Both penalties were penalties

Few on here seem to have serious issues with self loathing

Got back from New York a few days back ... 3 things from the trip

1) I watched Patrick Vieiras New York City play New England and all I'll say is he should be ruled out of the new manager running based on what I saw as the standard was lower than championship at best and more likely division 2. There's a massive difference between managing there and managing Arsenal and for that reason Henry should be discounted too. Pure romance. (Football does seem to be really catching on in the states though)

2) Watched The Death of Stalin on the plane ... if anybody hasn't seen this yet I highly recommend it as it's hysterical with several LOL type moments

3) I walked from Central Park to little Italy which is some distance and a mate and myself walked into a bar there for a drink and rest. A group of middle aged male and female Americans were sat next to us and deep in conversation. What subject were they discussing? That Arsene Wenger was past it and arsenal should have let him go years ago! I shat you not ! It's just inescapable. I didn't comment or inject just listened

4) Americans eat like frickin horses, I've put on a few pounds that need to be shifted asap!!

I'm not sure I do ; season ticket holders are keeping this idiot at the helm .

I went back to bed straight after the " penalty " so didn't see the other two goals .

Questioned on the empty seats .... Arsene understands " because we are not challenging for the Championship " ... delusional

..... it's because the spectacle is so p**ss poor and sitting through 75 minutes of dross to grab a couple of goals near the end doesn't correct that .

Plenty of loyal Geordies pack St James' Park every week .

They haven't challenged for the title since Keegan was manager and before that when Stanley Matthews was in his prime .

I think this summer is going to be one of those where the really big teams get greedy with their squads and end up releasing some very good players in order to fit in their new expensive plaything.
City will probably be pretty stable, but Real Madrid will certainly make a galactico statement this summer. PSG need to balance the FFP books after 2 £100m+ purchases, Barca are desperate for Griezeman and so will need to move some on. Man U will go for 3-4 big money purchases and Chelsea will go big again with their new manager.

Just watched the 2nd half. Stoke were terrible & our effort was lacking for at least 20 minutes. This is simple not good enough. Special mention to Wellbeck, Chambers & Wilshire who should all be gone at the end of this season if there is any sense at the club.

Long wait at the check in , too many drinks , tiring flight , mixing with Americans can have a profound effect on anyone's judgment .

Never fear ; a week's rest and you'll be back to your irrational best .

No wait at check in mate I flew first class.


Clear pens.

Easter or not, a team challenging for the title will have seats sold out in no time. Wenger is FOS, but most of us already know that. So sad that he has to find excuses every week.

I think #4 is a bait for .............

West Brom have been awful to watch since about 1981, bar that one season when kevin Campbell went there and kept them up. My mates Grandad was their manager in 1954 when they won the cup and finished 2nd in the league.

Only if someone behind him is providing a fairly firm impetus to get the legs moving...

Full blown Poser ... disentangle the Platinum Credit card from the moths and fork out for some new Specs ... Özil dived ...no doubt . Arsene wouldn't have seen it and neither did you .... you two have a lot in common

Its ridiculous because although the defender got the ball first, and therefore it shouldn't have been a penalty, his trajectory, combined with Özil's entire body position meant that the defender was inevitably going to make contact with the attacking player regardless of what Özil did with his feet, short of learning how to fly. The fact is, Özil's foot was till moving towards where the ball had been when it made contact with foot of Martins Indi. It didn't deviate in its path from its backswing, but once in motion kept the same trajectory. The video clearly shows him kicking Martins Indi's foot and then falling. But he couldn't have aimed to initiate contact with the defender's foot, because it wasn't there when he started moving his leg in the line it didn't deviate from.

I haven't seen a single reply that suggests that it was either a dive OR a penalty. It was an excellent tackle for which the defender was extremely unfortunate that the match official guessed rather than doing what he should do and be sure. We were lucky and got one.

And to your final barb, yes had the boot been on the other foot, I would have complained about the referee. But not the attacker. Its an officiating error rather than a dive. The two don't have to go hand in hand. That said, I, having noted the comments of some on here have taken a step back in moaning about refs, despite my belief that there is a systemic problem with EPL refs and the way they are managed (a view reflected by a decent % of ex-refs). But hey, go for the cheap shot, when I call you out for talking rubbish.

MOTD2 highlighted an important issue with regards to refs yesterday. Murphy and Sutton both complained the ref had got it wrong and that he shouldn’t be guessing. Well first of all how do they know he guessed? They were besmirching the ref by saying he’s guessed rather than being sure, when the only person who knows whether he guessed is the ref himself. Murphy and Sutton were the only ones guessing.
But more importantly Murphy and Sutton were taken to task by the presenter who said that they both thought it was a penalty when they saw it first time in real time. The only thing the ref has. This was glossed over by both.
Given the refs position and the player coming in behind I can easily see why it was given.

I also think a defender can touch the ball first and a penalty still be given. I remember a furious reaction when Darren fletcher was sent off and gave away a pen for fouling Fabregas in a champions league match at the emirates and the replay showed fletcher got a minuscule touch on the ball before taking out Fabregas. My point is that if the touch on the ball isn’t a foul then play still goes on, the touch was so small that it didn’t change the path of the ball and the chance for Fabregas to strike at goal was virtually no different towhat he had before the touch. At this point he is then taken out by fletcher who is following through from his original tackle. So at this point he fouls the attacker.

Refs will get more sympathy when they apply the rules no matter the situation. Too many are scared of making a decision they know will likely change the course of a match. Take the situation with Mané at the weekend. Rightly booked for a ludicrous dive then later in the game he thinks he is fouled on the edge of his own box so he does that incredibly annoying thing of grabbing the ball with his hands. If he hadn't done that Palace had two players v 1 on the edge of Liverpool's box, a very dangerous attack without even giving regard for deliberate handball being a yellow card in the laws of the game. The ref lets Mané off, and I'm certain becayse he knows that a player being sent off for a dive and deliberate handball is sure to create headlines especially with a match poised at 1-1.

How often do you see the laws not applied correctly when one team is being absolutely hammered and it is late in the game as well?

Our record with injuries seems to have improved a lot this season. I know we have long standing issues on Cazorla and Koscielny has Achilles problems but I always get more worried by those continuous muscle injuries players who should be in their prime keep getting.

Players like Bellerin, Monreal, Xhaka, elneny, Özil (save for his away day ‘illness’) are pretty resilient to injuries.

The best teams really don’t pick up injuries, spurs best players are hardly ever injured and even when they are they come back much quicker than expected. Kane, alli, Eriksen, Son, dier, vertonghen never injured.

It’s the same for city. De Bruyne, Silva, Walker, sterling, sane, otamendi never injured.

Whether this is the players or the coaching I still look at those lists and see the other teams players as more robust than ours, not just injuries but in the style of play - far more physical

I'm probably wrong and a statistition could well show my view as utter bunk, but I associate the take off in our injury problems as coinciding with Wenger moving from a physically imposing team to ones packed with less robust skillful midgets.

Just clearing out some drawers (what else is there to do when it rains at Easter). Came across this poignant keepsake. Brilliant camaraderie by the forum to get together and fund it. Hard to believe that was back in December 2009.

Yay!!! I thought that I'd lost this. But had just put it 'somewhere safe'

And a final blast from the past

My assumption is the same and I’m sure it has been summarised well on here before.
1. Cheaper players with an injury history
2. Smaller players with less bulk on them to withstand knocks
3. Possession football which invites more tackles

I would love to see a pair of CB and pair of CM of raw power, pace and strength in or side. I think we’d be a hugely better team and more balanced team.

I’m hoping one of the big clubs goes for Pochettino in the summer. Real Madrid could easily be after a new manager and Poch would struggle to turn them down.
I admire the way he has built his team and how he has dealt with the loss of players. As opposed to wenger he has planned well for the loss of key players by having a replacement of sufficient quality either already at the club or transferred in, there is a smooth transition. He has also not rewarded anyone trying the engineer an exit from the club, last year he sidelined Walker towards he end of the season, this year Alderweireld and Rose are getting the same treatment. For those 3 players you have Trippier, Sanchez and Davies stepping in. He’s signed tried and tested Aurier to give himself 2 RB and I expect another Cb and LB in the summer to push the players he currently has - rather than Wenger either signing no one, or a sub standard player and hoping he can pull another rabbit out of the hat.
Pochettino is the most important part of spurs.

LTG this is fantastic

Great share

I've got the Ali cooper Highbury programme. I think it goes when my heart does

My sons won't understand or actually don't

You do spend more time than anyone else on here moaning about refs and only when calls go against us .... so how is that a cheap shot ?

Watch Özil's left foot ... he takes it back to shoot THEN jams it straight into the ground knowing the momentum of the bloke behind will catch him . If he had been genuinely taking shot his foot would have been in the air ....so he's a cheat .

Game , set , match ......... no sandpaper needed for that one .

Don't think Ali ever fought Cooper .

Of course I'm just being the smartarse ... Cooper v Clay to be precise ... in spite of knocking Clay down 'Enry doesn't look to flash .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Coo ... ,_1963.jpg

Nice

West Brom has done us a huge favor and made Pardew available to us for a smooth transition this summer.

yeah Brom ... we managed to stagger to a reasonable score but now it's turned into a bore .

Us desperately stonewalling to eek out a 'glorious' series win by drawing this match ....

Just looked up the game on BBC Sport. It says the game can only go on until 7.04 BST. England needed another three wicket in what was expected to be the final over. I assume they didn't get those wickets.

EDIT: They got one of the three wicket needed to win. So with eight wickets down, New Zealand get the draw they wanted.

Allegri has said his next move will be abroad. He doesn’t say if that will be this summer or not but if it would seem like he could be persuaded this summer. If the board persist with wenger when I manager of this standing might be available would be unforgivable.

Test cricket can be mighty dull. Elgar's innings yesterday must be one of the most boring innings of all time. He scored about 5 runs in the morning session despite SA being 500 ahead at the time. One can see the logic because SA needed to take time out of the game for a number of reasons and didn't need the win. But wow ...

As I read SA wrap up the fourth test. The Aussies will be delighted to get out of there and on the plane home.
Yes there are boring phases of play in Test Match cricket but I still love it more than any other form of the game. Hope it survives somehow in these days of wham bam instant gratification that the sport is becoming.

Nearly 40 years of being awful is a stretch? I know there is not a lot to do in West Bromwich but there must have been something happening on the pitch to keep the fans coming back for more.

That '54 team was excellent - not far off doing the double. Top three of Wolves, WBA and Huddersfield. That won't ever happen again.

We won 5-2 - Bloomfield hat-trick. Lovely!

With West Brom going down and Wolves surely coming up I think it's a shame we won't see the Black Country derby in the Premier League next season.

Indeed. Two good old.clubs. Remember when West Brom had the no smoking sign on their shirts. Brilliant.

Southampton look like they could go down too. Although, they have a very good recent record against us, I've always liked them. Worst of all is that Neil Warnock's Cardiff City could he coming up to the PL.

I couldn't agree more. Passages of play that are so dull they are comical are part of the anachronistic charm of the game.

I've watched that several times and I don't know what you are talking about, Kiwi. The bloke behind him caught him. I don't know how you can attribute this to some sort of cunning plot on Özil's part.