Charlie Nicholas Weekly PL Predictions

Nothing to get wound up about much like his predecessor Merson last season. But I do sense a touch of bitterness this week in his prediction for the Man City game, just because Arsenal couldn’t beat us.

“...Watford got out of jail against Arsenal, and that was from living off mistakes.”

?!?
Bizarre statement.

 

And grammatically incorrect, to boot.

 

Noted and changed.

 

I caught 5 minutes of Sky's football debate thing last night on SSN. He was on there and was very scathing about Arsenal's performance against us. And the fact is for all our 31 shots, both goals did come about through their errors rather than all our own good work.

 

Perhaps but we hardly ‘got out of jail’ as he states. On the balance of play and chances, it’s fairer to Arsenal were the lucky ones, not us.

 

Yup. These types of things are always a bit silly anyway. Pundits talk jibberish when they're on their own live on telly. It seems to morph into A grade ******** when a pundit is interviewed by the Sky Sports website writer and their comments get translated into English. Bit like Google translate from one language to another and then back again. Never quite the same as the original.

 

Not only were Arsenal fortunate to escape with a point, they were lucky to finish with 11 men.

 

Is there any such thing as a goal that is not due to a defensive mistake?
Nevertheless, if Arsenal persist with attempts to walk it out of defence they are going to concede a lot of goals.

 

Who should have been sent off? I don’t remember that?

 

I'm fuming at this. I won't be listening to his opinion anymore. A loss for football IMO.

 

I really don’t think many think we are a Championship team anymore. Even after sacking Gracia, I actually found the media comments have softened towards the way we do things and found many more people saying they are beginning to understand the model now. Too many of our fans have hang-ups about how we are perceived as a whole in my opinion. I think most people accept us as a PL club now. That’s about right 5 seasons in.

As for Lineker shrugging if we finished 7th, in reality, why shouldn’t he? We’d get a small amount of praise and then they’d focus on the top and bottom ends of the table - that’s what I’d expect anyone to do really. No sports journalists take much time eulogising about who was ‘Best of the rest’ or finished middle of the pack in a Grand Prix. It’s just not really newsworthy and it means far more to fans of that club than anyone else - not sure why anyone should or would care. We are in our 5th season back - we should start considering ourselves as more than just lucky to be here and act as such, rather than worrying that we aren’t praised enough. Leave that for the teams that have been in the Championship more recently than us.

 

Lineker

 

I normally wouldn’t edit and correct myself - but even that one annoys me.

 

Should have gone for "the boy Line Acre".

 

The guy who took a kick at Holebas in that mini ruckus. He missed, but he tried.

 

It was a tiny action - not even sure it could be construed as a kick. I see your point but no way was that a red card!

 

All I know about it was a load of howling just after I'd retired to the V Bar.

 

Yes. This is very rare though.

 

Had Holebas done that, he would’ve been straight off.

 

But that’s not the threshold for a red card!

 

Was it the V Bar that were howling?

 

Well, it's water under the bridge. But I think he should have gone. And, yes, with more than a touch of the HB1 about me, I think there's a 'Top Six bias' in there. Deeney was sent off last year for a far more accidental thing.

 

Hmm - I don't think it was a yellow, just a straight forward clumsy challenge. But it was a foul and we should have had a free kick.

 

I normally don’t mind Charlie Nicholas but I think he’s being a little unfair here as probably deserved more than a point. I guess he’s an arsenal fan though and has never heard of Watford

 

I have heard of Ken Nicholas though.

 

It is when Holebas is the player involved. On that occasion, he got booked for being kicked & then strong-armed.

 

He certainly didn’t instigate the incident - but once the melee was underway, watch it closely. Holebas raised his arms more than once and took a long time to calm down. Unlucky to be booked but certainly wasn’t a choir boy when it all kicked off.

 

Whilst the player doing the kicking & flailing (ineffectual as it may have been), being the instigator of the whole situation, was not even spoken to, let alone booked. How dare he complain about being kicked whilst the ref allowed the main culprit to walk away scot-free as the fall-out carries on behind him.
Maybe Holebas should just have ‘accepted’ it, but where’s the justice in all that.
If you want an example of why respect for officials’ decisions is diminishing, there’s one.

 

I don’t think that was a red. But the guy with big hair that elbowed Holebas should have. Even if it was an accident he was throwing his arm in to hit someone else - so no defence. Of course VAR missed it even if Sky didn’t.

 

I’ve learned not to expect justice with referees. I’m happier now I’ve accept that.

 

My ‘outrage’ was largely cosmetic, but the last sentence is quite valid in my view.

 

I agree it's valid too . It would certainly annoy me if it was my job and I couldn't argue about injustices - especially if I knew they could in theory look at a video and see exactly what happened.