Greenlizard0 Weekend Football Thread ** spoilers ** [21st - 26th March 2014]

G|mp said:
I've been to a fair few in the Stretford end over the last couple of years, always good fun drinking beer and prawn sandwhiching it up!
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Prawn sandwiches? You must look like a right mincer :p Pies and brown sauce for me..

Stretford end though, absolute beaut atmosphere.
 
bloodline76 said:
The ball wasn't going in though was it? It was going wide. He jumped to header it and the ball hit his hand.

If it was going in then yes but it wasn't.

From what I saw it didn't look like it was deliberate. Need to see it again as I am only watching a stream. But it definitely wasn't stopping a goal as it was clearly going wide.
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Justified! Rules are the rules! ;)
 
When Oxcott dived and hand balled it he should have been sent off not Gibbs.

If you watch the replay the ball actually hits the keeper first who deflects it wide. But oxlade dived before he knew it was going wide so intent wose he did try to save the goal.if it hadn't hit the keeper first it would have been a full palm style handball.
 
Glad the FA recinded the Gibbs red, but to recind the Ox one is beyond daft imo (its so tight before the "save", its impossible to know if it might have curved inside the post at the last instant)
 
Intent is really more important than the act itself, when you hack someone down from behind you're stopping the goal scoring chance, but as I was pointing out during el classico, best players in the world don't simply finish every brilliant chance they get, they miss more than they score. It's not stopping a goal literally, just the intent of the tackle is to prevent them trying to score.

There is a handball where it bounces up and hits your arm, where you control a long ball and it's off arm rather than chest, and there is diving towards the ball with your hand outstretched infront of your goal when someone has taken a shot. The difference is clear as hell.

Meh, it's all a bit silly, and there is probably some level of making it up to Arsenal for the mistake influencing the decision. Doesn't much matter, at the moment AOC is playing extremely poorly and probably needs a rest, or dropping, to encourage him to do better. Same for Gibbs, like Wenger most of the squad shows incredibly little progression, Gibbs has been making these positional mistakes for 4 years with no improvement, no sign of him using his brain, learning from mistakes and not over committing forward so often.

Even in a game like against Chelsea where they have devastating pace down the wings Gibbs showed absolutely no intention to play it slightly safer. He was bombing forwards before there was a clear sign the ball would make it forwards, he ran beyond the play while the ball was still basically at the half way line and left us utterly exposed. After the first goal with Gibbs completely MIA, did he say "opps, I guess I should stay back in this game and actually defend", nope, he kept doing it and that led to goal 2, then the penalty.

This is what frustrates me so much, Wenger is too damn stupid to tell Gibbs to stay back in a game like this despite knowing precisely where the threat comes from with Chelsea. Gibbs himself is too stupid and crap defensively to do this naturally without being told, and Arsenal never adjust tactics even though the opposition will. We actually make it easier than any other team because our weaknesses are plain to see for everyone, and every decent manager out there simply sets up their team to exploit them... and unlike everyone else, we will predictably play that same way that the opposition have set up to beat.

Mourinho thinks, Arsenal have absent fullbacks, no striker, lets bomb down the wings, hit diagonal balls behind the defence to left/right back area's and just stream forwards.... Wenger could adapt tactics to make this hard/impossible in the game but instead plays same as always.

Wenger's utter predictability, and lack of any kind of per game tactics, makes Arsenal maybe the easiest top 6 team in any league to play against. Because every other top team can prepare precisely for the type of Arsenal team that will show up to the game, they will know exactly how to beat them, and the tactics don't change year to year so beat them once, it will just be easier next time.

LIkewise find a way to prevent Arsenal winning, Wenger won't adjust his tactics, so it will almost certainly work again the next time you play them.
 
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Newbie007 said:
Doesnt matter imo, he dived and stuck his hand out becuase he thought it was going in. Should be a red.
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Maybe so but as the rules are now, it had to be going in for it to be a red.

I heard somebody compare it to attempting to punch somebody. If you throw a punch at another player and whether you actually hit them or not, it's still a red. I guess the counter to that would be if a defender tried but failed to bring down an attacker to deny a clear goal scoring opportunity, it's not still a red.

In an ideal world you'd give out red cards every time that there's clear intent to either deny a goal by handling the ball or attempting to bring down an attacker just to deny a goal scoring opportunity, regardless of whether they succeed in doing so or not. The problem with that would be the inconsistencies with decisions from refs when trying to determine whether it was a cynical handball/foul or not.

I suppose the current rule, where by you actually have to deny a goal or clear goal scoring opportunity (regardless of the intent) makes it far more black and white and therefore easier for the officials, and hopefully leads to more consistent decision making.
 
Captain Planet said:
I knew Arsenal floundered against the big teams, but I never realised they were actually this bad!

Http://pic.twitter.com/9HUXkorU6v
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It's obviously away and yes, we're horrendous. The results against the teams you'll be around at the end of the season are crucial. Incidentally the win and draw were both against City, as city are building up into a decent team and don't have the consistency you expect of a more long term top four team.

The last season we had a positive away record to the top 4 was 08-09, we drew 2 and won 1 game, so we took more points from them than they took from us. The year before that it was 2 losses and a draw again. 06-07 was neutral, win 1, draw 1, lose 1. 05-06 we lost all 3.

The last time we won 2 of those away games to the top four, we drew the other and won the title with an 11 point gap..... 10 years ago. Back then we also won 2 and drew one of the home fixtures.

Such a different team, different squad, different types of players, different mentality, different tactics... frankly different manager.


I really feel we should look into if Wenger had an evil twin... because that would explain everything.
 
Massive game for Moyes tonight, if the players are as gutless and terrible as they were against Liverpool, it might get really ugly.

On the other hand, a good win would be a big positive and something Moyes really needs.

I expect we'll set up for a draw, and end up losing anyway.
 
Purdy said:
United's top 4 record in 08-09 was disgustingly bad, still set a mad points total, so its not the be all and end all, does help mind you
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It's not required, but over a period of 5 years certainly shows a trend, and with the amount of actual goals shipped in those away games this year, a worsening trend. There will be outliers as with all stats but it's very rare for a team to win a title and do very poorly against the top 4. That year Utd only lost 4 games, 3 were against the top 4, and they only drew a few games. In most normal seasons you'll lose a couple more games against random opposition due to bad luck, etc.


With Arsenal and it being 5 years since the last semi decent away form record, which was preceeded by another crap year anyway, it's just showing our mentality and even more importantly the lack of change in years.
 
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