I agree with you entirely. Wenger is even worse and I would advocate all managers shutting up about ref’s decisions. It’s a convenient tactic for them to avoid hard questions about tactics. Last night, Man Utd were outplayed in midfield and that is why they lost. i’d rather hear Ferguson’s considered thoughts on that than more moaning about the ref.
There is only one way to deal with it - the FA/Premier League fines every manager moaning about ref’s decisions on an escalating scale until they get the message. Use all the money to improve the standard of referees. Everyone’s a winner. Except the powers that be are toothless idiots, so there is no chance of anything like this happening at all.
Agreed, absolutely. It is a shame that the greatest English-league manager of all time (surely there can no longer be any dispute about this, even from aged Liverpool fans) has to act this way.
Agreed - they should.
Agreed.
The justification for no retrospective punishment if the referee has seen the incident is that refereeing is a difficult enough job already without somebody undermining your performance after the fact using slow-motion video. While this is not a totally stupid argument, I think that now referees are professionals, they should be able to cope with this sort of thing. If they are not able to cope, they are not being paid enough, and this is where your fine plan comes in handy.
Maybe this has been done before, but I was thinking a few days ago about what the best “All Star” team would be in the Premier League with 1) just 1 player from a given team, and 2) no teams involved in Europe. That takes out United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs, Liverpool, and City. How do you think the All Star team would do, enough to win the league? I couldn’t quite come up with a specific XI at the time, but I thought I’d end up with a top 4 side for sure, though there aren’t many game changers who could give the lift needed to win the League. Here’s mine:
Ben Foster (Birmingham)
Phil Neville (Everton) - Christopher Samba (Blackburn) - Gary Cahill (Bolton) - Jose Enrique (Newcastle)
Charlie Adam (Blackpool) - Scott Parker (West Ham) - Danny Murphy (Fulham) - Nzogbia (Wigan)
Asomoah Gyan (Sunderland) - Darren Bent (Aston Villa)
Stoke, West Brom, and Wolves aren’t represented. Tough choices are leaving out Ashley Young, Brade Freidel, Leighton Baines, Tim Howard, Mikel Arteta, Tim Cahill (really, why aren’t Everton and Villa doing better?), and a few others. It seems to come down to who’s absolutely great (Parker, for one), and where’s there a big drop from first choice to second, or second to third (fullbacks). My team lacks a game changer, too, so that works for me that the top 6 have them, and the rest simply don’t, which is why they’re in Europe. Thoughts? How about an under-23 team with all clubs eligible? (Sorry- I’m bored on a Wednesday night.)
I don’t really follow the league closely enough to comment on your picks, but I would say that I don’t think that team has enough quality to make the top 4, never mind win the league, even if you assume there will be no “gelling” issues (such as Chelsea and Man City have had when trying to create a team of superstars). I mean, really - Danny Murphy and Scott Parker in central midfield? Isn’t Murphy about 45 years old now? And I would say Parker, while undoubtedly a good player, is probably on about the same level as, say, Michael Carrick, and considerably less influential than someone like Fabregas.
I don’t mean to rain on your parade because it is an interesting question; my opinion, though, is that it has a clear answer - such a team would finish high mid-table, probably getting a Europa League spot.
Paul Robinson (Blackburn)
Phil Neville (Everton) - Robert Huth (Stoke) - Gary Cahill (Bolton) - Jose Enrique (Newcastle)
Charlie Adam (Blackpool) - Barry Ferguson (Birmingham) - Thomas Hitzelsperger (West Ham) - Nzogbia (Wigan)
Asomoah Gyan (Sunderland) - Darren Bent (Aston Villa)
I agreed with most of what mkecane selected with a few minor differences. Going by MOTD and what little I have seen of actual matches played live, Robinson has been more consistently good than Foster over the course of the season. This, by the rules, means Samba has to go - and I had to scrabble around for a defender (which I figured was a toss up between Shawcross and Huth - Shawcross is a bit impetuous though and gets sent off a lot for crap tackles - so Huth it is).
By dropping Foster I freed up a Birmingham player - and Barry Ferguson has been pretty good from what I have seen of him - but is very similar to Parker. But by dropping Parker, I can play my ace in the hole, which is Hitzelsperger. Granted he’s only played 3 games or so since coming back from injury - but he’s probably the best midfielder in the Premiership outside the clubs in Europe. It’s no surprise that West Ham look immediately better with him in the side.
This wouldn’t push this team any further than the Europa League spots but if everyone stayed fit, I reckon this XI would qualify for the Europa League (by winning the League Cup or beating a very ordinary Liverpool over the course of the season) and probably cause some concern for the Top 4.
I think a minor disaster would be sitting in 6th right now. There’s not much to be said about yesterday’s match (right, SAF? :p). Liverpool were simply better all around. The only thing I think is that the plaudits should go to Meireles more so than Kuyt and Suarez (and I’m a fan of LS); he’s been great every time I’ve seen him since Dalglish took over. I’d say SAF got the tactics a bit wrong, but I’m not sure what he could have done in midfield that would have helped much. He could have played Fletcher with Carrick and Scholes, but would Rooney/Berbatov and Nani been enough to score when none of the 3 did a whole lot anyway? Against a pressing side, Carrick & Scholes alone just couldn’t do enough in midfield. If Anderson were available, then he and Fletcher with Scholes may I have worked. Maybe if Rio and/or Vidic were available, those 2 would have been able to move forward a bit more, but I’m not sure. I thought the back 4 were solid for the most part. Gotta move on. Hopefully Nani’s available by the Marseille match, but I’ve not seen anything about him other than he supposedly walked out of Anfield yesterday.
At least Agents Bruce, Richardson, Bardsley, and Welbeck did well for Sunderland on Saturday. United are still in poll position. Even a loss at the Emirates doesn’t necessarily put Arsenal in 1st, and a point or win there may be enough for United. It’s not like I expect Arsenal to win out (nor United, either). I’d like to see a City loss soon, though, just to damage any lingering thoughts they may have right now on winning the league.
Also, I think Wigan are a dead team walking right now. I’d like them to stay up, but I just don’t think they’ll be able to do it. Too many teams above them have games in hand and are playing fairly well for a near-bottom position. West Ham might pull a Great Escape after all.
If everyone stays fit, they have a great chance, as they’re playing some damn good football at the minute. On the negative side though, they have a pretty hard run in - still have away games at Spurs, Chelsea and Man City plus a home fixture against Man Utd. On researching, it looks like West Ham have the hardest run in of the teams that are around there and this could be their undoing.
Don’t fancy the look of Blackburn though. I reckon they and Wigan will be two of the teams going down.
ETA: maybe SAF reads the Dope. Good on him staying out of the press this week - he was inevitably going to have a go at the ref if he had a press conference - that Carragher tackle was bloody awful (not that the Rafael one was much better either mind).
Yes, I hadn’t forgotten and I stand by what I said - I wouldn’t upgrade it to anything more than a minor disaster at this stage, the league is still ours to lose, and provided we can quickly bounce back with a win, I see no reason why we should drop too many more points - at least, too many more relative to Arsenal. Can’t see anyone else as a threat, everyone is too inconsistent, and United have (so far) been nothing if not consistent in grinding out the points.
Not sure what you mean by this - I think sitting in 6th would be a major disaster for Man United right now, but it’s all relative of course.
West Ham fans don’t need to worry about at least one of those - they usually beat us Reds, whether SAF chooses to play his best team or not :).
Don’t get me wrong, I still think the wankers will win the league. But any time they lose, it sends a ray of light into my dark, depressing world. Even if only for a short time.
Yeah, I messed that up. I was really just aiming to have a dig at Liverpool (mainly because friends who never ever watch the Premier League, and only a bit of the World Cup, decided I needed emails and texts about yesterday’s match) to make myself feel a bit better.
Xan, the same could be said about Busquets based on that header for an own goal. I’ll say the ref was really, really bad for Arsenal today, so at least I’m equal opportunity in my recent ref bashing. Holy crap, that 2nd yellow for Van Persie was awful. Bad luck for Arsenal that they had to waste a sub on the gk in the 17th, too. I was indifferent to the winner of the tie, but it sure would have been a fun final 7 minutes if Bendtner had scored when Wilshere made that nice pass into the penalty area.
Is it just me, or is Wilshere just a near-perfect combination of Keane and Scholes? He’s not as fierce as Keane, and not as good a passer as Scholes, but I can’t think of anyone since Keane retired that could come close to combining their attributes that SAF could maybe put in a cheeky bid. What a player.
Yeah that second yellow on Van Persie was some stinky bullshit. There was literally a one second gap in when the whistle was blown and when he kicked the ball. Add 90K screaming fans and it seems pretty reasonable that RVP didn’t hear the whistle.
I can’t compare Wilshere to anyone because I’m new to following Arsenal and soccer in general.
It has to be a very odd position to be new following the Arse. They play such great football at the moment, genuinely beautiful at times to watch, that you can’t really conceive of why so many fans (myself included) have a complete loathing for the team.
It’s because you never witnessed the years (seems like decades) of Boring, Boring Arsenal. It’s going to take a lifetime for that to wear off.
I’m in the same boat as Xan, except I started following Arsenal in 2006 (which started my dislike of losing to Barca in the Champions League after a red card…).
The Van Persie decision was just laughably bad. What a way to ruin a match.
As far as Cesc, it seems clear he shouldn’t have started. He apparently re-injured his hammy in the first half, but I still have no idea what he was thinking on the back heel.
So Arsene took chances on two injured players: one got injured early on and created the first Barca goal, and the other got sent off in the 56th minute. Talk about getting your team selection wrong. Missing Alex Song was a big blow too - Diaby just can’t do that job. I was pretty damn impressed with Nasri’s defending, however.
I have read quite a bit about boring, boring Arsenal (thanks Nick Hornby! and the offside trap reference in The Full Monty!), so I do understand the dislike. But there is really not a better team to be following aesthetically in the EPL right now, IMO.
I wouldn’t disagree - if I was starting out as a neutral, I might be an Arsenal fan. Actually most of my early live watching was at Highbury - I lived close enough to London, Chelsea were a crap lower division club, Spurs were a pain in the arse to get to, and West Ham was merely a way of getting your head kicked in… The other London teams seemed to rotate in and out of the First Division, so I ended up watching the Arse a lot.
Overall, I wasn’t too sad Barca won, because I love me some Barca, but the sending off sounded insane, and I wouldn’t have minded Arsenal winning.
