Very interesting. Judging just by these stats I'd probably lean towards player D; high amount of goals, xG and xA says it's a player that makes things happen. High dispossessed stat could just mean it's a player that often tries to get past his defender - Saka gets dispossessed more than any other Arsenal player by a pretty big margin. Not very impressive pressing stats, but pressing is such a team thing, if you play for a team that doesn't focus too much on it your stats probably won't look great in that regard. Doesn't mean you can't be an effective presser in a different setup.

If lots of people were to suddenly bet on one player getting a yellow card and it was just coincidence, and not spot fixing, surely that player would be Granite Xhaka, who you literally called a walking Red card

Also as an aside at the end of the article what on earth is this all about?



I don’t understand what I’ve just read. They all knew about the bet and it was for a 5-0 scoreline which presumably they’d enacted on the pitch but then praised one player for ruining it by scoring 2 own goals???? Eh??

thats an amazing run...

Tottenham are a couple of minutes away from losing to Leicester, who have been quite poor.

Incredible, Tottenham scores two goals in added time to turn it around.

Spurs late equaliser.

never mind most important thing is they have blown their extra games without overtaking us. We have a real chance of top 4 if we can keep our players fit

*%^@ you Leicester : weak effort at the end. I hope they plummet down the table. Gutless

Offs .. spoke to soon. Mental

*%^@*** Leicester

How the *%^@ did they lose that one

We're not getting top 4. Bergwijn scores two goals in added time, it's just their season. They have the gods on their side.

Seriously one of the worst bottle jobs I've seen. How can you be 2-1 up and then just let the opponents run right through your team to score in the 94th and 96th minute. Shocking stuff

*%^@*** *%^@
I can't believe it.
2 1 down to win 3 2

This was a game they should have dropped points
Jammy *%^@*

As for utd second best all game but *%^@*** winning 2 0
I hate these 2 teams
Top 4 looking shaky
Massive 3 points for spurs

Harvey Barnes
*%^@*** idiot
He square's it instead of shooting they win 3 1
Pigsick

I expected both to drop points actually but that's how it is. Brentford should have been up minimally one nil first half, but 2 one on one chances with De Gea and they didn't score.

How Leicester lost that game I don't know. A set back but still lots of football to be played.

Top 4 isn't going to end on a January night. Too much football to be played. We beat sperz and its forgotten.

Shane that they both didn’t drop points but take solace in the fact neither really can keep this level of luck and poor performance up without being properly punished it just isn’t sustainable.

Relying on injury time winners or poor finishing from opponents just doesn’t cut it in the long run

Really hope you're right Rich.
That actually feels like a defeat for us.
Sickening seeing that cumt kane celebrating at the end

It feels a bit like that.

They seem to win games they don’t deserve at all. Leaves you shaking your head.

Long way to go but the game at their place looks critical and will probably have a huge impact on where either team finishes

Exactly. Like one night in January is the end of the season. lol

It hurts, no doubt about that, I felt sick to my stomach, seeing dropped points from both but I'm not going to overreact as well. I'm sure both those sides felt the same about us with our form in the league.

I'd be more worried if either side completely dominated their games and seemed on another level.

There’s also the possibility that it happens so often, can it genuinely all be down to coincidence? Let me say I didn’t watch either game. But the regularity with which they play poorly but get a positive result could mean they have more about them than you want to accept.

If the game had gone ahead at the weekend. Arteta out would probably be trending on Twitter right now and people would be saying all the silly stuff like “we have no style of play”

I think your right Bernard. They aren’t the poor side many believe. Not many “names” but There’s enough talent there to cause teams problems.

I liked Giroud too and see Vlahovic in a very similar mould. Similar to Soc, I'd prefer a little more pace in the central striker but maybe with Saka and Martinelli on the flanks we have enough pace and having someone taller than Lacazette as the central striker gives us a heading option in the centre. DHD's point about the defences playing against Vlahovic in the highlight reels being 'ropey' is pretty fair too and he wouldn't be afforded anywhere near that much space in the PL.

I'm still not convinced Vlahovic is the right player for the long term but having read the collective wisdom on here he would at least give us more height in the midfield and the box to keep defenders like Maquire busy.

Yes. Score two goals in the opening minutes and nobody calls it lucky as they do when scored at the end. The old Clough cliche of it only takes a second to score a goal should never be forgotten.

Thought the same when Rich mentioned they keep getting lucky. He's right in saying that luck only runs so far but it also gives them time to get their act together and do it more consistently while they've already got the 'lucky' points on the board. Same with Man Utd who are still adjusting to Rangnick and tolerating Ronaldo's childish tantrums.

On top of the NLD I expect Spurs to be even more fired up with the 'injustice' of not being able to play us when our team was severely diminished and it will a tough match.

I'd guess that as unworthy we are of being labled lucky, that our rise from bottom of the table to legitimate top 4 contenders were littered with 'lucky Arsenal', 'referees favor Arsenal', etc. on our way up.

I certainly heard 'lucky Arsenal' almost on a weekly basis at the pub in LA during our heyday.

It's common for fans to say this, I say this. Sometimes its painfully legitimate such as referees rarely giving Man Utd a penalty at OT in previous years (if not now...I have no idea).

If these teams were so routinely lucky we wouldn't have caught them.

My use of the word ‘lucky’ in my post was more aimed at Man U as they have played genuinely poorly in every game I’ve watched them recently and should have been 3-0 down at half time.
Spurs was more about their very late winners - by all accounts they were the more dominant team against a pretty decimated Leicester team. I recall a time about 10 years ago when Arsenal scored about 4 last minute winners in consecutive games - felt amazing as a fan but you just can’t keep doing that - and we didn’t. If scoring a goal was as easy as taking off a defender and throwing on another striker teams wouldn’t just do it for the last 10 minutes. It’s chaos football that rips up any structure and formation.

That said it’s hugely frustrating to see these wins when you think it’s a good opportunity for them to drop points. Spurs still have to go away to Chelsea, Liverpool, City and Man U. Let’s see how they get on v Chelsea at Stamford Bridge at the weekend - lose that and we beat Burnley as we should then we’re back 2 points above them with them only having 1 game in hand

The Leicester defending for the spurs winner is as bad as you’ll see. They lose the ball cheaply after their own kick off then one simple pass and Leicester have 7 men ahead of the ball, their back 3 are too high and holding a terribly staggered line, there’s no pressure on the ball. And finally and I think worst of all Schmiechel has a poor starting position and doesn’t come out to clear it, if your defence is 10 yards short of half way as a gk you need to be on the edge of the box, when the ball is played through Bergwein gets on to it and takes his first touch 5 yards outside the box. If Smcheichel’s position is correct he sweeps that through ball up in his sleep!the screenshot below shows about a second before Bergwein makes his first touch, that ball has travelled from the half way line to the edge of the box, awful awful Goalkeeping

As I’ve said a few times, I’ve never seen Vlahovic kick a ball even on YouTube let alone telly. There’s been discussion about his alleged lack of pace. For those who have seen something of him, how does it compare to Harry Kane’s, who I’ve never seen as a speed merchant even though he’s arguably the world’s best centre forward, or at least one of them?

In the mess that saw the first leg of our semi called off it turns out Liverpool did their tests and nearly all were negative, they then ordered more tests (which were not required) and had their infamous false positives. It seems they were desperate for some positive tests one way or another.

From what I’ve seen which is limited he looks like a left footed Harry Kane with fractionally more pace. One the things you rarely notice about Kane is his lack of pace because it’s compensated by his positional awareness, ability to link play and anticipation. Seems similar from what I’ve seen. He’s a van nistelrooy really by the looks of it not a wright or Henry.

Many thanks. Being a bit like a left footed Harry Kane or another Van Nistelrooy doesn’t seem a bad starting point to me, even if he’s not another Henry or Wright.

Seems like Liverpool really wanted the first leg to get postponed. Wonder what Jamie Carragher's take on this will be.

Thing is I knew I had covid but had to do 4 tests to return a positive one myself. The testing process isn’t perfect

False negatives and false positives are two very different things though. One is relatively common and the other one isn't.

Then if they have to submit their tests how did frig it. Have they got a team of biochemists on their payroll

Isn't the main point why they did another round of testing when it wasn't required? Surely teams would do the test required see it is negative and think 'good that player can play in the next game'. Why take more tests if you don't need to as you could run the risk of a mix up?

The coincidence of this happening at exactly the same time a postponement would have been perfect for Liverpool is just to fishy. And for balance it was probably fishy when Arsenal had a number of players 'injured' so we could call off the NLD, were they too injured to play, or if we were forced to play would we have seen them out on the pitch and playing at 75% fit? We used it to our advantage but didn't break any rules - can Liverpool say they same? Even if they can then why is the equal hysteria and finger pointing by the mainstream media as we had?

edit: also the Athletic article shows Liverpool requested a postponement BEFORE they had any positive tests

Don’t you think we shouldn’t be throwing stones about this right now.

Feels to me like it’s debating the price of fish and chips to be honest

With this Xhaka yellow card and potentially suspicious betting I hadn't appreciated in the Leeds game when Xhaka got booked it was for time wasting in the 85th minute when we were 4-1 up. I think I had in my mind that he was booked for the 'stamp' tackle on Raphinha.
It does make it a bit more odd to get booked for time wasting when 4-1 up with only 5 mins to go - but, how do you prove it?