Good morning Positives,
A trip to Ostersunds the most mysterious of mystery trips. The home side with a very respectable set of results in Europe, a sub zero night, a plastic pitch, our not-quite first team on display. What would the evening hold ??
For those who saw the game a professional performance from our lads against opponents who, for the opening 25 minutes ,appeared totally bemused by the event, like a bear woken unexpectedly from hibernation. From what ( little) I understand about Swedish football they never play competitive games in February so their lethargy when suddenly confronted with a fully firing Gunner battery was understandable. At 2-0 even I was hoping the home side might pull themselves together and make a game of it.
And having roused themselves Ostersunds did make a better contest of the next hour, drawing a couple of sharp saves from Ospina as well as as his confident penalty stop, and ensuring AMN, Mo and Ozil had a good run round in midfield. For me our best players on the night were Mhki and Hector, the young Spaniard seems to have recovered his spark for the game in recent weeks. And
Danny did OK, worked hard, made space but needed to be a bit more decisive in front of goal i.e. greedy. Next Thursday he should get a second bite of the cherry and add to his goals scored tally.
I am pleased we got the third, an important psychological marker. Admittedly 3-0 is not quite the “tie totally put to bed” score Arsene was probably hoping for, but the job is done.
And on a final point, what a ‘liberal’ referee ! He gave almost nothing by way of fouls for either side, and not a card all evening. I checked out the Soccerbase statistics for Senor David José Fernández Borbalán. He is a highly experienced Spanish referee who domestically, in CL and Europa League games, flashes yellow and red cards like a traffic light – Perhaps the cold got to him ?
Enjoy Friday.
Positively Arsenal 
anyone have a link or two for this pm please. I used to have bit they’ve all disappeared and nothing accessible via google.
Thanks
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PM ?
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These two FA-cupless weekends have been so odd they’ve served to underline pretty well just how great our cup record has been the last four years.
Didn’t miss out on anything up to semi-final stage, and then only once, in all that time.
Had to happen one year. Not seen any of the benefits I’d hope to get from weekend off, nor resting of big players for cups, so far this year, but maybe still ahead.
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Darren
@DarrenArsenal1
1h1 hour ago
Arsenal on verge of announcing an deal with a significant tech company who are installing cameras at the Emirates, which will mean from next season we serve 3D highlights. Only team in league to have the technology.
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So:
The arsenal have 3d stereoscopic vision courtesy of some extra cameras.
And the pgMOB are struggling to match the technological prowess (officials miked up to crowd and audience whilst discussing their decisions) witnessed down at East Grinstead in the NHL on a Tuesday evening (whilst the local amateur association football team is playing on the adjacent pitch).
There it is.
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Correction: the outdoor league games in the NHL are played on the weekends! Silly me. What was I thinking…
http://eghockey.co.uk/club-news/mens-national-league-weekend-preview
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Arsenal Women
Verified account @ArsenalWFC
2m2 minutes ago
👏 That’s all! We’re into the next round of the @SSEWomensFACup 🏆
🔴 1-0 🔵 (FT)
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Not a clue what such 3D technology would entail/mean, but am guessing that, as well as looking novel and cool, maybe it would improve ability to detect offsides above current technology?
Did notice from my one American football game of the year- Super Bowl- that they seemed to have incredible camera angles and it was all put together seamlessly. That where it comes from?
Intriguing, anyway, but if it means we have (for highlights) superior views to the ones on tv and, if implemented, VAR, that could lead to some aggravation. Maybe we aim to ‘put a little pressure’ on.
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It is getting a bit confusing Rich – in theory you can use the technology available with existing cameras as well as other technology whereby each debatable incident in a game could be correctly decided, down to the millimetre, if it is matter of physical measurement or observation.
What I was rather hoping however was that, at least to start, VAR would be employed to ensure that any and all clear errors in refereeing or lino decisions were corrected. IT appears the recent experiments with VAR have been a bit untidy. The tecniques and how to usee them not smooth.
Before we up the sophistication of the technology I think we need to get the process right. Later on, when everyone is confident and the players/managers accept the change, by all means improve the technology.
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matt letiss tweeted yesterday that the refs could be fucking up the VAR trial, as they don’t want it to work.
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Seb Patrick
Verified account @sebpatrick
3m3 minutes ago
Don’t you just love this Spurs team. This brilliant Spurs team. Busby Babes meets Shankly’s Liverpool meets Clough’s Forest, they are. Diving in the last five minutes to get a win over Rochdale. What a team.
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Falling apart in time added on again Tottingham – two weeks running …..
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Delle Alli is shameless!
But Spurs are hilarious.
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the BBC studio panel are shameless too, they all claimed it was a clear penalty
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Why do refs keep indulging Spurs, and especially that player? Everyone knows what they are, except their adoring media it seems
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the one thing that gets me with these divers is how the defenders do not take revenge, personally if I was playing against someone who dived and cheated I would give them reason to end up with their heals five foot up in the air. I once had a player do a big dive when I challenged him, I told him right in front of the Ref that the next time he came in my half of the pitch I would actually do what he claimed I had done. I still laugh that the next time he came into my half, he was a good twenty five meters from me, but I roared at team mate closer to him, to “leave him he is mine”, and the cunt panicked and lost control of the ball, and fell on his face without anyone near him. The embarrassment of having not only my team but much of his own team laughing at him and calling him a coward, seen him ask to be taken off.
Anyway back to my point, I remember Tony Adams in his hey day being a bit rough with a striker, think it was Mark Hughes, and when another utd player mouthed off at him, Adams shouted out “you want some too”. And that was end of the matter. You see for me, diving cheating cunts like Kane and Alli should get tackles that warrant their legs going over their heads. And by the way I hate dirty play, but cheating really gets my goat. And cheats being allowed to get away with it time after time by the officials(refs, pgmol and FA), gets my goat the most.
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If certain players within a team are diving in the majority of games, and getting away with it, if the manager refuses to condone it in a press conference, in fact quite the opposite,, if there is media silence or at times , even complicit behaviour, if refs are being made to look foolish week in week out, but are queuing up for more, if nobody at the top is telling them ,behind the scenes, to stop it, as is clearly the case,
Then it sounds like an agenda to me.
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Today’s one had me torn a bit.
Think it was more of a pen than most of theirs, including Liverpool 2, and yet ,after initially thinking I could accept it more than their other efforts, I watched a few more replays and concluded it was a proper Alli special.
The torn bit was whether or not to trust myself on that, and get onboard with another round of full Alli bashing, or take my first and earlier judgements as more reliable.
Anyway, the view it was another shameless effort won the day.
Alli saw defender was turning blind to connect with the ball, knew he could get there, and was only interested in creating his pen when he did. To create that pen he expertly got his small touch with left, extended the right, dragged the legs before shooting them high above his head while plunging down. All completely unnatural.
The studio reaction, though predictable, is resoundingly depressing.
Either in their minds there is now genuine confusion about what a real penalty- real intention to try play, real falls after contact, all of it- looks like, or they have so long ago embraced ‘contact, even if sought, equals penalty’ that it only appears to them as ‘penalty’.
It would be nice to believe it’s the latter, in a way, but all of them will have proved on occasion this isn’t the case with them, and that every now and then they analyse situations in a different way, with complete awareness of what is natural and isn’t, seeking contact, all of it, including condemnation.
Unfortunately, it seems a lot of people at home and in stadiums have bought into it. There’s plenty having a go at Alli, but there are also plenty, and not just Spurs fans, who just see ‘penalty’ in that incident, all of them focusing on ‘there’s clear contact’, and ignoring all the rest.
How long ago since their Pool game- 2 or 3 weeks? There were three that game, another bad one against Juve which was completely ignored, another today. 5. All while chasing games. It’s relentless from them.
The normal way of the press is to absolutely love a continuing story, but not here.
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It was forced contact, not natural contact . The media, and it seems the PGMOL tolerate it fromthe spuds, the acid test would be , say, if bellerin and Auba got away with it week in week out.
We know the answer to that one.
The question is, why do the media love the spuds so much? England players, a charming manager, execs who court the media, as Alan Brazil says, something to the effect that , and I probably misquote ” Spurs have a lot of support amongst journalists, don’t worry about that” , has Fergie schooled Poch in the dark arts, or is there something more sinister at work?
When will our refs cop in, wrapping your foot around a defender is not a deliberate foul by the defender, something that happens on a weekly basis should not be that difficult to pick out, even at speed.
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I thought we had a cup final today? If so the most invisible ever. Nothing here, nothing in the red tops or player ratings. My dream had us winning with a score from MK…the only problem being he’d scored with a rugby try.That ended my sleep so at 3.45 (my time,1.45 yours) I got up to check. Nothing, nothing and nothing. At 4.15 I came across a You-tube clip. Now of course, I wish I’d carried on sleeping. What’s with the world today? Now back to bed
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gf60
You were a week early. It’s next/this Sunday. Think it’s a 5pm kick off uk time
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eduardo
Maybe because if they try to restore a sense of justice, the refs and the media will come down extremely hard on them and they’d lose more than they lose now? Maybe because they know their careers are at stake rather than just a game? Maybe because they sense that this Spurs love in isn’t just an accident but unstated policy.
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New post up
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What a performance from Anthony Taylor – Outstanding quality – totally dominated the game
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