Good afternoon Positives,
Two points less than I was hoping for but on the balance of play between the teams a fair result. I had been hoping for a sharp start from us but it was Palace who came at us in the opening stages and but for some good defending from Shkodran and wayward finishing by Tottie reject Townsend we might have been behind. I thought we resisted well but were far below the required standard once we got the ball over the half way line in the first 45. We could not string two passes together. I think Hector had one shot that was blocked, after which he was hobbling, but Hennessy had a v quiet half.
The first penalty ? We were almost at the half time whistle and our concentration dropped. Panic in the box from a corner for the first and only time all afternoon. Clumsy from Mustafi as he clattered into Coyote but not much he could do about it as the ball was bouncing free.
And then, dear reader, as happens game after game and week after week, we sprung into life after the break and hit then with the old 1-2. If I had any idea why we play football this way and the first and second halves don’t fit I would write it down. I expect Unai would say the same. For the only time n the afternoon we took control of the game for 10 minutes.
Lovely strike from Xhaka then our turn to cause panic in the Palace box before PEA slipped in the second goal from a loose, spinning ball. The Man from Gabon thought a split second faster than his marker and that difference meant his foot go to the ball first. Nine millimetres over the line ? Fine margins but top, top quality finishing.
I expected ghat, having got in front and being in control at the time, we would carry on and get a third but Palace refused to follow the script. The home side surged forward and while Bernd did not have a serious save to make the ball was pinging around the Arsenal penalty box erratically. It was not smooth from us at all. When we did break with the ball and cross the half way line our close control and choice of passes was wayward. At no time did we ever look like adding to our goal tally, which in the end did for us.
Fair play to Hodgson – Palace have one player capable of turning a game on his own and that is Zaha who had given first Hector then Stephan a difficult time, “Get the ball to Willfweed’s feet lads” Woy yelled and lo and behold he did the proverbial trick. Couple of stepovers, Granit backed into the box, slightest of touches and over he goes. Cheating, cheating, cheating bastard. But hey ho. They probably deserved a point. We have sustained a mild setback, nothing more. Re-group, learn, move on.
My Man of the Match is Granit. At times I could see him looking over at Emery during the first half and mouthing silently “OI – BOSS – I – AM – NOT- A – LEFT- BACK”. Despite the Swiss’s obvious discomfort he did a good job on Townsend and, even with Zaha’s theatrics, had a good afternoon in a position that he clearly is not comfortable in. Add to that a superb free kick for the equalizing goal and this week the laurel wreath is yours.
Blackpool midweek and a really attractive contest between Klopp’s men and our lads to kick off next Saturday late afternoon. We shall need all our energy and guile to earn the victory.
Enjoy what is left of Sunday.
Positively Arsenal 
Fair stuff. I’ve done my fulminating about the pen stuff on other article!
Watching Utd. Tough afternoon for Theo. Couldn’t make most of promising situations first half then caught out badly for not running back to mark a free man in defence.
Life of a modern day wide/forward type- what are their defensive duties?
If it’s to bust a gut back all the time in defence, you aint really a forward more a midfielder, and if you’re really meant to be in place at all times defensively you’re more like a defensive wide midfielder.
Can see why it leads to tension between players and management, players and teammates,etc.
Theo would presumably have spent all his youth days as a striker or wide player with very few defensive responsibilities.
Least his move is working out better than Wilshere’s so far. Ominous he got injured 4 games in and already two weeks has become two months.
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Certainly not at our best today, and ended up missing our main FBs, which didn’t help.
Some of them looked a bit tired, frustrating but a point away is not the worst result.
Agree, will need guile against Liverpool, and others coming up, hope we are not missing Monreal and bellerin.
Correct about Zaha being a cheat, but sadly, they seem to prosper under such tactics, they were given quite a rare ten penalties in the league last season, and 7 before that, needless to say significantly more than we have received. Would bet against em getting double figures this season either, along with Bournmouth who seem equally adept on the pen front.
Still, hopefully a fresher team to take on Liverpool,,and we are still on a decent run.
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I’m a bit miffed about the result, not so much about the penalties because I felt other went against us.
The streak gave us a false sense that things are hunky dory and our shortcomings will just sort itself, whilst being over confident to try a few new stuff after what has worked fairly good for us past few months, with just a few creases that needed to be ironed out.
So close to Liverpool it wasn’t really needed to change so many things but rather stick to what has worked. Feels like we must start from scratch now. To Douzi or not to Douzi, to continue playing Auba from the bench or not, do we start with Iwobi or Mkhi and is Ramsey not considered good enough anymore to have dropped so far down the pecking order.
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Ridiculous thing about Zaha is that he is a good player – he was one on one with Xhaka with Arsenal’s defence struggling and trying to cope with three Palace players into the box. He could have actually tried to play football and might have scored. If Atkinson had waved away the dive, as happened twice before, Wilfried would have looked a right dickhead.
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Quite refreshing to see what I call a normal pen in Utd game- with Smalling clattering attacker who got to ball easily before him. Now ‘those’ ones are pens.
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Decisions decisions this week if Bellerin out and other two not back.
Don’t think we can play Lichtsteiner midweek if that’s case, and don’t think Xhaka (top ten for prem minutes through league since start of last year) should be selected at all for cup game.
To make things trickier, number of youth fullbacks unavailable, inc Osei Tutu and ,quite possibly, normal u23 left back Bola.
What’s more, u23’s play the night before in Checkatrade, though no doubt if slightest chance any needed for big boys they won’t be involved.
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The sooner we get AMN back, the better
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We almost stole 3 points, the Ref/Zaha stole 2 from us and on the balance of play , we ended up stealing 1 point.
That’s the 3 points I want to make.
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Only 1 point? Is it time for Emery out? All those wins were getting us excited, but we knew realistically it couldn’t go on indefinitely. A point is better than nothing and we live to fight another day. The real challenge will be how we react after our next defeat.
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quote anicol
“Palace have one player capable of turning a game on his own and that is Zaha”
sorry that is very very wrong, it took Zaha and Atkinson to turn the game, it takes a ref willing to be conned to make Zaha a game turner. Atkinson as we have seen far too often in Arsenal games was only too willing to be that Ref.
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on our performance today, it was very flat, for me too Xhaka was our man of the match, I thought Leno flapped a bit on the high ball, Lichtsteiner was poor and really should have been sent off, (as should have Ayew for PAlace), I felt our CM was subpar, with Guendouzi flitting about a lot, but not having the passing range to affect the game, we missed Xhaka in there, as I said during the game, we had sterile possession, we could not get the ball to Ozil, we could not link up in attack, Iwobi was busy but either ran down blind alleys or ended up isolated and losing the ball, I felt with each sub we got worse, once ozil went off we had no playmaker on our breakaways and really messed up several great positions.
As stated the performance was flat, lacking in energy, combine that with Atkinson being Atkinson and we really were up against it.
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Why did Bellerin come off at half-time?
Arsenal Media 28 Oct 2018
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Hector Bellerin could not continue after the first half of our 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace on Sunday.
So what’s the latest news on our right back?
“Yes, he’s injured,” said Unai Emery. “I hope it’s not a big injury, but he had muscular pains.
“I don’t know [whether he’s a doubt for the Liverpool game next Saturday].”
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Unai Emery dissected our performance against Crystal Palace when he faced the media shortly after our 2-2 draw at Selhurst Park.
Here’s what the head coach said about the result, the talking points and his tactical decisions.
on the performance…
The two teams are sad I think. For us the first half was not easy. When they scored it is the moment when we are on the pitch with the control, but not doing a lot of things in the attacking third. In the second half we scored two goals in two actions. They were pushing with their supporters and every player was attacking us. In this moment we needed the control because we lost our position and we needed to have scored the third goal, we needed to be calm. We cannot do a good transition from this. I wanted to push, I wanted to continue to find our moment to win the match, but we could not.
on whether Palace’s second goal was a penalty…
When you are defending a lot in your box, that can happen. Is it a penalty or not a penalty, it’s not my work. I respect the referee’s decision and we need to not concede chances and to have more control with the ball and keep the opposition outside our box. We could not do that today.
on whether Ozil was unhappy to come off…
No, it is normal not to be happy. I like the players like him who show the character when we are not playing well, and when I substituted him at 2-1 usually every player wants to continue playing.
on Mustafi’s error for the penalty…
You look at it better than me! Maybe yes, maybe not. I will look at the match again and then I can speak to you about that.
on what he was trying to tell his players after Palace’s second goal…
We can make mistakes on the pitch. Every day I am making mistakes in my decisions. Mistakes are to learn from and not for us to lose our confidence or our belief on the pitch. For the second goal, Laca was maybe not thinking as much, and I was pushing him to think more. The second goal was an action where we had the ball in the opposition box and we did one bad pass. When we are in the box, in the opposition box, I want us to show aggression to find the last action to score or shoot, to win a corner or whatever action. But with this pass, we lost the ball and then they scored from the transition. For me, there are things that happen on the pitch when we continue in our process to learn, and the mentality we need to show when we are in the good moments to keep and hold the ball. We need to keep that mentality to continue to find our moments and our chances. In the last 10 minutes, I wanted to push for that, but that didn’t happen for us because it was not very easy for us on the pitch.
on why he brought off Ozil and put Welbeck at No 10…
In the last match away in the Premier League, against Fulham, we played like that and did a very good job. I think we lost a little of our possession with the ball and the match was more about the transition, like in our last matches. Also, with Danny and Laca, I wanted to find one good transition between two players and also more goals. Also, in free-kicks defensively, they were pushing and put a ninth player on the pitch for free-kicks to find more chances to score. Danny Welbeck is very good in these situations, both defensively and offensively.
on whether he’s disappointed not to keep pressure on the leaders…
A little bit. I think we are in our process, in our way, and I think we are in a good position now, for continuing our objective. It’s difficult away and I think the team can improve. I think today, the draw was not bad. We want to win but it’s not easy. We look at today and they are a good team. Playing here is not easy for every team, but our challenge is to continue our process of learning in every match. It’s about learning the defensive situations and improving.
Copyright 2018 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to http://www.arsenal.com as the source.
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am I remembering right that today’s ref was the same one who refused Arshavin a penalty at Old Trafford when taken out knee high
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Arsenal Women
Verified account @ArsenalWFC
3h3 hours ago
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Dan Critchlow
@afcDW
3h3 hours ago
Fun fact: This decade, Arsenal have only beaten one team (Sunderland) away from home with Martin Atkinson refereeing.
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What’s that? You want some pen stats?!
One every 6.5 games conceded for us since start of 2009/10. Total of 54 conceded in 352 games since then
Chelsea best among top six, with only 27 (only had one or two years when they were over 3 mark), so one every lucky 13 for them.
We had most, obviously, with City (29) and Utd (29) joining Chelsea at roughly half ours. Spurs 38, Liverpool 44.
Suppose they’re not that outrageous. If you hadn’t watched many games at least, you could say it’s down to better, cleaner defending/defenders, plus luck and randomness.
Does mean that for time being stats support us being very worried about pens when opposition near box- twice as worried as rivals basically.
————————————-
Stats from prem league site (could have made mistake somewhere as scrolling through season by season and adding with noggin alone)
Don’t have pens for. Always had trouble getting them off prem sites. No prettier though, I’m sure of that
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Zaha was a pain in our arse from minute 1 to minute 94 eddy – without him we would have had a much easier afternoon and I’d guess Palace would have got no points. Suit yourself though.
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What was up with Mesut today ? He had a poor game by his own or anyone else’s standards to be fair. And when he went off he was having a tantrum- is he injured again, pissed off at himself or with Emery for subbing him?
I’m hoping 2.
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Know there are transfer issues, but UE initially said he wanted to build a team around Ramsey, wish we could see more from one of our finest players, never know, might even find a way for him to stay
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anicol
Think 2 is as likely as other options and definitely the best one.
If you look at main conditions of match- away, smaller pitch (I think, sure felt like it); athletic, aggressive opposition pressing hard, compact, no space behind, and ‘getting in faces’…those are conditions that undoubtedly suit him so much less than when there’s space to be had, runs to be exploited, better protection,etc.
Palace today had me wondering how the hell they haven’t been picking up points, and goals, at home.
Nothing particularly fancy or sophisticated about them, Zaha’s skills aside (though they did execute one lovely team move first half), but it sure looked tough to play against to me. A strong, by-the-book ref would help enormously, but we know they don’t exist for us.
I don’t know what type of attacking mid/ten-ish/ playmaker types that sort of cramped, frantic battle does particularly suit. A great dribbler, maybe?
One of those where I can’t typically see Ozil thriving, though he could still find a magic pass, unless we get ourselves in front and space duly arrives for him to do his thing with.
Maybe that’s why he was pissed off actually. A game he hadn’t enjoyed much but he’d know it suits him more and there should be chances for him on counter once we’re ahead.
You have to wonder if he could have helped get us that killer third. Think we had a fair number of opportunities on break, but never looked likely to execute them.
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Mbappe , by the way.
Still only 19! Crazy talent
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Rich, pens for on here
http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/premier-league/topErhalteneElfmeter/wettbewerb/GB1/plus/?saison_id=2016
Bournemouth – striking in the last couple of seasons, as are Palace in recent years.
Then, the Leicester league winning season, vardy got them quite a few, media faves totts have had a good season as well.
Despite being an attacking side, we are distinctly middling, and surprisingly, often concede more than we get.
I suspect part of it was wengers relative refusal to use the dark arts, meaning we received less than say a more cynical team might have, and we gave away a lot as well. Perhaps, as an attacking side, we get caught more than most, ,earning more last ditch risky tackles. Maybe our players haven’t harangued refs enough, maybe the media play a role , perhaps the atmospheres at northern giant clubs intimidate refs more than at our ground. Maybe, there is something else.
But however you dress it up, we do not generally do that well with penalties.
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Mandy
eeee…little worse than I expected. The difference between us and City is pretty…large
The table
City + 40 (69 for; 29 against)
Chelsea + 31 (58 for; 27 against)
Utd + 26 (55 for 29 against)
Pool + 8 (52 for 44 against
Spurs +4 (42 for ; 38 against)
Arsenal -15 (39 for; 54 against)
55 goals in it between top and bottom.
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Mandy one factor you have not considered there – Mike fucking Riley
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Not great is it.
And regarding Atkinson himself, according to a poster, Jerry on Untold Arsenal ( scroll down comments)
Since 2012-2013, Atkinson has given 7 penalties against Arsenal, only 1 to Arsenal
https://untold-arsenal.com/archives/72247
I repeat, we don’t do well with penalties
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Very true Eduardo, remember a while back, UA carried out an analysis correlating the deterioration of our penalty situation with Riley becoming head of the PGMOL.
Unfortunately , I don’t have a link, as I say, it was a while back.
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someone mentioned the other day after the U23 game that Ballard came off at half time, and expressed the hope he was not injured, well I can confirm he was not injured, it was a preplanned sub, so as to give the returning Sheaf 45 minutes.
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Goonerholic
@TheGoonerholic
17m17 minutes ago
I’ve never seen a genuinely tripped player throw himself into the air off both feet. Think about the physics of that.
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From that game, a couple weeks of learning points.
Firstly, our keepers need to train to become as adept as possible at saving penalties, as it seems they are likely to concede a few.
Secondly, Lacazettes card is marked now, don’t,expect him to get very much in the way of decisions
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LA Rams win again, Stan is really destroying them
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Remain pleased with how season has gone so far.
7 wins, 1 draw, 2 defeats from opening ten for new manager is pretty good, with only defeats against strong opponents in first two games.
Some scintillating football, lovely goals, new signings making a good impression.
5 hard league games in a row now. The 3 big guns, Bournemouth away, Wolves at home.
We should have a much better afterwards of whether the vulnerabilities we have overcome in the positive run will define where we finish this year, or whether the way we’ve overcome them will do so.
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One thing that caught my eye yesterday that was different to recent games, particularly Fulham and Watford is that we did not use the far corners of the pitch going forward. Against both those clubs we, particularly Alex Iwobi as well as Hector, was able to get the ball down the flanks and cut back themselves, or out the ball sharply back into the box to a striker. Yesterday we rarely got into those areas between the touchline and the 18 yard box. Hector’s injury explains part of that and it may be at Palace say a bit deeper. Even so the streeeeeeeetching that Palace required did not take place.
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anicol
Yeah, Hector in particular very prominent for adding width and making runs so far this year. Monreal also does a lot of that. Probably it often takes two out in those wide areas- to unsettle defenders and leave them not knowing who to pick up.
Also, despite Torreira and Guendouzi both being good passers themselves, think it’s Zhaka who is best at funnelling ball wide from midfield, esp on left side.
So the current full back troubles are a bit of a bugger.
You’ve said before you’d like a tricky winger in mix and I agree. This weekend watched Theo take some stick, esp from Richarlison, for not passing to him from wide. Prob was he had a defender blocking path to player in middle and didn’t want to cut back on left or try a trick to beat man, which cuts down options a lot.
Also saw Nelson play huge role in hoffenheim’s opener, twisting left and right in box, beating a couple, glorious little bit of skill dragging the ball with sole of foot.
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By way, depressing but predictable, Clattenberg states both pens against us were pens, indicating in process VAR will be no help on any like the Zaha one.
As is almost always the case, he/they focus on there being contact, while ignoring the entirely unnatural manner in which the player went down.
That, for whatever reason, is how they want to play it.
Only sympathy I can muster is that they take many of their cues from elsewhere, from what ‘the game’ effectively wants, and that it simply makes life easier, or would be too difficult, to even attempt to re-establish what a real fall should look like, whether ‘drawing’ fouls should be frowned upon, whether a player who touches ball one way and has no interest in following it but rather concentrates on getting contact with defender should get a pen.
It sure is depressing. Getting bamboozled by diving experts in a game is forgivable, but it’s afterwards where you’d like to see them learning and improving their chances for next time around.
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Hopefully, when those running the English game bow to the inevitable over VAR, shirt pulling will become a thing of the past, seemed to work in the World Cup.
Just cannot believe the officials didn’t see the shirt pulling, if they did it implies some are willing to let it go. The first one may have been a penalty , but it should never have got that far, too much Holding Holding
The second one was contact bought about by cheating. Hopefully no more bleating from Zaha as to how hard done by he is
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A problem with shirt pulling is it is rarely one way and where both players are clawing at one another the ref is faced with having to decide who started it and who did what. As with wrestling in penalty boxes whatever they do always has one side accusing them.
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Thanks Anicoll5, grateful as always for a valuable round up of the events.
Q is will they have to bring in OSCvar once the Var is in, to stop the hammy acting when a player gets a tap and wants to persuade the ref that he needs a free kick (pen) or wants to slow the game down because his team be kack? (opens envelope)..And the winner of best dive is …Zaha for “Where Eagles dare”.
Seriously though, does anyone know if Fred Street is still alive?
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progress progress everywhere, or so the bloggers and media would have us believe,
Arsenal this season in BPL P10 W7 D1 L2 Pts 22
Arsenal last season in BPL P10 W6 D1 L3 Pts 19
its progress Jim but not as we know it, not as we know it
by the way last season like this one we had also won our 3 EL games and our one CC game
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by the way we have not lead a single BPL game at half time so far this season.
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Rich I suspect that Clattenburg would have come to an entirely different conclusion had that been an Arsenal Players shenannigans, probably following an outcry in the assorted media. (That is assuming the unlikely awarding of a penalty to Arsenal in the first place)
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Ed. youve just shown the myopic state of those who chanted ” We’ve got our Arsenal back”!
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markyb
That’s my dark VAR worry. It gives extra leeway and opportunity for inconsistency on those calls.
Every now and then, for instance, you’ll see pundits analyse the actions like those of Zaha harshly and correctly- i.e., looking for it, unnatural fall, starts falling before contact- and conclude it shouldn’t be a pen. They can get angry and indignant about it.
More often, while they may admit it’s soft or whatever, they conclude there’s enough for a pen. Sometimes they leave out the soft bit and say it’s a clear pen.
Obviously, no one really keeps track of who said what on what day but it undoubtedly happens that the same guys give completely different views on similar incidents on different days.
That sucks but it’s nothing next to refs doing the same. VAR gives extra opportunity for it I think. They’ll probably be reasonably consistent, still giving pens often for Zaha, Vardy, Alli, Sterling type stuff, and rarely overturning them, but we could also see them step in at times to overturn pens given for those actions, or even to advise ref to look again when he has originally declined one of them.
There’d be little or no comeback or furore were they to overturn a pen like Zaha’s, nor if they didn’t give it originally, nor if ref said no on pitch but VAR intervened.
I can see our own dire pen stats staying much the same overall, with a slightly enhanced ability to hurt us when it matters most by finding things.
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On shirt pulling,though, did anyone notice Guendouzi’s very foolish action on a Palace free kick into box from their left.
He lined up on far side for us and just as cross was to be delivered wrapped his right arm high up around the Palace player’s shoulder. Kept holding and wrestling right into box. Dumb, dumb, dumb
Can forgive his confusion if he’s seen same happening to us or been held similarly himself, but someone needs to tell him sharpish he can’t be doing that
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Rich it seems any VAR that will be used in England will not allow VAR to overrule the Ref, they will only be able to advise him, and the ref can take the advice, ignore it or have a second look himself on a screen pitch side,
anyway it will be just some off pitch PGMOL game managers advising an on field PGMOL game manager, so don’t expect it to be a, to excuse the pun, game changer
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Unless it can stitch up AFC of course in which case it could change the game considerably.
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I have got no idea how VAR will be use in the PL and if anyone knows or can point me in to right direction please do.
The options seem to be;
a) you have a control room at Stockley Park in which constant multi camera monitoring takes place of a game and its purpose is to look for clear errors relating to a key moments; goals, penalty calls, direct red cards and cases of potential mistaken identity. If whoever (presumably a ref) in Stockley Park sees a CLEAR mistake has been made then he contacts the On-pitch referee and tells him he has made the error and the decision is immediately reversed. Game restarts. Drama over.
Or b) Same Stockley Park set up but the man with the monitor thinks a clear error has been made, contacts the on pitch ref, and he then reviews his decisions. That is either done by his thinking “did get it right?? ” and speaking if required to the other match officials, or even the players if it is case of mistaken identity. Having pondered the warning from Stockley Park he changes the decision, or sticks with it. Drama over.
c) Alternatively the option could be there to have a pitchside monitor and the ref, having been altered to the clear error to allow him to review on screen what his colleague in Stockley Park is concerned about. Having reviewed the footage he then sticks with his original call, or changes the decision. And off we go again.
Have I missed any options ?
If not I would prefer a or c and out of the two c better than a.
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