By Walter Broeckx
We are at this moment in time around about 1/3 of the season. I know that if you look at the maths thing it isn’t correct but if you do your maths then you will also know that next week we will be over 1/3 of the season. It is difficult to divide a 38 match season in to thirds.
After having played 12 matches the league table looks nice for Arsenal. But how can we describe the last match day?
We won our match against Southampton who could have become joint leaders with us if they had won the match. So we had the most difficult match of them all maybe and we won it.
The team in second place Liverpool also had a rather difficult match; their local derby against Everton. The draw was a fair result at the end and for us a nice result. Riley can ring the Liverpool manager to apologise for the not given red card against Mirallas. Not for the first time Mirallas showed he can be an absolute disgrace at times and should be punished properly for his wild attacks on players. Liverpool sit in second place 4 points behind Arsenal.
Chelsea did not need soft penalties this time. They got a penalty but that was a fully deserved penalty after some comedy capers defending by West Ham. And yes Mr. Mourinho you shouldn’t expect a phone call from Riley this week. Foy shouldn’t have given Jaskulainen a red card. The Chelsea player played the ball to the outside (away from goal) and so the ref was right in not giving a red card. But Chelsea won the game against a very weak looking West Ham. Chelsea are now joint in second place with Liverpool and 4 points behind.
In 4th place we find Manchester City now. Manchester City did it again. Trashing one of the weaker teams. Am I being disrespectful to Tottenham now? Of course not. After all the pundits have been telling us for weeks that Arsenal hasn’t played any top teams this season. So our win against the spuds counts for nothing in that regard. But it is obvious that Manchester City is very strong at home and can win with high scores. Their away form is something else up to now. City is 6 points behind Arsenal.
Equal on points with City we find Southampton whom we have just beaten. I think Southampton will play City also in the next weeks so another big test for them.
In 6th place we find Manchester United. They are 7 points behind Arsenal. I hope we can keep them there. I wonder if Mr. Riley will pick up his phone to call Cardiff and to offer his apology for not sending off Rooney in the 8th minute of their match against United. Kicking at an opponent with the ball some 5-8 meters away can only be punished with a red card.
But Swarbrick who according to our reviews had 0% of his red cards decisions correct messed it up once again. More salt on the wound was that Rooney scored the first goal for United and assisted for the second goal. All that when he should have been under the shower. Will it ever change, Mr. Riley? And how accurate our referee reviewing system was. And how our observations seem to be spot on about the weak points of refs. Maybe someone in authority will start believing that part. And start believing that our findings on bias might also be a bit spot on? They are believe me, they are.
Equal on points with United are Everton in 7th place. Thanks for the entertaining game and like I said: keep that madman Mirallas away from our players legs if possible. Nutter.
To round off the top teams we have Newcastle and Tottenham in positions 8 and 9. With 20 points and so 8 points behind Arsenal.
Newcastle is on a good run lately with a win over Chelsea amongst their good results. And of course their win at the Lane the other week.
Finally the £100.000.000 men from down the Lane. After 12 games they have scored 9 goals. And 3 of them were penalties in 1-0 wins. So that is 6 goals in open play in 12 games. 6 goals. What a return for spending so much money. And even their impressive defensive record has been smashed to pieces by Manchester City.
Where are the days in August when they couldn’t stop rubbing our noses in their spending all that money. Oh what a wonderful team they had gathered and how they would shift the balance in their favour. And what a silly man that Wenger was. And how some of our fans fell for their words that were repeated by the pundits all alike.
The season is still long and we only have covered one third of it. But, well, the signs don’t look bad for the moment. Arsenal are top of the league, we score goals, we defend well. And we did all this while topping the injury league most of the time. Let us keep the Arsenal machine on track. Just take each game as it comes. And just try to win each game. And I do think that this team needs to grow a lot. It can become better. I really do believe this. Once Theo is back and in form we will have even more options to beat any opposition that comes to us.
Forward and upwards… even thought that last is not that easy when you are already top of the league of course…..
Oh to be a Gooner
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The books…
- Woolwich Arsenal: The club that changed football – Arsenal’s early years
- Making the Arsenal – how the modern Arsenal was born in 1910
- The Crowd at Woolwich Arsenal FC: crowd behaviour at the early matches
The sites from the same team…
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- The Anniversary Files: January to June
- The Anniversary Files: July to September
- The Anniversary Files: October to December
- The Anniversary Files: January to June
On MOTD2 last night the assembled, ahem, experts discussed the poor ref decisions and laughed at the PGMOL’s claims of over 90% correct decisions.
There does seem to be more dialogue about ref mistakes out there after this weekend than is usual. The fact is the refs are getting key decisions very very wrong, either through incompetence, because they need more help, or something else. Mr Swarbrick let Rooney off anything further by booking him….clever. But does not look good on the ref, or Riley. The refs lack of communication and accountability is now being highlighted and debated, though in a manner light years behind Untold. Never know, maybe the beginning of the end of Riley, his style and alledged affiliations? As for Spurs, and their “friends” – you have to hand it to them, they certainly know how to operate the media and have done for years, especially the southern based part of the media. I am convinced at least a fair proportion of the anti Arsenal stuff the UK media spouts is from the very same sources
Yes, saw that Sid, one of the pundits found it amusing and questioned the source of this data the refs like to quote. All looks a bit of a nonsense now…just hope their data is weighted like the Untold ref reviews, but I strongly suspect it is not
Thing is, Rooney can STILL be given a retrospective red card as the FA changed their muddled, confusing rule about it on 22nd Nov apparently.
We shall see though.
Do you expect anything different from these blatantly biased English referees. They have been letting that little fat rat Rooney get away scot free for years. He is the F.A.’s fair-haired little darling, So they ain’t gonna do jackshit about his transgressions. You can knock me over with a feather if the F.A. even mentions the incident, Let alone take any action over it.
When Rooney kicked a montenegro player and was justly banned for 3 games, the English FA sent a delegation to UEFA to rescind the decision or reduce it. That is all you need to know about the FA’s attitude to Wayne Rooney, the saviour of England!
I have no idea where Arsenal will finish this season (I curse my lack of psychic power) but I know that based on our results and consistency in this calendar year, we are going to be close. It is rich to hear people blame Tottenham’s woes on their £100million recruits while bigging up Man City because they’ve spent A LOT!
Sid
I cannot see it happening, although if Rooney is charged, Medel should be also, and that would be in our best interests with Cardiff up next.
Boomtree,
It is not because City have spent a lot- it is because they spent a lot well, on class proven players over a number of seasons, like Toure, Kompany, Fernandinho, Silva, Aguero, Negredo, Jovetic, Navas- Not players like Chadli, Lamela Soldado and co. City have bought good, even world class players over a number of seasons. It’s amusing you don’t get it.
The PGMOL referees start 90% of the games on time. That is where the 90% comes from. 🙂
Rooney off, Medel off but Fellaini should also have seen the red for his elbow into Medel just before Medel hit out.
@ TJ
“It’s amusing you don’t get it.”
I’m sure he does get it; no need for your smugness.
Gord,
Nice one, it’s about the only fact that could let them arrive at that conclusion.
Gord
And end on Fergie time. 🙂
TJ,
It quite revisionist of you to now call Spurs recruits rubbish. That wasn’t the “majority opinion” in August as I recall spurs fans being happy with Levy’s business and many Arsenal fans being green with envy and abusing Arsene for not “splashing the cash”, usually on players of same quality. The consensus was that they invested well. On the eve of the NLD, it was believed that they would beat us, again, because they have invested. When AW said they would struggle because they have too many new players (he, unlike you,did not question the quality of their signings), he was roundly derided and insulted.
It’s one thing to choose your yardstick for success, its another to change them as the wind blows. If spurs were doing great right now, you would be crediting their success to their purchases. Consistency please.
BTW, it Bootoomee. Just copy and paste it. Thanks.
TJ
I think if you look back to the pre-season the spuds signings were being feted as the next players to finally push them into the top four, even title contenders. In fact, there were thousands of articles where spurs and their signings were being used as an example of how to do business in the offseason, while Arsenal were used as an example of how not to do business in the transfer market. So what’s changed then?
You say city bought well hence the destruction of spurs, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you started singing a different tune after the same lot are outclassed, say in the champions league by a side that was assembled cheaply, like Dortmund. I just wish all those who were lauding spurs for recruiting so many top players while slating Arsenal for doing the opposite come out and admit they got it wrong. I won’t hold my breath though, in fact I suspect we will be having more of the same this summer again.
Oh, Bootoomee, I was struggling with the small keypad on my phone and took ages to type my last post, responding to TJ’s claim about spuds players. Meanwhile you had gone on and posted yours which was saying basically almost the same stuff:) Hope TJ doesn’t think I’m you, posting under different names:)
Gord 3:15pm
Lol!
Michael Staley
The comment “It is rich to hear people blame Tottenham’s woes on their £100million recruits while bigging up Man City because they’ve spent A LOT!” was a dig at me from another thread, but you are correct, no need for smugness.
Bootoomee
The only point I was making is that City’s signings are of a higher quality including some proven world class players,and they have been purchased over a number of seasons. I didn’t call spuds signings rubbish, I believe Lamela will be a good player, though maybe not in England. I think Paulinho is quality and Soldado has proved himself in Spain. It’s just that spuds signings/players are of a lesser quality than the likes of Toure, Aguero, Silva, Navas, Negredo.
@Mandy Dodd
You point out that MOTD quistioned the ‘source of this data’ regarding the PGMOL’s claims, and it’s a very pertinant quistion.
A similar comment in the SUN the other day brought to light the same issue of ‘source’
It was following comments made by Wenger when he was asked about how things may or may not change now that Fergie has retired. Wenger said “you better ask the referees”. Remember that?
The reference being made of course, intended or otherwise, was to how Utd are refereed.
In reality the article actually took a pretty neutral stance, but it was the side bar comment that was of interest, and it said:
“It has been shown by a ‘website’ that has re Refereed lots of games that if all the bad calls where corrected Manchester Utd would actually have won MORE matches”
Now this we know not to be true according to Untolds statistics. So what was there ‘source’ for making this claim?
Answering my own quistion, if I’m not mistaken, there is a site that re Referees games by using only MOTD highlights. I think that it’s this site that shows UTD being hard done by. But I’m not sure.
Now if that is the case, doesn’t this yet again show the Medias, especially the SUNS, Man Utd bias in at it’s most blatent. I mean they MUST know about Untold surely? They must also know under what strict peramiters Untold operates, which is far more stringent and detailed than using just MOTD highlights thats for sure.
But knowing this they still chose to use inferior data. Why? It can only be because it supports Man Utd.
So thats the problem. Theres data, and then theres DATA and for data to have any relivence you have to know the source, and the peramiters, under which that data is obtained or it is totally irrelivent.
It seems the PGMOL and the SUN are rather less impartial in there selection of data than perhaps they should be.
Al
Not at all! I don’t think you and Bootoomee are the same person, just two people who share the same point of view, but I do think that both of you are either missing my point or we have or wires crossed. My only point is that I think citeh have the strongest squad (on paper) in the PL because of the vast amount of money they have spent over the last few years. While there may have been thousands of articles where spurs and their signings were being used as an example of how to do business pre- season, while Arsenal were used as an example of how not to do business in the transfer market, I did not write any of them. I was looking at the players spuds were buying and the only one I was envious of was Paulinho as I thought we needed another midfielder. I was wrong. Although I was worried about our lack of activity, I was always confident Arsene had something up his sleeve after the £40 million (and £1 pound!!)bid for Suarez was lodged. It showed the will to bring in top class and spend the cash was there.
Yes, I did say city bought well, but I thought it even before the destruction of spuds. I mean what team wouldn’t want Aguero, Toure, Kompany or Silva. May I politely ask on what evidence you wouldn’t be surprised if I started singing a different tune if the same lot are outclassed? In honesty I wouldn’t. The only weak areas I can identify for citeh is in defence, where Demichelis is a liability, and at LB where we can all see now why Arsene did not weep over Clichy
Sid
As we suspected, the FA have announced no retrospective action for Rooney or Medel.
Let’s hope they can be consistent throughout the season, but I doubt it
The BBC report on the high quality refereeing of the weekend has this little addition:
> Referee Kevin Friend, 42, has not been given a match for the next two rounds of Premier League games.
Justice?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/25090169
That assault on Suarez was up there with the worst I have seen. If the FA cant/wont take retospective action on that we may as well give up.
There was very little chance of them taking any action against Rooney in the first place. Having allowed the assault on Suarez to go, that small chance reduced to zero.
As for the Sunderland appeal. I must admit at full speed I instinctively ‘winced’. Therefore I thought it was bad. I thought it looked rash, high, and out of control. So taking all that into account I can hardly blame the ref because I too would of shown a RED on first, real time viewing. I concede on replay it wasn’t as bad as I first thought, even though this ‘He got the ball’ defense is irrelivent, I think it was still a ‘rash’ but not a high or a late challange but personally I feel it WAS ‘out of control’. To me even on 2nd 3rd 4th viewing it’s not a straight forward call, and for the likes of Savage to say it was “the worst decision I have ever seen” is just stupid.
I played forward and then full back in my career and if I went in for a challange like that (which I never did by the way) I would of expected to be in trouble whether I got the ball or not, and that was back in the day.
Proberbly a yellow on reflection but not enough to be recinded.
PS. I am not a whimp but I do believe in protecting players, and having had my, all be it low level, career ended by a poor tackle I have my reasons.
We all know the only reason retrospective action was brought in, was to use it against Arsenal players. That’s why no one else gets punished.
WTF was Rooney doing berating the ref at the end of the game?
Wes Brown, Definitely a red card as he had no control of himself when he made that tackle, pure luck he got the ball – a Walter has said before, it’s the intent in the tackle that decides the refs call not the result if the tackle.
Why are English players not told this by coaches?
The kick on Suarez was as bad or worse than those inflicted on our lads, Ramsey Diaby, Eduardo got.
It was a pure leg breaker.
Not giving a retrospective red for it is as pure a statement that the FA want Suarez out of England pronto, and in an ambulance if needs be.
The only flaw so far is the loss to Man U. And then we do not like the loss at the opening game of the season…..
Oh wait, those are the only losses?
Can’t really complain about that, can we? As much as we wanna see another “invincibles”, there is a very slim chance of that appearing.
So after all that we should be happy regardless.
@Double canister.
It’s not only the players that need educating. If I hear one more pundit, comentator, manager, or ex pro say ‘he got the ball’ I’ll scream.
It does’nt matter a jot whether he got the ball or missed it by a mile. Apart from the obvious ramifications for the player on the recieveing end it doesn’t matter a jot whether he hits the player or misses him by a mile either. It’s the nature of the tackle that is important.
Is it reckless and or out of control and is it likely to put a player in danger of serious injury.
At the very least that tackle was out of control and personally I would say reckless.
I said earlier maybe I would of down graded it to a yellow on second look but really a red WAS warrented.