What about when he is given a decision to make potentially in our favour and doesn’t? Plenty of those shockers this season that have decided matches

Whatever one may think of Xhaka, whether he’s just stupid, mitigated against by the referees, plain unlucky or a combination of them all the fact is, he is a liability. So do we offload him or get a couple of AG’s mates from Philly and make Mike Riley an offer he can’t refuse.

I know which option I would prefer if it was realistic.

We were great today. Some of the refereeing decisions seemed a bit baffling but i'm biased. The penalty looked like a dive from where I was sitting but if Xhaka did tug his shirt its hard to blame the ref if he gives the penalty. Before the match I would have taken a draw, but at half time I would not because we were comfortably dominating the game. From about 70 mins onwards I felt it was inevitable that City would score, so I wasnt surprised when they finally did. But overall there was much to be optimistic about. I really hope KSE buy a top striker and an upgrade for Xhaka, because it feels like the significant improvement the team has made must be continued and backed. Its a shame Tottingham got a last minute win but it does seem if they are riding their considerable luck at the moment.

The best change the league could make is to mic up the refs when they have to talk to each other for the var calls. Let’s hear what they say to each other to justify the decision they take.
Can you imagine listening to the conversation when Kane nearly broke Robertson’s leg!

A ‘neutral’ view on the controversies.

https://www.skysports.com/share/12507185

Seems about right to me.

Not sure what to make of that. Feels really unfair. The only way I could see them getting back into it was from a refereeing decision not open play.

Feel the refereeing never favours us that said I’m not sure I have many gripes about their pen. It’s just granit xhaka putting his hands on another player isn’t it. Feels like we’ve seen it so many times.

I think bad reffing is costing so many games. Spurs in particular seem so jammy with the refs

Never mind no matter what happens our team is on the rise and at least most seem to understand this now rather than demanding the managers dismissal and lauding graham potter.

I can’t help but keep dwelling on the Martinelli miss. He had a superb match but that cost us dearly.

If it goes in then we are 2-1 up with 11 men and the momentum, and the Gabriel incident doesn’t happen. A key moment.

Agreed, he contributes hugely to our passing and general play when we have the ball but is dribbled past too easily and makes rash decisions. We can find a player as good on the ball but more disciplined

Martinelli should have scored but also note the ref in the wrong place and martinelli has to get around him to get the shot off. No need for the ref to be charging in to the box at that point, he has goal line technology

Is that right? I didn’t notice in the heat of the moment. I’ll have a look out for that on the highlights when I can steel myself to watch them.

Saying the squad should get 4th is daft, it’s capable of it but should ? No way it would be a huge achievement for this young team. United have a far more experienced squad and spurs have 2 real natural world class match winners in Kane and son. We don’t.

We have a chance a real chance but there’s a long way to go.

Yeah, in games like these there's always going to be a fine margin between a good and bad result. If you miss an open goal, give away a penalty or get an unnecessary red card there's a big chance it'll come back to haunt you - we did all three in the space of five minutes.

But the more I think about this game the more positive I get. Mistakes and bad results can happen, but our performance in the first 55 minutes was a level above anything I've seen Man Utd or Tottenham do this season. The thing about quality performances is that they will not always get you a result, but they will do it more often than the poor ones. If we play ten games where we perform like this, and ten games where we perform like we did in the Burnley win for example, I know which set of fixtures I would bet on to give us the most points.

https://twitter.com/ali_gooner08/status ... 38470?s=21

This is why Gabriel got his first yellow card. A City player pushes him in to the ref and the ref reads the situation wrong. So so annoying

Agreed. ‘Could’ get 4th, most definitely, but not ‘should’ especially before a ball was kicked no one who watches, commentates or does punditry had us anywhere near the top 4 and our summer spending was mocked for being midtable purchases.
I’d say most media outlets had the top 4 as city, chelsea, Liverpool, Man U by a long way, then maybe us but more likely spurs and Leicester ahead

Play like we did today away to Spurs and we’re beating them comfortably. Spurs are massively rising their luck right now. Late goal today, no decent attacking play and very lucky with decisions for red cards, penalties and non red cards. Couldn’t beat 10 man Saints

There is no way this spurs team are better than us. Man for man it’s only Kane and Son.

Spurs still have to go away to City, Liverpool, Chelsea and Man U. And their two games in hand are away games.
Man U still have to go away to City, Liverpool and us

Comparisons between the way those two are playing and ourselves is like chalk and cheese at the moment. We must beat them both in the games we have against them

Aleksandar Mitrovic Receives Red Card vs. Arsenal

August 2015

There will be a video of this game next to a Quora question asking 'What does the phrase a game of two halves mean?'

Two things I think we can learn from the game. First, we definitely have top 4 quality. Second, we definitely need top 4 mental toughness quality.

I'm not sure exactly what quality Xhaka has that deserves the minutes and confidence showed in him but I can only conclude my American brain that took up the sport as an adult can't understand it but the problem with that is I've heard too many British gooners have the same confusion.

I was surprised seeing Gabriel among the ones losing his head with tackles, and I can only conclude the squad was frustrated about something or a few things. The referee being one of them.

From September

Granit Xhaka asks whether he’s “prejudiced against” following red card

https://punditarena.com/football/rudi-k ... -red-card/

Yikes

As suspected. So 6 and a half years of never having an opponent sent off for violent conduct or a bad tackle. Not even one that was harsh or wrong and later overturned!

It was strange that the commentary I listened to today was praising the ref in the first half for not going to yellow cards too quickly. He was saying he could have carded a few but then he sets the bar and we’d end up with 10 cards and it wasn’t a dirty game, also noting the players seemed happy and there weren’t any major complaints. This then completely changed in the second half where he just wanted to card anything.
By the way this ref Attwell was demoted from the elite group of refs for 4 years due to poor performance and once gave a goal when it should have been a corner

I'd rather run through five thousand clubs I'd like Xhaka to p**ss off to ......... Central African Utd , Outer Mongolian Wanderers , Easter Island Cathusians , Tristan da Cuhna Barbarians , Jan Mayen Athletic

I think it would be a bit naive not to believe the officials would have a certain bias . Interested enough to make a job out of it they must surely have had favourite clubs growing up .
Commentators the same .... My bloke had multiple orgasms when City scored the winner ... "GLORIOUS THAT IS WHY THEY ARE CHAMPIONS " ignoring the fact they had got a dodgy penalty and were playing ten men for forty minutes .

First time I've really watched Man City when they haven't been demolishing someone playing flowing football and was surprised at the amount of niggle they put in .

We made them look very ordinary hence I find it hard to console myself with the "Oh we manned up . played well etc etc
Think of the enormous boost in confidence that would have given the dressing room to have won .


Think Ødegaard's heavy touch led to that non penalty decision . One view seem to show their goalie treading on his foot , other angles seemed to show he made the most off it .
Xhaka didn't do anywhere enough to make Fernandez fall ..... think it's the handful of shirt that was the decider .

Gabriel needs to be made to watch that video twenty times and wise up ... he had to be dragged away by Lacazette and he still wanted to go on with it like some rabid bull terrier .

Doesn't matter how flaky the first offence ..he was on a yellow; there was no real danger .... he didn't have to be so dumb
...... it is just symptomatic of how defenders defend these days , shirt pulls , rugby tackles , trips , niggly fouls .

A penalty could be dished out at every corner .

OH for any of your folk in the later time zones might thinking it is the end of the world ... don't despair . The sun came up this morning as per usual .

Time to shift sports watch a bit of cricket . NZ v Bangladesh ....we are going quite well although I don't like seeing us dealing to this opposition .

Bangladesh are such an impoverished country I like to see them winning to lift their spirits .

Still frustrated with their penalty. Total reward for Silva diving, he had no other interest that throwing himself for the penalty. Of course Xhaka was silly to lay any hand on him at all….but think about just all the times Pépé has been fouled in the box and had it waved away. The consistency is atrocious. Do we honestly think we’d have been given that penalty?

So so so frustrating.
Fantastic performance in the first half and defended well after going to 10 men.
Some of our football was outstanding.
How is the ref sent to monitor for their penalty but not for ours.
At first it looks like silva has dived and everyone is motioning for him to get the *%^@ up then when it went to var started to fear the worst then game over as xhaka gives the ref something to think about by pulling his shirt. Still soft but if he doesn't pull the shirt then no penalty.
Damn you Ake!!!!
How the fukk does he get back to clear off the line and gabby should have stuck it away but he was magnificent today.
He was running City ragged.
So gutting and pissed off to see Rodri get the winner.
Just seemed to fall for him.
Minimum we deserved was a point.
So soul destroying but so so proud of us today.
Keep playing like that and we have a great chance of top 4.
Heartened by the fact spurs still have to go to Liverpool Chelsea City and utd while we only have Chelsea to go to.
They are so jammy. Just knew they would get the late goal.
Lots to be positive about for us.

It’s such a weak penalty however if you grab a handful of an opposing players shirt in the box you are running your luck in this VAR era. All the opposing player has to do is throw himself on the floor and VAR will check it see the minor offence and give it.

It was a penalty that wouldn’t have been given before VAR. it was one of those games that really showed it hadn’t improved decisions

I think we would have. Whenever you can see a shirt being pulled that clearly you give the ref something to think about, and when you combine it with the defender sticking out his leg the decision is made much easier. Silva dives, but to me it's one of those instances where the attacking player is impeaded and if he doesn't go down the chance is gone and he gets nothing for it.

The ref was pretty terrible overall today, he seemed very eager to show yellow cards but only to Arsenal players. However, I don't think he had much at all to do with the result. Their penalty was correct in my book, the second yellow for Gabriel was clear as day. We should've probably had a penalty too, but even if we got it and scored it's 1-0 after 11 minutes instead of 1-0 after 31 so it's hardly a game-ending error on Atwell's part.

To lighten the sad mood a bit and tangentially related story to azinoz's post.

When I was in LA, I stayed in an apartment that a young couple moved above me. They kept to themselves. I got their mail by accident and I noticed the name was Italian and seemed somewhat familiar but I didn't know from where I heard it.

Anyway, I delivered their mail and didn't make any inquiries about the name. I had a 2 bedroom flat and allowed them to use one of my parking spaces, I had 2, they were in a 1 bedroom flat and only had 1 space but 2 cars. They were having a get together with some new friends and coworkers and invited me for the kindness I showed. Anyway, the beer and alcohol were flowing. I was asked where you are from and I said Philly. She said we are from Philly too. Of course, we got into what area, etc. Both lived in separate areas. He lived in a suburb just north of Philly. She and he were at the same college, she was from another area.

Anyway, eventually we all became better friends and I learned their story or rather his story. He left the Philly area because his childhood friends, family, changed towards him.

He had an uncle, his father's brother who they were estranged from. He never met him, rarely talked about. His estranged uncle was a capo in the Philly mob in south Philly. In the late 80s and into the 90s Philly had a mob war within the family for control after Little Nicky Scarfo was no longer in charge. This uncle ended up on the news. He was found dead in the trunk of the car. This name was not a common Italian name for Philly such as Russo, Rizzo, Pileggi.

People in the upstairs neighbor's area found out there was a familial connection and lifelong friends and their families shunned him and his family thinking there was some mob connection to them and that's how they made their money. Eventually, he decided to make a fresh start in LA with his girlfrien/fiance'.

He was very angry and gutted about how so many people he knew his whole life would treat him and his family.

Very mature take on the game .

Rather than bogging oneself down with refereeing injustices , biases , conspiracies , dredging up decades of wrongs against us , giving the ulcers that come with following Arsenal "fresh legs "

Rio's in our corner ........... interesting slice , dice , squirm and wriggle by their officiating expert .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdl0gwR ... chAnalysis

Didn’t you agree that it’s silly to say we should get fourth but then imply at Tottenham only Kane and Son are better than we have? I would most likely say ‘could’ get fourth is a better word to use, but ‘should’ isn’t that outlandish if you rate us better than Tottenham. Manchester United are the main alternative and their first choice midfield is Fred and McTominay. Moreover their most influential forward is a 37 year old has been.

As I say, could is probably the most sensible word. But if we find a top forward from somewhere in January, I’m not sure should is that outlandish.

Rich, your family will hate me for encouraging you but continue with the stats, etc. It's interesting.

Okay, Arteta not being on the touchline had

a. negative overall effect
b. positive overall effect
c. no visible difference

City knew they were being outclassedn and are grateful for that result. I wonder how the top clubs as well as the league are looking at us now? I doubt we can 'sneak up' on any of the top sides. I have to think we are now thought of as a threat. Not the same category as Liverpool or Chelsea but a threat nonetheless who can win against anyone in the league if we are in the mood.

IMO, we need a replacement for Xhaka if we ever want to be challenging for the EPL championship. Easily targeted as an offensive thrust by most opposition because he is slow to recover. And with that, he commits fouls. That shirt pull was an instinctive reaction of his whenever he cannot get the better of a player. Most whizz past him. In the build up to the penalty, City were 2 on 1 to get behind us. Not sure who is the culprit who failed to track the City runner into the box. Xhaka comes to mind because he is covering Tierney on the left. Don't want to say he is useless, because he is not. But he remains our weakest link and opposing managers know to exploit that.

Hi Bernard, I suppose it depends on at what point you make the judgement. Before a ball was kicked no one would have said we should get 4th. Now we’re half way through the season we’ve put ourselves in a position where people are talking about the possibility of us finishing 4th. Spurs and Man Uare still ahead if they win their games in hand though.
At the start of the season Man U should have finished top 4, and even right now they should finish top 4. Their squad is huge compared to ours.
We’re definitely in the mix. We could get top 4 absolutely. And I rate our best 11 above spurs, if Man U get their best 11 ticking (which I don’t think they have at any point this season) then they might be tough to beat.

https://twitter.com/r75475528/status/14 ... 53152?s=21

These are the sorts of decisions certain players are given leeway for and certain ones are not. Rodri in this clip is not in control and it could be argued there is excessive force in the tackle considering what happens to Martinelli. Some people will argue he wins the ball but that isn’t the factor in determining free kicks. He slips, yes, but he’s out of control. This could have been a yellow for a different player, we didn’t even get a free kick for this.