Good afternoon Positives,
Got your breath back yet ?
Nor have I – What an afternoon !
Of the game itself ? In contrast to a number of recent games we started well, brisk, with sharp passing and movement and throughout the first half it seemed just a matter of ‘when’ we would crack the Burnley defence and certainly not ‘if’. Ozil looked fitter and more mobile today than he has been in months and Iwobi’s touch on the ball was superb at times. Fair play to our visitors, they did more than put ten men behind the ball but we were clearly a yard faster than them and a split second quicker. They clung on, no doubt slightly relieved to trot into the dressing room still even.
A predictable first half then gave me no clue as to the tumult that was to follow. There was not even a small cloud nor the beat of a butterfly’s wing to alert me to the 45 53 minutes of imminent uproar, to enjoy, endure and finally emerge from bruised but triumphant. It was a game to savour, but only with hindsight. To live through it was to tour the circles of footballing Hell.
The second half had so many pivotal incidents, an almost unique catalogue of controversy and contortion. You could sense after 50+ minutes, and still with no goal, we were beginning to get a bit more desperate, and not in bad way. Events unfolded!
First, we had the Mustafi “penalty”, and then we had the Mustafi goal. A good finish from the influential German and, in the context of the game, what should have been the decisive strike. Burnley’s heads dropped. The visitors appalling away record ( P9 L8 D1) heading for another frustrated notch BUT NO! Within five minutes we had a third twist of the sunlit drama;
Granit, Granit, Granit, Granit, ……………Granit! You can’t do that, you just can’t, without risking the red. My little Swiss chum, the officials have their eye on you. I know Mr Wenger will be discussing the matter with you and your parents this week.
From smoothly controlling the game with a deserved lead we were firmly on the back foot from the 65th minute calamity. The light blues clearly felt they could get something and it required a solid defensive performance hold them at bay. But we did. They never really opened us up. Kosc always had a boot in or Monreal his head in the way, Petr calmed the scene. By the time we got to the 90th minute , and even with 7 minutes added time to suffer, I thought we had the points, a scruffy 1-0.
BUT NO! Two penalties in time added on. Two for goodness sake. Le Coq clipping Barnes’ knee, much to the apparent mortification of Mr Wenger, then Mee’s studs connecting with our French defender’s temple. Both correctly awarded by Moss, both despatched by shots straight down the middle of the goal, with the Chilean’s panenka the work of an artist very sure of his brush strokes.
Of our players? I thought Ramsey was outstanding. the Welshman had been playing well but the departure of Xhaka called for him to put in a decisive performance in midfield, to be the BIG player, and he put in that work. At the front Sanchez had a good afternoon even by his own exacting standard. As referred to above his slotting the winner in the 98th minute in such an important game is the work of a professional with no fear – magnificent.
Of the opposition ? The game ended with Dyche frothing at the mouth, and I admit I felt just a twinge of pity for the ( by then) ashen faced Burnley supremo, so close on two occasions this season, but no cigar at all. He must dream of Laurent Koscielny, poor man.
I am calm again now.
So on to Cup glory on the South Coast after a pleasant week of footballing inactivity. Enjoy the remainder of your Sunday.
Positively Arsenal 
No, and I’m not going to read this post until I have gone for a walk around the block……
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What’s with 16 hours early? Great report but this old fart has to get his heart beat down and eat his gruel. So much for 3 goals at the Clock End but very relieved about the two for the North Bank.
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An early shift at the coalface this Monday Gf
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We’ve not got our breath back, Andy.
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i understand what moss was trying to do when we were about to take that last minute free kick. sensing that there might be some infringement in the area due to the timing, he decided to stay far away from the action area. see no evil; say no evil. but unfortunately for moss the assistant referee was spotted the kick on koscielny and flaged.
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Great reslilance, and bottle in the end, a very cheeky penalty……didn’t see Alexis sulking today. His dogs are no doubt proud.
I felt the ref let them away with a lot…..a clear pen not given, bad foul on Giroud, two elbows on Mustafi, and a lot of quite sneaky rotational fouling.
But we got there in the end.
Wenger summed it up on arsecom…….on Xhaka being sent off by Jon Moss twice this season…
“We’ve had two red cards and four penalties [given against us] this season at home now. You cannot say that we make it easy for ourselves, or that we get it easy.”
The pen and sending off against us may …or not …have been technically correct……just a shame such strict adherence to the rules of the game doesn’t seem to apply to others…..starting with our nearest and dearest. I just cannot fathom the pens and reds we have conceded vs those of Tottenham seeing the way the two teams play,
Still, three points, that’s ultimately what counts.
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Last few moments of the game were frantic Layks, could have gone either way, penalty, no penalty, offside or no offside – I guess that when Moss sits down and watches the tape he will be satisfied he got the decision right.
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‘WE KEEP GOING NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS’
Arsène Wenger admitted recently that his side have become something of a second-half team in recent weeks – but they have still not left it as late as they did against Burnley.
There was 98 minutes on the clock when Alexis cooly slotted home a panenka from the penalty spot to claim a dramatic win for us.
Wenger was a relieved man as he side took advantage of their title rivals’ slip ups to move into second spot in the table – and this is how he summed up an amazing match.
on his conclusions from the game…
I feel it was an intense game where we played against a team who made the game very uncomfortable for us, but we had to be patient and not to make defensive mistakes with their direct game, which we did quite well. But once we were 1-0 up we made it even more complicated by going down to 10 men and then of course it was a bit on the edge. But they didn’t create chances, not many, but they looked dangerous always on set-pieces, on long balls and I felt it was a bit frustrating after we conceded a penalty. Coquelin says he didn’t touch him, but I haven’t seen it, but in the end we still got an unlikely win because when you are 10 against 11 with two minutes to go, it’s difficult to win the game. But we are a team who keeps going no matter what happens and that’s a good quality.
on winning with our title rivals dropping points…
It was an important game, but not a decisive game. I think at the moment what is more important is for us to build a run, to have a consistency in our results. That is more important than to look at the table, because I think we have built a strong run after we lost two games. Now we are in a position where we have to build up a run, so every game of course helps to create confidence and belief.
on Alexis’ panenka penalty…
Yeah it was cool – too cool!
on that being the first penalty he’s scored for Arsenal…
He’s missed penalties for us. He was in fact not the first penalty taker for us – it was Giroud. He was second, but as long as you score, you just have to accept it and say ‘well done’.
on whether he saw the Burnley penalty incident…
I saw it but it didn’t look a penalty to me, but maybe it was one, I don’t know.
on the Arsenal penalty and Granit’s red card…
Our penalty, I saw it on television. I think it was a penalty and red card. Xhaka’s red card? Honestly I have to look at it again. The noises I get is that it was a red card and he has to control his game and not punish the team with lack of control in his tackling. We don’t encourage our midfielders to go down on tackles, we want them to stand up and not to make these kind of fouls. If it’s a bad tackle, it’s a red card.
on if he’s disappointed in Xhaka…
I’m disappointed that we played with 10 men, yes.
on Xhaka being sent off by Jon Moss twice this season…
We’ve had two red cards and four penalties [given against us] this season at home now. You cannot say that we make it easy for ourselves, or that we get it easy.
on being sent to the stands…
I didn’t know if I was sent to the stands but I was sent out. I thought I could watch it from the corridor, you know. I went inside and watched it on television.
on if he regrets it…
I regret everything. I should have shut up, gone in and gone home, basically. I apologise for that.
on if he’s spoken to the fourth official…
Not yet, because I have a press conference to make. It was nothing bad. I said something that you hear every day in football, but overall nine times out of 10, you’re not sent to the stands for that. But if I am, I am – and I should have shut up completely. I was quite calm the whole game, more than usual, but just [not] in the last two or three minutes
Read more at http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20170122/-we-keep-going-no-matter-what-happens-#5BiXWHPTFOZD2ZkW.99
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JB™ @gunnerpunner 3h3 hours ago
We’ve somehow managed to overcome the anti-Arsenal alliance of John Moss & Anthony Taylor. Well done to Wenger for distracting Taylor.
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Chelsea get a nailed on penalty waived away and get away with a foul in the lead up for their first goal. Cue plundits gushing over the way in which Chelsea just keep racking up wins.
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Nawaz. @BlueNawaz 12h12 hours ago
United were 13 pts behind CFC 8 games ago. After Jose & his team’s incredible comeback & undefeated run, the difference is now only 14.
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Ryan @RyanTomes 7m7 minutes ago
I FUCKING love it when Arsenal boil so many people’s piss.
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AFC_Andrew @PR_WhoRu 38m38 minutes ago
John Moss also didn’t want to give us the pen for a high foot but Lino made him. John Moss pulled up a FK against Giroud for the same thing.
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Rocky#7 @AFC_Forehead83 4h4 hours ago
Same ref who never sent rojo off but hey, let’s send an Arsenal player off for much less 👍
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so why wasn’t this guy sent off, he did not even get booked
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OptaJoke @OptaJoke 3h3 hours ago
8 – It’s taken John Moss 8 minutes to leave the pitch as he couldn’t find his guide dog. Blind.
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Moss
Moss
Moss
Moss
Moss
Moss
Moss
Moss
I think that’ll do
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so things the media know after this weekends football
chelsea title favorites
liverpool and spurs their only challengers,
arsenal won’t make top 4
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Now 16 games
14 wins
1 draw
1 defeat
Moss
Moss
Moss
Moss
Moss
Moss
Moss
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quote anicoll
“To live through it was to tour the circles of footballing Hell.”
bravo bravo
quote anicoll
“My little Swiss chum, the officials have their eye on you”
well Moss certainly has, he is the one to have sent him off twice this season, Granit’s only two reds, — by they way, we won both games.
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It would not be Arsenal without being the weekly victim of an outrageous incompetent testicularly deficient referee.
Oddly enough I saw Dyche say the same thing about 15 minutes ago on Sky.
Mind you he lost – so it’s just sour grapes.
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AFC_Andrew @PR_WhoRu
Said it before & I’ll say it again, it takes Arsenal fans far too long to create a hostile atmosphere against Refs that are usually twats.
This will sound odd, but the reason Wenger was sent off today is because he showed far too much class & restraint from early on. In the 1st minute Giroud was pulled down twice, no FK given but when Nacho took the ball the first free kick was awarded. That set the tempo,
Throughout the game Giroud was pulled to the floor, Xhaka was stamped on by Defour, Mustafi elbowed twice, Sanchez pushed in the back when Heading a shot on goal. All the while Dyche and his assistant were screaming at the 4th official whilst getting away with thuggery.
Yet Again a catalogue of decisions go against us. Mustafi pen not given, Xhaka sent off despite Defour not even yellowed, their MF only booked For a tackle on Özil far worse than Xhaka’s & yet the ref doesn’t even consult the linesman. Wenger finally blows as we see this every other Week and he is immediately sent to the stands. Fair play to him. Meanwhile Dyche & his mate continue to tactically harangue the 4th official Complete and utter fucking disgrace.
Moss awards 7 minutes extra time when Arsenal as 1-0 up. Keepers regularly get booked for wasting time at the Emirates but never more than 4
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well anicoll the stats show that moss is an awful ref, the most game affecting wrong decisions of all refs in the bpl last season, and he is leading the pack again this season. He is just woeful, and so he might very well have been poor to both teams today,
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Arsenal have had 6 penalties given against us this season, 4 of them at the Emirates. Our two sending offs have been at the Emirates too.
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Lol…..the WOB and their Spud/Chav/Manc sleepers seem especially gutted at this one, denied their fun for the week….right at the end…the word “travesty” keeps getting mentioned, one or two suggesting Stan has paid the officials. Can only revel in their self harming misery
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CD14 – @c_d_14
Arsene Wenger fucking built the stadium he stands where he wants
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as far as sour grapes goes, well I’ve said it before, this is why its important to highlight the officials mistakes when we win, so that no one can dismiss it as sour grapes.
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They are all “awful” referees according to you Eddy – week after week, game after game, incident after incident – and it’s always us – never Burnley
Last week I recall you were quoting some FIFA “rules” that you say exist which order linesmen where to stand.
Well I’ve looked for these rules and can’t find them – when was the last Lino punished for breaking these “rules” ?
And the problem with all this weekly referee hysteria is this – when you see a genuine total fuck up like Deano at the olympic stadium a few weeks ago you can’t recognise it – everything is black
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Positively Arsenal @Blackburngeorge 10m10 minutes ago
Arsenal get yellows and reds for offences(and they are offences) that our opponents don’t. Its been going on for years.
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Think the pen count is even worse than you say Ed, Stand to be corrected, but I make it 7 against us…Hull, Spuds, Sunderland, Bournemouth*2, Stoke, and Burnley.
I find this number staggering, compared especially with what others …..nearby….I could mention get away with.
Hull have given away ten already, we are also heading way past the ten mark, which is an unusual amount, again, stand to be corrected, but I think only around three or four EPL sides have conceded ten plus pens over a season. Let’s face it, we are not exactly the dirtiest side on the planet.
and many of these pens conceded have been soft, to understate.
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The team with most red cards this season ?
Those psychos from the Etihad – obviously Pep’s suspicions are justified !
Except we all know that isn’t quite right, don’t we ?
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don’t blame me for the refs being shit, they are getting worse and worse, and yes, its not only in Arsenal games, and its not only decisions against arsenal, they are at an all time low as far as I’m concerned. we were told by the pgmol that paying them more and giving them all the required coaching would make them the envy of the world, they would be world leaders, but sadly all its done is made them richer, and many of them seem to believe that the game is about them, and they want to be the stars of the show.
I stated earlier on the other thread, that only yesterday it was highlighted again by Jason Roberts, that “refs in England do not give players the protection that refs give them in the rest of Europe”, and that “fouls are let go” that would not be tolerated in any league in Europe.
The problem is that too many people involved in the game in England, know this, but have long decided that this is a good thing, and not that it shows that something is badly wrong with our referees. Maybe our game is full of Brexiters and they see it as English refs are right, and its all those refs across the rest of Europe/the World, that are wrong. as Mark Lawrenson and Kevin Kilbane implored PNE to do v Arsenal in the cup, “kicking the shit” out of better players should be allowed everywhere, not just inside of the UK.
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think your are correct Mandy, I had forgotten the Sunderland penalty.
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Anicoll, do you believe many of us are nuts thinking Riley’s boys are against us? Do you think, basically, moss would have sent off one of theirs for Xhaka challenge today, or last time? Or that we’d have got the pens our opponents have in recent months? Or, going back to source, you could say, Riley would have let us foul Utd as they fouled us in game 50?
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Another serious problem with the refs, it is clear too few of them are doing too many games, so fatigue , physical and mental will be a clear factor , especially as some of them , like myself are getting on a bit.
Graham Poll highlighted this recently in his column
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-4084214/GRAHAM-POLL-Referees-easiest-targets-blame-vitriol-finger-pointed-Mike-Riley-refs-overloaded.html
An article on UA recently stated that the PGMOB promised to provide 24 top refs for the EPL…..we can see there are nowhere near 24 refs at this top level, think there are about 17, and out of those, many are not trusted with the big games. So, you have guys in their early 50s officiating in some role in three, maybe four games per week. That’s a lot of running and concentration.
If one is to give the refs the benefit of the doubt, which, I admit, I sometimes find extremely difficult sometimes, surely Mike Riley in his role has to be questioned, standards seem to be falling, there are insufficient top level refs, certainly less than they promised. So, either there are issues with elite ref recruitment and training, or the FA …perhaps in some weird cost cutting measure, or for whatever reason are reducing the numbers of refs?
At the very best Riley should be held to some degree of account, but no,evidence this is the case, far from it…..the question is…..why!
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REDaction Gooners @REDactionAFC 1h
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Pablo @AFCAMDEN 4h4 hours ago
Arsène Wenger shouldn’t have pushed Anthony Taylor. He should have chinned the cunt.
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alexis has posted this, so he must like the banner
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This is probably the most underrated member of the team on Sunday. I just love his no-nonsense approach.
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I’d like to interrupt the ref bashing to say that my boy Aaron was feeling it today. It’s so fun to watch him when his sharpness and confidence are up. If Giroud had managed to connect with the bicycle kick to Aaron’s rabona cross, I imagine the haters would have spontaneously combusted. Outrageous.
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I don’t blame anyone eddy – that’s the thing – I just see a group of men – grown up adult men who have had a bash over 15-20-25 years at refereeing football matches
I see an exceptional number of entirely correct decisions which, whether I am at the ground or watching on TV, I would have got wrong.
Obviously having watched the incident time after time I mostly get the correct decision.
I admit most people who rip the arse out of referees week after week after week must have much better eyesight than I have.
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Ramsey very nearly had a scorpione Kelly – off Giroud’s head – can you imagine ??!! unluckily for him he caught the ball too well
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Eduardo. Last two books I’ve read have dealt with English refereeing. Ruud Gullit mentions a few times there’s a distinct difference between our reffing and rest (but thinks it’s mostly an ok thing).
Howard Webb details how he was told- a booking’s a booking- quickly by Uefa he would need to stop English reffing, and did so.
There’s then the separate issue about whether we are dealt with evenly under English rules. Gullit, for instance, is one of those who doesn’t understand why we moved from the toughness of early Wenger to our weaker selves now (Ancelotti said same; any book I’ve read on us says same).
Gullitt notes Southampton and Newcastle ‘let us have it’ in games last year (2015-16):
‘Both teams let Arsenal have it and the games turned into aggressive spectacles which the referees did little to temper. Any other team in England would have fought back, but not Arsenal’
That, if you agree with nearly all pundits, is what we are ; vulnerable, apt to be bullied and weak in the fight, a fair fight; yet with a bad disciplinary record over the years, reckless and stupid whenever we fight back.
According to that theory, there is an unstated way of fighting and matching physicality, of not being bullied, that does not involve incurring the wrath of referees. Reality comprehensively says otherwise in my opinion.
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Kelly: I was very impressed by Rambo today. Not surprisingly he did everything the boss would have expected and did it very well.
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Can you imagine – Aaron – a scorpion 🦂
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Indeed, Andy. I saw that cheeky attempt. 🦂 And the sly smile afterward, too.
Shotta I think you’re right. He did exactly as he was told. And adjusted well after Granit was sent off. Some people underestimate how tough he is. He always believes we can win, and he won’t stop trying until the final whistle blows.
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A bit late to the party, but I’ve cut and pasted from the last article. Also gives me a chance to edit my errors!
Eduardo, you could not be more wrong about Kos being off his game today. He was my MoTM. He was an absolute warrior and took quite a battering from Burnley’s beefy forwards. I had a very good vantage point today behind Adrian Clarke – good job he was wearing headphones and could not hear the language emanating from my mouth when that dive almost gifted Burnley an undeserved point. But up stepped our warrior to take a boot to the face to give us a last gasp chance at the 3 points. And thank you Alexis for converting that penalty. I love a controversial win against a 12 man team.
I see that Coquelin says he didn’t touch him, it certainly looked like that to me, especially given the delayed and dramatic oscar winning fall. Moss could not wait to give that penalty. I also do not understand how he managed to send Granit off for that foul. It was definitely a yellow, but if that is the standard for a red, most games should end with about 5 players a side!
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Greg JohnsonVerified @gregianjohnson
Granit Xhaka has attempted 94 tackles in the Premier League this season, giving away just 11 fouls & receiving two yellows & two reds.
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