Hello positives, talk about 
mixed emotions?
I’m pleased for Emery, he had a plan and the players bought into it and he got what, before the game, would have been considered a good result. Whatever your long standing feeling about Spurs are, they’re a decent outfit and have been consistently good for a few years now, so a draw at their rented home, is a good point. Of course it’s great to win but if we drew with all our top 6 rivals, away from home we would be in great shape.Our head coach has come in for some criticism of late (not least from yours truly) but I think his team selection and tactics were vindified, so credit where it’s due.
That said, personally I don’t likes to accept being second best and setting up expecting to be dominated, but that’s his style and I, like everyone else, will have to get used to it and try to enjoy it as best we can. I felt they were woefully short of confidence and it was an opportunity to go at the all guns blazing, In other words play Ozil and Ramsey, but I can’t even play Football Manager, let alone pick a real team. But I digress.
I’m very happy for Ramsey, that in his last NLD, he scored a goal that will remain in our memories for life, as he will, or at least as he should. What a great player and pro. he has been for us.
I’m glad that the awful officiating didn’t get to us as it sometimes seemed to do in the past. There was real fight and togetherness right through the team.
There is no need for me to describe the action that everyone has seen, all I will say is I thought it was a decent performance, not classic by any means, but that will do away from home for the time being.
I’m disappointed that Mustafi had a brain fart (he didn’t know Kane should have been flagged off side), the action itself was a foul and a penalty.
Final emotion is that off annoyance that Aubameyang squandered the chance to bag all three points with what can only be described as a pathetic spot kick.
So there you have it – mixed emotions.
Positively Arsenal 
Hey Positives. I did a new blog titled “#BreakingNews: Duncan Castles Is Opposed To VAR.” https://uniteforvar.com/?p=1804
RTs and reblogging is appreciated.
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No real surprise but statman Orbinho tweeted today we lead way for pens conceded over last three seasons (including this one)
22 Arsenal
17 West Ham
14 Everton, Southampton, Swansea , Watford.
In unrelated news, apparently Uefa not using prem refs for latter stages of CL, nor considering them for Europa League final, as want refs experienced in VAR.
Presumably haven’t noticed trials been in operation in cups here for two seasons, which is forgivable given how hard it is to tell most times VAR being used.
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Arsenal have conceded more penalties – 22 – than any other team in the Premier League over the last three seasons
3 awarded against Xhaka
2 against each of Cech, Bellerin, Mustafi, Holding, Monreal
1 against each of Koscielny, Chambers, Mkhitaryan, Martinez, Gabriel, Coquelin, Maintland-Niles, Sokratis, Kolasinac
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Any room to dream of Spud catastrophe tonight?
Dortmund early onslaught and early goal would make it interesting and open up slight chance.
Most delicious for me is if they don’t recalibrate successfully enough from pgmol vs Arsenal to European refereeing and get hit hard as a consequence. Sanchez by far the most likely to make that error i think, unless he’s smarter and more calculating than he acts.
Speaking of which, was a little gem contained in football leaks book about contract of Lavezzi in China. Contained among clauses in contract is a fine for bookings, but not if manager has instructed him to make foul/s! Not where I imagined seeing a little confirmation that what we know happens happens, but there you go.
Diving bookings for Kane, Rose or Son also most welcome.
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That penalty statistic should be shocking, but sadly it isn’t. We are a relatively clean team who spend more time than most attacking, only one reason we have given away the most pens. Just wish our execs would engage on this, unless of course they have already tried, but not so sure on that, at least with the previous regime, the new bunch, who knows. Emery pointedly looks forward to VAR, Raul must be well aware of exactly what is going on here.
So our refs don’t make the World Cup, or latter stages of this years european competition, think we have an idea why. A lack of VAR might be part of the reason, but I am sure there are other parts to this story, as we see week in week out. The media should be slaughtering our refs over such things, and Mike Riley should not be in his current job, but it’s quite obvious why he is.
I suspect the day will come when it will take UEFA this f all organisations to clean up our game, for a number of reasons, including possibly jealousy at the money in our game, if it does, that will be the most damning indictment English football may never recover from.
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I see the German manager has announced that he will not be selecting Bayern Munich trio, Jerome Boateng, Matts Hummells or Thomas Muller again,
its telling that Mesut Ozil has so far only tweeted messages about Jerome Boateng
Mesut Özil
Verified account @MesutOzil1088
40m40 minutes ago
I feel sorry one of the best German players of the last decades has to leave the National team in that way. 🙏🏼 #Danke @JB17Official
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Ajax have taken an early lead away to Real Madrid, its now 2-2 on agg
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Ajax have now gone 2-0 up, lead 3-2 on agg
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Sounds like Tottenham have the keeper and luck to thank for being in this game
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Ffs head butt scores
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well with Real Madrid’s season having fallen apart, its very likely that we will see them go on a major rebuild this summer, I would expect that they will sign a few players from the BPL, I would not be surprised to see Harry Kane join them for a world record fee.
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Gilles Grimandi has left his position as a chief scout at Arsenal to join Ligue 1 side OGC Nice as Technical Director.
Grimandi: “I consider joining OGC Nice as a chance. After 20 years at Arsenal, I’m happy to be back in France, in a project that reminds me of my first years in England.”
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Another head on a spike for Raul and the Boyz.
You can expect the Sports Communications krew, the AFTV media lookalikes you know who they are, to be lock stock and in tow with their briefings.
I’m at the stage now where I am just enjoying the class with which Aaron Ramsey has handled himself on and off the pitch. I hope not but it could be a while before we such quality again…Bale was always more spectacular, it was a matter of subjective taste but Ramse for me without question the best British Footballer of his generation and he has conducted himself with these Values that the cunning linguists spend all their time ignoring.
Thank you Aaron Ramsey for showing the kids how it is done.*
*without any prompting or “defensive coaching” an eight year old turned to me at the weekend an after a winter of confused brows he turned and said:
“Do you think Emery is starting Ramsey & Ozil again because he saw how high they are ranked on FIFA?”
The children have been discussing what the Sports Communication Krew have been failing to ignore, disingenuous clowns that they are, and I find that to be: reassuring.
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poch got a two game touchline ban
also it seems Arsenal appealed Torreira’s red card but it was turned down and he serves a 3 game ban
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Ed
Agree on Madrid this summer. On paper they looked like they were pretty well set, with a lot of the vastly experienced guys still young enough, and plenty of younger players signed up for future (think it was about 50 mill on two young Brazilians), but it hasn’t panned out that way.
Think Kane would be impossible to get (imagine how hard Levy will fight!) at this stage and that he’ll want to give it a go in new stadium for at least a year, but Eriksen may be a possibility.
Very keen for one of their best to depart, and then we’ll have to hope they don’t use the possible bonanza effectively, as liverpool have.
Neymar, Mbappe, Dembele, Coutinho threatened to massively alter highest end of transfer market but if I remember right it wasn’t repeated in Summer. If Madrid are intent on buying big players, though, it could be crazier than ever.
Some possible targets : Mbappe, Neymar (1st impossible, 2nd tough); Salah, Mane; Kane, Eriksen; Lewandowski ; Pogba, Rashford…then any up and comers like Pepe.
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Hate them being in quarter finals by the way. I mean, the very worst shouldn’t happen, but the small possibility is bloody awful.
May sound daft given their fantastic work versus Madrid, but I’d be worried if they drew Ajax for instance.
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seemingly Elneny, Jenksinson and Lichtsteiner not included in our squad that traveled to France today.
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no Lichtsteiner or Jenks so Ainsley or Mustafi right back. With Torreira banned for the weekend I would imagine he will start with Matteo. Auba up top but the rest is difficult to call with Unai juggling between getting a result and keeping an eye on players for the weekend.
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Jebus now the proffesional refs have heard about A5’s crusade for officialdom and are replying to him.
KEITH HACKETT
@HACKETTREF
4h4 hours ago
Replying to @anicoll5 @arse_or_brain
Andrew I am smiling at your comment. I think on the majority of occasions they want to throttle them. It’s become a bit tribal
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My preference would be for Utd to go though & out in the next round.
But I would not complain if they have to play extra time tonight and go out on pens.
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Ian that the same former head of the PGMO who has been constantly critical of the curren Regime?
Has he forgotten how to enjoy the game?
Is this Englishman anti-English for reflecting upon rj in the drop in standards
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Oops:
For reflecting upon the palpable drop in standards?
For being critical of VARs boondangle being cooked up by Mike & Mike?
Unlike a lemming ready to leap off the edge I am grateful and welcome this critique. As our broadcasters are contractually barred from doing so!
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PSG as big a bottlers as spurs
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Seems the luck in football goes to the same teams, time and time again!
Could help us in the league though I expect them to get some “ luck” against us as well. PSG should have killed that off
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I have no love of PSG but they were robbed, how was than a penalty, especially with VAR? Just looks suspicious to me, really not a good night for VAR
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so Spurs, Utd, Ajax and Porto are through to the last 8 of the CL
some very big games next week to see who the other 4 teams will be,
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As I was saying, I trust European officials so much more than ours and believe their version of VAR is the correct one…
Ha. Rough night for me!!! Not nearly enough to dynamite my beliefs built over thousands of hours watching the sport, but bloody rough all the same.
It did raise the spectre, however, that the process of being advised by colleagues and heading over to monitors may make a ref far more likely to give a decision than they would reviewing same thing in cold non-adrenalised light of day. (needs a much larger sample size to discover if that’s the case)
Or maybe that’s excusing the guy for what was simply a bad call.
Also brought to fore an old belief of mine that not all decisions are exactly the same- I think it’s a different call in ,say, minute ten to minute 90, in the same way a potential foul in box or on halfway line is different to me. The bigger the consequence the higher the threshold or level of certainty should be, for me.
In that light, what would have been a very ropey call, or just incorrect, in minute ten, was a wretchedly bad one in the stage it was given. Very nearly deciding the tie.
His answer cannot have been ‘definitely, definitely deliberate handball’, and that’s the only answer that should have led to a pen there.
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Perhaps PSG being punished for their flagrant breach of FFP, maybe City will have a nasty shock next round unless it is against Tottenham, and hopefully, Chelsea in the Europa!
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If Ferguson has as much influence currently as I suspect we are royally screwed at the weekend
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MarkyB
Wow my first attempt at a response to your post went badly*
Anyway, my worry is that this Utd resurgence (and european results this week) makes for a lot of English football feelgood beyond Utd (and Spurs) confines, and unfortunately it could extend right into pgmol doors. Something like that.
*
sample : ‘I’ve wondered in past if refs actions are guided by a sort of will of the people, with that will profoundly shaped and influenced by media, and then whatever pgmol are on top to boot. Basically I think it could explain much of how the last decade or more has gone, with how we are perceived and refereed, without any overt bias nor conscious orchestrated attack against us.’ Eurgh.
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My in depth preview is up
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