Just got back from the Emirates. I'm not in the best of moods to start blogging again but after today's shambolic display from most notably the referee, I've got plenty to rant and rave about that needs to get out of my system.
It's always easy to blame the referee after losing in a big game but I'm left with no choice. Okay, I admit United's goals could have been easily avoided but the countless times - and I mean countless times he disrupted play for us, set double standards between the two teams, and allowed them to time-waste whenever they saw fit meant that we didn't have a hope in hell even before we kicked off.
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| Permission to punch? |
Two incidents stood out for me. Two world-class examples of absolutely piss-poor refereeing, also known as cheating. The first was United's decision to time waste with loads of time left to play (10 minutes if you count added time), which was, not for the first time in the match, going unpunished. Increasingly infuriated by the constant amount of somehow unnoticed gamesmanship was occurring, Robin Van Persie decided to stamp his authority on the matter as captain and tell the referee his thoughts. I thought "great, finally RVP will sort it out once and for all", but for some unknown reason the ref takes offence and to mine and 60,000 others' astonishment, books him. Absolutely ridiculous.
The second amazed me even more. At 1-1, it was still quite tense but the momentum was slowly swinging Arsenal's way. We'd scored not long ago and were starting to really get at United and open them up. Walcott is pulled by Evans and trips on Lindegaard and falls flat on his face. That shook the whole stadium. He didn’t move an inch. I actually feared the worst at one stage, he was dead still. So was the referee in relation to his whistle. It probably never even crossed his mind that he didn’t knock himself out on purpose.
All those ludicrous decisions aside however, this is not why we lost the game. Everything was going swimmingly – we were set to lay siege on the United goal after getting the equaliser, when just two minutes after assisting RVP to level the scores, Wenger decides to take Oxlade-Chamberlain off when he was moving in to his best part of the game and brings on Andrei Arshavin. As if the incompetent referee didn’t make the sides uneven enough, Arshavin ensured that we had to deal with an incompetent player on our side as well.
It wouldn’t be harsh by any means to say that the booing directed at Arshavin was uncalled for. If anything, it was more that Wenger took off the Ox than brought him on; but given that we also had Benayoun on the bench, it felt like an insult to bring him on. I think that’s the last straw for him. Arshavin, Chamakh and Squillaci can all go to any club they like, I’d happily let them go for free. Christ, I’d personally escort them to wherever their disintegrating careers will take them next. I mean, who would want to buy any of those three? I wouldn’t let them play in my back garden.
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| Shocking... |
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| Shocking... |
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| SHOCKING!... |
So what next for Arsenal? A win tonight would have put us much closer to Chelsea but it seems that we’ve got a real fight on our hands with Liverpool and still somehow Newcastle breathing down our necks – and that’s just to get into 5th. I’m still very confident about us getting in the Champions League, but I’m actually that desperate for us to get in, I don’t care if Tottenham finish above us now. Let them have a little bit of glory – 3rd isn’t much better than 4th these days. Still, we need to concentrate on the FA Cup next week – it could be our best chance for silverware.
Come On You Reds!
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