So we are agreed the that refs are overly swayed by reputations and whether or not someone is England captain.
In my book that is a real problem. The booking against Villa was ridiculous. You can't book someone because they are being irritating.
Xhaka isn't even a particularly dirty or violent player.

But surely you can see you are doing the same?

I’m highlighting his issue here to bring it to end. He does this everytime the bloke is mentioned and his problem needs to be highlighted otherwise he won’t get the help he needs.

Yes we agree entirely the villa booking was unjust and as I said he’s suffering from cultivating a poor reputation. He is unfortunately a bit of a dirty player with an antagonistic style which I like a bit of but he’s so obvious with it it’s a liability.

I started responding to your posts about Xhaka. I’m now talking of your obsessive compulsive disorder about him.

8 now.

Spurs really do worry me….
Newcastle h
Brentford a
Leicester h
Liverpool a
Burnley h
Norwich a
Brighton h
villa a
Us a
At the moment Spurs can get maximum 78 points.
Hand on heart i can see them winning every game apart from Liverpool villa(hopefully) and us.
If they lose to liverpool and draw against us and villa that will give them 71 points.
Hopefully brentford can give them a similar game to the one they gave us!

Im convinced we will win our remaining 4 home games(brighton , utd , leeds and everton) which takes us to 66.

That leaves us with 6 away games to get 6 more points from palace , southampton ,chelsea , west ham , newcastle and spurs..
Surely we can get those 6 points…..all speculation and so many twists and turns to come. going to be *%^@*** nervy and looks like spurs have the easier run in.

What do you guys think???

Can we agree that both things can be true. Xhaka has a propensity to commit a cynical foul and has a flawed tackling technique that does get him in trouble with refs - but also even given all of that he is still one of the most harshly treated players in the league and it certainly does feel he is picked on by refs.

On Saturday he was hard done by with that booking. Generally his punishments seem justified and recently referees seem to be adopting a zero tolerance approach to him but that hadn’t been my point. My point was he cultivated this reputation rightly that is now affecting him.

I had the misfortune of seeing the highlights from the game we lost 6-0 v Chelsea. Wenger’s 1000th game I think and the one where the ref sent off the wrong Arsenal player. If you can bear it it is worth watching for the sheer openness of our defence and midfield. 7 minutes in we were 2-0 down from Chelsea being able to run 2v2 or 3v3 against our defence who are exposed and all over the place. Compare that to the structure we have now it’s chalk and cheese, we don’t get exposed like that at all. Of course there will still be individual mistakes but the defensive structure and discipline is miles better now.

But ex refs have admitted they have past reputation in mind. So if Xhaka had been given the benefit of the doubt for his first ever red card he’d be more likely to get it again for his next red and that just increases exponentially every time the ref has to make a decision against him. For the opposite effect look at Harry Kane who has put some very poor tackles in his career and regularly does things on the pitch which I’d consider dangerous. Or take for example Son at spurs who only has 1 fewer red card than Xhaka in the premier league. Is Son portrayed as ill disciplined and reckless? Does Son get 6 yellow cards for 13 fouls because he has a bad red card rep?

At least the illustrious Xhaka will wear the Swiss armband against England this Saturday.

Maybe he can two-foot Kane, take the red and be back for the World Cup.

Vieira has been inducted in to the premier league hall of fame, 7th player in. Henry and Bergkamp already in there.

I think I would argue with anyone to say that Vieira is the greatest central midfielder in the premier league ever. I think people’s views get a bit skewed with the formation for 3 man midfields now where midfielders can decide if they don’t want to be good at attacking or defending, Vieira did it all in a 2 man midfield. He’s known as a tough tackling, physically dominant leader but that underplays the skill and touch he had, not to mention his cool finishing ability 1v1. Other fans will throw out names like Scholes, Keane, Gerrard, Lampard but Vieira bested them all in my opinion.

Maybe put in a few fouls on Saka to cheer Steve Gerard up.

On the other hand, we finished 4th that season, 7 pts behind the champions and lost fewer games than we have this season. And we won the FA Cup.

Try adding up all of yours unless you want to be a hypocrite.

And in 2011/12, the season we lost 8-2 at Old Trafford, we finished third. Strange days.

It is in our hands, but can't count the chickens until they are hatched
I am also worried they can win most of these games

Xhaka was unfairly booked in the Villa match. Unfortunately his reputation precedes him.

Rich, having a few minutes to kill, I thought I'd check how the forum felt about Xhaka's red card against Swansea at the time. One or two interesting reactions...

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=6&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=459480

9. Seek help

Haha Thanks for that. Some of those frustrations are the same things we’re discussing now. Ex refs tying themselves in knots to agree with the onfield decision, precedents being set for arsenal players and never seen again…..I’m pleased that at least I stayed consistent in my view of the incident….

To use a phrase that often gets overused Viera would take games by the scruff of the neck at times. When he was in the mood he ruled the midfield imperiously.

Can you honestly not see the hypocrisy of you saying this?

10. Seek help

Any responses to a post about granit where you lay out a dozen posts of accusations following it when this is your problem meets this course of action now.

Unlike Too Gun who said this in post 459488.

Haha who’s obsessive ?

No it isn’t. It is YOU who cannot stop moaning about Xhaka. You cannot let it rest about him.

As I said, he gave a talk at an AST do recently. I’ve heard he spoke very well. But that is what I’ve heard, not my view because I didn’t bother watching it. That can only show I’m not really interested in him or his views. I simply respond to your grossly over the top criticisms.

Clearly you are.

Yes, Bernard, but that was before Top Gun became obsessed with Xhaka, back when he treated him just like every other Arsenal player. I remember those halcyon days.

Thats up to 12 now. Seek help

All in response to a post suggesting the guy had created his own reputation. Few would disagree with this but still you continue

Bernard, his own post of 7 March 2022 gave the best advice on any issue he even mentions: just ignore everything he says. I have found it an easy mantra to apply.

Wahay I’ve been waiting for the forum imbecile to try and pile on.

.. but you still comment all the time

https://twitter.com/Mikega2020/status/1 ... 15r-H51LFQ

Wow, I sat open mouthed listening to this. How do these views even still exist in football?

This Mings tackle on Saka to me is clear what has happened. Mings knows he is going to get there first, he knows he can almost certainly stay on his feet and get there first and pass the ball and collide in to Saka afterwards with both of them on their feet, he chooses to use the excuse that he knows he's going to win the ball cleanly to take the cowards approach and make it a sliding tackle to ensure eh a) gives more protection to himself and b) makes sure he leaves something on Saka.
Nicol manages to say this is all Saka's fault that he got injured by this. Absolutely amazing. As for the other no mark in the video - just wow

Also, the acid test as always, ask yourself if Mings was about to collide with his own team mate would he has done so in the manner he did v Saka? Or would he have braced his body, belt his leg, lowered his studs to minimise the impact?

Is he really talking about Saka when he says it doesn't take much for him to come off in a game?

'He's had quite a few knocks where he hasn't played the next game, for two or three weeks' - according to Saka's injury history on transfermarkt, he's missed a total of two games in three seasons due to injury. From my memory, I'm not sure I can think of a single game where Saka hasn't been available for selection.

Top Gun on Xhaka's red card against Swansea in 2016: 'For gods sake it's not a red, it just isn't.'

Hi TG, tell us again how you feel about that decision.

I already have. As I said to Rich yesterday I thought it was a debatable decision out of all the reds, I still think it is but still but my position on this has loosened several years down the line of watching the bloke accumulate more yellows than Putin has tanks. I’m more philosophical. You have a player who walks round the pitch properly doing other players if he loses the ball to avoid his limitations being exposed. If you go to Arsenal week in and week out you know this. The refs now know this. He’s gonna get reds and yellows, some time he will deserve them, others not. A bloke broke into the London zoo a few years back and stuck his head in a lions mouth and got mauled. Let’s all scream at the zookeeper eh.

Son just scored a stunner for Korea in their WC qualifier against Iran. We need to watch out for his long range shots when we play Spurs.

lol