Thanks Arsenal you have ruined my weekend.

Xhaka lost us 2 points. Unfortunate

Yes, and he missed the sitters and made all the refereeing decisions. Totally his fault and I won't hear any different.

Precisely.

don't forget though that had the first handball pen been given, Pieters was already on a yellow so could have been sent off

Well said Ash.

I'm not sure that gets given as a yellow, what for? God you just reminded me of it again, I can't believe VAR. And if the ref gives it, Var never overturns it, but no, he gives the one that hits his shoulder

We need to find a way to string some good performances together. We were very good against Southampton, then had a sluggish game against Man Utd. Then a great first half against Wolves, spoiled by Luiz sending off. Poor game against Villa, then a good performance against Leeds and a decent one against Benfica. Not much to say about the City game, but then we have another poor performance against Benfica, only to follow that up with one of our best performances of the season against Leicester. And we now looked sluggish again. We never seem to get any momentum going.

It did have a massive bearing on the game though.

But as I always say if Arsenal playing badly and a ref screwing us don't have to be mutually exclusive, both can and do happen.
If the ref hadn't given us that penalty against Leicester right on half time there is a good chance we draw that game as well. Would that be Arsenal's fault?
Some games we are going to miss chances, yes it happens too often but that's because we're a mid table team, it happens to everyone but it is totally different than a ref missing a certain penalty that wins the game. I never understand why some Arsenal fans feel we can't point a finger at a referee just because we didn't play well?

At the end of the day he cost us the win. He also cost us the game v them at home. Trying to suggest these individual cock ups didn’t affect results is nonsense in a competitive league.

And that in itself shows the incompetence. We want consistency. We realise that consistency is difficult on subjective decisions between two different referees, or even from the same referee in different games, but for the same ref to call those two incidents as he did within 5 minutes of each other and get them both totally wrong - and then the var ref not to correct him on the first one just shows the level of awful officiating we're having to put up with.

VAR on the whole has created more correct decisions but the other thing it has done is completely expose how bad our refs are.

I said it was a dreadful decision. So I am 'pointing a finger' at the ref. But surely you can see that the ref's decision should have been an aside. We threw away the points.

Horrible game especially in the 2nd half.
So so stressful.
The missed Pépé air shot
The umpteen blocks from Burnley players.
The penalty you thought was a penalty before *%^@*** realising it is his *%^@*** shoulder.
Then the penalty that should have been and the utter frustration that those idiotic var pricks dont give it.
The missed saka chance to kill the game off.
Then brainless playing it around and not hoofing the ball up the pitch.
Just our own worst enemies and sabotage ourselves once again.
Feels like a defeat.
Think top 7 has gone now

Arteta is right. "if you give any hope to a team in the Premier League they are going to take it.” And we keep doing that.

I suppose the main point is that we are improving.

Of course we created enough chances to win the game and can certainly blame ourselves but there is rarely a bigger chance to score a goal in a game than a penalty. Technically we did create that penalty chance, had it been correctly given and we scored and won 2-1 we'd all be sat here very happy and saying a deserved win based on the dominance we had in the game.
So a ref getting the wrong decision is the fundamental thing that has cost us two points and completely sways the way that game is now viewed.

In other news...
https://www.yahoo.com/news/fifa-gamer-b ... 39251.html

It also feels like we're in one of those horrible periods where every defensive mistake we make is punished with a goal. We never seem to get let off right now. I don't actually see us make many defensive clangers in games but the ones we are making are resulting in goals which isn't always the case. Yes we've got to cut them out but the reality is we're only making 1 or so a game.

https://twitter.com/skysportspl/status/ ... 12?lang=en

This was given as handball earlier in the season for Leicester

It’s exactly that, they looked deflated and mentally beaten and then bang they are straight back in it.

Without the cock up we win that game 2 or 3 nil

I think that decision to not award a penalty today is probably up there with the worst I've seen against us since the Sokratis winning goal was ruled out v Palace a couple of seasons ago, the one where var ref invented a foul by Chambers.

I do think Arsenal have not had the rub of the green with a lot of decisions this year, viewed in isolation many people may make a case for each of those decisions being correct, but then we see time and time again the same instances with the opposite decision up and down the league.

For my money apart from this penalty the worst decision we've had was to rule out a Lacazette near post header v Leicester because VAR deemed Xhaka to be offside and blocking the GK vision. He obviously wasn't and tellingly not a single Leicester player was appealing for it as the goal went in. If a defender or GK have any whiff of thinking they can get a goal chalked off their arms are straight up in the air pleading for all their worth. Another terrible decision

What a disheartening game. Just when you think a victory would really set us up for a crucial run of fixtures, we contrive to throw the game away and it feels like a defeat. I feel a bit sorry for Arteta today as we had good chances, bad luck and that's not his fault. For Xhaka to be involved in yet another calamatous event makes you feel for all his positive atributes he is an unlucky player.

Despite the obvious candidates of Xhaka and VAR for me the game’s turning point came earlier than that. If Saka had stuck away that glorious chance in front of goal I believe that we would have nailed that match stone dead.

I thought Pablo Mari and Chambers were excellent today.

Partey shows moments of absolute brilliance but does misplace some passes and get caught in possession a little too much at the moment. Hope its rustiness and adjusting to the pace of he PL.

Kante at Anfield during the week. His hand was by his shoulder when the ball struck it. No peno given. The one in the Chelsea v Man U game last week. Peno not given. The handball rule is plain stupid to the extent that there has been an attempt to change the interpretation mid-way through the season.

Let's stop pretending we are unique victims.

Also, not handball-related but in the overall context of refereeing, cheating is absolutely endemic in the game and those running the game have completely reinterpreted the degree of physical contact which qualifies as foul play. Refereeing is not easy when half of what they are officiating on is fakery.

Thought john was right and Partey had a good first half but looked sluggish second

I do wonder if it’s one of those situations where once the season is over he’s sent away immediately to have a mystery operation the moment a last ball is kicked

Feels like they've changed it more than once too. The only justification I can see for not giving that penalty today is because the distance between Pépé and Pieters isn't big enough. Fair enough if that's how you want the rule to be applied, but I've seen a dozen penalties given this season that completely ignores that part. It's just an inconsistent mess at this point.

I think you are right about that. And about not getting the rub of the green with decisions. We were quite unlucky today. I do feel this side is better than our form suggests, and that we might well 'click' if we can just get that confidence to manage games and see them out. But today's game is exactly the sort we need to win, scrappily or otherwise.

I'm not sure it's actually fair to change a rule like that halfway through a season. Some teams will have definitely have benefitted from the earlier interpretation.

I felt that was probably a pen today but if the interpretation has changed I hope we do not see the same situation rewarded with a pen in subsequent games involving other teams or it makes a mockery of the revised law.

I kind of agree with this but at the end of the season the table doesn't lie so let's see where we finish.

Evening Socrates.
I'm giving Arteta a pass this season. If we are still floundering around in mid table in November, it will be another matter!

There have been a number of arguments about whether it is Arteta more to blame or the players more to blame for us being 10th. I think today shows it is far more on the players. Yes, Arteta has made mistakes and you can say 'he is the one continually picking these poor players' but that isn't really fair, what other option does he have than to work with the players we have - and by and large his transfers have far more hits than misses considering the budget he's had to work with (He's bought 8 players in for an average of udner £10m per player)
Arsenal seem to continue to fall to individual errors, how can a coach mitigate for that other than buying new players? I'm not absolving Arteta from blame but it is absolutely clear to me that we simply need better players because the ones we have whilst capable of looking ok for a few games are always liable to mess something up, some of them have done it for 3 different managers now.

Henry said that Guardiola told him that he (Pep) brings the ball to the final 3rd, then it is effectively over to Henry to score the goal.

The policy is to play out from the back. The problem is we don’t have the technicians to do it if Xhaka thinks he can take 2 touches in his own penalty area and expect someone not to be on him. It’s on him. Sorry

But if you’re right and we don’t have the players to play out from the back, why is it Arteta’s policy for the team to do so? I assume you’re not claiming the players have taken it upon themselves to play out from the back against Arteta’s wishes, as that would be beyond laughably ridiculous. So doesn’t Arteta have to share some of the blame, however much you want to point the finger solely at Xhaka?

The FA have released a statement saying the arsenal penalty wasn’t given due to the ‘close proximity’ of Pépé/ball/Pieters. I think that is nonsense post justification in an attempt to defend their officials in any way.
Pieters is running at Pépé with his arms out in an unnatural position. This was not a case of ‘he had no time to react’ or ball just kicked straight at his hand. It is 100% a handball
That exact situation will be given as a penalty later this season and almost certainly has already.

It is nonsense. It looks borderline deliberate. He can see where the ball is before Pépé flicks it and he moves his arm towards that spot. How anyone can claim it wasn't at least extremely careless of Pieters to have his arms flailing about towards the ball like that, is beyond me.

If they applied the proximity thing consistently, which they won't, it would effective give defenders a licence to spread their arms to make themselves a bigger block, once they are within a couple of feet. They could get away with charging kicks down, like in rugby!

https://twitter.com/SalibaEra_/status/1 ... 94276?s=09

When you see it like this it's clear and evident our not friend is an idiot.

Been really impressed with Pépé.
Now looks a real threat and been more consistent. Hope he starts on thursday

We have been done good and proper by Kevin Friend and his cronies.
Utter scumbags

Was just thinking
Would a season out of Europe be a good thing or bad thing?
Finance wise obviously bad but would it harm us on the pitch.
More saturday kick offs.
More free weeks.