VAR is for the benefit of TV companies not the game. It provides constant content for Sky and BT. It works well for close offside calls that the linesman has missed. I'm not talking about the hairline nonsense but the regular ones where a linesman had a blocked view or the move was just too fast. The rest is just nonsense.

When VAR was bought in I thought the tag line was for it to correct clear and obvious errors. It obviously has done that many times and everyone is pretty happy with that - a case in point would be Aubameyang's goal at Man U which was at least 4 yards onside being over turn. But as you say, this constant debate over hairline offsides is nonsense. One of the first ones this season was Sterling given offside by I think it was something like 4-5cm. Great that the technology is capable but we're stil relying on a human to stop the tape at the exact moment the ball was played. The foot is in contact with the ball for more than a nano-second so it is impossible to judge. On that Sterling goal they worked out that if you worked out the time delay between each frame of tape against the speed Sterling was running at the time and an allowance for not knowing exactly when the ball has left the assisters foot there was a huge margin for error which could have easily meant Sterling was actually onside by a foot rather than offside by a few cm. And that's just offside.

I think its imperative we have some form of European football next season.
Europa it looks like is our best bet.
For 'prestige ' for finance reasons and a chance for the whole squad to get games and a back door route to get into the champions league.
Suffice to say not happy to see f####king sheff utd just get a late winner v wolves.
A draw in that game would have been a better result for us.
A win yesterday would have put us above wolves on goal difference but still within touching distance 2 points behind them.
6th is definitely a possibility where wolves lie now.
We need to get something against spurs and liverpool before ending with 2 winnable games v villa and Watford.
Sheff utd and wolves have tricky games to come as well.
So top 7 is possible.
Top 8 if city ban is upheld.
5th unfortunately has gone.

Cant forget bloody spurs either

We almost certainly do need to keep them all.
I suppose if we manage to find a young player from abroad who we can buy for the same price we can sell a 'lesser' young academy talent from our squad then that's where the trades and upgrades can happen.
They're out there is you scout well and hard enough.

I said last night I could guarantee I could find a number of examples of similar but worse tackles as Nketiah and they would not be red cards, even with VAR reviews - some might not even be reviewed.

It took less than 24 hours.....check out this from Tarkowski!
https://twitter.com/leemarkjudges/statu ... 2841219072

Michael Oliver is ref Sunday, Paul Tierney on VAR. No Mike Dean anywhere this coming weekend.

I was all for VAR and as you say, it was supposed to correct obvious errors. If an incident has to be replayed over and over in slow motion from multiple angles, then it is still guesswork. So what we have now is a pretence of fairness to forgive poor officiating and add to the circus. It's a shitshow.

Is Paul related to our Kieran?

Arsenal need to use that Tarkowski tackle last night as evidence in the Nketiah appeal they are making.

Can't see it doing any good. These are rarely overturned. I think the only possibility would be if the ref said he made a mistake and that won't happen.

The threat of an additional one match ban is another thing that annoys me. It's like the teacher in school giving extra homework for backchat.

Disagree. One year with no Mid Week European games helped Klopp and Liverpool immensely a few seasons back..

You are right, Liverpool finished 8th with no European football and then got CL football next year with a 4th place finish and no distractions.
They balanced their summer transfer market by spending and receiving about £75m. That was mainly down to somehow getting £60m for Benteke, Ibe and Joe Allen. As much as they have bought well it is Liverpool's selling even more so that has got them where they are now

I would suggest it's a waste of time and an unnecessary distraction to even bother appealing. Although it's obviously a debatable point, there is a clear case for a red being appropriate and unfortunately for us that's what happened.

At the time I felt the red card was harsh. But seeing it again, I can see both sides of the argument. Moreover, the huge majority of the moans about Nketiah’s sending off seems to be coming from Arsenal fans, who will mostly be biased. Unless I’m mistaken, the views of allegedly unbiased pundits or reporters seem largely to be that the dismissal was justified. Like dec, I can easily see this leading to an extension of his ban for making a frivolous appeal.

I think I agree overall, we’re unlikely to overturn the decision, there could be value however in not being a soft touch. Like you might not stop the bully taking your lunch money but you make it the hardest £2.50 they’ve ever got and next time maybe they think twice. We’ve absolutely got something to complain about given the inconsistency in this decision compared to across the board, the Tarkowski tackle came in a narrow win for Burnley where they literally leapfrogged us into 7th place. High stakes for us. With the tackles per yellow card starts for and against you’ve stated before and the last last man tackles that only Luiz gets sent off for we’ve got an argument that needs to be heard based on hard statistics and just maybe referees think twice before they shaft us on the first tackle.

We're rumoured to be after Malang Sarr, he's just left Nice on a free transfer. Left footed CB, only 21, over 100 appearances in the French Ligue 1.
As rumours go that sounds pretty believable in the current climate

Thought Ndombeles tackle was worse than Eddies. Yellow only

I thought exactly the same. These forceful sliding lunges only ever get yellows though - as long as the studs aren't half way up the leg. But in terms of the force of that sort of tackle vs what Nketiah did they're incomparable. As soon as you leave your feet then you are not in control of your body or your momentum. Reminded me of the shocker that Creswell put in on Pépé at West Ham's ground this season. No mention because it is juts seen as a hard old fashioned english league tackle

Real Madrid have transferred Luka Jovic. Bought him for £60m, only 2 goals in 25 games, but was flying for Frankfurt the year before. I'm sure there will be other suitors but I wonder if we sold Lacazette for example that it might be worth a gamble to bring him on loan for a year considering the budget we're operating under

Spurs failed to have a single shot on target at Bournemouth. They are really awful at the moment, we need to beat them on Sunday, no better chance.
If Arteta wanted to be really bold he could put Tierney in the left side of the back 3, have Saka at left-wing back and play a front 3 of Aubameyang/Lacazette/Pépé.
You'd have to thin Pépé comes back in the side after missing the last 2 games. No need to change Xhaka/Ceballos in the middle

During the glory days when we went years without losing to sperz in the league, I was nervous about each derby because I feared that game would end the streak.

Since then and they were beating us, often regularly so, now I'm not as nervous about the game. I still hate losing to them. You never get used to it or accept it but I'm not as nervous because we are not the same Arsenal.

My apologies for falling asleep at the wheel for so long.

Hee hee