Two different reasons. I think Arteta was masking that he effed up. Even if Caliafiori was injured, the sub was Mosquera, not Zubimendi and shifting your best CM to RB. White went off before the Cala sub.
I see the "narrative" for two things: 1. Haters gonna hate. 2. Hot take artists trying to walk back previous comments about VAR when things don't go their way.
On set-pieces, Arsenal are excellent at playing within that gray area of isolating and impeding keepers, to the point where I'd say it's marginally within the fair play rules of the game. Some of the criticism I believe stems from that, but there's playing within the margins and then there's this, an obvious foul. You simply can't put your arm up and across a player like that. That's a foul against any player in any part of the field.
What's never made sense to me is there is an enormous amount of holding, pushing and shirt pulling in these corners So while this was an obvious foul (there is literally someone pulling on Raya's shirt), the whole thing is a mess because they've allowed it to be like this for years now. Remember when slabhead was always doing rugby tackles?
That sounds plausible. And think about the mindset of WHU players attacking the box on that final corner, with their relegation fate potentially in their hands. One can imagine how they might crank up the aggressiveness/holding, consciously or unconsciously. And can you really blame them? But in the end, the gamble didn't pay off... just the opposite.
Last time one of our players grabbed a keeper and a goal was scored, VAR overturned the goal. The EPL has been bad for corners this year but the league appears to have 2 rules. Can't grab the keeper, and can't grab players too far out of the scrum.
.....and then both Charles Watts and Tom Canton noted that Calafiori sprinted from the bench to join in Trossard's celebration. . I'll take a non-injured Calafiori even if it means Arteta's comment was some BS CYA'ing.
I'm honestly strangely ok with the wrestling on corners, and I don't know why. I think probably it's a detriment to English teams in Europe though.
Exactly. If you grab and yank down the keeper's arms, it is going to be a foul. People who say Arsenal do the same thing are either lying or dont watch their matches.
They grabbed Raya because he was about to catch/punch the ball away. It had a direct outcome on the play. Big difference between this and a lot of other grabbing/holding. Onfield ref would have called it if he saw it, clear and obvious error.
He hasn't played a ton lately. Big "what if" is if Arteta had gone to MLS earlier. Would the league already be wrapped up.
+1 if only for Adam’s completely over-the-top articulation. It reminded me of some Monty Python parodies back in the day. I had other things to do so I had to bail at the halfway point of his monologue, but all credit to him for his earnest conviction and analysis!
Maybe. I said something similar to a friend during the match yesterday: if timber had stayed healthy this season I think we might have already wrapped up the title. If’s and but’s, if’s and but’s.
My assumption is that his absence from the team in 2026 was because he was working on getting acclimated to being a Premier League midfielder in training. He didn't play at all in the league for 2 months, was supposed to start a cup game in midfield, and we only had a couple of blowouts where he could've seen a bit of risk-free time at the new role. That is to say, we may have dropped a few points that we didn't had we dropped him into midfield in January. My big "what if" is how we would have fared if we rotated the midfield more often in general, but particularly with Norgaard. What does end-of-season Zubimendi look like with 800 fewer minutes?
The funny thing is that the PGMOL is busy skull fizzukin every team in the EPL. The thing is that no one pays attention unless it's a big club and/or big game. This season we've gotten away with a lot. It is what it is. Not gonna hear me crying, run me the Prem title. I got celebrating to do.
Yup, that's one of my biggies also. As you can tell from my other comments about why we bothered to sign Norgaard.
Not sure I'd say that. He always carried a few pounds. May be a damn good coach though. We should know in a year or two.