Morning all.
Arsenal seem to have opened a can of worms, a can which never needed to be opened had Howard Webb and his officials received their own memo.
In Europe, the grappling in the penalty area is managed better by referees, I think we were awarded a penalty in a Champions League game for an incident in the box which went unnoticed by many yet the referee spotted it and that was that.
For those in the media who are singling Arsenal out, probably because of the Rice incident against Chelsea along with the number of goals were scoring from set-pieces because we’re not the only club doing that. Nor are we the only club whose players are getting involved in tussles in both boxes.
LAW 12 which deals with the subject of obstruction says:
‘Impeding the progress of an opponent by moving into the opponent’s path to obstruct, block, slow down or force a change of direction when the ball is not within playing distance of either player. All players have a right to their position on the field of play. Being in the way of an opponent is not the same as moving into the way of an opponent.’
So who is at fault, the players for pushing the rules to the limits or the officials for not implementing the law? The latter is the answer in my opinion, 100% and they’ve brought this debate on themselves for being toothless. For being inconsistent and in some cases, darned right useless.
Why is no one in the media talking about the abysmal decisions made by Darren England in other areas of the game, after all, on three separate occasions he failed to play the advantage when we were breaking quickly. The worst being the last when Gabriel Martinelli was through on goal.
As for the set-piece goals we are scoring, when did the law makers remove them from the game? When did own goals stop being part of the game? They happen, it’s just rotten luck most of the time and if we benefit from them, who cares? I doubt Chelsea cared on Sunday when their only goal of the game came that way.
I don’t think it helps referees that they can only penalise players for what they do after the set-piece has been kicked so all the grappling will continue unless that rule changes which I think it will in the summer. Until then, I’m sure it’ll be business as usual for Arsenal as well as the other 19 clubs in the league.
I read this in the Daily Mail yesterday:
The set piece issue has certainly got into their (other clubs) minds. Chelsea’s Liam Rosenior admitted on Sunday that he had spent all week drilling his players on how to defend Arsenal’s corners while at Leeds Daniel Farke made the remarkable confession that he had told his players to simply try to not concede any. That in itself smacks of some kind of strange inferiority complex.
As the excellent Shay Given pointed out on Match of the Day earlier this season, it’s about time the Premier League and its sophisticated coaches started to worry less about Arsenal’s aerial prowess and instead come up with ways to combat it. They are just corner kicks after all.
Indeed they are Shay and we are pretty good at them….
We should hear from Mikel Arteta later today as we face Brighton tomorrow evening. I smiled when I read Arteta’s comments about his heart nearly stopped beating when it looked like Chelsea were going to equalise because now he knows how we feel during a game. I try and convince myself it’s only a game but it doesn’t work. It matters because Arsenal matter!
Catch up in the comments..
The trouble here is that there is no consistency amongst the Refs and VAR.
They all seem to have their own interpretations of: When is it a handball, when is it a clear a penalty.
Handball / Penalty for me is:
When your arm(s) are raised above your head, unnatural position, and the ball hits the bottom half of your arm or hand.
You are putting out your hand to stop the ball or to push it away.
Deliberately pulling someone down in the box.
Grabbing / pulling their shirt.
Having your arms completely wrapped around a player in the box.
How many times have we seen many players deliberately striking the ball directly at their opponents arm / hand hoping for a penalty.
It is very hard to stop all of the pushing and shoving in the box and how you stop it is the million dollar question.
Morning all.
There will always be inconsistency with subjective decisions. The clear and obvious though shouldn’t be one of them.
Good morning Rico, Laura.
I would hate to be a referee, under the present circumstances, trying to work out what’s going on at corners.
One simple way to ease the grappling is to ban any contact between players prior to the corner kick actually taking place.
A further change, which would make the grappling easier for the officials see, at least two players from both teams should be outside the penalty box until the ball is back in play.
I don’t blame the ref for missing some free’s from a corner kick in that score goals, but VAR have no excuse as they have views from all different angle that the ref can’t see including slow motion, while the commentators and tv / pay tv are also to blame for keep showing it over and over and talking about instead of just getting on with the game,
Good morning Rico and all
Lovely post Rico.
138 corners have been scored so far in the EPL this season, but its the 16 scored we scored which are ruining football.
And if according to Sutton we are to win the EPL it means that the worst team won the league. If it were to be so and we are the first and also the worst then imagine being 2nd, 3rd or whatever position. Sutton, inadvertently, insulted 19 other teams.
Laura, with regards penalties my take is that if the ball comes in contact with the hand, whether its incidental or whatever it is, imo its always a penalty. It evens out with all teams. And if a player aims the ball at the player’s hand then tough luck, shit happens. The problem only arise simply because officials claim ‘not to having seen it’ or give a hilarious interpretation/reason.
Rico, I dont think that the English refs are toothless, inconsistent and in some cases, darned right useless. No sir. I think that its hidden agendas, ulterior motives and subjective feelings which are leading them to make such decisions. Sending Rice off for offence A and not even a yellow card for the same offence by a different player doesnt mean inconsistency, tootlessnes or uselessness. It smacks of only one thing….corruption. I have said it long enough for time immemorial, long before Highbury House was born. There is a reason why EPL refs in the World cup or Euro are such a small number of 1 or 2 at most.
Ever since I can remember the media have had an anti Arsenal agenda and that’s a long time.
As I posted last night they conveniently forget to acknowledge that in the league we have scored the second highest number of goals and that by percentage we are not the top team to have scored them from the famous set piece
. In fact we are 5th and interestingly despite the new favourite Rosenior’s bleating , we are behind Chelsea whose percentage puts them 4th.
Palace , Newcastle and Leeds lead the way with Bournemouth and Sunderland not far behind.
On average 33.25% goals in the Premiership are attributed to set pieces not all are corners of course but it’s those that are being aimed at us.
If we win the league , I have no doubt the agenda will be to try and bring in changes to prevent us doing it again . If we don’t we will be perennial bottlers and the subject will fade into obscurity until we score from a corner when it will all start up again.
Potter, we are not the 2nd most goals scored. We are top mate, with 58 goals. City have 57 while United have 50. The rest all less.
A tweak to Var rules would help, if a revue is not completed with in sixty seconds then it is obviously not “clear and obvious” as such the revue should be stoped and the on-field officials decision taken to be correct. Simples 😉
Sorry trying to compose in direct sunlight, such a rare event. 😎
Morning Cicero, I don’t understand what VAR are doing, isn’t that what they are for?
Exactly Geoff re VAR.
Hi Devil, thanks.
Let’s hope we win the league then Potter but as good as we are attacking corners, I hope there’s some work being done on our defending. Keeping calm too.
If we change the rules regarding corner kicks to suit teams who cannot defend or some in the media, then why not change the rules in regard to penalty and make it the player who won the penalty has to take it.