You can't HONESTLY say that losing ONE league game this year was what did us (especially when drawing it wouldn't have helped)! We were beyond brilliant. You are mixing up hindsight with utter stupidity if you focus on that game.

In hindsight, the fact that City can vastly outspend us and have a squad that allows them to cruise in the last few months of the season and win every single game, when everyone else is struggling with injuries, fatigue, and fixture congestion, probably cost us.

Really not sure Decaf. To address your points:

I don’t think things did improve particularly.

Refs (who were *%^@ in the first place) have retreated from decisions for fear of being shown to be wrong. They have adopted a defensive stance. They have in recent years been pretty awful in the UK, which was the driving force for VAR in the first place. But now they have pretty much abrogated their overarching responsibility to officiate, and that for me is criminal. What are you there for ffs?

As this was happening, VAR Refs spotted the vacuum and took the opportunity to take centre stage - to increase their ‘part’ in the show. Don’t forget, VAR Refs are now named as part of the officiating team. They’re part of the cast. Increasingly they have been intervening unasked to shamelessly re-referee incidents often for no obvious reasons. Refs don’t have the confidence to stand up for their original decisions so they routinely respond to the suggestion to change in the affirmative - not my fault, Gov - bloke said.

And every event takes up to 5 minutes. There’s been a massive push in recent years for attacking football to create an increase in goals and excitement. But now, nobody celebrates goals and nobody in the stadium has a clue what’s happening. I know there’s then a degree of suspense, which is exciting, but it has changed the entire matchday dynamic of the game we all love. I’m not certain but I don’t think VAR works so slowly or so often on the Continent.

VAR represents a step-change increase in knowledge, and that has to be a real opportunity for advancement and improvement. The problem has been in the way it is managed, administered and applied. I hate VAR but my hatred is focused on the operation of the process. I’d put all the highly paid officials on notice: shape up or find another job.

They need to get dedicated var refs who only do var, and dedicated on pitch refs who only do that. There is too much not wanting to go against your mate and marking your own homework.

Refs shy away from making a decision as they have VAR to lean on if they're wrong, but then VAR doesn't want to over rule the decision by the ref on the pitch. So it often just ends up being wrong twice.

VAR as the technology is fine, the application based on removing the absolutely shocking decisions is also fine - we generally don't need to put up with those anymore. But the general process is awful. You only have to look at any time a ref is referred to the monitor everyone knows the on pitch decision will be reversed 100% of the time.

I read that Chelsea to avoid Prem profit and sustainability rules had sold the chelsea hotel to their owners for £75m and tried (not sure if this went through or not) to sell their own training ground - or perhaps sponsor their training ground- to their owners for £100m. This is farcical. It is literally loophole 1 in getting around FFP rules, Rich owner cant just pump money directly in to the club so he sponsors the tea lady's tabard for a few hundred million and counts it as 'commercial revenue'

We just brokered a deal for £10m per season to sponsor our training ground to a completely unrelated party who see genuine business benefits to their company of being linked to Arsenal. Chelsea having their training ground sponsored by Todd Bohley incorporated for 10 times that is farcical

We've had VAR far longer in the states and there are still anger at the referees. It's still better to have them though and the NFL has referees who only do VAR. The response time is much faster than the EPL.

One thing I mentioned a long time ago with VAR is its far more effective if you have cameras at certain angles. There are reverse angles in the NFL VAR. There are certain sports where you need a certain angle because of how they play. The NFL and EPL play on a similar size pitch but will likely need video that are similar but also at certain angles because of the sport. The NFL off sides is different than soccer's offside. The NHL is more similar to soccer than than anything else. Similar positions, offside rules somewhat similar, etc.

https://x.com/gunnerzvideoz/status/1790 ... -j6VVZXEoA

Bein sports (Richard Keys I know!) talking about Man City’s 115 charges laid out in full. Why do BBC and Sky refuse to talk about this at all?

The full list of charges. Why would an innocent club not want to clear their name?

" throw themselves at the shovel" . Isn't illegal to kill any wildlife in Aussie except possibly cane toads .

Two species I'd loved to have dealt to ... those poxy fruit bats and that bast**d storm bird { koel } .

The latter used to drive me crazy with its poxy call at 2 am in the morning .

In the last 7 (seven!) months of prem football spurs are 11th in the table.
That blistering start when no one knew what do to against this bizarre double inverted fullback approach has kept them from being bottom half. Once teams worked them out they’ve regressed further back than last year.

You may or may not be surprisded Rich .......the mainstream news media is controlled by a remarkleably small group of individuals ; with their very deep pockets I wouldn't be surprised if Man City's heirarchy hasn't greased a few wheels .

I was flabberghasted to learn that even in a poxy little country like NZ ; the government of that harridon; Jacinda Ardern was making payments [ full and part ]

to 96 journalists to make sure the RIGHT message got out there and knotty questions never saw the " light of day ".

One thing I've learned is the people that makes the rules can't think of everything. Hence the loopholes. Other times the loopholes are created on purpose via backroom deals.

Unfortunately, the best regulations are those where the loopholes were closed after the fact.

Matinelli and Trossard are interchangeable. Jesus can fill in for either Saka or Havertz. Partey, Jorginho are interchangeable.

Aren't we f*cked if anything happens to Ødegaard?

The business about the ref coming to look at the screen is a silly piece of theatre that should be done away with. If VAR does intervene, it will be clear and obvious, so the ref IS going to go along with it. Having the ref come to the screen just wastes time and puts even more attention on the referee.

The ones they might consider getting the onfield refs to review is the right-on-the-margin ones. But I probably think it is a good idea not to open that can of worm, and just go with the onfield decision when it is not clear and obvious.

The fact that 'clear and obvious' is a very high standard, and it means that onfield decisions stand even when there may be an 80% chance that they were wrong (like Newcastle's goal against us) is something we will have to live with. If the VAR ref went with 'balance of probability' they would be intervening all the time and it would he a mess.

He is right, but it seems not too long ago some of our fans were hoping Arsenal would lose in order to get rid of arguably our greatest ever manager!

Me too - I am going for 7-1.

Morning Old Man

You never responded to my post to you about Derek Underwood. Bit rude.

this one

New kit. Not sure how I feel about the blue. Its Arsenal, its red and white but whatever.

https://www.arsenal.com/news/arsenal-la ... s-home-kit

Yep bats are a pain in the a…. Their droppings will take the paint off your car if left for a few days plus they can carry a virus which will kill you. Birds, no they are okay. But for all the crocs and shark stories more people die up here from: Melioidosis. It’s a disease in the soil which comes to the surface when water level’s rise in the wet. Fatal in 20% of cases and usually around Townsville & Cairns 10-15 people die ever year.

not a fan of the new shirt really. It’s not terrible just isn’t very good really.

still doesn’t beat the 2008 shocker that looked like a charlton kit.

i’ll be rocking the tropical fish for the last time sunday. Thought it was appalling at first but now i think it’s one of our classics.

https://x.com/selormafc_/status/1791143 ... -j6VVZXEoA

It’s looks better on the players than some early mock ups. As it always does. It will be fine

https://x.com/hayterstv/status/17911462 ... -j6VVZXEoA

ten Hag is STILL talking about the game against us from August.

Arteta is massively underrated in his media. Apart from the Newcastle ‘diagracia’ outburst he doesn’t make headlines. He’s consistent, defends the players, always positive about the club, answers questions without getting sarcastic, dismissive or false. Emery to be fair has been similar, just decent and classy with the media.

Sorry never saw it. I am a rare visitor to the forum these days. Deadly's passing was sad, but what a bowler he was. And Knotty used to stand up to him. Jimmy's final Test on the horizon - a phenomenal talent.

Hope all is well omoh. Your presence here is deeply missed.

The Sesko and Zubimendi rumors are getting stronger. My guess is that we are going for the cheaper options financially. I personally think Sesko is too slow, but he's very good on the ball. I think he'll be good when we encounter low blocking sides. However, I don't see him able to run past most defenders when there is a high line. We have other players (Martinelli and Saka) who can do that.



Zubimendi is very good and I think he's also the cheaper option. I think we would prefer someone who is PL tested but that carries a price premium.



Only a guess but I think Arteta sees that we already have a very good club and its not a necessity to have PL ready guys. We have the squad that can bring them along.

Lastly, I'm excited about Hato. We are linked strongly to him if the media is anything to go by.



We get all three, I think it will take us over the top.

I’m still a bit deflated we didn’t smash them at their place, ah well, all progress. What’s telling is that despite still banging on about it no one else is. I think everyone else thinks he’s delusional too.

But he’s good copy, which makes him probably more popular with journalists. I think Arteta mostly is just perfunctory and tight lipped with the media and I don’t think they like him for it.

I think someone at the club has recognised this, He just did an interview for the BBC with Guilliam Balague and even I struggled for the first 5 minutes, but you get the sense of the man and by the end I was ready to ride into battle for him.

Had no idea this was our song for Rice...lol

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HnQYWloBPus

For whatever reasons, the sports media refused to talk in depth about Chelsea's success in the years from '04 forward to Roman's wealth. Same with City before '12 or so. Its mindboggling. It's a clear agenda to make the league fairer than it actually is. They allude to spending of City or whomever but its never in context.

Keys has an issue with us at times. My package is the BeIN sports package.

The sad thing about Aubameyang is had he had the right attitude, he'd have flourished in our present set up. Counter attacks over the top, he'd have been too much for them as well as on set pieces. Some people can't keep out of their own way.

A Manchester podcaster says he has it on good authority, Pep is gone summer of '25.

I'd wondered if Pep might be leaving, but it's great to get solid info. Thanks for letting us know.

I'd like to see how they determined this. I don't want to see VAR scrapped. The bias from refs is too much. I saw a video of a referee admitting he was letting Wrighty get fouled when he was at West Ham because Wrighty was arguing with him. If we had VAR we'd have won the double in 2003 and back to back doubles.

So, I assume we will go for PL ready Bruno Guimarães, the money that's being banded around could approach 80 million. How do that and get left back and striker I have no idea. I'm thinking Zubimendi is the 2nd choice, cheaper option if it gets too high or use pursuing Zubimendi to keep the price as low as possible.

I must say that the one who continuously markets the benefits of blocking actually led me to setting the block on one person. Bliss ever since.

Tbh there is tech that could easily draw the lines and map player positions whilst green screening out the pitch in about 3 seconds. Why it relies on some semi-conscious half pissed pillock in a chair to draw a few lines is beyond me. I mean we’ve all watched them zooming,etc and within 3 seconds said “ yup his arm is in front, “ yep he kicked him” but they piss around for another few minutes. Bias aside, that follow through on Saka a couple weeks ago was plain as day so why isn’t Var able to say “yep he was nowhere near the ball and followed through with studs up and zero attempt to pull out of it. Red card offense” in exactly the way that linesmen can?

Thing with Arteta is that he’s a lot bloody smarter than nearly all these journalists so knows what angle they’re trying to spin. Have seen countless little smiles or flat stares where he’s “I know what you’re trying to do with that question”. And then he just spins around it and shapes the answer to what he wants the conversation to be. If anything this is what they don’t like.

Isn’t that the end of his contract? lol

David Moyes on stopping Man City win the title this weekend. His last game for the club. Hoping against all hope. West Ham are in a bad run of form. Everton are in a good run of form. I hate thinking this but I think City may end up beating us on goal differential anyway.

I would t mind that shoreline again of us vs Everton. Remember sitting late one night with the old man rewatching it 10 years later on vhs after a night out on the booze and stumbling home at 1am. Bergkamp ran the show like clockwork.

Love seeing this. St. Pauli going back to the top division of Bundesliga after 13 years. I dated a girl from Hamburg once. I was briefly a Hamburg fan but she said, true Hamburgers (that always threw me...Hamburgers) support FC St. Pauli

https://www.facebook.com/EPLBantz/video ... 9576458910