Even the stupid presenter on Be - in sports was gushing over Spurs .
Could hear the glee in her voice.
Really hope we ram it down all these so called pundits throats.
Really gets my goat.

Glad I didn’t watch that. Turned my phone on at 9.40 to find out the result. Think that’s it lads. Don’t see it with what we’ll have at our disposal at the back. Know nothing of the game, of the performance other than the headline.

We are going to blow it aren't we.
I'm OK with Europa.
At least its a competition we can genuinely win.
The only downside is missing out on the huge finances and better players though we are still a draw even in the europa league

Totally agree.

Feels like that’s it. To summarise it was like our champions league final a bit, a red ruined it but the ref gave them the game with a weak pen.

This year I’ve been so invested about this side. I love our young players and if I’m brutally honest I love our young manager too. Nobody sticks up for him. Every week they fight for each other, I haven’t seen that for years since the early wenger years but for me the more natural comparison is with out 89 side because they are so young and it feels fresh

Our last 2 wins at the ems sparked massive drink ups at the hammerton brewery and pubs around the cally. We thought we had it but there’s no shame for this young team. ARM the manager it will rip next year.

Is this a pen yes or no ?

https://twitter.com/afcamden/status/152 ... kPlCwQTcsg

You could give it, if you want to give 3-4 penalties per game. If not, then no.

I think Newcastle will be difficult but it’s in our hands. People seem to suggest Spurs have both their remaining games won. They have Burnley, admittedly at Home but I think they will happily kick chunks off them and it may not be as easy as they think.

I can’t help thinking our decision to get the game on its original date postponed has come back to bite us on the bum. Son wouldn’t have played on that date (16th January) and I would rather play Tottenham without him than with him.

Points wise we couldn’t have done any worse. Hypothetically it isn’t impossible we’d have lost 4-0 rather than 3-0. But against Tottenham without Son, I simply don’t think we would.

Once again with the red card for us the ref was over quick as a flash itching to being out the second yellow. We never get the benefit of the doubt with these, no final warning nothing. You can justify it just as you can justify Som being sent off for an elbow at 0-0.
Essentially there were 3 or so big decisions that were all subjective and tight calls that all went spurs way. If he’d given them all the opposite way we probably don’t lose that game and you’d have ex refs lining up to justify each of the decisions
Son was silly to throw an elbow back gave the ref no choice
Not enough contact from Cédric or son
Holding skating a fine line but not quite enough to justify a second yellow

Hammering this ridiculous line is thicker than a Boxing Day turd. We’d have lost anyway with only 13 players

Big must win game away from home. Idiotic play that will get the crowd up and baying for blood, a soft penalty and a red card. Where have I seen this before. Hmmm

Made the right call to not lose sleep over it though and in a dream I had, Arteta had relaced his boots and we lost 5-3 so could be worse.

I think we have blown it but thankfully it's still in our hands.

Conte on Arteta:

"Mikel Arteta is a really good coach. He's just started to do this job and I listen to him complain a lot. He has to be focused more on his team and not to complain, because he's just started this work. He has to be calm and try to continue to work."

Coming from the guy who was literally yellow carded for complaining during the match.

I can’t wait for the day I see a reporter grow balls big enough to give these managers something back or call them out on this stuff. It will never happen because they get blocked by that manager, it’s what Fergie did and why everyone brown nosed him so much

How the hell can you say that? Points wise we could not have done any worse. FACT! Tottenham would not have had Son on 16th January. They did today.

The commentary I listened to kept going on about the goal difference, without realising that it would take an unlikely set of results for the goal difference to come in to play.

No it isn’t: Spurs weren’t particularly playing well and Arteta was trying to await Partey return. We played a couple of days later. We will never know but you are totally wrong to say we would have lost. We simply don’t know. I know one thing I would always rather play them without Son.

Total loser

Come on Arteta and Arsenal!
Get charged up for the last 2 games.
We have the quality to win them.
It is in our hands!

I’ve watched that penalty and the red card many times now and they really are the decisions that you have to ‘want’ to give as a referee. It feels the same as so many of the decisions, particularly red cards, that have gone against us this season.
And we also have to witness genuinely bad fouls against us not be punished with a red. The Bruno Fernandes was outrageous that he didn’t walk and there are countless others up and down the league not just against us.

Ex ref Mark Clattenburg on the penalty

This was a defining decision in a match with so much riding on the result and I'm not sure I would have given this. Technically, Paul Tierney wasn't wrong.
We were shown a replay of what the referee could see from behind and it looked like a nudge in the back from Cédric Soares on Son Heung-min.
But if we're going to give this as a penalty, I could find plenty of other examples when the same 'foul' has occurred in the box in other games.
The inconsistency is frustrating because when this happens next week in another Premier League game, will it be given? Maybe. Maybe not. Unfortunately for Arsenal, Tierney considered it a clear foul

He also said he agreed with the Holding red card. Unfortunately no mention of the Son elbow and his view on that

https://twitter.com/kissethfc/status/15 ... v7uXjDMbNQ

Poor dive from Nketiah, but he’d got the situation where he could have forced a penalty. Dier had dived in nowhere near the ball, just alter his run slightly and make sure there is contact. Kane or Son or any number of Liverpool players would have made sure they got a penalty from this situation, you only have to look at the one Jota got, pushes the ball past the gk then changed the direction of his run to collide with the gk

We’ve got more streetwise but this and holding not milking the elbow are areas we need to be much smarter. Penalties and reds hugely influence matches and we’re still conceding more than we get. We have to be forcing the ref and var much more

Hi Rich,

By the letter of the law the pen was a pen, there was a shove from Cédric. However, if you give that you have to be consistent and start giving pens for all the wrestling, pushing, holding, grappling, blocking that goes on in the penalty box at any set piece.

Holding's sending off was just sheer stupidity, which you could see coming almost from the first whistle. As soon as he got a yellow my thought was he needs to be taken off because he's a red card waiting to happen. He even had several warnings along the way but failed to heed any of them.

The sending off was the defining moment of the game and even then we weren't quick enough to react to it and get our new formation sorted and, as a result, were suddenly out of the game at 2-0 down with 10 men.

It still is in our hands. With a point lead currently, we have to at least match Tottenham’s points total in the last two games. Whatever points they get against Burnley at home and Norwich away, be it zero (two defeats), one (a draw and a loss), two (a couple of draws), three
(a win and a loss), four (a win and a draw) or six (a couple of wins as five points in two matches isn’t possible), we have to at least equal it.

Burnley will be fighting for their lives. Maybe Rich is right when he said Everton may well be safe by their last game at the Emirates. Theoretically that will be to our benefit as it removes the ‘must not lose’ motivation from them.

But however hard Burnley are desperate for something (points wise) from their game at Tottenham, I still believe the most logical prediction is a Tottenham win, with another win at Norwich simply because they’re the worst team in the Premier League (a polite way of saying utter garbage).

If so we are likely to not only have to beat Everton (which is surely the most logical prediction), but Newcastle away. It’s doable, but winning at St Jame’s Park worries me. Sure they’ve nothing much to play for. But they’ve improved dramatically under Howe and in front of their vocal home crowd, for Arsenal to probably (I see that as a more appropriate word to use than ‘possibly’) needing to win there looks bloody difficult to me.

Good Morning Bernard. What was your impression of their stadium? And was exiting the ground better managed by the police than in the past?

Morning Bored. Must admit I was less impressed with it from the inside than I was the time before when I saw it from the outside. Indeed, maybe I’m being unfair but last night I didn’t even think it looked as good from the outside than I did the first time when I happened to be in the area so went and had a look. If the Emirates is tarted up positively when the images of former legends with arms around each other’s shoulders as though in a wall defending a free kick outside the area are replaced, as I read is happening, I even think our ground could well look better from the outside.

I have to admit the away end is presumably the worst section of the internal ground. That seems logical. The seats are cheap plastic rather than the nice seats at the Emirates (although a safe standing area the seats were still there, which as far as I’m concerned shows this safe standing stuff is a load of nonsense). Is that the case at the Emirates? I don’t know as the away end is the one area of the ground I don’t remember being in, even for the numerous stadium tours I’ve done.

Which again may make my view of Tottenham’s new ground a bit unfair. But overall, from what I saw of it, the ground wasn’t as good as I was expecting it to be. Having said that, it does have one very big plus point over the Emirates. The stands are much nearer the pitch.

Please stop talking rubbish. The red was thoroughly deserved. Holding was simply too wound up. Frankly disappointed to see Arteta whining about the ref. We were 2nd best. End of.

It wasn’t the red it was the weak pen that started it.

Honestly there’s several penalties every game if you are giving them. We get a hard time off the refs end of

I was impressed by the stadium, particularly inside. It felt much bigger and grander than The Emirates largely because their roof rises to allow every spectator a view of the whole arena. The big stand behind the goal is quite a sight. Also, the three bands of advertising screens above the perimeter pitch boards gave the arena a real sense of sparkle and vibrancy. Because of planning restrictions, our roof falls inwards, which keeps the overall height of the stadium low but restricts the long views within the bowl.

Have to admit I quite liked the ‘safe standing’. The only difference between the standing and seating areas is the presence of a rail at about belt height. You’d always expect to stand at that sort of game but the rail definitely made it easier. It should really be re-named ‘comfortable standing’ as opposed to ‘safe standing’. I don’t see that it’s in any way safer.

I was in Row 12 I think, so quite low in terms of what I’m used to, and the rake of the terracing seemed quite shallow. There was a sense that when the action was at the other end, the two massive screens above the stands tended to draw the eye. I found them a bit of a distraction rather than a viewing aid.

I thought exactly the same. When Tottenham scored their third at the other end of the pitch, as the ball was running free to Son my eyes glanced up to the screen. So I was actually watching the third goal on the screen rather than directly on the pitch.

Last night's game showed up a lot of our current, well documented weaknesses which need addressing asap. Arteta and the management team have a lot of work to do.

BUT, if you'd told me at the start of the season we'd be going into the last two matches, in 4th place by a point, AHEAD of Sp*rs and Man Utd., and only 4 points behind Chelski, I'd have laughed at you.

I think, despite all the issues he's faced (some self-generated) and still has to face, Arteta has convinced me he's the right man for us for the next couple of seasons at least. For a first time manager, taking on a massive club, he's done great.

Still some way to go I know, but Rome wasn't built in a day. (And never will be up the Seven Sisters Road).

COYG

Like always, I’d be happy with those decisions if they are consistent

https://twitter.com/kickarsehd/status/1 ... Oju3qtLD3w

Here is the same ref, Tierney, deciding this wasn’t a shove by a spurs player in the Liverpool game but decided Cédric’s one last night was. There’s no explanation other than feeling the pressure to give the home side the decision in both cases. Weak ref. Same ref who failed to send off Kane in the same game.

No we don't. We have had a discipline issue for a while. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYqZxC80RoM This is arguably a straight red. Holding could have picked up a 2nd yellow sooner. I like Holding but he knew Son had him for pace and decided to rough him up. As for the pen, I have seen them given as they, and not given. Can you definitely say it wasn't a penalty? No. It was soft unfortunately. We were second best and deserved to lose that game. No ifs, buts maybes about it. We should be good enough to win the next two games. The barcodes will be tricky but City hammered and just possible their heads are at the beach. That leaves a home game against Everton we should win. If we end up in the Europa we'll only have ourselves to blame.

I’d say it was half way between a yellow and a red. Some may call it an orange. On it’s own a yellow was quite lenient but a straight red would have been quite harsh.

I've just watched the first half in a booth in the pub - no sound, just the visuals, repeats and slo-mos. Couple of thoughts:

If Tierney can find justification for giving a pen for that Cédric 'shove' then he's just saving time. He was going to give a pen for something so it may as well be that. 10 a game, those challenges.

Son gets away with stuff in a way that our players just don't. He wasn't innocent in either of Holding's bookings, nor indeed in the incidents that led up to them. The first yellow was barely a foul. On the second, I thought Harding aimed to block Son's run and moved his shoulder into the space where he expected Son's shoulder to be. There's nothing wrong with a shoulder charge, nor indeed stepping across to block a run. But Son had ducked. His head was way below where it should've been. A lot is made of 'un-natural position' when it comes to hand ball in the box. That challenge looked violent only because Son had - wittingly or unwittingly - engineered the head contact by his un-natural position. No foul for me.

https://twitter.com/now_arsenai/status/ ... Oju3qtLD3w

The inconsistency clips can keep coming. A running theme with the likes of Kane and Son continually getting away with this

Agreed Gunfire. The penalty was harsh I’d say but apart from that no complaints, we were second best as you say. I simply don’t buy the theory that premier league refs have some sort of anti Arsenal vendetta.

I’m naive enough to believe that there is not a vendetta.

However the inconsistencies in refereeing across the entire league are numerous. We generally don’t seem to get the rub of the green but supporters of most clubs believe that.

For a long time I have felt that penalties and sending offs are too draconian in their effect when compared to the offence. 10 vs 11 games are a travesty, especially when the duration of the shortfall is variable. A red card in the first minute is immensely more than a red card in the 91st minute. It would be better to have the player substituted and suspended.

The thing is LTG, apart from whether balls have crossed a line and so on, so many refereeing decisions are subjective judgments. That isn’t to say referees don’t make bad decisions sometimes. But so often there are relevant questions either way about what a decision should have been. Rich is as biased as hell so isn’t the best person from which to get a fair view on a referee’s performance. Indeed, his comments about referees of games not involving Arsenal strike me as often being based on trying to show the referees in Arsenal matches have performed poorly.

I would agree with Gunfire and Bromley’s general views on this topic. I also remain to be convinced Arsenal consistently suffer unfairly due to referees.

From Fabrizio Romano
Talks ongoing between Arsenal and São Paulo for Brazilian winger Marquinhos [2003]. New meeting took place today, there are still details to discuss before full agreement

Fee around €3m - São Paulo need to sell Marquinhos or they will lose him on a free.