Morning all.
Newcastle Utd turned up at The Emirates with one thing in mind in my opinion. To rotationally foul our players, waste time, feign injury and get a point. Fine, if they want to play that way it’s their prerogative but, let’s have a group of officials who approach the game with one set of rules and that set of rules is applied to both sets of players.
Two Arsenal penalty shouts, only one checked as far as I could tell, the last one in the final moments of the game. Gabriel was having he shirt pulled off his back and he was tugged over but hey, that’s ok these days.
Mikel Arteta was angry during the game and I can understand why. I’d be more concerned if he deemed the antics of Newcastle acceptable. He was seething in his post match interview too.
They are two penalties, it’s very simple, I’m talking about what I’ve seen, now, and it’s two scandalous penalties.
In my opinion, we should have definitely been awarded one spot kick and it was so obvious, it shouldn’t have needed a VAR review. No one knows whether we’d have scored from it had it been given but it’s the principle. It’s evidence once more that the people officiating football in the Premier League, aren’t very good at their job.
As for the game, Arsenal started well and had a couple of early half chances but couldn’t find the target. Then, Newcastle just deployed every trick in the book to stop Mikel Arteta’s team from playing the game. Eddie Nketiah had a chance late in the game but the big frame of Pope got in the way. Joelinton had a late chance too but he fired his header high and wide.
Whether Arsenal played well or not is subjective but it must be difficult to play football against a team who will do anything to breakup a game.
I’m really proud, of the way we played, the way we dominated the game. We lacked that spark in the final third to find the opening to find the right moment and extra pass and a little bit the finishing quality. We had a lot of situations around the box to do better, – Mikel Arteta.
Mikel Arteta turned to his bench once with Takehiro Tomiyasu replacing Ben White. Whether that was because he didn’t trust his substitutes to change the game, or because the players on the pitch can have a rest now for ten days, I don’t know. But, I know what happened the last time Mikel Arteta made a number of changes in attempt to win the game and it wasn’t pretty. This time, we secured the point.
Dropping two points at home is disappointing, any dropped points are but it was bound to happen at some stage. I certainly don’t think it’s a disaster. Man City drew with Newcastle at The Etihad too.
We move onto the FA Cup with a short trip to Oxford next Tuesday. A game which should see most of those not involved last night in action. No one on four bookings need to be anywhere near the Kassam Stadium in my opinion.
Transfers this month?
I don’t know, it’s a question for Edu and the board to respond. We are trying to improve the squad in every window. This is no different, we will do our best because we cannot waste any window with the squad numbers that we have so we shall try.
Catch up in the comments..
I can’t comment too much about the Newcastle match as I have not watched it.
If the match was played at Newcastle a draw would not sound so bad.
it is better to draw with a top 4 team and keep the win / lose gap the same than to lose to them.
now to pray that Chelsea can beat or draw with Man C on Friday.
It looks like Gabriel may get a please explain, after his comments and the video clip about the refereeing.
but the video clearly shows his jumper being pulled in the box.
G’day all.
The negative tactics employed by Newcastle where a complement to Arteta’s Arsenal. It is obvious that they were desperate to avoid a defeat at the hands of a technically brilliant team. The only way they could hope to achieve their aim was to waste time, feign injury and constantly harry the referee disputing every infringement either actual or imagined committed against them. The situation was worsened by the outstanding ineptitude of the moron in charge of the game.
Well said Cicero..
Good post Rico, my hopes of an improvement in refereeing standards and even-handedness under new ‘supremo’ Webb are draining away fast, looks as if it’s just the same old, same old…
Thanks, it does Kev. I’d hoped things would improve but I guess it’s a bit like with Arteta, Webb needs his own staff, not Riley’s castoffs.
The opening to the Athletic podcast from a Newcastle perspective :-
When Two Tribes Go To Draw: Leeds and Arsenal Reviewed
Reflections on the terrible behaviour of Leeds Utd who used every negative, underhanded tactic in the book for a solitary point at St James’s Park and Newcastle’s heroic efforts at the Emirates Stadium when a canny, streetwise, pragmatic performance was rewarded with a clean sheet and a valuable draw.
Talk about duplicity !
Spooky eh…
RIP David Gold..
Just playing devil’s advocate, did Newcastle manager pay respect to Arteta or did he out coach Arteta, after all they stopped us from scoring,
( not counting the bad refereeing or VAR )
Probably Geoff.
Sky Sports
Shakhtar officials in London amid Chelsea interest in Mudryk
Shakhtar Donetsk officials are in London today and will attend the match between Chelsea and Manchester City at Stamford Bridge tonight.
As we reported yesterday, Chelsea are planning talks with Shakhtar over signing their winger Mykhailo Mudryk.
Negotiations have also been ongoing with Arsena
So, Howard Webb wants to meet all managers this month to discuss plans to improve the standard of referees.
which is great but we need him to do something and not just talk about it.
The bottom line is that it’s in the hands of Mudryk, if he wants Arsenal as much as his behaviour towards us suggests then it doesn’t matter if the owners meet Chelsea, also it depends on whether Mudryk has a mind of his own and isn’t manipulated by his agent, but I guess we’ll see, but this saga looks to be dragging on towards the 31st.
Has he signed the contract yet?
Jordan Nobbs has joined Villa, that’s a surprise move..
I’m really sorry to read that Jordan Nobbs has left Arsenal after twelve years at Arsenal. I wish her all the very best at her new club. As she, and Edu have said, she will for ever be a member of the Arsenal family.
Thank you and good good luck Jordan, you will be missed.
One too many Arsenals in that. Sorry
There’s no such thing as too many Arsenal’s..,
According to 90 minutes, amid on-going talks with Shakhtar, Mudryk has again told his club that he wishes to join Arsenal. They also report that Chelsea are negotiating with Shakhtar for the player. The so called super agent Mendes is acting for the Chelsea owners.
Morning
New post up now.