Sorry, I meant the sending off would have been overturned had it been an Arsenal player, not the penalty as I put in the first sentence. The penalty shouldn’t have been. The sending off should.

I'm glad you clarified that. It looked like a foul, or at least a borderline case.

Does the VAR check allow the ref to differentiate? i.e. overrule the sending off but still award the penalty?

Indeed Old Man.

I had a Spurs-supporting neighbour and I’d often go with him to watch them on the Saturdays we weren’t at home, so I saw a lot of Greaves. Spurs we’re a better team than us in those days and much better to watch. Greaves was their star and in my mind, as good a striker as I’ve ever seen. He didn’t track back or tackle or create assists; he was an out-and-out goal-scorer. He could ride vicious tackles and weave through packed defences and when he was through on goal, there was nobody quite like him for coolness and accuracy of shot.

As important as all that for me, he was his own man. He didn’t compromise and he stuck with his decisions. He fought a long struggle against alcohol and never joined in the frequent World Cup get-togethers because they were awash with booze. That made him seem resentful of not playing in the Final but he just didn’t need the temptation. He was a great pundit who brought wit and wisdom to his programmes which made him compulsive viewing. He almost died of a stroke a few years ago so we haven’t seen much of him, but he will be missed.

Probably my favourite non-Arse player.

I would have thought so. If it doesn’t, it should do.

Paul Breitner for me.

My favourite ex-Tottenham player is Darren Bent. As a kid he was an Arsenal season ticket holder and working as a presenter on TalkSPORT makes his pro-Arsenal bias blatantly obvious. Often refers to Arsenal with words like ‘us’ and ‘we’.

Great player. Fantastic finisher. I think he was the best natural finisher I’ve ever seen. He made it look so easy.
I actually played against him much later in his career. I was playing for Eton Manor against Barnet. Shattered some illusions. He was really miserable… didn’t stop moaning. He was still the second best player on the pitch though!!

Hi AG - you had to be a careful watcher with Jimmy because he was one of those players who could be out of the action for a good while but then, bang! - goal!! He wasn't a fancy player, a dribbler or all over the place, just a deadly finisher. This goal against United is rightly famous, but in not typical.
https://www.facebook.com/TottenhamHotsp ... 1550153505

Arsenal U23's beat Chelsea 6-1 today, despite having a man sent off after 35 minutes.

New signing Biereth (signed from Fulham) got a hat trick, Balogun scored 2 and there was an own goal.

It was only recently Ronaldo beat greaves record as the greatest all top scorer in Europe's top 5 leagues. Never saw him play but I remember sitting in Prague surrounded by gooners or a certain vintage about 20 plus years ago. They all agreed Greaves was the best striker England ever produced.

I thought it was a foul but not a red. I think it needs to be a very clear 'no attempt to play the ball' for it to be a red.

The VAR should be looking at the red card, not the incident as a whole. Otherwise the ref is going 'ok I made a mistake' and both the penalty (wrongly) and red card (rightly) are overturned.

The ref really should not have the opportunity to overturn the penalty in that case. That is setting the bar for overturning penalty calls far too low.

How is that not a penalty for Ronaldo?

Man U have probably won it with a late Lingard goal, but Ronaldo broke clear, took Zouma on down the outside, Zouma slides in, nowhere near the ball and clearly fouls Ronaldo. Var check over in a matter of seconds.

Wow, now west ham get given a penalty on a VAR review for handball by Shaw

Amazingly West Ham bring Mark Noble off the bench to take the penalty with his first touch of the ball.....it is an awful penalty and De Gea saves.

terrible decision by Moyes to bring a cold player on like that in the 94th minute to save a point.

Hey omoh,

Thanks. I remember watching this video specifically because it had good highlights and secondly, I actually liked the music.

Apparently Noble had scored 38 penalties out of 39 for West Ham before today, so now it’s 38 out of 40. Shouldn’t a player be able to take a penalty cold? Myself, I would have thought so. Why should playing a lengthy part of the game make any difference?

Noble is a brilliant penalty taker and his record surely shows that. Hence I can understand why Moyes did it. Even though it didn’t work out, I still wouldn’t call it a terrible decision by Moyes.

I understand he’s the best penalty taker at the club but it’s almost a no win situation to bring him on.
If a player on the pitch takes it and misses I doubt anyone says Moyes should have bought on Noble. I doubt Noble has ever had to take a penalty in those circumstances before.

Watching the Lingard goal I never understand how defenders let players seemingly take that sort of shot so easily. As Lingard gets it every single person watching knows exactly what he wants to do but the defender stands off enough to just let him dribble it and shift it on to his right. I’d much rather a defender almost over commit and potentially get beaten with Lingard cutting back on his left foot. I know which I’d rather he took a shot on

I bet they would have said he should have brought Noble on. I just don’t see why someone has to have played a material part of the game to take a penalty. It’s one kick. Use your best penalty taker.

I agree with Rich on this one Bernard. With hindsight obviously. Noble hadn't even been warming up to come on, surely one of the players already on the pitch would have been a better idea.

Fair enough but I just don’t see why someone has to have been running around to take a single kick. If he’s West Ham’s best penalty taker by a country mile, I can understand why Moyes asked him if he was happy to go on and take it. It’s more to do with nerve than having run about, I’d have thought.

Okay, Noble missed. But I still think it was a perfectly understandable decision by Moyes so I think it’s unfair to call it a terrible decision.

If you get a penalty in the first 3 minutes your bound to miss then right as the taker has barely been involved.

Or it’s just another nonsense story narrative bollocks

It's a talking point TG. Nobody is right and nobody is wrong. Relax.

Exactly, just a talking point. Happy for people to disagree with my opinion - which of course has the benefit of hindsight.

It is similar in a way to the old adage of not making a substitution when you’re defending a corner. The player coming on is not quite ‘on it’ physically, mentally, emotionally.

So spurs get beaten 3-0 at home to Chelsea. A 2 goal victory against them next week will take us above them I think. How things can change so quickly.

It’s also one of the reasons I like to look at the underlying stats in games. Spurs were very very lucky to win their first 3 games 1-0. Very much outplayed by City and Wolves at least. These things catch up with teams, you can’t continually play poorly and rely on scoring your limited chances and your opponent missing all the time

Shame. They started the game so well. It's tragic that things always seem to go pear-shaped for them after promising starts. Imagine the poor fans.

Apparently the five Arsenal players who scored the most penalties for us are:

1) Thierry Henry with 22 scored
2) Ian Wright with 18 scored
3) Alan Ball with 15 scored
4) Liam Brady with 14 scored
5) Lee Dixon with 11 scored

The full historical list, assuming it’s correct, is in the link.

https://www.worldfootball.net/alltime_g ... enal-fc/1/

Chelsea look superb and Tuchel is an excellent coach. I can't see them losing many, if any, games this season. Got me thinking. The top four look more concrete than ever before. Before there were always two definites and any two from three for the remaining spot. Now, Chelsea, City, Utd and Liverpool look way ahead of the rest. Could be a very long time before we see CL football back at the Emirates. our only chance is a sharp upturn in our consistency and one of the those sides to have an awful season. I think we're looking at EL football for years to come.

Gold star if anyone can remember the game that Eboue scored a penalty for us? I can’t

Well put Darren. Arsenal have a long uphill haul.

We're not nailed on for EL either. Quite a long way from it at the moment.

I'd not be pessimistic though. Tyrants die or lose interest. That's two of the four hitting the buffers at some point. Another has the same issues we do balancing the books (a Carragher article pointed out that the amount spent on new contracts to old players was equivalent to a substantial new signing - we've been there), and, while they're well run for now, that tends not to last forever either. Which only leaves the eternal moneybags who have had long periods of underperformance and profligacy.
We just need to be ready when they crumble.

iirc, he was sent home early from the U23s for being 'unwell (not covid)'.
He's not been at his best since.
But neither have Saka, Pépé or Aubameyang.

I couldn’t remember but looked it up. Blackburn at home in the Premier League on 14th March 2009. A 4-0 win.

Best goal scorer I've ever seen.
Hard to see it on those old recordings I think, but he was like a knife through butter when he turned it on.
And you need to look at his stats in context. He never played for a dominant team (no league title ever).
Genius. Funny. Sorry to see him go, but life must have been hard since his stroke.

I'm feeling moderately pleased with yesterday. Very long way to go, but they've started to gell (defence + Partey). All the new signings look okay - or better than okay - though I hope that White isn't feeling £50m hanging around his neck. Ramsdale's attitude seems exactly what we need.

Credit too to Arteta, Edu and the recruitment team. For this window if not earlier ones.

Tomiyasu is a fluent English speaker and it seems as if language and personality have been key features for Arteta. Given the years of rumours about cliques and dissension in our dressing room, it was about time someone tackled that firmly and if we're building back up from the bottom that time has to be now. My guess is that if Saliba reaches next summer without speaking English (I've no idea whether he does or not) then he'll never come back.

otoh, however promising some parts seem, it will be a long hard season unless someone starts scoring goals. 0.4 per game so far from the whole team (Greaves exceeded that throughout his career iirc).

On Wednesday, I'd like to see Balogun, Eddie, Martinelli, Patino.
I hope not to see Aubameyang, Emile Smith Rowe, Saka, Ødegaard, Partey, Tomiyasu, Tierney, Ramsdale.

Have we turned the corner? Tough to say. I would suggest we need a few more results. And there will be bumps along the way. If or more likely when this happens, the immediate reaction will be to say nothing has changed. We've looked poor against top 6 competion so far this season as well as last season. Tottenham will be a good test to see if there has been a change.

Hi Andy, it must have been amazing playing against Greaves. Were you a defender? And did he score?

Liverpool would have to be seen as the most vulnerable simply because they have to operate on a budget. They also have quite an old squad with plenty of their best players over or approaching 30. Their recruitment has generally been very good but it is so hard to keep that going year after year especially when a Countinho shaped golden goose isn’t around. Not many teams outside the Prem are paying sky high fees for players now.
City will be interesting when Guardiola decides to have another sabbatical.