Great win yesterday although Bournemouth were really poor.

Great to see Kai Havertz notch a goal too and hopefully that should boost his confidence.

The thing with Kai is that he's so tall it just seems to take him that extra split second to get his feet sorted and get a shot or a cross or a pass away. Technically he's very gifted but I'm not sure he's a midfielder in the making, he doesn't seem quite nimble enough. Peter Crouch was a little similar, very technically gifted and an excellent forward but not really nimble enough to play in midfield.

Hi Soc,

Remember away at Man Utd, Brentford last season?

Title deciding errors.

This stat was under the radar. I had no idea.

Man U are incredibly lucky that the var controversy will take the headline rather than their home defeat to Palace. Similar to Chelsea so far this season, some other team has always stolen their negative headlines

Have we heard much about Pep being the one who was serving a touchline ban yesterday? I thought it was Arteta who acted disrespectfully on the touchline?

The only thing MOTD could say about our 4-0 win away from home is saying Havertz hasn’t done enough in his time in England! Can we expect the same energy from MOTD for Mason mount when he gets off the mark at Man U? Clear agenda feeding itself

Anyway, as much as you want the praise let everyone think we’re doing poorly, happy to fly under the radar and then put the hammer down when we get our full squad back. Spurs can have the media limelight

wonder what type of side you will see for Lens. might see some rotation

Yes I hope so. I’d rest or at least bench Saka, hobbled out of the last two games. Tomiyasu can come in to defence, maybe even Kiwior. I can’t see Arteta rotating too much though.

You're probably right but it seems bone-headed to me. The focus has to be on the City game and we simply have to trust the likes of Nelson, Kiwior and Emile Smith Rowe in this sort of game. Ødegaard and Saka get through so much work and need a breather, not to mention the risk of injury. Saliba and White should also get the day off. You'd still have a pretty strong team without those four.

Spurs made a big fuss about the VAR that got us our penalty against them. Not so noisy now that they are the beneficiaries ...

I do think that the furore over the undoubtedly massive cock ups that var is making is vastly amplified by fans and even some pundit who resolutely see only one side of the picture.

I’ll make a prediction for the next thing the media are going to throw at us outside of the actual results - there’s always something. It will be the amount of penalties we get and the fact that we’ve been rotating penalty takers this season. If we eventually miss a penalty you can guarantee that someone will say that you should have a regular penalty taker and you wouldn’t miss that one!

Why do you worry about what people say? The way to silence them is win games and trophies. With the squad we have we should be able to achieve that.

https://www.espn.com.sg/football/report/_/gameId/677291

Balogun doing well in Monaco

Ultimately it’s down to being recognised and praised for what the club is doing rather than everything being used to downplay it.
Of course I’d happily take all the cr*p anyone wants to say about us if we go on and win a hatful of trophies.
What they say doesn’t ‘worry’ me, it annoys me because the team isn’t given the credit it deserves.

It’s good for us that he does really well there, we’ve got a significant sell on clause so I hope he does brilliantly and gets a huge move somewhere.

If we can get a few more faces back for the weekend then it’s as good a time to play and beat City that we’ve had in a long time. Last season we missed key players in both games and both games were played in the middle of of only 3 bad runs of form we had whilst city were full strength.

City rarely miss in the transfer market, every player recently seems to slot in really well and contribute. Well, the midfield of Kovacic and Nunes played at the weekend and that doesn’t fill me with fear. Rodri, bernardo, de Bruyne all out, Gundogan sold. There is a window of opportunity here for us.

Feels like it’s a must win if we have desires on the title

That seems a fair assessment of the weekend match. A point would do wonders for our players confidence and give them belief. A win for us would be even better.

I don't know much about Lens our next opponent in the CL so thought I'd look them up a bit.

Not a great start to this season, they're in 15th in Ligue 1, 2 wins, 1 draw and 4 defeats, only 7 goals scored but have won their last two.

Their striker Wahi is one of the only players I know of. They lost their two best players from last season Openda and Fofana in the summer for a combined £60m.

They pushed PSG all the way last year, finished 2 point behind in 2nd despite winning 11 of their last 10 - the only loss coming to PSG.

They also play in red and yellow so I expect this will be the first outing for the green third kit

Liverpool's formal statement on the var controversy. I don't recall us doing anything like this after the Brentford goal?

We fully accept the pressures that match officials work under but these pressures are supposed to be alleviated, not exacerbated, by the existence and implementation of VAR. It is therefore unsatisfactory that sufficient time was not afforded to allow the correct decision to be made and that there was no subsequent intervention.

That such failings have already been categorised as “significant human error” is also unacceptable. Any and all outcomes should be established only by the review and with full transparency. This is vital for the reliability of future decision-making as it applies to all clubs with learnings being used to make improvements to processes in order to ensure this kind of situation cannot occur again.

In the meantime, we will explore the range of options available, given the clear need for escalation and resolution.

The last line is a bit strange, I'm not sure what options (or power) Liverpool have. How can this be 'escalated' or 'resolved'. You can write to the PGMOL and ask for meetings but nothing will change from the match and nothing that results as a consequence of this will benefit Liverpool in isolation.

Someone has compiled all the apologies PGMOL have sent out in the last two seasons. Only two teams appear with more than 1 apology, Brighton with 3 and Arsenal with 2.

I re-saw a video of the Brighton v Spurs match last year and the sheer amount of decisions that went Spurs way in that match was scandalous

Hi Rich,

Let's be honest there is absolutely no excuse to get that decision wrong. I think there is more than one person on VAR so how can they all get it so horribly wrong.

It was even a difficult offside, it was not as if there was a crowd of bodies or it was very close.

They are saying VAR said check over because they thought a goal had been given and were happy with that as the onfield decision but even if that's the case they have to stop the game as soon as they realise the error.

In truth VAR is not the problem it's the incompetence of the people who are using it.

https://www.arsenalinsider.com/news/pun ... ertz-call/

Continual Arsenal hater Steve Nicol is the first to wade in on Arsenal penalties. Nicol says 'what if Havertz misses it and Bournemouht score 2 and it ends up 2-2!'

Wow, that is a lot of what its there Steve, and the same what ifs that could apply to any penalty ever taken in history. Havertz has scored 17 out of 18 penalties in his career, on stats he's our best penalty taker. The standard of punditry on TV is awful, go home and cry to the Anfield '89 DVD Steve

Agree with all of that. Decisions like the Liverpool one should never happen, once is one too many and there have been 3 like that where there is really nothing subjective about the decision.

They make a rod for their own back because once the game has restarted the rules say there is nothing they can do to change the mistake. I'm sure if they kicked off then 10 seconds later the ref stooped the game, got both captains and managers in, held their hands up said there was a miscommunication but it has been checked again and the goal is good - yes there would be annoyance at the process, but the right decision would have been made and any complaining can easily be counterd with that fact.

What is interesting is that I'm certain the ref would have known a huge error had been made so how did that affect his decision making for the rest of the game?

Also, what if the officials had stopped the game and said to Spurs, we've made a mistake, we can't rectify it but in the spirit of sportsmanship would you allow Liverpool to walk the ball in to the net.....!!! The cowards way out to put it on Spurs to make the decision. Of course it shouldn't come to that but that would be a huge talking point.

I went over there when we played them in 1998. Lens is not a pretty place! It's a small mining town - well, it was back then. Most of their supporters were miners, many of them Poles. Nice people. Proper working class town. Loud crowd. As I recall, there was a really serious crush getting in that would've made headlines had it happened here, but everybody just got on with it - with a sort of gallic shrug. We drew 1-1. Pissy night after. Miners are good company.

I see a Kai Havertz song was song a lot at the weekend, great for the player and you really feel like everyone really wants him to succeed. One thing though, the lyrics to his song go ££60m down the drain, Kai Havertz scores again"...... I'm not sure the 'down the drain' bit is quite the right choice of words is it? Anyway, they were having fun so who cares

Greeting Soc
It is one of the great feature of humanity that cockups happen despite our best efforts to create failsafe systems. Nuclear power plant melt down, passenger airliners and trains crash into each other etc. It is extremely difficult to idiot proof any system and even the smartest person has moments of sheer idiocy. Just the other day I put my wallet in the fridge. I've also found myself standing in front of the washing machine with a box of matches in hand. I hadn't put the washing into the gas oven, but these things happen.

However, I also accept that it is one of the great features of British society to make a massive fuss about things, even when they are working mostly very well. This is particularly so if you are a Spurs or united fan.

In this case, the system still has teething problems. The 'check complete' notification is a major potential source of ambiguity, as this incident has highlighted. Hopefully they'll fix that.

Like many football songs it’s steeped in irony and poking fun at the naysayers. If he starts scoring regularly it will become a favourite.

That said I’m not sure gifting the guy a penalty will keep his critics quiet and as much as I want to be positive about the player I’m not really convinced either so far. The biggest surprise for me is he doesn’t seem adept at getting into goalscoring positions considering he’s essentially our attacking wildcard. He was signed as a covert centre forward essentially running from deep but really we haven’t seen that much. He’s not really delivering what he was signed for if we are honest and it’ll be interesting to see how Arteta manages it as he’s pretty ruthless

Partey is back in training.

Tierney has picked up an injury on loan in Spain that may keep him out for up to a month.

Few rumours linking us to Diomande, young CB from Sporting - he looked excellent against us.

Yes, I think the understandable side of Havertz is a player massively low on confidence and learning his way in a new system and position so he's very much trying to do the easy things well, which from what i've seen has shown itself in very good defensive actions, very good in 'duels' - something Arteta rates highly. But hopefully, as he builds confidence we start to see him more decisive in the final third.

Phew it’s such a relief Liz Truss is back in the political fold. I was worried for a moment there was a danger of them not *%^@*** all our kids lives up for a moment …

https://www.itv.com/news/2023-10-02/hug ... attendance

I think with things like the above there is a case where you just assume the systems in place are clear until something goes wrong. With hindsight it is better to say 'check complete, player is onside, goal given' or something where the decision is clarified.

Anyone who works in industry where the miss-clarification of words can cause significant repercussions even on a technicality learns quite quickly to be 100% clear and accurate in their communication.

Watching the highlights again and Jesus is just such a good footballer, he just needs to improve that finishing - but I suppose we knew what we were buying. He was still very influential from the left wing - not a position he's really played before, but he just seems like one of those players who can look threatening and influential no matter which of the front 3 positions he plays. He's just very good technically, has a zip and mobility with his movement and an aggression and tenacity in his work off the ball.

https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/ ... -diaz-goal

Always a good read each week, whether you agree or disagree with the refs decisions this gives a full perspective on how the decisions were reached and clarifies often misinterpreted aspects of the laws of the game

Martinez of Man U is facing 2-3 months out, never nice for a player to miss games through injury but considering it is a player who quite deliberately tries to slice his opponents in two in every tackle he makes - including two footing Saka in a pre season friendly - I won't give him much sympathy at all

"Tees Valley Mayor Houchen told a conference fringe event hosted by think tank Onward: “I thought Ms Truss would have more awareness than to, for example, come to Conservative Party conference. I don’t think she should be here.”

Thats the problem, isn't it. Despite all evidence to the contrary, intelligent people continue to expect things like "awareness" from the likes of Truss and co.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football ... rt-3108761

This is not good, but could change.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football ... t-31087610

Not good, but could change

The Mirror claims Arsenal team delayed at Luton Airport due to bad weather for trip to CL clash with Lens.

Apologies for the reposts

There’s been a thunderstorm they aren’t immune to it. They’ve probably been sat in a private jet with stewardesses fawning over them for an hour.

human tragedy this ain’t they should try sitting on the tarmac in a sleazy jet flight for 2 hours to get the full experience

Seen a fair bit of criticism of Rashford not least from Man U fans. If you look at his history those purple patches of goalscoring are the anomaly rather than the norm.

He got 4 goals in his last 18 league games.
Before that he got 10 in 10
Before that he got 4 in his last 24 games.

He’s a streaky player who can be very effective but for my money has relied on his natural athletic ability that was there from an early age rather than evolve his basic footballing skill, tactical ability and football intelligence.

Not in the same league as Saka as far as I’m concerned