The Premier League - 2021-2022

The images on the BBC page show the Man Utd players all surrounding the ref, I thought that was banned years ago, or does the rule not apply to the top 6?

 

Banned in the same way that wrestling at corners and free kicks was banned...

 

£80m for Maguire is one of the most horrific transfers in football history, second only to Andre Gray coming here.

 

Definitely a penalty,daft from Omygawd.
Spurs finally get something right!

 

Remember when Paolo do Canio picked the ball up because the keeper went down. He was a bit of a nut, but had some class. Whilst Arsenal are an unpleasant classless lot, I'm not sure there are any players or teams now in the league that would have not played on.

Where's the class and sportsmanship gone?

 

It only works when both sides can trust each other. Di Canio presumably did it because he knew Paul Gerrard was actually hurt and he ended up being subbed off which proved the point. These days keepers are no harder than the rest and flop over at the slightest contact. De Gea was right as rain as soon as the game kicked off again. The more times things like the Arsenal goal happen, the less likely they might be to feign injury and the better the game is for all of us.

 

The whole rolling around on the floor pretending to be hurt thing has been the final straw for me to stop watching games as a neutral. That’s not to say that Leicester players don’t do it of course. They get the game stopped and then have a tantrum if they’re stood on the side for more than five seconds. Just like this trend of players like Grealish choosing to wait and be fouled instead of passing the ball, it just sucks the life out of a game for minutes at a time. I can’t think of a player enjoying watching less than Neymar.

Ademola Lookman chose to kick the ball out of play in our game against Southampton this week when we were on the attack with a good opportunity to make a chance…. The injured player made a miraculous recovery and the ball was in our net a minute later. I’d honestly be quite happy if he had his loan cancelled for that.

 

Same thing happened in our game against Arsenal, Danny Rose was in acres of space and could’ve easily cleared the ball up the wing, but instead put it straight into touch near the corner flag because a player was down. Arsenal kept the throw and immediately scored.

 

Agreed. But then that's just players being thick. I think we've had about 3-4 seasons now since the PL said clearly that refs alone should decide to stop the game and players should play on until the whistle goes. Yet you still see the Lookman's and Rose's of this world who boot it out.

 

De Gea is a lazy modern goalkeeper, felt a scrape on his ankle assumed it must have been an Arsenal player and spotted that the corner was going to be cleared by Maguire. Refs always blow up immediately for a goalkeeper going down don't they...but Atkinson unusually for our low quality Prem refs was very alert for once and spotted that there were only red shirts near De Gea as he went down (you can see a quick glance from him) and Atkinson played on with VAR always an easy back stop for him. Easy and correct decision.

Atkinson though was as lazy in his decision for the penalty on Fred. The Brazilian put his leg in to Odegaard's (rash) tackle to ensure contact and the VAR ref plus Atkinson saw the perfect opportunity to even things up and make the earlier 'controversy' go away. Atkinson had called it right initially and should have stuck to his guns. Wrong decision, in my opinion, but Atkinson knew he could go either way on his decision so chose the easy way out. VAR can be good, 1st goal, but is a licence to poor and lazy refs to judge how they can 'even' things up as required too. Has anyone recently stuck with their onfield decision under pressure from their VAR colleague?

No sympathy to the the Gunners mind after their pathetic behaviour in our game but watch all the commentators praise him, not least (Dermot Gallagher I'd wager, what a c**k!) for the ref's excellent performance throughout.

 

What Raheem Sterling, Jesus, Bernardo Silva, Phil 'Fair' Foden attempting to win penalties by pulling the wool over the eyes of one of the greatest refs the Prem has ever witnessed, Kevin 'Top6' Friend...?

Quite honestly I don't see that scenario as at all likely. After all, here's Raheem himself proving that this possibility isn't in his nature. Just look at his body language and him referencing that he "was touched". He's as honest as the day is long, we must all agree...

 

With players going down with 'head' injuries and forcing the ref to blow up I would like to see all those incidents result in the player going off to see the doctor in the changing room to assess the player before allowing them back on. Rugby does this with a temp sub. This would stop the fakers whilst protecting really injured players.

 

Yup. Not sure temp subs would help though, as they'd likely just be abused. I'd say if a player goes down holding his head and that's the reason the ref stopped play, the player should have to leave the field and sit out the next 2 minutes of play. 4th official to do the timekeeping before the player presents at the touchline again asking to come back on. Obviously the player can be subbed off at any point during that, including concussion sub.

 

Paolo di Canio is also a fascist and so not one to talk about morality!

 

You think our defenders will be close enough to make contact?

 

See!! Even a proven facist had more sporting integrity than self proclaimed "good guy" Arsenal.

 

Well another emotional Man U 'manager' heads off into the sunset shedding tears. A number of pundits paying tribute to Carrick for his 3 match unbeaten run. I'm not convinced with any of those recent results he just got a bit luckier than Ole. After all he was sat next to Ole throughout that earlier disastrous run of form and his contributions didn't do much. As far as I can see, Carrick appears as thick as m**** as Ole was, can't see either of them reappearing in a top coaching job anytime soon. A pair of morose cheerleaders (a bit like our Xisco without the smiles) with no tactical nous in the slightest. Glazer Utd were just too dim to see what was staring them in the face.

https://www.skysports.com/watch/vid.../12485025/carrick-right-time-to-leave-man-utd

He could at least have wiped those tears off his jacket before the interview, lazy git!

 

In what way is Ole thick?

He has always struck me as quite articulate.

 

Neither of them able to set up teams tactically well given the squad depth they had. The relentless picking of players off form in the forlorn hope that they were bound to come good. Articulate enough in a second language but in post-match interviews he always seemed to blame unlucky decisions/moments and rely on getting it right by getting back to the training ground and "going again" like a drowning man clutching at straws. Articulate to the media maybe but utterly clueless.

 

Doesn’t mean he’s stupid though. Just not a very good manager.

Wenger used to blame bad luck and he’s certainly not thick.

I’m with you on Carrick though.

 

Here's an example after Aston Villa did a job on Ole's Man U. Yes, articulate enough which, as you say gives him an edge over Carrick, but blimey: "They're hard to break down, we just couldn't get the first goal"; "Definitely VAR's gone wrong again"; "Didn't like the way they crowded Bruno on the penalty spot and all that malarkey"; "Bruno's very strong mentally but today it just didn't go in".
https://www.manutd.com/en/videos/de...t-match-interview-after-man-utd-v-aston-villa
Can you honestly say that Guardiola, Klopp, Tuchel, Ranieri or most other top league managers/coaches would offer such a simplistic analysis after another damning defeat against a team struggling like us near the bottom of the league? A really poor set of excuses. And I didn't have to search very far to find this.

 

I see what you’re saying but I still don’t think that proves he is stupid. I just think he is poor at making excuses.

Anyway, fair enough, you’ve explained your position.

 

Yeah but honesty doesn’t equate to intelligence and excuse-making to stupidity. Stupid people might be honest because they can’t think of an excuse.

Not that I think Tuchel is stupid, he’s clearly a much better coach.

 

West Ham beating Chelsea is like putting in all the groundwork to open a jar and then someone else opens it first time.

 

West Ham close to doing the job we should have done against Chelsea.

 

Unfortunately we have to accept that West Ham have a better team than us, they also beat Liverpool by the same score this season.

Also it's telling that two of the players who starred for Chelsea against us (Mount and Ziyech) scored or assisted but West Ham were still able to beat them.

 

Who do we want to win in Newcastle-Burnley? We want to keep the gap to the Toon as big as possible until January, but Burnley would overtake us with a win...

 

Goalless draw is probably best for us