Caporegime
Just watching MOTD and didn't know Kane was booked for diving again 
Greenlizard0 Weekend Football Thread ** spoilers ** [29th - 30th December 2018]
- Thread starter Cosimo
- Start date
Oldham Athletic obviously.
And yes Kane was booked for diving... its not a talking point for some reason.
Not a good performance at all from Arsenal, our defence is flaky when everyone is fit so thought we'd struggle today. Not sure why Laca isn't starting he's by far the best front man and works amazingly well with Auba to his left. Missing Ozil as part of the front 3 too. We look very disjointed at the moment and our results reflect it. As to Liverpool, everything seems to be going their way at the moment. 2 soft penalties and a double and triple deflection for their first 2. Certainly theirs to lose now, they are going to take some catching.
Probably because he was actually caught by a trailing leg.
Caporegime
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 33,188
That Arsenal defence is a joke but it has been for a long time. Things don't change overnight and my stance last year is the same as now. A new manager can't change every player and fix every problem overnight. There can be immediate short term gains from a different mentality and just the players feeling hope, feeling positive change, or working harder if the issue was complacency (as I believe was one of the major problems we had), but actual significant player improvement takes time.
I always point out Spurs, they looked better under Poch almost immediately. He sold the right players and his mentality and style brought gains immediately but his system, the whole team, the fitness and the player improvements really all came together about 18 months later. In the first 6 months it was the same side playing quite a bit better, after 18 months despite being mostly the same players it was still a completely new side. Rose and Walker went from absolute disaster players to leading the league after 18 months.
I always figured similar for Emery, not that I'm sure he can do what Poch did but that is the time frame he should be given. Short term improvements are welcome and our more attacking style and the massive improvement of those players who were doing worst under Wenger in recent times like Iwobi and bellerin has been great, neither are brilliant all of a sudden but hugely improved compared to last year. Iwobi is still all over the place and still has horrible performances but at least doing the right things, losing the ball going forwards rather than losing it from bad passes going sideways. He made some excellent runs and beat players multiple times by getting the ball and driving forward, something he did in his first 6 months with Arsenal but wasn't doing almost at all in the past 18 months under Wenger.
But short term improvements due to mentality, positive thinking, attacking nature of the style and encouraging players better aren't what were needed to fix the club. Replacing players who while improving still aren't good enough for a top team like Mustafi, Xhaka, Kolasinac, etc, is still required. Our defence even during the 22 unbeaten, was a joke. We conceded plenty and won or drew through scoring heavily rather than defending well. We were frankly always going to get torn up by the likes of Liverpool and City. I don't expect much to change till we have a longer time to replace our CBs, most fullbacks and still more central mids. Ramsey I'm quite happy to see go, he's not good enough offensively in the biggest games and he's still dire defensively. He's not prolific enough, or fast/strong enough to deserve playing in a no.10 or wide attacker role, he's far far too poor defensively to play deeper in midfield. He fits directly into that VdV, Mata, Ozil group of 'luxury' players who while they can at time play lovely attacking football, aren't really directly suited to any specific role in a team. Mata has a lovely pass but he's slow, he's weak and completely unsuitable to play out wide, he doesn't score enough to be a no.10 or certainly a no.9, he's not physical enough for a deeper role. He at times plays great but there are better wingers, better CMs, better no.10s and better strikers.
Ramsey as a decent option for less big games, sure, you can sacrifice quality for rotation, paying huge for a guy who doesn't even have a best role and who isn't really suited to any particular part of the team is crazy so giving him an insane wage to stay would be incredibly bad business.
The angry fullback man and Sokratis are just temporary additions both in terms of overall defensive numbers and in terms of hoping to improve on Mustafi/etc at the back. Neither are particularly working out in quality but they aren't long term signings. They were available, no transfer fees and expensive wages but only for a year, two max, while they identify and work to bring in CBs they really want. If we still suck defensively after we get a new backline Emery chose, he should go maybe end of next season. Judging Emery over Wenger's woeful transfer work and training over the past 5 years is crazy.
I always point out Spurs, they looked better under Poch almost immediately. He sold the right players and his mentality and style brought gains immediately but his system, the whole team, the fitness and the player improvements really all came together about 18 months later. In the first 6 months it was the same side playing quite a bit better, after 18 months despite being mostly the same players it was still a completely new side. Rose and Walker went from absolute disaster players to leading the league after 18 months.
I always figured similar for Emery, not that I'm sure he can do what Poch did but that is the time frame he should be given. Short term improvements are welcome and our more attacking style and the massive improvement of those players who were doing worst under Wenger in recent times like Iwobi and bellerin has been great, neither are brilliant all of a sudden but hugely improved compared to last year. Iwobi is still all over the place and still has horrible performances but at least doing the right things, losing the ball going forwards rather than losing it from bad passes going sideways. He made some excellent runs and beat players multiple times by getting the ball and driving forward, something he did in his first 6 months with Arsenal but wasn't doing almost at all in the past 18 months under Wenger.
But short term improvements due to mentality, positive thinking, attacking nature of the style and encouraging players better aren't what were needed to fix the club. Replacing players who while improving still aren't good enough for a top team like Mustafi, Xhaka, Kolasinac, etc, is still required. Our defence even during the 22 unbeaten, was a joke. We conceded plenty and won or drew through scoring heavily rather than defending well. We were frankly always going to get torn up by the likes of Liverpool and City. I don't expect much to change till we have a longer time to replace our CBs, most fullbacks and still more central mids. Ramsey I'm quite happy to see go, he's not good enough offensively in the biggest games and he's still dire defensively. He's not prolific enough, or fast/strong enough to deserve playing in a no.10 or wide attacker role, he's far far too poor defensively to play deeper in midfield. He fits directly into that VdV, Mata, Ozil group of 'luxury' players who while they can at time play lovely attacking football, aren't really directly suited to any specific role in a team. Mata has a lovely pass but he's slow, he's weak and completely unsuitable to play out wide, he doesn't score enough to be a no.10 or certainly a no.9, he's not physical enough for a deeper role. He at times plays great but there are better wingers, better CMs, better no.10s and better strikers.
Ramsey as a decent option for less big games, sure, you can sacrifice quality for rotation, paying huge for a guy who doesn't even have a best role and who isn't really suited to any particular part of the team is crazy so giving him an insane wage to stay would be incredibly bad business.
The angry fullback man and Sokratis are just temporary additions both in terms of overall defensive numbers and in terms of hoping to improve on Mustafi/etc at the back. Neither are particularly working out in quality but they aren't long term signings. They were available, no transfer fees and expensive wages but only for a year, two max, while they identify and work to bring in CBs they really want. If we still suck defensively after we get a new backline Emery chose, he should go maybe end of next season. Judging Emery over Wenger's woeful transfer work and training over the past 5 years is crazy.
ArsenalGoggles™
If both of his boots were still dug into the ground with his shin bones poking out you still would have said it was a dive.
Is Emery going to get the time it takes, because sorting Arsenal out is a 3-5 year project and I get the felling it's going to be a repeat of AF leaving Man Utd only to be replaced by a string of unsuccessful managers. Spurs were more patient, mainly because of the lack of expectation and the fact the squad was a mess.
No. He was already falling to the floor before he was anywhere near the player. You can't actually have seen it if you don't think it's a dive.
I’ll give you the Lovren one as I’ve not really seen any replays, but the one on Salah was no where near soft. What do you expect when a defender keeps kicking an attackers legs from behind?!
He's clipped him accidentally once and chopped him twice. It's baffling how anyone can't see that tbh.
The Lovren one is soft in the sense that you don't see those given but he's clearly pushed him in the back. All three penalities in the last week have been pens.
The Lovren one is soft in the sense that you don't see those given but he's clearly pushed him in the back. All three penalities in the last week have been pens.
The ref making a mistake and not giving the Lacazette penalty doesn't make the Salah one soft, he's repeatedly kicked the back of Salah's legs. It was plain stupid defending, as was the penalty on Lovren - right in front of the ref he decides to barge Lovren in the back.
They were soft though. Salah's could easily have not been given and a barge on Lovren lol. Anyway pretty sure I've debated penalties with you before and think we're at odds. You want everything given regardless of how slight and I don't want any free kick given that's been fabricated / exaggerated / attempted to force the refs mind.
The argument over penalties is a pointless one, nobody will ever agree depending on who it is awarded for/against.
I've always said if the referee would give a freekick outside the box for the offence then you cannot argue if a penalty is given for it in the box, on that note I feel all 3 penalties should've been awarded yesterday, obviously 1 wasn't and that's where you have Arsenal fans screaming it was a fix. Had given Arsenal's but not 1 of Liverpools then it would be Liverpools fans screaming fix.
I've always said if the referee would give a freekick outside the box for the offence then you cannot argue if a penalty is given for it in the box, on that note I feel all 3 penalties should've been awarded yesterday, obviously 1 wasn't and that's where you have Arsenal fans screaming it was a fix. Had given Arsenal's but not 1 of Liverpools then it would be Liverpools fans screaming fix.
I want fouls given regardless of the reaction of the attacker because half of the reason why we have all these 'diving' debates is because of officials giving decisions based on the reaction rather than the tackle/foul.
That's refs making decisions based on dishonesty of footballers, if all players were honest we wouldn't have these issues. Someone going down, being touched, having an arm across them should not automatically be given a free kick. It's a contact sport still after all and the players shouldn't be the ones deciding what a foul is.
When an attacker is fouled but stays on his feet and doesn't get the foul, that's not refs making decisions based on dishonesty - it's refs looking for an easy out because they're scared to make big decisions if they aren't forced to. And being a contact sport doesn't mean you can foul players and get away with it. Take the Salah pen vs Newcastle as an example - that wasn't natural contact between two players, Dumment has chose to pull Salah's arm in order to gain an advantage/impede Salah. It wasn't much but it was a foul.
It would be great if players didn't go down when they could stay on their feet but they'd be braindead to do so as long as officials refuse to give decisions when they stay up. And when I say that I'm not just talking about small fouls like the Salah one - you often see blatant fouls, where the attacker has been massively impeded, not given because he's stayed on his feet.
It would be great if players didn't go down when they could stay on their feet but they'd be braindead to do so as long as officials refuse to give decisions when they stay up. And when I say that I'm not just talking about small fouls like the Salah one - you often see blatant fouls, where the attacker has been massively impeded, not given because he's stayed on his feet.