- How Tottenham are getting the best out of referees
- Why do Tottenham players get fouled so often (according to referees)?
By Tony Attwood
Arsenal were brilliant in the first half, but Tottenham to be fair were worse than useless for much of the game. Arsenal are now eight points clear at the top, and also have the same goal difference as Manchester City. Tottenham are 15 points behind just slightly ahead the mighty Fulham.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arsenal | 18 | 15 | 2 | 1 | 42 | 14 | 28 | 47 |
| 2 | Manchester City | 18 | 12 | 3 | 3 | 46 | 18 | 28 | 39 |
| 3 | Newcastle United | 19 | 10 | 8 | 1 | 33 | 11 | 22 | 38 |
| 4 | Manchester United | 18 | 12 | 2 | 4 | 29 | 21 | 8 | 38 |
| 5 | Tottenham Hotspur | 19 | 10 | 3 | 6 | 37 | 27 | 10 | 33 |
| 6 | Fulham | 20 | 9 | 4 | 7 | 32 | 29 | 3 | 31 |
The game was notable not just for the style and quality of Arsenal, but for also revealing the nature of this Tottenham side and some fans with the ludicrous attack on Ramsdale as he tried to pick up his gloves to run to the other end of the ground to celebrate with their fans. It just about summed the stadium up, although the commentators did have the decency to note in passing that this is a bugger of a ground to get away from.
For me, it has been a long time since I watched an Arsenal league game on Sky with the sound on, and from the very off it was utterly clear that the Sky commentary team were simply not briefed for, and not at all prepared for, the level of Arsenal dominance. Instead, as the build-up reached its conclusion there was talk of the danger of complacency by Arsenal. Really? Have they been to any games this season?
Instead, there were ceaseless excuses about Tottenham’s performance, alongside all the inevitable talk of Arsenal’s “failure” at the end of last season. Indeed so dominant was the pro-Tottenham talk that around 30 minutes we had five consecutive minutes of it. When Romereo fouled Martinelli, Romereo was praised for not following through further – no mention of the fact that it was a foul.
Only Merson was pro-Arsenal. “I can’t remember 45 minutes in a derby that has been as one-sided as this” he said, and indeed nor could I.
And given that the commentators in the ground had nothing else that fitted their pre-arranged agenda they carried on talking up the magnificence of the stadium. At least Merse did talk about how awful Conte is as a manager these days.
Sky couldn’t bring themselves to provide any possession statistics for the first half – Tottenham only had three touches in the Arsenal box in the first half. At least they admitted on 35 minutes that Arsenal were sweeping “spurs” away, and finally started to talk about the unforgivable defending. “Spurs are playing like little boys out there,” was one such. Note the familiarity of their approach. Not Tottenham, but “Spurs”.
In fact, at 37 minutes Arsenal started playing at walking space, to which the commentators then got agitated saying “Arsenal need to kill it off they can’t just keep on going forward.”
Interestingly Sky had arranged matters so that the away support could not be heard, but finally on 38 they changed the microphone mix so we could hear them. And to be fair some half an hour after the match ended they did finally show film of a Tottenham fan on the pitch attempting to assault the Arsenal keeper.
“You expect a Conte team to be really determined,” was one comment made a couple of times, but there was no look at recent results – these are professional commentators either they are not aware of the recent results of Tottenham or else… well I am not sure. We’ll run a last six and last ten match table in the next article.
There was also no comment about the way very few AFC fans were wearing anything red – it is indeed a terrible ground to get away from, both in terms of time and safety.
So overall the commentators kept it very very low key although they did loosen up in the discussion at the end as they tried to wipe from the memory the constant talk during the game that Tottenham were “not far away”.
On 49 minutes Kane actually had his second shot. By 50 minutes their manager was going berserk, shouting his head off. On 52 minutes we were told Martinelli was “allegedly” shoved to the ground but the Totts player quite rightly got a yellow and so the talking up of Tottenham went on and on.
By the end, the commentary was simply occasional words punctuating long silences, in a rapidly emptying ground. Very poor from Sky. Pretty damn brilliant from Arsenal.
- The newspaper Tottenham v Arsenal preview that doesn’t have a word about Arsenal!
- How Arsenal moved from 15th in the league two years ago, to top of the league today
Tony,
as for Merson, here are his half-time comments as copy-pasted from the web :
“They’ve been really bad, Arsenal have been great and they’ve had two good chances, or one and a half good chances,” Merson bemoaned to Sky Sports at half-time.
One and a half good chances…..
Who needs a friend, an ex-player ?
Richard “Classy” Keys of beIN sports, the “classy” TV channel from Qatar, was tonight blaming Arteta for Ramsdale being kicked in the back by a Spurs supporter.
How dare they celebrate? It’s not like they’ve gone away to a top team and beaten them.
The two big surprises:
Merson praising Arsenal.
Sutton prediction proving correct
It would have been expected that the sale of Chelsea by Abramovich to a Hedge Fund was an end to their years of financial doping.
Hedge funds have investors expecting profit returns.
It makes me wonder therefore if bearing in mind that Abramovich who could not financially benefit himself due to Sanctions regulations that forced the sale in the first place,structured a deal to get one over authorities that effectively created a Transfers slush fund for the new owners to use but in truth is really Sanctions busting continued funding by Abramovich.
Surely that is worth checking/investigating by both Law Enforcement & Football authorities & any investigative journalist worth his salt?
James You are possibly right. And I share your frustrations.
But, and this is the thing, does anyone really give a shit????
We do, because basically it’s us that have been screwed by all this oil money.
But lets hope against hope, that this year, even if it is for just one year, we can say f*** your oil money!!
COTG
Concerning FFP The new UEFA financial sustainability rules came into force in June 2022. These new rules allow clubs to incur losses of €60m over three years, compared to the previous allowance of €30m.
But what they don’t do (because the person who effectively runs Uefa, Nasser Al-Khelaifi, and the person who owns PSG happen to be the same person) is say where the money comes from. So PSG, Manchester City and Newcastle, can receive as much oil money as they wish, and spend it how they like. What clubs can’t do is spend what they don’t have.
As long as Uefa remains under the effective control of Nasser Al-Khelaifi, then nothing will change.
And indeed it is noteworthy that the Super League clubs refused to offer PSG a place in the league because of Nasser Al-Khelaifi’s connection with Uefa, which they were trying to escape.
We beat the Spuds comprehensively. We were better in every department and nothing anybody says can change that. A bigger test will be against Man U. Not because they’re great but they are brimming with confidence and clearly have officialdom back on there side again after that absurd decision yesterday.
Irrespective, and I know things can change, I’m pretty sure my pre-season, £20 each way at 40/1 will result in a profit! If not, the £20 that a Chelski fan bet me that Arsenal wouldn’t finish in the top six will soften the blow 😂😂
I agree with both Tony & Nitram’s comments but if my theory is true, it’s bigger than that as it would be Sanctions busting law breaking. A very serious crime.
Chelsea’s Mudryk deal is very interesting. 100 million Euros (not including salary). That works out at approx. 62 million quid upfront and 26 million later as part of some sort of conditional bonus payment scheme.
I’ve heard that Mudryk will be earning £150,000 p/w on an eight-and-a-half-year contract.
That lot works out at just over 154 million.
In order to get around FFP restrictions, amortisation is the game here.
But what happens if the transfer doesn’t pan out in the way that Chelsea imagined?
Are Chelsea digging themselves a Juventus-style hole?
We can take another positive from today’s game. The Spurs fan who kicked Aaron won’t have to sit through anymore of those performances.
What a great performance from all Arsenal players on the pitch. Great to celebrate this with some 40 gooners from Belgium in our pub after our newyears gathering. The atmosphere was rather good 🙂
St. Totteringham’s Day is approaching 🐓🍾🥂
@ Seismic
“ We can take another positive from today’s game. The Spurs fan who kicked Aaron won’t have to sit through anymore of those performances.”
😂😂😂
Interesting to see that, as a sports programme, MotD decided not to close with Arsenal punishing the Spuds but with an utterly spurious link to Jeff Beck.
Sadly I’m well old enough to remember and appreciate Jeff (and remember the Spuds winning the league 😂) but I suspect most viewers (and many MotD pundits) don’t have a clue who he is. Yet more BBC bias, one suspects…..
Contrary to what the BBC say, Jeff Beck was born in Wallington, Surrey.
What an amazing performance. Our players, and managers were immense. And so pleased my dire predictions of PGMOL interference didn’t come to fruition, thought the officials did well. Spurs shithousery didn’t work , our players seemed prepared for it
This team are special
WOO HOO , HOO ! Another win , another 3 welcome points ! In this form we cannot be technically relegated ( as we have safely gone past the usually required 40 points !) , unless of course , we get our points docked for them Spuds not being able in controlling their over-exuberant fans ! Or our over exuberant players wanting to thank and celebrating with our traveling fans.
Now I fell a surge of optimism that God indeed is watching and that there will be a St. Totteringhan’s Day this year !
As for the League Title , am being pessimistically optimistic ! Especially at the coming games .
Up the Gunners !
I’m kind of fascinated by the Chelsea-Mudryk deal.
I mean the guy just signed until his 30th birthday at least
He’ll cost Chelsea something like a quarter of a billion euros until the end of his contract if numbers on the web are correct.
250’000’000 euros in digits
Now, remember Ozil ? Aubameyang ?
How in the world are Chelsea going to be negotiating with the next manager ? Hi dude, you know, we’ve got this bloke who needs to play every game…. ? Or if they want to sell.
This whole thing just is casino behaviour. Which is pretty much what hedge funds are about when you think about it. In this regard the oil states are doing a better job at making their teams win.
Anyway, they are 19 points behind Arsenal and have one more game played. So obviously many poor decisions were taken. Good for them. Arsenal took one excellent decision with regards to Chelsea : get Eddie into the Academy.
I hope there is some sanction against that spud idiot (spudiot) Richarlson for his part in the kick at Aaron. I think his confrontation with Aaron for his usual celebration may have been the final push over the edge for the tantrum of the spud fan to reach the imbecilic level he went to. Where are the calls to investigate this childish petty spud? I personally would like to see at least 30 points deduction for the spuds and the rest of their season behind closed doors as well as no tickets for any away games. Richarlson’s behaviour may at times been seen on playgrounds but as a professional footballer, especially playing for the spuds, one would hope for sportsmanship in defeat. Sad moment from a sad club, relegate them now.
Richrlison is a badly behaving man-baby.
Don’t be surprised to see Chelsea relegated and in financial ruin if their reckless spending continues. This wanne-be owner is playing hard and fast, and most of their players coming in have been disappointing. He is clearly spending someone else’s money!
Imagine the media frenzy if Ramsdale had slapped Richarlison.
As it is, don’t be surprised if Ramsdale is blamed for being provocative by looking happy at the result. After all, according to Keys, Mr. Arteta is to blame for the Spurs fan’s assault on Arsenal’s keeper
There’s been a lot of criticism in the media of Arsenal players celebrating their comprehensive win over Tottenham. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the comments. But this is professional sport these days. You see it everywhere. This generation expresses itself all the time. Being of a certain age (ahem, ahem), it’s a bit much for me but I’m adjusting. And if I can, perhaps the fossils in the media can as well. As we used to say, “I won’t be holding my breath”.
Also,
Great performance, clean sheet, three points. COYG!!!!!
Craig Pawson was the referee. I have been quite critical of his performances in the past, but I barely noticed him yesterday. If only all referees could be like this.
Every week.
seismic
He got off to a half decent start by booking Romero for his third poor foul on 35 minutes. I know a card for 3 poor fouls seems a no brainer but usually he gets away with murder so it boded well, and yes he did go on to have an anonymous, and a very decent game. But to be fair apart from the last minute fracas there was very little controversial to deal with.
But credit where credit is due, he handled it well enough.
Now for the re vamped media darlings in the shape of Man Utd.
I just cannot see such a balanced display this coming weekend. Be afraid be very afraid.
Anthony Taylor (from Manchester) will referee the Man. Utd. match. Michael Salisbury (Lancashire) will be VAR
How is that even allowed?
This is by Tony in the build up for the Old Trafford match:
“Paul Tierney is the referee for the Manchester United v Arsenal game. He is from Salford which is just a few miles from Manchester , while Lee Mason who is the VAR referee is from Manchester itself. But I am sure that doesn’t imply that anything will be wrong. After all both men are employed by PGMO and we know what a fair and reasoned organisation this is”.
And we all know how that worked out:
As reported by the Mirror, Amongst other outlets:
“There were six incorrect VAR interventions in the first part of the Premier League season, according to a panel set up to investigate the controversial decisions The incidents, which include Gabriel Martinelli’s disallowed goal for Arsenal at Manchester United, were all looked into by a panel comprising of three former players and a representative from the Premier League and the PGMOL, the referees body.”
Now we get Anthony Taylor (from Manchester) as referee and Michael Salisbury (from Lancashire) on VAR.
So the The PGMO disgracefully give us two Manchester officials for the match at Old Trafford. An independent body judges they got a game changing decision completely wrong in Manchester’s favour. But rather than learn from this The pig headed, arrogant, incompetent PGMO, do exactly the same again for the return match.
You just couldn’t make this shit up.