Other teams' games through December 2021 and New Year 2022

PrestonHammer

The Arsenal non penalty was definitely not a penalty. Edison touched the ball. If anything it's a foul on the keeper as Odegaard got the keepers leg.

chicagohammer

Spurs are going to nick this unfortunately

Jorderz_Moyes_will_be_Moyes

MrsGrey said:

This is Watford that we scored 4 against, yeah?

You're either massive or you're not.

jay_in_cpt

MrsGrey said:

If any of you are watching the stream with the Irish commentator, do you know his name? He's doing my head in.

Am not watching this game, eye on roast lamb in oven, but if he's commentating with Don Hutchison, it's Phil Blacker ......

nychammer66

My heart says watford! My head says harry kane penalty in 89 minute.

thornburyiron

Spuds have scored in stoppage time.

buffybegood

Nooooooooooooooooo, Spurs score in injury time

Lukerz

Damn

whupathman

Rats spuds score

whupathman

Was it a pen Watford did not get?

jay_in_cpt

Will be keen to see what punishment Arsenal get for their fans behaviour, throwing things at City players when celebrating their last minute winner...
......

PrestonHammer

They're one of the so called "Big Six", so nothing will be done.

IronHerb

Do Arsenal know the VAR process? Asking why the Odegaard penalty claim wasn't offered to Atwell on the VAR monitor isn't what VAR is there to do, unless the VAR team thought it was a definite penalty. They didn't and so the offer was never made. It's not a difficult process to follow.

Lukerz

Clearly not. I don’t actually think the ref would have given the penalty (or VAR asked him) if it wasn’t for the shirt pull. So I am not sure how anybody could argue that was not a clear error as had he seen that shirt pull he surely would have given it. The second yellow was a clear yellow. The Arsenal shout was an ‘umpires call’.

I have no issue with players going down after a shirt pull as whenever they stay up it’s always ignored. A shirt pull is an illegal offence. I think they would have sided with the ref based solely on the leg block but Xhaka did what Xhaka does &, after our game against them, couldn’t be happier.

IronHerb

There are shirt pulls and then there are Xhaka shirt pulls. Bernardo actually changed direction in flight due to the force of that shirt pull. 😄

buffybegood

IronHerb said:

Do Arsenal know the VAR process? Asking why the Odegaard penalty claim wasn't offered to Atwell on the VAR monitor isn't what VAR is there to do, unless the VAR team thought it was a definite penalty. They didn't and so the offer was never made. It's not a difficult process to follow.

Yeah, I read that article and thought the same thing. It's not a lack of consistency if the VAR looked at it and determined no obvious error had been made.

Lukerz

Arsenal keeper doesn’t get the rules either. Good job they don’t just review every decision as otherwise not sure Coufal would have been red carded against us.

buffybegood

Lukerz said:

I have no issue with players going down after a shirt pull as whenever they stay up it’s always ignored. A shirt pull is an illegal offence.

Whilst I agree that shirt pulls shouldn't happen, if you let players throw themselves to the ground every time an opponent touchs their shirt, you could give 20 penalties a match. There is no way whatsoever that Bernardo couldn't have stayed on his feet, so to me that's a dive. The shirt pull did not in any way cause him to fall over.

This is what we have to move away from imo, especially as it's so much down to interpretation; you just know that commentators and ex-referees would say "he's gone down too easily, not a penalty for me" if it had been a West Ham player.

Lukerz

No I think that’s for the refs to decide whether it’s a genuine dive or an offence. For me, a shirt tug is a foul & a yellow card. Sometimes it will be a tiny grab & that’s for VAR/ref to sort. To me, a pull is a pull, whether a slight one or obvious one. But if a player does what Xhaka does as you are trying to go round him, I have no issue with the player going to ground & that is not a dive for me. A dive is going to ground under no contact or initiating contact. I agree we need to get away from any contact equaling somebody throwing themselves down, but a shirt pull is different to a collision to me or a tackle. It’s a cynical & deliberate act & no intention to play the ball.

PrestonHammer

I thought it was a foul before he'd pulled his shirt. If Xhaka hadn't have pulled his shirt, he might have got away with it

ASLEFshrugged

Bernardo Silva started going down once he felt contact from Xhaka's leg and would have hit the turf sooner if Xhaka hadn't had hold of his shirt

A tribute to Francis Lee

buffybegood

Lukerz said:

No I think that’s for the refs to decide whether it’s a genuine dive or an offence. For me, a shirt tug is a foul & a yellow card. Sometimes it will be a tiny grab & that’s for VAR/ref to sort. To me, a pull is a pull, whether a slight one or obvious one. But if a player does what Xhaka does as you are trying to go round him, I have no issue with the player going to ground & that is not a dive for me. A dive is going to ground under no contact or initiating contact. I agree we need to get away from any contact equaling somebody throwing themselves down, but a shirt pull is different to a collision to me or a tackle. It’s a cynical & deliberate act & no intention to play the ball.

We'll have to agree to disagree then; a dive, for me, is when you willingly go to ground when any contact there might have been was not sufficient to cause you to not be able to stand up. Football is a contact sport, and, whilst I agree that a shirt pull is illegal contact, throwing yourself to the ground for no reason, as Bernardo did (the shirt pull in no way made him fall over) is 100% a dive. Whether the shirt pull should have been looked at anyway is another matter, but allowing players of "big" clubs to feel the slightest contact and go down is not encouraging fair play and sets a dreadful example imo.

Lukerz

Fair enough. To me, a shirt pull is cynical & different to other forms of contact. Bernardo basically said to the ref ‘there’s an issue here’ by falling over. I actually think the bigger act of cheating is tugging a shirt & often getting away with it as it’s deemed ‘minimal’. I don’t think it fair a player gets his shirt tugged in the box to that level & the main talk is about him diving. He’s trying to attack & get at goal. Xhaka has got away with one there as his own fans are more interested in having a pop at Silva & the injustice instead of the fact their captain massively let the team down in a game they were set to win. He must be laughing.

whupathman

If you don’t go down no foul and the shirt puller gets away with obstruction, ideally the ref blows anyway but they don’t so you have to go down to highlight the foul. Don’t like it but that’s the game

Dodger58

Or in Antonio’s case you get choke slammed at a corner and nothing is done ;-)

thornburyiron

Watching it again though Silva was fouled anyway by Xhaka nudging his knee

IronHerb

Silva was going down after Xhaka put his leg across him. Not sure how he was supposed to keep his feet in that situation.

buffybegood

IronHerb said:

Silva was going down after Xhaka put his leg across him. Not sure how he was supposed to keep his feet in that situation.

Imo he easily rode that, and then, rather than putting one foot in front of the other he dived forward when he felt the tug. I've watched it numerous times and there's no way, imo, he had to go down. If he didn't have to go down, and yet he did, then, to me, he dived.

ASLEFshrugged

There was contact, there was a shirt pull and there was a blatant dive.

Xhaka and Silva were both cheating in their own way

IronHerb

Right, right, wrong.