That's why I posted about tilt First VAR refuses to give us a clear pen, then chalks off a 2nd pen. People focus too much on the correctness of calls instead of the direction of travel. We get hosed by VAR.
A small bright spot is that PEA has been finding the net again in the last several games. That said, he really didn't have too many looks today, and that's an issue. Some others had excellent chances on their feet and failed to convert: Pepe, Saka, Ceballos... p.s. Just watched a blistering pile driver from Soton's Chay Adams from 20yds. I know that's not exactly our preferred kind of shot but man we could use some of that. (KT3 is in the back of my mind now)
Late to the party as I had to workout during the match, then do errands. I feel hard done about the 1st non-PK call, but I'm not miffed about the 2nd. The bottom line is that Arsenal didn't take advantage of the chances they had and coupled that with an absurd goal surrendered. (For which I blame both Leno and Xhaka.) So now it's pretty much Europa League trophy or bust for this season. This game was begging for ESR. Odegaard has his abilities but is all over the place and makes some winky decisions sometime. (Shot twice when there were way too many defenders in the way.) Partey was also off today, which didn't allow Xhaka any leeway. Simply a bad time to have a sub-par match and surrender a stupid goal.
In fairness, pretty similar to Kante's "non-handball" against Liverpool midweek, which I also thought was wrong. I think Arteta got a lot wrong today. Went to the Willian well once too often. No, Willian wasn't horrible---he rarely is---but he didn't do anything. And yeah, "assists" like that are why lots of stats guys now don't put much stock in assists as a stat. Also, I think he should've rested Xhaka. Lots of minutes and he looked leggy, despite having nearly a week off. Waited too long to bring on Pepe, who despite his bad miss, created a lot of chaos in the Burnley defense that we could've used for more than 25 minutes. In addition, I didn't like when he took off Odegaard and it seemed we reverted to that Lacazette in the false 9 that sucked so bad all season pre-Christmas.
There's so much about Burnleys game today that was poor, but one thing they did tremendously was making the pitch feel tiny. We weren't sharp enough to counter that. In fact it was our worst match since pre-Christmas. And with all that being said we should have won by at least 2 goals.
The consistency is the issue One 'wrong' VAR means we get 0/2 pens and 0 red card decision Yet equally one 'wrong' decision could have seen us get 2/2 pens plus the red card decision Teams that benefit from the marginal VAR or even questionable VAR basically get a big tilt Whereas it feels like we are never getting the benefit of these reviews
What? You didn't find it insightful when he noted that hamstring injuries are common in footballers? And I'd add Tim Howard too. Worthless as a footy analyst.
Hmm... aren't you in control of your workout/errands schedule? IOW, where are your priorities man????
Yeah the difference between how we played in our last match at Leicester and how we played today at Burnley was stark. Sure we had one too many subpar performances by our players today, especially in attack. But I think this big a difference between 2 matches has to land pretty squarely on the shoulders of Arteta. I think his in-game decisions, especially in 2T, didn't really help us. Not to gloss over the choice of our XI which had a few headscratchers. Oh well, it coulda been worse... at least we didn't register a loss, right before a vital EL tie begins. Onward...
Yeah, he could've easily completed that pass if he'd played it to the left of Woods into a big open channel where 2 teammates were near. I think he just screwed up the pass, either through not looking closely enough at where players were, or a bad choice in pass, or just poorly executed technique. Either way, as I said at the time... bonehead, inexcusable, at any level of the sport.
It's horrible decision making, he went to chip Woods... Poor decision or not how is it exceptible for the starting CM to screw up that poorly with two touches? Weak foot or not. Honestly I think Xhaka gets a lot of critisism for his character which I think is unfair, but he's just not athletic in a league, position a set up which requires athletisim before any other attribute.
I guess that I am in the minority, but I thought we were a bit unlucky. I don’t think that we played particular well, but I thought we did enough to win. I’m not really concerned about the hand ball non-call. It would have been a cheap penalty and a piss poor way to decide a game - even if it technically was a hand ball. There was no “chance” that was missed. Pepe barely had control of the ball and was in a non-threatening position. The team lacks consistency, so there will be ups and downs. But sometimes, the randomness imbedded into the game doesn't break your way. That’s how it felt to me. However, giving up cheap goals never helps, though.
See, I'm not so sure. I think if Pieters doesn't handle that there's a good chance that Pepe dinks it by him and keeps running. He then puts Pieters in a position in which he might have to foul him. Now, all that being said, yeah, the draw was more down to not finishing chances in the first half, a horrible mistake in our 6, then not creating much in the second until the last 20 minutes but again not finishing.
Pepe never had the ball under control, so he needs at least another touch (probably two) before crossing or passing the ball. I think Pieters didn't need to be rash; he still was in position to block a cross or to stand Pepe and make Pepe beat him off the dribble. Meh, I would have to see it again, but that was my initial take. Either way, it was an inadvertent hand ball. I would rather win a game a better way.
Obviously Xhaka was terrible here but this is the 100% wrong pass for Leno to play and he is almost just as culpable in this mistake because of it, IMO. Xhaka's run is a clear decoy to bring pressers with him so Leno can play a ball over the top more easily. You never want to pass a ball straight ahead of you as a keeper unless you're breaking a line of defense, which he clearly wasn't. I continue to be very concerned about the poor distribution of Leno in general, and this was a good example of his bad decision-making in pressed situations
Wow https://t.co/tAYAcc1nWg— Stuart MacFarlane (@Stuart_PhotoAFC) March 6, 2021 I think he's doing a pretty good job here of dinking the ball to his right with the intent to then cut across. But you can decide for yourself.
Does he try to chip him or does he just not realize he’s in the passing lane. Xhaka doesn’t play a lot of one touch passes and when he does they are generally combinations or when the teammate is directly in front of him. I’m not sure Xhaka has his head on a swivel before he receives the ball.
We are in that rare position where we get ********ed by calls that get overturned that would be in our favour, and then get ********ed by calls that don't get called at all that are in our favour, before the refs apply the lube and finish off with a strong dose of giving calls to help our opponents that either don't get called or get ignored.
Yeah, after seeing the replay, I agree. I still think he needs another touch to have full control, and given how one footed he is, he most likely would have taken that touch to bring the ball back onto his left foot. Who knows? But I concede that his touch does seem to put the defender a step behind the play.
The thing is, if that was united or city it’s a pen which makes this whole process seem a waste of time var isn’t the enemy it’s the rule makers and biased/shit English refs