By Tony Attwood
It is funny just how difficult a lesson it is to learn, both by football supporters and by journalists but somehow the reality never gets through.
When looking at the actions of officials, it is no good taking one or two (or even three or four) incidents and then blaming the ref and his chums. If you want to know if a referee is fair, incompetent or biased, you need to look across the whole match.
On the Metropolitan Line train travelling back from Wembley into Kings Cross, Blacksheep and I stood with three reasonable, amicable gents supporting Manchester City, and they told us about a decision by the referee that was wrong. And I am sure they were right. But it was irrelevant, because an incompetent ref will make numerous wrong decisions. A bent ref will favour one side persistently, but then, to stop his crimes being so obvious that even the media will pick it up, will even things up a little, if the favoured team has (despite his best efforts) failed to make use of his favours. Calciopoli did not make Juventus win every game. It just helped them along the way. That is the lesson the media (and many supporters) have always failed to learn.
Thus picking one or two incidents is what many supporters do to make a case. To give another example I understand that Sergio Agüero’s “goal” late in the first half was wrongly disallowed in that the ball had not gone out of play in the run up. A linesman’s error, Man City was robbed. But to make that point properly we have to tot up all the errors. And I’ve never seen a newspaper or web site do that. Apart from this one.
So Mr W has his eighth FA Cup Final and so far he has won six out of seven. As the Guardian gallantly recognised, “his personal total is the same number Sunderland, Leeds, West Ham and Leicester have managed altogether.”
He’s also personally won the FA Cup more times than Manchester City have done in their entire history and they got their first win in 1904 – a little before Mr Wenger was born. What a shame the media can’t also total the number of ref “errors” in favour of each team across an entire game, but I believe they have agreed with the FA never to do this – as have all the mainstream media.
Speaking of Man City, for so we must in looking back on a day out at Wembley Stadium, we may perhaps note that all the money anyone could ever need (including just recently being let off most of their fines for breaking Uefa rules on the money spent on transfers) plus the best manager in the world (so I was told at the time by the media) still doesn’t allow them to beat Arsenal every time. Nor win trophies. Nor even non-trophies like the FA Cup.
They were eliminated at the first knockout stage in Europe, and are not going to win the League. They didn’t do very well in the EFL Cup either. They might even not be in the Champs League next season. And now, thanks to Arsenal they are not going to win the FA Cup.
Of course nor might Arsenal, but our owner doesn’t give us that sort of money, and we have the worst manager in the country who has made our club a laughing stock (as I was recently told by a correspondent).
Worse for Man City they were beaten by a team who have no core, who are weak, who have no team spirit, who have no drive, who have no self-belief, who have rubbish players from one end to the other, a team bedevilled by internal strife, a team where most of the fans want the manager out. I know this to be true because I have read it in the bloggettas.
Now we have our alternative 3-4-2-1 system and the wing backs work wonders. Monreal looked at his best – not like a man who is maybe going to lose his place in the summer. The Ox was superb and it was his cross that led to Monreal’s goal. Even Danny Welbeck, seemingly lacking in form and confidence, gave us more like his old performance.
Mr Wenger once said, “Confidence is the easiest thing to lose and the hardest thing to gain,” which is one reason why I have been so fed up with the antics of the aaa and the AAA who endlessly attack the club.
Now however Arsenal go into their 20th final, which is more than any other club has ever achieved, and an amazing achievement since we didn’t get to the first one until 1927. The last 20 years of FA Cup is show as below. 
means penalty shoot out and the teams in italics are from outside the top division.
Here are the 20 year totals.
- Arsenal = 6 wins (1 defeat)
- Chelsea = 6 wins (1 defeat)
- Manchester United = 3 wins (2 defeats)
- Liverpool = 2 wins (1 defeat)
- Manchester City = 1 wins (1 defeat)
- Portsmouth = 1 wins (1 defeat)
- Wigan = 1 win.
| Season | Winners | Score | Runners up | Crowd |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1996–97 | Chelsea | 2–0 | Middlesbrough | 79,160 |
| 1997–98 | Arsenal | 2–0 | Newcastle United | 79,183 |
| 1998–99 | Manchester United | 2–0 | Newcastle United | 79,101 |
| 1999–2000 | Chelsea | 1–0 | Aston Villa | 78,217 |
| 2000–01 | Liverpool | 2–1 | Arsenal | 72,500 |
| 2001–02 | Arsenal | 2–0 | Chelsea | 73,963 |
| 2002–03 | Arsenal | 1–0 | Southampton | 73,726 |
| 2003–04 | Manchester United | 3–0 | Millwall | 71,350 |
| 2004–05 | Arsenal | 0–0 |
Manchester United | 71,876 |
| 2005–06 | Liverpool | 3–3 |
West Ham United | 71,140 |
| 2006–07 | Chelsea | 1–0 | Manchester United | 89,826 |
| 2007–08 | Portsmouth | 1–0 | Cardiff City | 89,874 |
| 2008–09 | Chelsea | 2–1 | Everton | 89,391 |
| 2009–10 | Chelsea | 1–0 | Portsmouth | 88,335 |
| 2010–11 | Manchester City | 1–0 | Stoke City | 88,643 |
| 2011–12 | Chelsea | 2–1 | Liverpool | 89,041 |
| 2012–13 | Wigan Athletic | 1–0 | Manchester City | 86,254 |
| 2013–14 | Arsenal | 3–2 | Hull City | 89,345 |
| 2014–15 | Arsenal | 4–0 | Aston Villa | 89,283 |
| 2015–16 | Manchester United | 2–1 | Crystal Palace | 88,619 |
| 2016-17 |
Looking at the games above, this clearly is going to be the battle of the two sides that have come to dominate the FA Cup. Overall Chelsea have had 11 finals and have won it seven times and been runners up four times. Arsenal have had 19 appearances and won it 12 and been runners’ up seven.
So now we have appearance number 20 for Arsenal. Not bad going really.
FA Cup Semi Final Arsenal – Man City 2-1
Arsenal v Manchester City. Tottenham were valiant; Man City’s time will come; “we know that”.
Arsenal v Manchester City: a win pays Arsenal’s salaries for a week and a half.
Don’t forget that the final he actually lost was tainted by bad refereeing. Arsenal should have had a penalty and Liverpool down to 10 men when Stephane Henchoz clearly handled the ball but the referee gave a goal kick. Even if he didn’t see it as handball (which it clearly was) it should been a corner.
I wonder if Mr Child the referees assistant who made the almighty and unforgivable mistake yesterday will be relegated to League 2 this coming weekend
Is it just me that noticed that the camera angle of that goal (that was flagged as going off) was not in line with the goalposts anyway. It was at a slight angle which means you could not tell from those TV pictures whether the ball actually went out or not.
While the FA cup has been diluted as an important competition (blame SAF for that), I don’t see any evidence of it being denigrated as a non-trophy other than on social media. Most of the mainstream outlets still give it plenty of support and ticket sales for the final and subsequent touting will put it in the rock concert category.
I’m not sure if it still gets world wide live TV coverage for the final, but judging from the reaction of some overseas blogs it’s still right up there.
Repeated sarcasm in calling it a non trophy is doing this great cometition an injustice
Up the Plucky Arsenal !
While winning the FA Cup again is a good achievement which elevates our season to be above teams like Manchester City and probably Tottenham, it does not make Arsenal’s current season a good or sucessful one. In the league, we have been stagnant for years with roughly similar point totals while our rivals have improved and we have been uncompetitive in winning the years for the last few years. In the Champions League, we were decimated by a top team Bayern Munich and did not exactly fare well against PSG as well. Thus, the achievement of winning the FA cup has to be put in perspective, it does not mean that winning the competition is meaningless or that Arsenal winning it makes it a non-trophy, however, how it is rated in evaluating our season has to be carefully done.
They (them) will not let us win it (FA) if:
Manu are 4th or below
Pool are 4th or below
Arsenal are 3rd or above.
at the end of the season.
They want Manu and Pool back in the CL to represent UK.
Oh by the way, i hope “alternative 3-4-2-1” is right and we do not think this is our formation now to replace all others.
We need to become flexible with all systems and try to get the sort of players who can play these different systems.
Leon, I think the view that the domestic cups are lesser competitions is coming from the way most clubs approach them now. Very few managers play anything close to their first team squad in a league cup match anymore, before reaching the semifinals. The FA Cup tends to be treated a bit more seriously than the league cup, but even then, before reaching the quarters, you tend to see a lot of youth and reserves featuring in those matches.
Great Wenger support in article by Goal.com:
http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2896/premier-league/2017/04/24/34882282/why-does-guardiola-get-the-leeway-thats-denied-to-wenger?ICID=HP_HN_HP_RI_1_3
Camera angles
If you know where 2 cameras are located and you analyse the position of some object in the field of view from both cameras, you can solve for where that object is. If the two cameras are at the same height, the error in the height estimate could be larger than you want.
It helps if the lenses of both cameras are distortion free, otherwise you need to characterize the distortion first. Add more cameras to the mix, and you can get better results.
This was BT. It stands to reason that camera’s were in the wrong place, as I think they only have two (and mostly use only one).
BT coverage is shocking, both visually and audibly. The poor standard of commentary and punditry only adds to this. The FA and EPL should seriously consider taking coverage away from BT – it is SO POOR!
Sammy – Thanks for sharing that link. Surprising since Goal is fairly anti-Arsenal and AW.
I haven’t seen anything at goal.com in about 1 year. DNS lookups provide the wrong IP address.
Norman
I am not 100% sure about FA cup games but for PL games other than say cameras used for their own pundits or interviews the match coverage itself is not produced by either BT , Sky or indeed any of the broadcasters who show games or say in the case of BBC match highlights
There are live feed to each of the broadcasters from a company called Premier League Productions in turn the broadcasters select what to show and of course have their own commentary.