Morning all.
Arsenal seem to have opened a can of worms, a can which never needed to be opened had Howard Webb and his officials received their own memo.
In Europe, the grappling in the penalty area is managed better by referees, I think we were awarded a penalty in a Champions League game for an incident in the box which went unnoticed by many yet the referee spotted it and that was that.
For those in the media who are singling Arsenal out, probably because of the Rice incident against Chelsea along with the number of goals were scoring from set-pieces because we’re not the only club doing that. Nor are we the only club whose players are getting involved in tussles in both boxes.
LAW 12 which deals with the subject of obstruction says:
_‘**Impeding the progress of an opponent by moving into the opponent’s path to obstruct, block, slow down or force a change of direction when the ball is not within playing distance of either player. All players have a right to their position on the field of play. Being in the way of an opponent is not the same as moving into the way of an opponent.’**_
So who is at fault, the players for pushing the rules to the limits or the officials for not implementing the law? The latter is the answer in my opinion, 100% and they’ve brought this debate on themselves for being toothless. For being inconsistent and in some cases, darned right useless.
Why is no one in the media talking about the abysmal decisions made by Darren England in other areas of the game, after all, on three separate occasions he failed to play the advantage when we were breaking quickly. The worst being the last when Gabriel Martinelli was through on goal.
As for the set-piece goals we are scoring, when did the law makers remove them from the game? When did own goals stop being part of the game? They happen, it’s just rotten luck most of the time and if we benefit from them, who cares? I doubt Chelsea cared on Sunday when their only goal of the game came that way.
I don’t think it helps referees that they can only penalise players for what they do after the set-piece has been kicked so all the grappling will continue unless that rule changes which I think it will in the summer. Until then, I’m sure it’ll be business as usual for Arsenal as well as the other 19 clubs in the league.
I read this in the Daily Mail yesterday:
_The set piece issue has certainly got into their (other clubs) minds. Chelsea’s Liam Rosenior admitted on Sunday that he had spent all week drilling his players on how to defend Arsenal’s corners while at Leeds Daniel Farke made the remarkable confession that he had told his players to simply try to not concede any. That in itself smacks of some kind of strange inferiority complex.
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_As the excellent Shay Given pointed out on Match of the Day earlier this season, it’s about time the Premier League and its sophisticated coaches started to worry less about Arsenal’s aerial prowess and instead come up with ways to combat it. They are just corner kicks after all._
Indeed they are Shay and we are pretty good at them….
We should hear from Mikel Arteta later today as we face Brighton tomorrow evening. I smiled when I read Arteta’s comments about his heart nearly stopped beating when it looked like Chelsea were going to equalise because now he knows how we feel during a game. I try and convince myself it’s only a game but it doesn’t work. It matters because Arsenal matter!
Catch up in the comments..