April is the cruellest month: Page 7 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

April is the cruellest month

Claudius

Clrnc
So the ref did the right thing with the yellow for Saka. But they never seem to do anything when this shit happens to us. When Newcastle were being unsportsmanlike, nothing happened. When teams spent the first half of the season doing rotational fouling on Saka. Referees never gave one opposition player a yellow card to earn the lot of them. So red was right to card him, but we rarely get this benefit

Clrnc

Claudius I don’t think so?

Very little precedent in a yellow card for taking a corner

Claudius

It’s not specifically in the rules but referees should do it more often to stop teams killing the game. We had so many games where we thought we deserved about ten minutes of injury time because opponents were being unsportsmanlike. And a yellow or two would put that to an end

AAStyle

awooga83
I also feel that we wont get any single point at Etihad. In order to win the league we need City to make some mistakes. I still think we have some material odds of winning it.

awooga83

Yeah that's my sense, we need a City error somewhere. It's certainly possible but I don't see it as likely myself. From what I've seen so far and today is included in that, in those really fine differences I think we are going to be just short this season

I think City and Newcastle are games I'd put big question marks over in terms of results. That ignores a random dropped points against someone else which is also very possible under the pressure we will have.

We have to ensure we come out of the next match with a win just to try to put us back into the same momentum.

RowJimmy

I have no problem with the yellow to Saka. I have a problem with his allowing Konate to assault our players repeatedly, which was really the turning point of the game.

Claudius

RowJimmy absolutely. The ref really gave Liverpool a lot of leeway. Infuriating home refereeing.

Gazza M

so, just a cheeky 7 wins and a point at city. 22 points from 24. easy boys

RowJimmy

Claudius FWIW I don't think this is corrupt, I think it's incompetent.

Claudius

RowJimmy nor do I. But I think refs just need to be smarter about controlling mischief.

HomeSteak

Win the next 2 and see how we do in the City game. City will not lose points until then, as they only play Leicester at home (they will win that 5-0) but after they will. They have Bayern, FA Cup Semi Final, Bayern and us. And again, I really think if they go past Bayern and have to play Real twice, in a CL semi...they will drop points in the league.
Now the question is, we need to win one of City or Newcastle away, can we do it?

Burnwinter

HomeSteak I feel like we don't worry about it. Best thing to do is accept a point is a better return than we've had at Anfield for a while, and go back to thinking about beating West Ham. The momentum is probably back with us if we steady with two more wins prior to facing City.

goon

City have a lot of tough games after the Etihad. If they win all of those then there isn’t really much you can say. But I don’t think they will.

If City draw 2 more games in the run in, it will put them on 90 points. We could lose 2 more or draw 3 and still get to 91 points. Plenty of room, but we need some sort of result at the Etihad.

Qwiss

Claudius I’m still not sold on Xhaka as villain. This isn’t like last season when Arteta went crazy on the sidelines and the crowd reacted. Man just stood up for himself. He didn’t raise his hands or anything after being kicked multiple times by Konate and accosted by Trent.

We were 2-0 up, he should have laughed at him and had a word with the ref. What he did wasn't sticking up for himself, this isn't Sunday League, what he did was lose his head and drag the rest of our players into it too. The Anfield crowd is only a little bit of it tbh, IMO the incident made us drop our focus and thats why we were caught out right after it. He should also realise his own reputation, he's gone head to head with an England player there and I wouldn't have been shocked if he'd been sent off given those dynamics.

At the end of the day there is really no defence of his antics and I do believe it cost us that first goal. However they got to half time still ahead and should have done a better job of seeing the game out. In the second half he's only responsible for his own poor performance.

QuincyAbeyie

Qwiss We were 2-0 up, he should have laughed at him and had a word with the ref. What he did wasn't sticking up for himself, this isn't Sunday League, what he did was lose his head and drag the rest of our players into it too.

Exactly. Why the fuck would you "stick up for yourself" if it helps the opposition and hurts your own team? For your own personal honor or some shit? Either way, it's either losing your head or putting yourself ahead of the team.

awooga83

That's exactly why xhaka it's flawed, he had always had these moments where he ignores what night be good for the team in context and just does what he believes looks good with a tough tackle or these kind of antics.

As you said Qwiss his reaction should have been to laugh and jog away, if the opposition are starting to whack you like that then you know they are done for and they aren't playing football anymore.

I agree it creates a moment that is a distraction at that point and certainly contributes to what happend after in terms of disrupting the focus.

Don Pacifico

Not even thinking about the matches ahead, I just can't see this going our way and that's based on how we've been since the World Cup. I feel like I'm seeing us slowly lose our mojo; we've increasingly shown an inability to control games in our own favour and have had to draw on a degree of fortune in some instances. Yesterday felt like a moment where at 2-0, we should have seen that match out comfortably but yet we let them back in to the extent we were lucky to get a point. If we continue to fail to exert this control, we're going to drop more points and whilst City are fallible, their run is definitely smoother than ours (and they have more experience to cope).

I'm not saying there's no hope and we obviously need to take it game-by-game but what I've seen so far this year hasn't assured me. We don't have that unerring confidence we did at the start of the season (or at least we've seen that confidence come under increasing strain).

AAStyle

Don Pacifico that is a reasonable view but yesterday we played at Anfield. This is a hard place even for an on-fire team and still we own it for half of the match. I dont think there is a harder field to play at in the EPL.

Clrnc

AAStyle Wait till you visit St James mate. With their current form they are unstoppable.

And we won't fare well with their intense press, given that we can't even deal with Liverpool half press.

If we does fall short, the league have a lot to answer with the Brentford match. If we fall by more than 2 points then dropping points to bottom teams Everton/Soton will hurt as much as that 95th min chance at Anfield

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert

Clrnc it feels so wrong but I'm petrified of the Newcastle game. As Don pointed out we haven't convincingly controlled many games for quite a while. And I'm assuming Holding will be starting in that game too.

Lukazan

Agree entirely on the thoughts on Xhaka. He's done amazingly well to come back from being booed off the pitch by a large amount of the Emirates stadium to where he is now in the view of the fans (or before
that moment yesterday I should say) and when he's good for us he's often very good. But I guess ultimately Xhaka is always gonna Xhaka. It was without doubt the turning point in the match. I feel if the league slips now, particularly in disasterous fashion, that moment will be looked back on and it will undo a lot of, if not all, the good-will Xhaka has clawed back.

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