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Arsenal – More And Less Than A Derby

fullsizerenderGood morning Positive Arsenal fans.

A blustery Monday morning in Norfolk as we move into an interesting week, though the international football is to be our primary focus over the next few days.

Of yesterday’s game? A fair result punched out by two sides that worked hard for 95 minutes. Our visitors had the edge defensively and, other than a 10-15 minute period before half time, shut down just about everything we put together as we got within the final third. I do not think we were on our top game. We did not test Lloris enough. Again we saw our lads struggle in front of goal at home at the weekend, following a free-scoring midweek in Europe. I can’t imagine that sequence is just coincidence, but I would be hard pushed to put down the cause to fatigue. Perhaps even the very best players find it hard to flick backwards and forwards between the different demands of CL and PL football every few days?

Us?  Though not classic Wengerball we had good performances from a number of our lads. Hector I thought was Man of the Match, very mobile, very sharp, and looked most likely to get on the score sheet during the second half. Granit performed well and there was no evidence of the red mist descending in what, on a couple of occasions, flared up into the usual NLD handbag waving contest. Theo maintained his good form and was always involved. I was as surprised as he was when he was hooked. On the downside I thought Alex Iwobi did not look comfortable or show us his best. I would have liked to see him take on the donkey Walker more, one on one. Usually he is only too happy to dribble into the box but yesterday that part of his game was missing. I think we needed something “unexpected” like that to crack the Spurs defence. At 20-years old and with his debut just one year ago his form will go up and down so no worry there. I suspect the youngster may get a rest with Aaron coming in.

Did we miss Santi ? I think we did and I look forward to his restoration at Trafford Park for the lunchtime kick off on the 19th.

Them? I read in the mainstream media that the “three at the back” tactical master-stroke devised by Pochettino was our downfall?  I don’t think so. I thought one of their “three” was an accident waiting to happen even before his silly own goal. (Excellent call by the linesman btw for our goal – I was convinced it was offside until the third showing on the TV). Dembele earned a lot of praise in the mainstream media as Spuds’ best player, indeed the official MOTM on BT. He did well but Son was a right handful, he left Mustafi trailing on one occasion. He was constantly busy. The Korean also was commendably sporting in not taking Cech’s head off his shoulders after the horrible slip our keeper suffered. Plenty of players would have gone for the ball. That was a bad moment.

Not the send-off into two weeks of the international wilderness that we were hoping for but a point gained nonetheless. I see that Ozil has been given a break by Joachim Low which is helpful to preserve the player for a few more weeks. Fingers crossed the rest come back safe and sound, and ready to nail down the coffin lid of the Portuguese.

Vote early, vote often and enjoy your week.

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67 comments on “Arsenal – More And Less Than A Derby

  1. The old fart’s thoughts

    All the anticipation, all the fears vanished. All that was left was the feeling that you’ve just kissed your sister.
    Plaudits for both Hector and Nacho, both of whom made excellent tackles to prevent potential disasters, and also Granit and Le Coq, who put a very good barrier in front of Kos and Shkrodan, neither of whom were at their best. Fortunately Petr was alert and kept, almost, a clean sheet. We won’t talk about the penalty. I wonder how many penalties these days are scored down the middle? For sure it’s an increasing proportion.

    Our attack was strangely listless and other than Theo’s lovely strike denied by the post, the chances that there were, didn’t really trouble Lloris. The one that really should have done was wasted by young Alex who seems to have lost a good deal of confidence. Maybe this spread to the bench as our three substitutes were of no real use either. Our one goal, sublime. Not much better than watching a spud o.g.

    I wonder if there was a feeling that Clattenberg had decided that very little in favour of Arsenal would be given that led to this listlessness. For sure the spuds, Wanyama in particular, was more than fortunate to avoid a yellow card or four.

    So no joy from the derby, and now an international break to bear. Bloody hell, which just about sums up this game.

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  2. I have to admit it all left me rather flat.
    I think I need the rest more than Ozil.

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  3. Rich
    November 7, 2016 at 10:22 am
    Edit

    Bit late but that was a great read, Stew. I don’t get to read anything like enough about how much harm Simon Cowell and co * have done to humanity, nor even how perilously close to the edge we appear to be.

    And then the football bit was good as well.

    *Suppose they could always be more symptom than disease, though. The conditions were there for Cowell and Trump to be ‘good’ tv, and now, tragically and incredibly, the conditions are there for Trump to be the Republican nominee and a potential president. Bad conditions for the former, appalling ones for the latter.

    Litmus test for me of healthiness of any group, society, etc is not whether lies and misbehaviour are punished but whether major actors can tell easily verifiable lies (contradictory shite, etc) without any punishment. That’s why Trump is so scary. He’s not hiding that he’s an utter arsehole, who is literally all over the place in what he says, and who offers nothing resembling credible solutions

    It’s also why Mourinho’s presence in football is so dismal. Conditions were there for that fucker, too.

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  4. I will give us an opportunity to plan for the crowning of Liverpool as Premier League champions George

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  5. Xhaka and the red mist, well it seems is a bit of a myth, yes he has had 8 red cards in something like 3 years, but guess how many were straight reds, hint – john moss – yes you’ve guessed it, one straight red, and the ref who gave it got demoted to the championship for his performance. But I’m sure if Xhaka had committed any of the four bad fouls Wanyama did yesterday he would have got at least a yellow for each one, if not a straight red. I had the feeling watching it yesterday that our players were totally perplexed at how we were picking up yellows so easily and spurs players, especially wanyama was getting off scotfree

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  6. You’ve perplexed me eddy – I thought we only picked up one card yesterday – Kosc

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  7. I didn’t feel like reading about Arsenal today after the crushing disappointment of yesterday’s result but I won’t see Andy’s hard work go unremarked and so here I am. I don’t usually get so down about a draw but I so wanted us to be the ones to stop their unbeaten run and of course it would be rather nice to go top – not that I look at the table until the new year anyway but it would cheer many of my friends.
    An odd stop start performance from both sides, both hit the woodwork and both had reason to whinge about the others goal. Although the officials probably got lucky with their guesses on both the offside and the Spurs’ player’s throwing his leg at Koscielny’s lightest of touches for their penalty.
    All in all a thoroughly unsatisfying hour and half despite some great moments.

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  8. you could be right anicol, but I know Coquelin, Xhaka, Theo, alexis and Ozil all seemed to question clattenburg one time or another as to why spurs players and especially wanyama was not getting booked
    Dier committed a nasty foul, but actually got booked for carrying away the ball to stop the freekick being taken, and not the hacking down of the attacker.

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  9. Oh, for what my opinion is worth (fuck all) I thought our defence were as out of sorts as I’ve seen them. The recent disruption to our regular back four is the only obvious explanation.

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  10. I didn’t get to see the game and as yet have not found time to watch the highlights, so thanks to one and all for providing such a detailed analysis. I know perspective is all, but I’ve lost count of the amount of times when it seems that only we get booked – and if it is one of those games then yes, I do think it has a real impact on the players. Mentally because of the sense of unfairness. Physically because runs and moves are stopped short and damage is being done (with more in the offing) to the bodies of players, which inevitably reduces their effectiveness. The way we play depends so much on momentum, on moving their players out of their defensive zones – so any tactic which affects that is important.

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  11. With 80 minutes gone, the subs on, we seemed to have the game by the throat and as I expected a healthy slab of time to be added on I thought we would come out on top.

    Disappointing that in the final phase, especially the five additional minutes, that it was Spuds who were on the front foot and not pinned back in their penalty area.

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  12. Nice one A5, I didn’t think our full backs done badly but Alex and Theo offered them little protection. Also we couldn’t seem to work out who was going for the ball and who was going to pick up the pieces and that wasn’t just the defence that happened all over the pitch. The ref obviously had a slight affect on the game with his failure to penalise the spuds and to constantly blow up for minor infractions. The Ox was penalised three times for going for 50/50 balls and looked very perplexed. Overall it might prove an important point as the teams up the top are all so close.

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  13. I have to be brief. Nothing statistically significant happened for the Arsenal yesterday. Both teams held their own, staying well within the normal range. The change in league positions with 4-5 teams within one or two points of each other is the definition of statistical insignificance. I am quite happy the way things are. Those who want to wallow in misery, fair play to them.

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  14. I said it yesterday, for me that was our flattest performance of the season, with probably the shortest spell of our good football on show – 30-45 minute mark. Our energy levels were not at usual level, our passing certainly not as sharp, crisp or quality we normally see, and spurs did not play well either. the plus points were Bellerin in defense, but not in attack where he was wasteful, Xhaka had a fine game, coquelin was good, but I would have to have a look at him in the build up to the penalty, he maybe should have stopped that attack before it got to where it did. Biggest disappointment was how poor AOC was when he came on, I really thought that we were crying out for someone with his skill set, someone who can take on and beat a man, can add a burst of pace, and so him being totally off the pace was a crying shame.

    the fact that we now have two weeks of inertia with another damn interlull is a real downer and then the prospect of utd away brings no comfort, all I will say is, if we perform the way we did yesterday in the utd game, then we will surely give a new lease of life to jose

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  15. on their penalty, having seen it again, and in slow motion this time, i have not changed my mind on it being a dive, dembele was already on his way down before kos made any contact, its one of those “played for”, or “bought” penalties, which for me, is cheating all day every day.
    Its also clear that the giving penalties for shirt pulling was only a three week wonder, well until an arsenal defender pulls a utd players shirt at old trafford in two weeks time and then it will be back for one night only.

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  16. I noticed Mustafi giving Iwobi a good shouting at during the first half Ian – the youngster needs to develop the defensive side of his game a bit more. He is getting better at covering but I have yet to see him put in a tackle. The official stats yesterday say he put in two tackles but won neither.

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  17. Good afternoon, Peeps, and especially you, anicoll.

    Like steww, I just did not fancy having any contact regarding footie – including newspapers, blogs, comments etc, but a sneaky look at your match summary, a5,has drawn me in and simultaneously helped rationalise my thoughts on a disappointing but not insurmountable hiccough in the Arsenal’s progress this season.

    Agree with all points in your Post, except …… well OK, it’s the old chestnut that so divides a great many of us – I just did not think much of Theo’s work, with only that unexpected shot that came out off the post. For me, his substitution did not come a minute too soon.

    That is of course a very subjective assessment, and open to different interpretation, but the dynamic, and excellent, Theo of earlier in the season has seemingly disappeared in recent games. Pity.

    Mind you, I confess to being a pillock when it comes to such player assessments – it’s just that a simple mind like mine knows what he likes ….. and doesn’t like. lol

    Thank you for a good and sensible read.

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  18. Eduardo

    West Ham, Monaco and Chelsea up next for Spurs and I’m expecting Wanyama to pick up a booking or two with a very decent chance of red, especially against Chelsea.

    He was sent off twice last year for Saints, once in the game immediately after playing us, the next time two games after. It looked to me that he was not clever enough to grasp how lenient the refs were to him each time against us and that set him up for a fall, playing the same, soon after.

    Maybe a touch of that with Pienaar this week as well. Probably caught a few others out over the years. Vertonghen probably is smart enough to know his extreme shirt holding skills have to be saved for us.

    Big credit to our midfielders yesterday. For them, if they wanted to show fight and power it had to be clean and legitimate (like Coq’s cracking effort on Rose); for Wanyama he could chuck his arms about, foul from behind,and so forth. Is that particularly effective in stopping the opposition? At least a bit and sometimes a lot, and yet there was little use of it when he and his team’s midfield stunk Wembley out midweek.

    So maybe coaches do know they can get away with more against us, and prepare their players accordingly, though indirectly… but it might be a little harder to explain to them why they can’t approach the next game the same way.

    It must be a bit like a boxing match against a tough hated opponent who is permitted to use his head and hit below the belt, while you have to keep it clean.

    Despite that, it was still there for us yesterday, and Clattenberg was relatively ok in comparison to the worst we get, but we were a fair way short of our best aside from a very good spell before half time.

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  19. Eduardo,

    I agree with your view @ 12:36 regarding the penalty awarded to Dembele.

    He was already off balance and ‘looking’ to get a penalty, but it cannot be denied that Kos gave the ref ‘a decision to make’ as they say, by dangling his foot out and making contact when it just was not necessary.

    Kos is a fine player, and probably the best CH in the Premier League, but he is human and occasionally has a dip in form, and that is what this has to be chalked down to.

    The ref definitely did not punish the constant niggling fouls of the Tott players, but he did not really change the result of the game yesterday either, unlike some who are just so bad at protecting our players.

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  20. well Rich only recently howard webb admitted that he allowed teams to “bully” arsenal, and that he would book and send off Arsenal players when they retaliated, of course nothing made of this confession in the media, but maybe that is cos they knew all along that this was going on, and is still going on.
    And yes rich, I will not be at all surprised if wanyama gets a red in a coming game, for a lot less than he done yesterday unpunished. We have seen it happen so many times down the years, as you say, Pienaar got sent off a week late, and boy was he shocked by it, no doubt he was thinking, but ref that was ok last week, why not this week.
    Xhaka the only red so far for a new rule, that actually does not exist, so he will be the one and only one to be sent off like that.
    We’ve seen the BBC, Sky, BT, journos, all misquote rules to wrongly claim a decision went in Arsenal’s favor, I’ve yet to see them to this for any other club this season, why is that, really why, can anyone explain it at all. What has AFC done to offend so many or get on their bad side.

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  21. As for Clattenburg I thought he was on top form at the King Power earlier this season for us – waved away Drinkwater’s top quality dive in the first half then did the same with Musa’s nailed on penalty in the final minute.

    As I have said elsewhere though I don’t think we should rely on the referee – we need to do it ourselves.

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  22. 20 years ago today Arsene Wenger had to face the press about their lies

    Arsene Wenger – 20 years at Arsenal could have been just 6 weeks

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  23. so anicol webb must be off his head cos him allowing us to be bullied did not see us lose many of those games, but how did we do in the following games when the players he booked or sent off were suspended, or the players he allowed to be bullied missed out through injury.
    Arsenal had at one point an amazing record of not losing games we had players sent off in, and we even had a couple of famous victories when a man down, the games away to liverpool and aston villa spring to mind.
    I have little doubt that the kickings JA Reyes received was a contributing factor to him wanting out, and I also do not doubt that that refs allowing “the way to stop arsenal is to get in their faces”, is a contributing factor in the bone smashing assaults on Eduardo, Diaby and Ramsey. Of course Webb and co would call it being “bullied”

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  24. Thanks Andrew.

    The petty plundits must’ve shown their appreciation for dembele as he won their coveted and esteemed Dele Alli dive* of the week award?

    *a dive we may or may not choose to understand why a fair official would miss, but nonetheless as blatant a dive as you can see in football, the kind of the dive by a pro that has football fans to be teased you Rugby fans etc. or the kind of dive that can be used as a limit test to expose the hapless bias of discredited plundits and alas of officials too.

    We’re not talking Owen against Argentina here, with the official stranded upon the halfway line. Dembele is a big heavy man and if he’s going to fall in stages whilst looking away from the ball (bit of a giveaway!) whilst mimicking his favourite Olympic dives then it’s going to take hard work for the plundits to ignore that in all the replays.

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  25. Alas I’ve not had as much confidence in Clatters’ undoubted skill and ability as I did before the moment when he almost got deselected by the pgMOB for attending a pop concert…

    …however this isn’t the place or the time for debating the structure of the pgMOB (IBSF)

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  26. But it is worth saying: You can’t defend Webb, unless the defence of that infamous Vidic handball call was that he suffers from occasional blindness. Which could’ve been a problem considering his job.

    Please.

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  27. Hand ball calls, I remember Steve (Fatty)Dunn in the most one sided Cup Final where Liverpool had two Goalies on the pitch.

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  28. Everyone can make mistakes but if an official misses a CB playing volleyball in a top flight game of footy then they are simply not up to the task in hand *boom boom*

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  29. Eddy – if Webb had refereed all our games and we had continued to earn 2.33 points per match then by my reckoning we would have 88/89 points per season and have won many more trophies than we in fact have.

    The data never lies.

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  30. You’re right Fins – volleyball is not acceptable.

    As the average Burnley fan will confirm in relation to Kosc’s recent winner.

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  31. Some interesting stories from the parallel world of cricket:

    BBC radio story about umpires in cricket getting abused. However you won’t see that happen at the very top level as the officials have had support and respect these past twenty odd years. When you do get the odd rotter, a biased official who cannot command any respect, everybody knows about it, their credibility gets shot, and the game moves on. Simples!

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  32. Hand close to chest isn’t the same as arm raised aloft in some kind of salute making a handball that is clearly visible from the opposite side of a large stadium.

    Nice try there Andrew but not a good effort in that instance I’m afraid.

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  33. I haven’t watched a replay of that incident in a while but essentially to be visible from the opposite side of the ground he must have been jumping with his arm stretched out and raised aloft. Heil Riley!

    if it wasn’t so poor a call it’d be hilarious

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  34. < not forgetting that the ball in question was a cross from the touch line travelling about a quarter the length of the pitch before striking the raised jumping salute, not a ricochet of his foot and Arse from half a yard away.

    But sure. If you think the two calls are comparable…

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  35. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lLd4K4O_4M

    I’ve seen em given Fins, I’ve seen em given

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  36. I’m astonished by that Webb stat, Anicoll.

    Bloodied my nose there and no denying. But I am not a man to give up his convictions as easily as that. Sometimes stats conceal things, including other stats :

    Brainteaser : what do these figures denote?

    70,77,78; [45] 90,87,90 [3]
    69,62; [49] -none-
    67; [23] -none-
    78; [12] 89,90,84 [7]
    55 [35] 54 [36]

    Ok, I’m too impatient to wait, they are the times of double yellows in our games over a five year period. 8 double yellows for us (yeah, we’re first column), against 7 for our opponents sounds reasonable (bollocks actually, considering we’re a clean team and our opponents are invariably dirtier than us, but hey.)

    8 to 7 over five years of games… looks ok. Until you look at the times and realise that in a four year period the earliest a double yellow occurred against us was on 84 minutes and, excluding injury time, the grand total minutes we played with an extra man (for double yellows) was for ten minutes,in contrast to 129 minutes while we were a man down.

    So Simpson’s unexpected red was truly a remarkable thing, and one that accounts for a full 78% of the total time the opposition has been reduced to ten men for double yellows in five years of our premier league fixtures.

    A stat-loving opposition manager could be forgiven for looking at such things and thinking ‘hmm, maybe we should crank up the aggression….hey, Victor,put down your spaghetti a minute and come here’

    Arsenal double yellows Opposition double yellows

    (11-12) 70,77,78; [45] 90,87,90 [3]
    (12-13) 69,62; [49] -none-
    (13-14) 67; [23] -none-
    (14-15) 78; [12] 89,90,84 [7]
    (15-16) 55 [35] 54 [36]

    Total minutes with ten men (- injury time)

    Arsenal

    45+49+23+12+35 = 164 mins (2hrs 44 mins of football)

    Opposition 3+7+ 36 =46 mins (0hrs 46 mins of football)

    Those stats are an invitation to kick us and kick us some more. They say, to all our opponents, you probably won’t get booked when you should, and if you do you almost certainly won’t get a second when you should, or at least until it’s too late to matter much. They are that and a glimpse into the story of those seasons. They can’t tell us anything about the why so we have to try figure that out unless we can put it out of our minds.

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  37. Some data

    70,77,78; [45] 90,87,90 [3]
    69,62; [49] -none-
    67; [23] -none-
    78; [12] 89,90,84 [7]
    55 [35] 54 [36]

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  38. adrian clarke in his breakdown feature on the nld, does not think it was a penalty, says dembele dived/jumped into kos,

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  39. Iwobi has now joined the distinguished list of players the malcontents have targeted as a scapegoat. He is the latest to be crowned “just not good enough for Arsenal”, how much more of a ringing endorsement could the lad want, he is likely to be one of the best, going on that lots history of judgement of players

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  40. From what I heard from Adrian in the Breakdown he also recognised if Kosc had not stuck out his foot and it had not come into contact with the tumbling Dembele then the penalty may not have been given eddy.

    All getting a bit counterfactual ?!

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  41. Thanks Andrew, not easy to write up a game that left most viewers flat and, frankly, a bit fed up.

    I think Dumbele’s Vardy-esque fall onto Kos was a lucky penalty because if you check the angle of Dumbo’s legs at the moment of impact, they are not exactly 90 degrees to the pitch. More like 45 and well on their way to 180 degrees horizontal.

    Vardyesque? Because in real time all of that would have been all but impossible to spot and I didn’t blame the ref for buying it. I’d love to know that had Kos not left his own leg in, would Dimbo have been booked for diving? He actually made zero attempt to stay on his feet – an ‘offence’ that should be bookable in itself, in my view. Sadly, until video technology comes in, the Vardy/Bambi School of Cheating will only continue to produce graduates of excellence in this latest form of the dark arts.

    As for the offside – well, it’s the rule that’s the problem, not the linesman or the ref’s interpretation of it. I suspect they need to go back to basics on that one. I also suspect that had that been Spurs scoring a winner instead of Arsenal opening the scoring with that kind of effort, we’d have all been up in arms. Well everyone except Andrew, possibly.

    And now we have another awful intermission for FIFA’s overblown vanity project. The season just seems blighted by these nonsensical fixtures against countries with little footballing significance. In England we are doubly hit by this ludicrous programme of internationals as we have no winter break. Frankly, it’s remarkable we end up seeing any football at all of any decent standard by May.

    Ho hum.

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  42. Not sure how anyone could or would compare a ricochet from two yards up off the floor with the Vidic superman impersonation but if it makes you happy I don’t want to stop you!

    When I encounter dodgy planning officers in London who clearly have been taking bungs off dodgy contractors and developers, in the opinions of experienced consultants engineers and surveyors, I don’t argue the cud, I simply advise people to contact trustworthy councillors & not waste their time & energy with those who have proven that they cannot be trusted. And failing that our (the Arsenal’s) local MP who has become famous of late for not being a fan of such conduct. Simples.

    Some people, the kind that say that dodgy property development only occurs in Spain or Dubai, they would choose to believe that such things don’t happen here. I guess they missed the news about the Olympic stadium, Wembley Stadium, Heathrow…etc.

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  43. I never implied that’s Kos’s punt with his peg shouldn’t have been given as a pen!

    But the comparison of his handball with the Vidic attempt to fly was very amusing.

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  44. Plundit says, Ars players didn’t appeal/peeps in stadium didn’t know. (Listen to the crowd):

    Vidic handball

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  45. No takers? What does Danny Simpson account for 78% of,then?

    The total amount of time over five seasons when our opposition was down to ten men after a 2nd yellow. 36/46.

    So in the four seasons before that, six sendings off for double yellows had given us a grand total of ten minutes of playing with an extra man. Meanwhile we were reduced to ten for 129 minutes in that time.

    In the first of those five seasons (11-12) our 3 minutes (90.87,90) playing against ten for 2nd yellows compares unfavourably with,say, Utd’s 89 for 4 (77, 79,66, 39)

    Just a statistical quirk, or the naivety Webb speaks of?

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  46. PG & AA, thanks for Ars Board Lying article.

    Steww, great preview.
    I remember arguing with my family about reality progs. My take being that celeb Big Brother, 2000, was simply a tool to allow viewers to fantasise about celebrity, and also to have certain things “aired”.

    Barrymore hummed “negro spirituals” whilst winding up Denis Rodman. Pete Burns slagged off an American woman for no good reason at all.
    When participants were evicted the first question they were asked/told was, ‘There wasn’t any racism in the house, was there?’, and when Rodman was evicted and the show had finished, he was the only one that didn’t appear on the after show party. No explanation.

    Circa 2003 there was a series of progs about Jordan, the woman who had a baby with Dwight York. Jordan had multiple breast enlargements, was always out on the piss – as part of promotions, from which she was handsomely paid, of course. Some of which happened while she was heavily pregnant.

    “Girl power”, friends & family said. “Bollocks”, I said. “What’ll happen is that women will become increasingly dissatisfied with their bodies and will cite Jordan’s behaviour as justification for getting their boobs out.
    Funny enough, a good friend of mine has a niece who is tall, slim and blond. On her 18th birthday she demanded a boob job, which her parents couldn’t pay for, but she took out a loan to have that done.

    I WANT IT NOW!

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