burnley don’t have something to say about it. Very poor decision.
Inconsistency! Drives me nuts.
@Nitram,
don’t use the word inconsistency. Use another that starts the same : inCOMPETENCE.
This is all we are seeing. A start ref from PGMOL who visibly ignores a rule of the game, I mean. how more incompetent can it get ?
As for the added time, I think a Forrest player was hurt in the second and it took a couple minutes or more to sort out.
Thry can’t too much be incompetent anymore with added time, as I believe someone else then the ref keeps track, and any idiot can count it as well. For the rest… I rest my case : a bunch of incompetent arrogant morons.
Chris
I did some numbers on the added time in the Forest Liverpool match elsewhere in a reply to Philly the kid. It was again highlighting inconsistencies/incompetence in relation to how time is added on. Anyway here it is:
Philly the kid suggested:
“Would be nice if the PGMOL would explain how refs validate extra time added, rather than just “9 minutes, cos I said so””
I replied:
Indeed it would.
The thing is, there are actually some guidelines as to how time is added on. You will find them here: https://www.football-stadiums.co.uk/articles/injury-time/
Substitutions are 30 seconds each. Goals are a minimum of 45 seconds each. No natural time is allowed for these.
I did a short post in the ‘WHAT EVERY FOOTBALL CLUB (AND MOST CERTAINLY ARSENAL) IS AIMING FOR.’ article talking specifically about the 8 minutes time added on in the Forest Liverpool match.
The truth is, using those parameters it is actually quite difficult to justify 8 minutes added time, especially without substitutions, goals, injuries or VAR interruptions. It all seems rather ad hoc as you suggest. For example, there was a bit of a furore when we scored in the 7th of 6 added on minutes at Luton in December.
But the thing is, why did the referee only add 6 minutes in the first place?
In the 2nd half there were 3 goals and 7 substitutions alone which should of resulted in 5 minutes 45 seconds added time without anything else.
There were also:
9 free kicks
7 corners
In the Liverpool Forest match there were no goals and 7 substitutions in the 2nd half prior to stoppage time resulting in 3 Minutes 30 Seconds added time.
The rest of the added time came from
11 free kicks
11 corners.
So in the Luton Arsenal match somehow those 16 sundries were worth an extra 15 seconds but in the Forest Liverpool match the 22 sundries were worth 4 minutes and 30 seconds, nearly 20 times as much.
Okay, Forest may of wasted some time but that much? Well, possibly but we don’t know where the time comes from officially. We just have to ASSUME the referee has added time correctly.
Now I realise that’s all a bit much, but I’m just making the point that there are extraordinary differences in the time added on in those games, but given the rules on adding time as we know them, it is really hard to see why?
As we have suggested Philly, it is just not good enough to expect fans to accept this seemingly arbitrary approach to adding on time. It needs to be done overtly and in real time so we can see when and where the time is being added.
The problem is, when it comes to the PGMOL and their referees, secrecy is the name of the game.