Nah, it's just laughable to suggest Arteta and Arse are throwing this tantrum to improve refereeing for everyone. You and absolutely everyone else in this thread know that.Let's do nothing then, i'm fine with onside goals ruled out, Rice scoring last minute winner and Gabriel avoiding penalties.
Arsenal 2023/24 - Born to be runner up
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Jamie (@Vault Dweller) are here to talk about United's dreadful home defeat at the hands of Big Ange's Tottenham Hotspur. Should this have been the end of Ten Hag? How long does he actually have left? And does Nik finally want ETH out?!
They're pressuring refs to just give them favourable decisions, as has been said, there is no interest in improving the system. United probably don't do it because in two weeks we'll probably get a decision in our favour and be dragged through the mud.
Trying to game the system is not the way forward.
Let's do nothing then, i'm fine with onside goals ruled out, Rice scoring last minute winner and Gabriel avoiding penalties.
The official statement doesn't say those errors only affected us and probably rely heavily on the Spurs-Liverpool debacle but you can read it the way you want it. Doesn't make any difference about the long term goal. If this provokes any positive change; as in comprehensive rules rewriting/interpretation and protocols, it will then only apply to Arsenal ? Is that what you think ?
So loud when complaining on useless platforms, but not a peep when it's time to make it official.
So loud when it happens to them... but not a peep when a far worse calamity errors happens elsewhere. If Arsenal or Liverpool or anyone, want to be taken seriously trying to make a change "for all" - then they best be consistent about it, even when it goes in their favour.
I mean, it should be noted, Wolves had the worse call, by a mile, this weekend.
Fair enough but you could time travel before yesterday's game and the general sentiment of the statement would still ring true. The frequency of mistakes/apologies cycle is mental.
I don't watch enough of the other leagues so maybe LaLiga or Serie A don't bother apologising when they mess up but the PL seems to really be an anomaly.
Yeah they definitely have a vested interest in it, as Fergie did back in the day with his complaints.
However objectively there is also a problem with no accountability from referees at present so this marks as a double edged sword really.
It's hard to shake the feeling that they're only slightly better than that post-invincibles Wenger team that always used to be just one season away from winning the league ('next year') and maturing into a title winning side, which would always end up failing miserably.
Not going to disagree with you on the general sentiment, but that statement just heaps more pressure on refs and could have just as much a negative impact on the other hand.
The apologising from PGMOL opened a can of worms and should never have been done, they just declared open season for clubs to call it out in the hope of getting preferential treatment.
Arteta should get a fine and a ban maybe, and PGMOL should publicly respond to Arsenal asking for a detailed breakdown of the 3 layers on the decision, and where the faults were and how they weren't aligned with the rules of the game.
If Arsenal actually cared about lifting overall standards, they should have conducted this behind closed doors like proper professionals. This just looks whingy.
Do you honestly think this statement is the first time Arsenal rang up the PGMOL wanting answers about referee mistakes ? Every club probably do it weekly behind doors as you say.
What has it changed ? Mistakes seems to happen more often and some of them are so comically bad that the word "corruption" is popping up in its real definition, not in a jokingly way.
It would be absolutely fine if they fine/ban Arteta and ask about a breakdown. Then fine/ban Klopp and ask the same about Spurs/Liverpool. Fine/ban ETH for the Romero handball etc...
I think it has been boiling for a lot clubs, Liverpool had to be the first one to speak up because of the magnitude of the error. Other clubs should not need a mistake that big to start speaking out if behind the doors meetings are not getting them anywhere. PGMOL's behavior and standard performance are well below what the richest league in the world should demand. As whingy as it looks, this needs to be corrected.
Its quite pathetic by Arsenal. Comments were embarrassing enough but to publicly back those comments and write an official complaint for a subjective decision is quite pathetic
100% spot on.
It's getting to the stage where I think PGMOL should consider refusing to officiate for a weekend. Like a mini-strike because the toxicity towards them is now at stupid levels, especially with fans, according to some on here United have been deliberately screwed every single match this season, its peak conspiracy theory lunacy now. But to have actual clubs come out and do it recently is ridiculous.
There are a lot of mistakes, but there always have been, the problem now is social media and every mother fecker having a whinge and in some cases breaking out Photoshop, it's a sadder indictment of people not being able to accept losing than the level of officiating. Extreme analysis and over-the-top reactions are the biggest problem with footballs officiating.
Well to be honest, yesterday was a good change in my eyes. As a fan, I'd rather see more goals stand rather than be ruled out by VAR.
Think Carragher said that well in the post match analysis.
Not just that , this was him after the Klopp complaint. Wonder why he said that if he wanted things to be better
https://x.com/footballdaily/status/1710286716366434511?s=46&t=GNj8QSxKxM_pv7nv4TCn7A
Love the idea of the strike to be fair. Forcing home teams to provide their own officials, let's see how that one goes down
Except they didn't use to have 4 chaps in a studio with state of the art equipment to watch everything back to get it right.
This doesn't change that most decisions are subjective and still come from the ref. For example the goal today, no clear proof the ball was in or out. The foul was totally subjective. Theres a huge level of inconsistency, even the difference in your own managers' words on the Liverpool offside and today. People need to accept VAR doesn't remove subjectivity from ref decisions.
Love the idea of the strike to be fair. Forcing home teams to provide their own officials, let's see how that one goes down
Thats not what would happen though is it? The weekends game would be postponed in all likelihood and it would send a message to teams this kind of shit is not acceptable.
Yep, a lot down to this. And you can absolutely bet all teams have profiles on the refs, so will know beforehand what they can generally "get away" with or not.
I definitely think offside calls that are essentially down a centimetre need to be taken as the call on the field though. VAR should only be intervening for genuine howlers, not absolutely everything that could be deemed a foul in the buildup.
Nah, I'm all for shoddy Sunday league style reffing for a week.
Agree for sure dude, even with the inconsistency, like Hojlund not getting a penalty to me was a bigger foul than Hjolunds on Rodri and ref's do need to work on that but that kinda stuff has went on for ever, but in the 90's no one would have batted an eye becasue the level of analysis on every decision wasn't so thorough. People act like refs are somehow worse but they're not and VAR gets more right than it gets wrong, problem is when you're on the receiving end of a subjective decision that most people would say is wrong, its easier to behave like a cnut these days.
We get it every week anyway.
Embarrassing club, embarrassing fans, embarrassing manager.
I back Arsenal on this, but they need to return those two FA Cups they stole off us, and the place in Division One they stole off Barnsley in 1919.
It's actually quite a clever tactic by Arsenal/Arteta. Making it about VAR and the the ref. If everyone wasn't talking about VAR there'll be more pressure on the team and Arteta considering their last 2 performances.
Maybe we should just stayed silent, waited to see if we got another apology like good boys like the 2 we got last season, and then just moved on while nothing changed and we stay subjected to the same shit.
Well you have got your rub of decisions as well this season. Even yesterday Harvetz should have been off, just likee Bruno. Let us stop pretending your club have been on the more receiving end.
What call was that then? Because Fabio Silva kicked a man in the box without getting anywhere near the ball and conceded a penalty. I didn't see anything else in that game really.
Wasnt their manager defending the officials when Arsenal got benefited from an error earlier? Why wasn't he ashamed to be a part of that country then?
Of course you are going to call out shit that goes against you and not when it doesn’t benefit you. What I find funny though is supporters of clubs being sick of the standard of refereeing, being sick of being on the end of wrong decisions, demanding their own club call it out; then when another club actually does, it’s all embarrassing stuff, what a red neck etc. Tribalism I suppose.
It's fine if you think that was a penalty... but you are in a massive minority. Your so called kick didn't even touch Baldock, but as long as the game is consistent in encouraging diving, I'm cool with it. But on another day, with another ref, that'd be a yellow for Baldock.
Utter nonsense. Baldock even got back up and tried to play on. That Hwang decision the other week was a thousand times more wrong than the one this weekend.
Given all of the remonstrations, I thought it interesting to find that Arsenal leads the league in penalty goals scored with 6 so far this season. The next closest team has 3. Last season, the league leader, Manchester City, scored 9 penalties and Arsenal only scored 3. Since VAR was introduced, the highest ever total for penalties scored in a season has been 10. Conversely, Arsenal led the league in open play goals scored last season jointly with Manchester City, whereas so far this season, they are mid-table in open play goals scored and mid-table in shots taken per game. The fluidity of play and unpredictability does seem to be lacking so far.
I think the defensive improvement over last season has been overstated a bit. They have only conceded one fewer goal in the league so far this season relative to the same point last season. It's not apples to apples, because Arsenal have probably had a tougher schedule to start this season, but it's something to watch for. A huge contributing factor to the defensive drop-off last season was the injuries to Saliba and Tomiyasu, leaving Arsenal reliant on Holding and Zinchenko. Their goals conceded per game ballooned after that happened. Now that Saliba and Tomiyasu are available again, the defense looks solid again. The additional defensive reinforcement from the midfield only appears marginal, at best, and I'm not sure it offsets the loss in creativity and fluidity. Thus far they are conceding slightly fewer shots per game than last season, but the statistics from last season also include that long stretch when Saliba and Tomiyasu were unavailable. I think the defense is slightly better this season, but I do not think it is that drastic of an improvement over the defense when Saliba and Tomiyasu were available last season.
I think the defensive improvement over last season has been overstated a bit. They have only conceded one fewer goal in the league so far this season relative to the same point last season. It's not apples to apples, because Arsenal have probably had a tougher schedule to start this season, but it's something to watch for. A huge contributing factor to the defensive drop-off last season was the injuries to Saliba and Tomiyasu, leaving Arsenal reliant on Holding and Zinchenko. Their goals conceded per game ballooned after that happened. Now that Saliba and Tomiyasu are available again, the defense looks solid again. The additional defensive reinforcement from the midfield only appears marginal, at best, and I'm not sure it offsets the loss in creativity and fluidity. Thus far they are conceding slightly fewer shots per game than last season, but the statistics from last season also include that long stretch when Saliba and Tomiyasu were unavailable. I think the defense is slightly better this season, but I do not think it is that drastic of an improvement over the defense when Saliba and Tomiyasu were available last season.
Quite a good and fair analysis here. Only thing i would add is to bear in mind in terms of attacking play, we've been playing without Jesus most of the time, that affects our fluidity. For me, the most like Jesus style wise is Trossard, and i'd be playing him a lot more than Nketiah who is a different type of player altogether. You take Partey out who is good at breaking the lines, take Jesus out who is very good at linking and interchanging with players, then you will get a drop off, even disregarding the Xhaka sale.
You also lost Jesus for 3 months last season and your attacking impetus kept up.
Imo it's more about Saka's drop in form and a structure change from the way you build play. The former still has his moments this season but he's not the constant menace he was last season, and the latter, especially the lack of pressing and quick passing in midfield, means you allow the opponent to get into shape far more frequently. Partey used to hit first time quick balls forward and Xhaka could be free to arrive in the box or found himself in space for a long ranger, now without that pace in your play and the lack of similar offensive tools from Jorginho/Havertz, all your creative burdens fall to Odeegard and he struggles because he relies on movements and passing more than the hero ball or exquisite shooting someone like De Bruyne is capable of.
I would argue that the wide players, Martinelli in particular, form dropped during this time when Eddie was playing. We signed Trossard in January and ended up replacing him up front instead of Eddie, and even though he didn't score much himself, he had several assists for the wide players as he dropped deep and wide more effectively allowing the wide players to come inside better.
I agree with your analysis. But I think it's also important to note that last season, our starting XI picked itself. This served us very well in terms of our (attacking) fluidity, but ultimately our lack of depth was exposed as the season wore on. This season, I think we've improved depth-wise, but being in CL has also meant Arteta has chopped and changed a lot more. So our starting XI is not as obvious or consistent as last season. Defensively, we have done well to remain solid regardless of the personell on the pitch, but going forward we have looked a bit disjointed. Regarding Odegaard in particular, I think he's suffered not having Partey behind him, as Rice doesn't progress the ball as well.
This is where I think Timber would have been quite helpful, not only in terms of the depth he provided, but also versatility and quality. Partey is not reliable from an availability POV, but Timber can do a lot of the things Partey could do, though perhaps not to the same extent. He would have been able to provide that from deep without the defensive drop-off you have to worry about with Zinchenko. He also looks better going forward than White and Tomiyasu.
I don't really understand the 'Saka is not playing well' thing. One of the only reasons he doesn't jink past players much anymore is because he gets booted as soon as he gets the ball. He's got 13 goals/assists in 16 starts. Fair enough I've not seen many 10/10 performances from him this season but he certainly seems to be incredibly efficient considering he's just turned 22.
So you actually do understand, more or less, what people are saying.
It depends whether you think you should expect 10/10 performances. I'm quite content with 7s and 8s if he's scoring and creating goals.
I also think it's part of a broader thing of our performances last season being quite romanticised. Imo it all seemed better because it was unexpected. Plenty of wins were quite ground out, and we were sloppy at home all season (ropy home wins against Fulham and Villa, 4-2 win against an ultimately relegated Leicester, held by Brentford and Newcastle). If some of our raggy wins (Emi own goal at Villa, scummy 1-0 at Leeds, obviously Bournemouth) had happened this season, people would be pointing to them as evidence that we'd regressed.
I'm happy to see where we are towards the end of the season. I'm not worried. We're in the middle of a bit of an injury crisis and still basically getting results.
I also think it's part of a broader thing of our performances last season being quite romanticised. Imo it all seemed better because it was unexpected. Plenty of wins were quite ground out, and we were sloppy at home all season (ropy home wins against Fulham and Villa, 4-2 win against an ultimately relegated Leicester, held by Brentford and Newcastle). If some of our raggy wins (Emi own goal at Villa, scummy 1-0 at Leeds, obviously Bournemouth) had happened this season, people would be pointing to them as evidence that we'd regressed.
I'm happy to see where we are towards the end of the season. I'm not worried. We're in the middle of a bit of an injury crisis and still basically getting results.
Exactly how I feel. Off the top of my head, I think last season we didn't have too many injury issues early on. Hence our fantastic start. But we all knew we didn't have much squad depth and eventually that was our downfall. This time, we've had more injuries and players being in and out of the team, but I think Arteta has managed the squad very well. Especially considering the new challenge of CL and having to play 3 games a week at the highest level.