the referee wasnt that bad, but both the linesman hadn't a clue what offsides is. what i liked bout the ref, is he wasnt buying any needless falling to the ground, in a vain attempt to win a free kick. for either team.
Villareal can't score from open play. They didn't score for like the first 290 minutes of the competition. Everytime they get into their half they look for something to trip over. P.S. anyone see that great new sportscenter commercial with Sheva in its, its great, really great
Like everyone else has said, its a win but would have been nice to have at least 1 or 2 more goals. Villareal killed the game off in the second half and made it very boring. Did they haev a shot on goal from the run of play?
Exactly. AR's were shite. Also, there were 3 players carrying yellow cards coming in to the match today for VR. After all the bookings today, one of them has to be out the next match, right?
Had to save this comment from the last thread: Very true on all counts. Nice to have the goal and the clean sheet but another goal or two could have really helped. Oh well. One goal at their place and we're likely advancing. I can't see them scoring 3 on our defense.
I saw it...it was sweet. gilberto was more or less awesome today. lucky too. [phlair] whoo! [/phlair]
I'd have been happier if we got two goals, but I'll take a one goal lead and no away goal given. Villareal hasn't beaten a team by two goals yet in the Champions league, all we have to do is go there and score one and were pretty much through to the final.
Taccanardi is gone, I think having a lead into the away leg is more of an advatange than some. The clean sheet at home is more important than the goals. 829 minutes without conceding hard to believe
still can't wrap my mind around it, especially after last year's CL results. wow. oh btw, f*ck spurs!
Eh mixed bag for me but it's mostly positive, we played well and deserved the win but I'm not happy that we just scored one...in all honesty, we took the foot off the accelerator half way through the 2nd half and let Villarreal kill the game off. I'm confident we can score in the 2nd leg but I would've liked to have seen at least one more goal. I didn't get the subs at all, Hleb and Freddie were doing very well in the attack...Wenger should've left the 11 we had out there. Senderos and Toure were awesome, as was Flamini. Gilberto and Hleb did a great job at shutting down Riquelme, we frustrated him more than any other team has and it worked. We played him just how I thought and hoped we would, physical. Both Gilberto and Hleb were all over him tonight, not letting him have much room and making their presence known with some bumps and knocks here and there. It frustrated him and took him out of the game for the most part. One of the big keys to the game.Forlan was also invisible, again Toure and Senderos didn't let him sniff the ball. All in all, good performance...I think if we get one away goal than we should be fine. Great way to send Highbury out.
Gilberto rules Gilberto was our man of the match by a longshot. Hleb was next, he was just outstanding. Cesc was sub-par, and Henry's finishing was terrible. If he leaves, we'll be just fine, since Hleb is quite obviously the new creative force on the team. The linesmen blew 2 offsides calls that should have gone our way, but also 1 that should have gone their way. Was it a penalty? No, it was outside the box. Was it a foul? Probably - and I don't care. Thought we got, to put it mildly, the benefit of the doubt from the Austrian ref. I'll take it.
taking a 1-0 lead to spain with us on the back of 9 clean sheets in a row i can live with,i wud have preferred another 1 or 2 but i can live with 1-0. thierry henrys first half 'goal' should have stood, the linesman made a monumental error and i was spitting venom.but thats football. henry just said 'lets see how they do when they come at us in the next leg.....then we can maybe play our game a bit and make a couple of counter attacks' lol
https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=8162301&postcount=449 can you explain this post?? hleb was crap??? huh? he was our most productive attacker in the entire match.. what are you on?