Eddie is not a target man, he doesn't contribute to the build up, and he is not lethal enough for a team to carry him. He had a little bit of a purple patch, but he is completely ineffective against any organized defense, or competent defender. He would have been a good player 25 years ago when everyone played 4-4-2, but he has no room playing a lone striker at this level.
Between this, drawing the line on the wrong Brighton player in the other match, and the missed handball against Chelsea, Howard Webbs incompetence in running his VAR team is costing teams goals and costing teams points and its now getting very close to the line of "its TOO incompetent to be incompetence", we have to seriously now consider its either malicious against specific teams or its corruption.
Honestly we have to probably consider playing Martinelli centrally against teams with a packed defence and playing Trossard wide, because Eddie last few games have show the massive vulnerabilities he has.
As for VAR - not surprising in the slightest. The premier league is more scripted than WWE, but the shiny package has everyone fooled into thinking its legitimate. You could have subs sneaking on to the field to whack players with steel chairs and still have a more believable game than we have had over the last decade.
Lee Mason and whoever was on VAR for the Brighton match should be fired immediately. Completely inexcusable. Imagine the fallout if this happened in another profession. "Sorry, boss, forgot to put in a support beam and the roof collapsed. Human error!" ********ing ridiculous.
I worked as a draftsman and even that would have you fired. "Sorry boss I forgot to send final drafts without the important line in it."
IDK if I can keep watching a sport where the refs just "forget" to do basic shit so frequently. Just catastrophic error after error
Wow. Just wow with the comments this evening. We weren't robbed by the officials. When teams compete, there are winners and losers. In soccer, sometimes it's a draw. But damn, if it's easier for you to believe there was a conspiracy that led to your team not prevailing on the day, then I don't think you're into sport as much as you're into something else. Figure it out before Wednesday, because Wednesday is going to be a competition, not a drama.
I don't believe in a EPL conspiracy, but VAR officials incompetence gave Brentford a goal they didn't deserve. VAR officials over the course of a game did not have that much to do, and yet they still found a way to completely ******** up on the occasions they were required. The sooner they bring in the offsides that don't rely on VAR to be run by referees who are not fit to have their jobs the better. How long til a VAR ******** up costs a team a win that costs a player or manager their job at the club? Because with the increased frequency of VAR mistakes it will not be long until we see it.
Butterfly effect and all, but a goal-line tech failure led to Bournemouth being relegated in 2020. That's an error that cost them tens of millions, led to Eddie Howe getting sacked. What was the fallout from that?
There’s no such thing as too incompetent. Though it’s a little horrifying that Lee Mason screwed up this badly while being a full time VAR referee.
as a Bee, I'd be more than willing to agree that the given goal shouldn't have been given, but I'd counter-argue the point that the foul annulling Mbeumo's goal in the first half was never a foul. 1-1 was probably a fair'ish result (Arsenal had all of the ball, Brentford had just about all the great chances, specially in first half, where it could've easily have been 0-3 at HT) but it was the wrong Brentford goal that counted
It was a foul --- he's grabbing Gabriel's shirt and pulling him down as he's already off balance. And even at best it's a subjective decision no matter how you cut it, sometimes it gets called sometimes it doesn't. That's a lot different than a VAR official just not drawing lines that would have objectively lead to the correct no goal call. The two things aren't anywhere close to being the same. Whether Brentford deserved anything or not is irrelevant. If you've read through this thread, you've seen that most of us agree Brentford played well and had better chances overall. But so what. As Arsenal supporters we don't have enough fingers or toes to count the times we dominated matches and either only got a draw or even sucker-punched by a counter and lost (especially in the Wenger era). Our complaints then were met with "too bad, you need to put the ball in the net."
The goal they scored was illegitimate. It doesn’t mean there’s a ‘conspiracy’ against Arsenal, but it couldn’t be any clearer that officiating effected the outcome of the match.
What's the old trope "never assume nefariousness to what can more easily be chalked up to incompetence...." Or something along those lines.