Written in the stars :bow:
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Written in the stars :bow:
He survives.
Around we go again.
Wenger :bow:.
Welbz :bow:.
The ref :bow:.
The linesman :bow:.
Europa League :bow:.
Thursday nights :bow:.
N_Q :haha:.
Weird game. Milan made a go of it and had a fair few chances to make us sweat but I never really felt threatened, they're a poor team.
We fluked a couple of goals and that was that.
It's coming home. :bow:
We've made it a quarter finals stage in European competition.
Only took eight years.
Get in! A professional performance. Who do we want next....
Got to be honest though, Wilshere and Ramsey together isn't quite Xavi and Iniesta.
So has he won you over guys? :lol:
Let’s get Atletico out of the way ;)
On a serious note anybody but Atletico. Despite that there are a fair few decent teams left in it now, Leipzig, CSKA & Lazio are IMO as good as us. Whoever we get will be difficult now, we need to up our performance another level.
Atletico are the only threat.
The rest are having average seasons.
And if another team gets lucky against Atletico, we have a clear run at the trophy.
2 more years :bow:
Another one down, three to go. Come on Arsenal, let's sneak into CL. (We might attract a good manager for next year if we do).
I have to say fair play to Gattuso. His comments after the game were actually respectful and he didn’t want to get drawn in to the usual media bait & trap :good:
Great win.
The Ospina song was fun anyway
https://youtu.be/Rm7Yfe5ynrE
They hijacked Milan’s chant. :lol:
Hopefully it catches on because it’s far better than any other chant we have.
Wenger: "Its difficult to do well in the league & in the Europa League. There’s a statistic that has come out which shows that in all the big five leagues, the teams who play in the Europa League struggle" #Arsenal
That's his excuse then :lol: 2 more years :lol:
Number of goals in Europe this week:
Messi: 2
Welbeck: 2
#justsaying
#wele :bow:
He played the second string throughout the group stages.
He also played the second string against Doncaster, Norwich and West Ham in the League Cup and as good as threw the FA Cup game against Forest.
Shitty excuse from a guy clinging on for dear life. Can’t wait until he’s gone.
Speaking of which...what on earth are Atletico doing in it anyway......can't recall how they got there.
John Cross really does need to explain himself.
Explain yourself, John.
Saw the highlights today. Could have been a nervy evening.
Never a pen :lol: What is the point of those officials if they're going to get things like that wrong? He was about 5 yards away from it.
Milan could have scored more but so could we. Overall think we deserved to go through.
:dance:
Officials make mistakes, they're only human.
Some of you go on like they do it on purpose, it's probably a lot harder from pitch level than it is watching as an amrchair fan, they don't have all kinds of angles and views and the pace of the game and number of players in their way doesn't help.
We've had some very fortuitous decisions recently with penalties that weren't and sending offs that should have been, as I said before it swings in roundabouts, sometimes they go for you sometimes they go for the opposition, that's football and always has been.
Referees don't purposefully punish and linesman don't purposefully punish or reward certain teams it's just what they see at the time. Makes me laugh because people wanted VAR (which I think is a good idea personally) but then the minute it's introduced start complaining about that as well, you can't win really.
Incorrect decisions in football seem to really get highlighted, in the rugby match at the weekend Ireland scored a try that wasn't but there wasn't a big inquest about it (even though they have a video ref), these things happen.
As for the result, never worried because as Gattuso has said himself he can't coach and to be honest they're an average team the Italian league is full of them these days, that's a shame as once upon a time Italy had the best league and were a real force in Europe.
Well, sub-human, but close enough.
I remember years ago arguing with a friend when they were talking about making referees professional.
He said they wouldn't get any better, I said of course they would - how can an amateur be as good as a professional.
But he was right, if anything they've got worse.
Now, some of that is admittedly because of the increasing scrutiny - mistakes are now apparent now every decision is pored over and can be viewed in slo-mo from a load of different angles. But they do seem to get some pretty basic things wrong in a way which I don't think they used to.
Is it incompetence? Downright corruption?
That infamous game at Old Trafford when we were getting nothing and Utd were allowed to kick us with impunity, you have to feel something was going on there.
Or the Cup Final vs Hull. Obviously we got off to an awful start but we were denied 3 or 4 really blatant penalties.
Was it incompetence or was the referee actually trying to stop us? He failed (Wenger :bow: ), and I don't like to think that referees are on the take - what is the point in watching if a lot of it is being stage managed?
But you see things sometimes and you have to wonder.
A sport with this much money in it has to have some corruption, the only question is how ingrained is it?
maybe i'm naive but i think it's less about corruption and more about officials adopting attitudes regarding certain teams and situations.
for example that tackle by a Sutton player on sanchez in the cup last year - a definite sending off but the ref gave nothng - it was so transparent that he was thinking 'oh it's a little minnow team against big arsenal and arsenal are winning so i'm going to ignore it' instead of just objectively applying the rules and sending the player off - or at least giving a foul and a yellow
sanchez himself just laughed it off he knew what was going on
officials need to stop making judgements based on the teams and players involved and just apply the rules evenly
how many times do we see them not give a second yellow for an offence that plainly deserves one (often it's for something worse than the original yellow card offence) because they don't want to send a player off - everyone knows they've bottled it but as far as i know the FA does nothing to stop that happening
btw this doesn't mean they shouldn't be aware of certain players e.g. Ashley young as i said elsewhere, but even with him they should simply make sure they keep an eye on him and only penalise him when he actually does something (e.g. several times per game...)
tbh the rarity with which our players dive and are given dubious decisions in our favour is actually deomsntrated by the fact that such a fuss is being made about Welbeck - you could argue he is the exception that proves the rule that generally our players don't dive
if it had been Adhley young it wouldn't have got half the publicity
The problem is humans make mistakes and during fast paced games when the game flows from one end to the other (not usually an issue with us, more from one side to the other :lol:) it's maybe easy to see why refs make mistakes, obviously they also see it all in real time and their view will often be masked by other players, to have to make a split second decisions can be hard.
I'm all for technology personally, it seems to work fine in rugby, but I just also think the amount of media coverage in football doesn't help, everyone has a different angles and can view the incident repeatedly in slow motion.
Refs are probably under a lot of pressure as well, football fans don't seem to have any respect for the referees (unlike in other sports), they seem to blame them for everything as if they're intentionally doing things to make one team win. Not being funny but these days we're nowhere in competitions so why would anyone care what we do, I also think the corruption thing is overstated, like I said before every team gets decisions for and against them.
I think you have we have to remember a ref can't give a decision if he doesn't see it as well and since he can't see every angle and be all over the pitch there's probably a fair amoutn he won't see, a lot happens on a football pitch and the ball can move very quickly at times.
They really aren't. They get booed by fans but twas ever thus. How often is there any consequence for a referee who has made a huge mistake? Very rarely it happens but most of the time there is no action taken
We literally won the FA Cup last year, and 3 times in the last 4 :blink:Quote:
Not being funny but these days we're nowhere in competitions so why would anyone care what we do
There's no real way of telling. I like to think the game is "clean" but I suspect it isn't. How much goes on, who knows?Quote:
I also think the corruption thing is overstated
How can you say that when every decision they make is scrutinised, they probably get abuse on the street and in later matches from people who recognise them and think they made bad decisions, they might not be under pressure from the football authorities but they are under pressure to get things right as they probably know the consequence of getting them wrong.
As I've said before, this isn't one of the major prizes, the league and CL are the big ones, the cup isn't a measure of a successful team or how big a club the
No there is no way, but surely many of the refs take pride in their jobs, it's their reputation as well and indeed their life that can be affected.
Consequence of getting things wrong. :lol:
There isn't any.