Mikel Arteta and Arsenal ‘tantrum’ didn’t even need a nudge from Sir Alex Ferguson

Is the pressure too much for Mikel Arteta have just one season of challenging for the title? Take a leaf out of Big Ange’s book, fella.

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Arteta has cracked very early
Back in the old days (10 to 15 years ago) you know it was the beginning of the end for a manager when they went on a paranoid rant, mostly after a bit of needling from Ferguson, see Benitez and Wenger for prime examples.

Arteta seems to have accelerated the process with no great outside interference. A couple of weeks ago refs needed leeway when a decision went for him, loses his nut when one goes against him, who says these things don’t even out over a season?

Is the pressure too much for him after one whole season challenging for the title? Does Pep call him every evening and tell him he is soooo good and he has started to believe it? I don’t really get the rage, annoyance yes, but if Arsenal get a dubious last-minute penalty at the weekend for a last-minute winner will he still be ranting?
Mel – Dublin, Berlin, Athlone Town

…Hey John Matrix, it’s also easy to be magnanimous when discussing a situation that was AT MOST unclear, and could never be described as anything more than that. It’s also easy to be a horrible bully and lie through your teeth about what has occurred, in a transparent attempt to force officials to use bias in your favour.

Arteta’s extreme reaction was not the result of a bad decision, it was a man making false, deceitful claims as a means of distracting from his own failings. It was a disgusting display, and the club’s decision to support it an incredible misstep. He was wrong.

The follow up should have been an apology. Doubling down is reaffirming that your club and management have no respect whatsoever for the laws of the game nor those who officiate it. Arteta and Arsenal as a whole have actively set out to make life harder for all referees, and everyone associated with the club should be ashamed of themselves.

The Liverpool replay talk was silly, but at least borne from an actual mistake. This? This is a tantrum because you lost. Nothing more. Yet referees at all levels will suffer for it, because Arsenal Football Club have made bare-faced lying acceptable. The next time you read about a referee being violently attacked, remember the part you played in encouraging it.

I’ve seen a great deal of concern, consternation, and even outright anger towards the way Spurs played when down to nine men. But predominantly, if not entirely, from non-Spurs fans. Bit weird that, no? Why does it bother you all so much? Most of us had a nice time, despite the score. It was fun. Shouldn’t we have had fun? Do we all need to be all so very blooming angry all of the time? Should we have screamed into the darkness about refereeing conspiracy?

If Curtis Jones should have stayed on the pitch, can I argue that Romero should have too? Of course not. That would be stupid. But when so many people seem to deeply object to others enjoying an occasion, you have to ask yourself what they think the point of life is? Fans fall over themselves to claim that they are NOT in a title challenge actually, that they’re just happy to be there, but expect and hope for nothing more. How pathetic. How dismal. So very scared of expressing their hopes and dreams, because what if they don’t come true? Won’t it be so embarrassing?

No. No it won’t. F**king live a little. Stop being so scared. Ooh, but we won’t win anything because of City. So what? Shall we all just go home now and spend our time reminding each other and ourselves that everything is shit? Christ alive, we live on a dying planet run by the absolute worst of humanity, in which lies are repeated as fact to justify being hateful and murderous. Our world is grim, our futures worse. If you want to engage with that horror then do it properly, and really absorb your experience strolling the death-soaked paths we are all walking along.

But acknowledging that reality, and the starved, desperate, agonising end that many of us will face, doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy my team playing the maddest of mad football, nor does it stop me believing that we can win the league. Because we definitely can.

We have been broken down into believing that only certain teams can win. It reflects our politics. We live in a country in which a huge number of people would like to vote for the green party, but they choose not to because they won’t win, and therefore there’s no point. Yet none of these people seem able to realise that, if you actually voted for the green, they might actually be able to win. They just need you to support them, which is something you already know you want to do. So why aren’t you doing it? Don’t just trail behind those who don’t care for you. Champion those who do.
thayden

More Aussies please
Postecoglou is an absolute breath of fresh air. He seems to be taking everything in his stride with a “football is not more important than life” attitude and always speaks with humour and humility.

He has politely suggested we all “stop whinging” about these VAR decisions and just get on with it. Contrast that with Arteta, whose comments are about as clear “bringing the game into disrepute” as I’ve ever heard. Instead Arteta should be looking at his own team, who lost because they were literally bullied by Newcastle.

This “VAR bashing ” every week is quite frankly getting tedious. Yes it’s flawed and needs fixing but in the mean time, stop whinging about it.
Adidasmufc
(Newcastle remind me of the dirty, cynical Leeds United of the 70s)

Managers and players are killing the game, not VAR
City fan here. Some random points from this past week.

* VAR was introduced to eliminate mistakes. Bollocks. There isn’t a technical system in the world that could ‘eliminate mistakes’ in football given that it is based on subjective views. Further, I can’t recall when any agency/professional body claimed that it would.

Lots of recency bias on this, reinforced with the ridiculous narrative from some quarters that VAR is ‘killing the game’. Also, bollocks. A good example of this was a mail from ‘Dan the grumpy old football supporter’ who wrote:

‘If a decision was wrong prior to VAR then it was wrong. Human error in the heat of the moment. Yes, there was fall out afterwards sometimes but it was understandable mistakes.’

This. Absolutely this.

To remind those that have, seemingly, forgotten. Pre-VAR, you had either an actual or alleged controversial ref decision. Affronted Manager and assistants immediately lose their collective sh*t at the 4th official. In the studio, pundits forensically examine the incident via the very same multi-angle slo-mo video footage that is now so complained about, a luxury the on-field officials then could only dream of. The same ones, you know, that were having to make real time decisions there and then based on what they could actually see. Post match, managers ranted and raved about the refs and their decisions and, btw, I mean ALL of ‘em (Managers). TV, online, and paper media then follow that up with equal vitriol. MoTD, Sunday Supplement, printed press et al? You betcha.

THIS is why VAR was brought in. Because managers repeatedly, and relentlessly, bitched about referees for years.

* Consistency. This drives me up the wall. “We need more consistency from referees!” I listened to an Arsenal fan on Monday making this point by comparing the Newcastle goal with a similar one in a Man Utd game 6 weeks earlier. His point being that there should’ve been exactly equal outcomes. Really? Different teams, managers, grounds, officials, weather, time/day of the game and so on. I could go on. But context apparently doesn’t matter when you complain that Ref Joe Bloggs on one day makes a handball decision that, 6 weeks later Ref Phil bloggs, in a completely different scenario, doesn’t repeat in identical fashion.

If, instead, said complainants mean “If one referee gives such and such a decision, then all should” then once again I’m afraid, I call bollocks. You are talking about referees, in completely different scenarios and conditions, with the only constant being that they are making decisions under intense pressure. No? Well try arguing that the top 5 strikers, bearing down on goal in similar circumstances should ALL be making exactly the same decision about trying to, or actually, scoring. But they don’t do they? Some miss, some score. Disgraceful! Where’s the consistency? It’s like they’re all different individuals.

* Referees are abysmal and are ruining the PL. Guess what I’m going to say to that also? Yup. Bollocks. Every single PL football match has the majority of players cheating. Throw-ins/corners? Players throwing hands in the air knowing full well it’s not theirs. Ball hits player on the chest/shoulder in the box? Players screaming for a handball pen. Diving? Feigning injury? Time-wasting? Player wipes out another and immediately runs to the ref with the ‘shoulders hunched, hands cuffed’ entreaty. Player yards offside but runs to Line-O to give him dog’s abuse. Tactical fouls (my team’s speciality). I could go on.

That is, apparently, ‘elite’ sportsmen gaining every ‘edge’ they can. But, in the midst of this, you demand that Referees, on the other hand, must be perfect and never EVER make a single mistake in every minute of every game and every single time they officiate. Anything else is either scandalously incompetent, evidence of clear and deliberate bias against your club, or outright corruption.

Because you hold every one of your own managers and players to the same unrelenting, impossible-to-uphold standards, don’t you?

Managers and players are killing the game.
Mark (What is the point of Celtic in the CL?) MCFC

Oh and pundits…
So last Sunday night, after the weekend of VAR, I turned on the American Football. Eagles v Cowboys, huge rivals, big game, lots at stake for both teams. Numerous calls overturned by the video official including 2 huge decisions – a Cowboys touchdown where the receivers knee was down just before the ball crossed the goal-line and a Cowboys 2 pt conversion attempt where the runners foot was fractionally out of bounds before scoring.

Crucially, no suggestion whatsoever by anyone – players, coaches, fans, pundits – that overturning the on-field calls had somehow undermined the authority of the on field officials. In American Football, there’s an acceptance that the on-field officials make a close bang-bang call in real time. The extra information provided by replay allows the correct decision to be reached. Everybody does their job to the best of their ability and we arrive at the proper outcome in the end. No loss of face. No authority undermined. Good job everybody. Move on.

Compare this to the (real) football. VAR rules out a goal for offside? Oh, the lino got it wrong there. VAR gives a penalty? How did the ref miss that? Oh better nor overturn that decision because it will reflect badly on my mate!

The first (and biggest) thing that needs to be fixed about VAR is this perception of tension/disconnect between the officials on the field and those in the VAR booth. That there’s two distinct refereeing teams and if one is right the other must be wrong. That starts with commentators and pundits and the narratives they create. The emphasis in post match analysis on close calls and controversies is lazy, uninformed punditry. Although after watching the studio goons praising a manager for playing a higher than Willie Nelson line with a team reduced to 9 men last Monday I can understand why they might want to steer clear of talking tactics.

Btw – video refereeing was first introduced in American Football in the ‘80’s. It was abandoned after 4 or 5 seasons because it caused more problems than it solved. It was then reintroduced with lessons learned some years later. So I guess there’s hope for VAR yet.
Conor Malone, Donegal

Justice done?
BvB 2-0 Newcastle = #Justice4Arsenal 😂
Melvoe Adams in Nairobi Kenya

That’s Spurs, lads
“It is better to fail aiming high than to succeed aiming low. And we of Spurs have set our sights very high, so high in fact that even failure will have in it an echo of glory.”

-Bill Nicholson (Ange Postecoglou)
TGWolf (Jesus H Christ you lot like having an opinion about little ole spurs eh)THFC

Do Spurs fans have Stockholm Syndrome?
I have no beef with Spurs, or their fans. I have known plenty of Spurs fans over the years, and they are just your normal, common or garden football fans, full of expectation and optimism, struggling to process information from a neutral perspective and forever looking to see the sunny side when it’s clearly pissing down.

And I am certain that all Spurs fans are sick to death with the concept of “Spursiness”, but having seen the general response to a 4-1 home defeat to a terrible, misfiring side in a local derby having had two players deservedly sent off when the manager went for broke instead of battening down the hatches and trying to squeeze an unlikely point that would have seen them go joint top, it’s hard not to think that years of Spursiness has taken its toll.

I am not suggesting that they should be giving the team or the manager a hard time, but what I have seen has been a, well, celebration of what went on from nearly all of the Spurs fans who have taken the time to comment. And I can only conclude that decades of under-achievement, false dawns and abject failure has had some terrible psychological effect on them.

As a Liverpool fan, I am used to the roller coaster. But the Liverpool roller coaster is at Alton Towers, and the Spurs one is on the pier at Southend-on-Sea.

I am used to backing bad decisions. As much as I didn’t fancy Roy Hodgson as a manager, I toed the “what we need is a safe pair of hands” line. I overlooked, or even sought to excuse much of what Luis Suarez did, to my eternal shame. I know what it is like to have trouble removing the rose coloured spectacles.

But Spurs fans – they go to a whole different level. It’s not far off Stockholm Syndrome. They are so used to failing that when they fail spectacularly, they find reasons to celebrate it and compliment the team. It’s just weird.
Matthew (sorry Tottenham Hotspurers everywhere)

Are we all moving on then?
Stewart, Chicago, LFC invites us all to “accept it and move on”. Well Stewie, I think we pretty much have. One comment though, I see a lot of similarity between Romero’s sending off on Monday night and Jota’s against Spurs. Both take the ball and follow through on the man. Now I think Jota’s impact on the follow through was a bit heavier, but Romero’s looked a little more spiteful. Both were justifiable reds and now I have accepted it and moved on there is really not too much to debate. But, do you think that Liverpool fans will now except that Jota should have been sent off and move on? No, me neither.
Rob (Spurs, obviously)

Obviously not
So when Liverpool are denied by some of the clearest refereeing errors in the history of the league the answer to our (many) complaints? Shut up and get on with it.

But when it’s Arsenal or Spurs or Man United or literally anyone else it’s an apparent disgrace which ruins football.

What happened to ‘shut up and move on’? Finding your own advice hard to swallow?

For the record I wish Klopp would shut up about refereeing, there’s a reason we’ve been top 3 of VAR decisions against table every year (except one) since Klopp went on TV criticising refs. But I also wish that we could all collectively make the same points when it comes to bad refereeing but sadly it’s a real world failure of the prisoners dilemma. If we all agreed these decisions are bad and kicked up a fuss together (even if a rival benefits) we all get a fairer game. Instead every single fan base moans when it’s their team and LOVES it when it’s a rival.

Congrats. Where we are is a result of that. Anytime the refs make a mistake, they’ll privately tell themselves it’s not that bad because only the suffering team fans are complaining. Quite why arsenal and spurs fans feel like slightly contentious decisions will be reffed properly when utterly obvious ones aren’t is a mystery to me. The tone is set now, and this will be the most subjective season yet in premier League, not because of the VAR system but because of the people running it.

Perhaps the strangest thing is that city and Newcastle fans are quiet on reffing issues. I can only assume it’s because they don’t suffer from them as much as others (a look at the VAR table for this season confirms that). I wonder why referees who earn big money in middle Eastern countries give more favourable decisions to middle Eastern owned teams … Mystery that.

This season VAR table so far has :
1. Forest +3
2. Brentford +2
3. City + 2
4. Villa Everton Fulham + 1
5. Arsenal Newcastle chelsea 0
6. Liverpool spurs -1
7. Man United – 4

As you can see the only top six teams to get shafted by VAR this season so far are the ones not connected to middle east or its businesses. Perhaps we should all get a ‘sponsorship’ from petro states ?

The last paragraph was thrown in there for debate, I don’t genuinely believe the middle east influences premier League that much.
Lee

…Can’t believe we’re having to do this again Phil, London.

Brentford Arsenal – the VAR was checking for a potential foul in the build up for the goal and failed to check for an offside later in the move. In the same way that VVD was assaulted by Pickford who wasn’t sent off because the VAR was only checking for a possible offside before the incident. Bad process? Yes, obviously. But this only came to light after the game had finished, as far as I know.

Rashford vs City – the officials made a subjective decision on ‘interfering with play’. Ridiculous, but subjective.

Wolves ‘Robbery’ vs. Liverpool – the referees assistant raised a flag for offside and the onfield decision was upheld as camera angles available to VAR couldn’t conclusively determine that the referee’s assistant was incorrect.

Diaz vs. Spurs – ridiculously quick and unprofessional ‘check’ where the match officials knew that a legitimate goal had been scored within 20 seconds of the review but decided to not advise the referee of this fact.

This is the reason to say it was worse – the match officials knew within seconds that the goal was legitimate and they failed to act to redress this. Where else in your examples was this the case?
James Outram, Wirral