Greenlizard0 Weekend Football Thread ** spoilers ** [14 - 16th September 2013]

Fully deserved win for Everton. Chelsea looked toothless and all over the place in the 2nd half. Mikel and Luiz could and should have been sent off too.

Please tell me Bill wasn't crying just then.
 
the1gooner said:
Top 4 going to be a bit more open this season it seems.
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For sure, Liverpool seem to be back with a lot of strength. Man City are waning as are Chelsea, Arsenal have potential, Tottenham are playing very strong and Man Utd are doing their usual thing.
 
Just got back from the game. Good result, good performance too. Bar a ropey 10mins in the second half, we played well. Domiated possession and Ozil fit into the team perfectly. Ramsey again played a blinder. The only player who didn't pull his socks up was Walcott. I've seen more movement from a lamp post than what Walcott showed today, dreadful performance. I'll let DM write an essay on that though.

Sunderland had a goal unfairly ruled out by Atkinson which could well have turned the game around for them.

Top of the league :D (I have to make the most of it :o)
 
The league table makes good reading thinking we have Hull at home next. Need 3 points from that though as its then

Everton A
Cardiff A
Liverpool H
Sunderland A
 
Damn missed the Arsenal game but caught up with what went on, Ozil with a new debut, setting up Giroud with a sublime through ball...first assist of the season. Ramsey?? what can i say about that lad...really has turned it on this season and is our best player out there in the past few games. Totally bossed the game and dominated it.

Glad we got the 3pts, i did predict to a few of my mates that we would win 3-1 and looks like we did:D. Top of the league yo:D:D

What a result for Everton, well done Roberto and the lads.

Cant wait for the MOTD highlights tonight but so far so good for Arsenal but my only moan is Kos...damnit lad stop giving away stupid penalties:p
 
Sublime through ball for Giroud... the over reaching by both fans and the pundits for everything Ozil did has been embarrassing. He squared a ball for Giroud to slide in, it was done right, it wasn't poor, it was good but sublime... he passed a pretty simple ball across. The pundits every time Ozil picked out a ball that Nasri/Fabregas/Cazorla/Wilshire or even Song would have done had them harping on about the most creative player in Europe as if these passes aren't standard in all teams and certainly at Arsenal for years in pretty much every game. He was decent, it wasn't a brilliant debut, neither did I expect it to be.

Ramsey has finally actually started making runs into the box, quick movement is where and how Ramsey looked at his best when he first joined. I think he's fairly weak/poor defensively and when playing deeper but playing quick 1-2's and being fairly direct and running into the box he's always looked good. The problem is where everyone will play, I'd be extremely happy to see Walcott shown the door and mix in several of our attacking players. But with Wilshire/Santi/Ozil/Ramsey fit and ready to play how we line up will be interesting. The real issue is I don't think Ozil did anything Santi couldn't have done today at all. Ozil would be a HUGE upgrade on Walcott in the first 11, I think 90% of managers would drop Walcott and get Santi/Ozil/Podolski in there somewhere, Wenger...... the question I have with every big or new buy is... I know what our new best 11 is, but does Wenger and will we see it consistently.

I think Stoke might be a good test for Ozil in terms of physicality/fitness and I wait to see both how Ozil plays against the top 6-8 teams in the league and who we start in big games.

Can't help but point out the daft penalty and the extreme luck Arsenal had. I think the ref genuinely deserved a red card as Sagna didn't actually stop a goal scoring chance... he tried and failed then they scored and the ref prevented the goal scoring chance by blowing a whistle when the advantage was damn clear. Either way a blatant foul by Sagna and he was clearly the last man back with Altidore through on goal, how it's not a red card, and the same in the Chelsea game for a similar clearly last man back foul(albeit on the half way line) I don't know. Very poor refs today. Don't like Di Canio as a manager, or Sunderland as a club in general but it should have been 2-2 and down to 10 men and who knows what would happen then.

Stoke and Everton having great results today and such a late Brentford winner that I missed it completely and only noticed the result when I was looking through them all later :p
 
I don't think Atkinson can be blamed too much for not allowing play to continue further because there was a big tussle between Altidore and Sagna with the end result being the Altidore was pushed wide away from goal. So in the referee's view he had arguably let the play run a bit before blowing the whistle anyway. The goal definitely shouldn't have stood because he'd already blown his whistle before it went in.

Only point of debate for me is whether it should have been a red card, I think if he gives a freekick then it probably should be a red; possibly he wasn't 100% sure in his mind what went on because Altidore was groping Sagna as well and maybe there was a sliver of doubt in terms of whether he thought that was simply trying to free himself from Sagna or more of a 'six and two threes' type affair so he didn't want to dismiss a player if he could have a case to answer in that regard.
 
Lol at Krul on that corner for the Villa goal :p looks pretty shaky so far this season.

Ben Arfa looked great. Nice to see Remy kicking on too, big game at home to Hull next. Need 3 points.
 
Not watched MOTD in years because, it's meh, far too easy for them to twist a game however they want with the highlights they choose. But as yet they've showed that SToke could easily be 3 or 4 up and City have created nothing. Nasri at massive fault for the first two main chances, just stopped defending completely because he thought someone was offside, made no effort to track the player. Second one being so easily outmuscled by Jones after turning and going the wrong way and giving himself no options.

Could be City were only good at the end because they are shown as having same number of shots on and off target as Stoke but its utterly one sided from the highlights, no idea how Stoke didn't score at least a couple.

Completely different team from the chances made, closing higher up the field, attacking and chances. If they can improve and pick up a real striker in Jan or the new guy can get in the goals they could be a decent team.
 
HangTime said:
I don't think Atkinson can be blamed too much for not allowing play to continue further because there was a big tussle between Altidore and Sagna with the end result being the Altidore was pushed wide away from goal. So in the referee's view he had arguably let the play run a bit before blowing the whistle anyway. The goal definitely shouldn't have stood because he'd already blown his whistle before it went in.

Only point of debate for me is whether it should have been a red card, I think if he gives a freekick then it probably should be a red; possibly he wasn't 100% sure in his mind what went on because Altidore was groping Sagna as well and maybe there was a sliver of doubt in terms of whether he thought that was simply trying to free himself from Sagna or more of a 'six and two threes' type affair so he didn't want to dismiss a player if he could have a case to answer in that regard.
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The thing is after seeing a replay later on, he blows right AFTER Altidore actually gets away from Sagna and that is what makes it a horrendous decision by the ref. Sometimes ref's blow too early and then the player gets away from a foul , but the ref didn't know he would get away. But here he blew the whistle just after Altidore shrugged him off and started towards the ball, there was no reason to blow the whistle then, either as he's being held(too early still but less bad) or once the player has gone beyond the foul you have to give at that point 3-4 seconds to see if an advantage develops. You can't blow after the player gets away but before the advantage, its 100% wrong to do it at that point.

I really can't see how it's not a red after the whistle is blown though, same as Luiz, he yanked someone down on the half way line, but it was what Mirallas and Mikel wasn't particularly close(only because of the holding did he get close to level but he was still 5-10 yards over and he's a much slower player than Mirallas. Without the holding Mirallas would have been clean away and Mikel zero chance of catching him.

The thing is, when you look at the replay for Sagna... what the hell was he doing, I just don't know, where is putting both arms around a player and not even looking at the ball a good idea. This wasn't a mistimed tackle or a sliding tackle where he may have gotten the ball, it was so blatant, so utterly stupid. This is why he isn't good CB cover, or a good fullback, he does utterly stupid things so consistently.... so does Kos. There is a reason why we still had at least 2/3rds of the way into last season the highest number of individual errors... a HUGE amount of luck last year meant we didn't concede but we were making the errors all season, awful errors.

Kos would make less errors with better defenders around him, but better defenders around him he certainly needs. Verm got a huge amount of unfair criticism in the last two years, a HUGE portion of his "mistakes" were because he was out of position covering for our other defenders huge blunders. It was his pace, quality and reading of the game that let him get in position to attempt to correct the others mistakes... blaming him for not being able to fix them all is so stupid. Really hope he can have a good uninjured year as I still think him and Kos can be a great partnership.
 
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