So just ban contesting headers?

Anzac wrote:

Shouldn't matter if he expected it to be there or not - you don't expect someone's face to be there re an overhead kick or if you raise your foot to control the ball.  By making the decision based upon safety you eliminate all doubt and excuses.

Spot on. A player renders another player unconscious by elbowing him to the face, not sure what's left to discuss here. If intent mattered 90% of all red cards would have to be rescinded.

Qwiss! wrote:

So just ban contesting headers?

Players contest headers all the time without knocking each other out.

jones wrote:

Qwiss! wrote:

So just ban contesting headers?

Players contest headers all the time without knocking each other out.

Sure and sometimes arms hit faces without intent. I've seen Kos go up and hit people in the face 100 times, shit happens.

What kind of argument is that? If Koscielny knocks someone out with his elbow he needs to be sent off too.

Players' legs hit other legs a 100 times per game too and while some are not even fouls others are guaranteed red cards. Pretty sure Taylor didn't mean to hurt Eduardo either.

So you should always be sent off if someones knocked out? Thats ridiculous.

That wasn't meant to hurt Eduardo? Get real.

Qwiss! wrote:

So you should always be sent off if someones knocked out? Thats ridiculous.

No, you should be sent off when you elbow someone in the face and they're knocked out. Genuinely baffled this seems to be hard to understand

No need for the picture. I remember the tackle well enough, it was obviously a straight red but I think he really went for the ball, Eduardo's first touch was a bit heavy and he had to accelerate to get to it iirc.

Unlike that cunt Dan Smith who for his foul on Diaby should've been put into prison.

I think the difference for Alonso is that he doesn't know where Bellerin is going to be. I think he expected him to get up to the same height and his arms up for leverage if he does. Taylor knows where Eduardo and is and goes high for no other reason than to foul him.

Anyway Bellerin shouldn't be trying to mark 2 players at once and win headers against them in a row. Where the fuck was the rest of our defence?

Gurgen wrote:

General wrote:

People are completely missing the context of Bellerin's failure to prevent Alonso getting to the end of that header. He was already on the back foot because he had challenged Costa for the initial header that came off the bar. Alonso was Walcott's man and Coquelin was close by. Neither helped.

People are completely missing the point that that's a horrible foul and an elbow to the face is a red card everywhere except Ingerland. So sick of this bullshit league.

My view is that we can't control the incompetence of officials but we can certainly address the defensive failures that led to the event. As Anzac said, they were the same failures that resulted in Watford's second goal. We can't pretend we have no problems because we think the officials got a contentious decision wrong. I fear behind the scenes, Wenger is too busy playing the victim like some of you to focus on the root causes and this would explain the recurring nature of these defensive lapses.

Just seen the first half and I think it's a red card offence too. I think it's difficult to justify it just because Alonso didn't know where Bellerin was. He's responsible for his elbows when he goes up. At the very least it's a yellow card and a freekick, but the potential seriousness of the challenge is why you make sure to penalise it, same as tackling someone from behind. Bellerin could have cracked his skull there. It's just all around terrible refereeing, and if Arsenal weren't so poor at the moment I imagine that no one would make excuses for it.

At the same time I think Walcott and Coquelin were pretty useless leading up to the goal though. They've got no business starting a match against Chelsea in Premier League. We didn't have much of a choice with Coquelin thanks to Xhaka (who himself deserves to ride the bench for a long while after this), but Chelsea targeted that flank for a reason. Wenger and Bould got their tactics wrong.

Qwiss! wrote:

I think the difference for Alonso is that he doesn't know where Bellerin is going to be. I think he expected him to get up to the same height and his arms up for leverage if he does. Taylor knows where Eduardo and is and goes high for no other reason than to foul him.

Anyway Bellerin shouldn't be trying to mark 2 players at once and win headers against them in a row. Where the fuck was the rest of our defence?

What does it matter what Alonso knows? He goes in elbows raised and risks severely injuring anyone who challenges him. It's a clear sending off and it's quite frankly unreal that all "pundits" in England think this is not even a foul.

Just because we're shit doesn't mean that refs aren't obviously biased against us. You can have both at once.

Yup so obviously biased they waved away an offside decision and gave us a last minute penalty against Burnley.

I think it's a yellow. To be a red, you have to be extremely obvious to be an intentional elbow.

It's a contact sport get over it. How about we ban arms coming up in a jump then? immediate yellow card offense.

This is our positioning shortly before we conceded the goal. Just look at Coquelin and Walcott's positioning. Everyone else was tight. Alonso then crosses paths with Walcott and cruises into the box unchallenged.

Walcott takes an initial look and sees Alonso.

As the ball comes off the bar, they cross paths. Coquelin was enjoying the view.

Look and where both players eventually end up as Alonso buries the header. Look at Hazard free in the box to capitalise from any spill over.

They say still photos never tell the full story. I think it's pretty conclusive here and once again exposes how poorly drilled and ill disciplined we are defensively.

I kicked some cushions when that goal went in. It's just astounding. Seven guys failed to organise themselves to contain 3 opponents. Guys like Walcott just lacked the hunger to chase down their defensive assignments in the first half of a game. We were just a team that didn't want it. And it all ends with poor Bellers going up against a chap who's got a running start, outleaps him and knocks him out in the process. Appalling.

The second goal was just as bad. Coq or Koscielny should've had a foul up in the field. And then in the penalty area, Kos and Mustafi are just running around without communicating. They turned Hazard into Messi yesterday.

The less said about the 3rd goal, the better.