EPL – West Ham vs Arsenal – 5:30pm – 6/10/12 - ESPN

[DJ_Markstar]

Someone PM Arsène and get him to put Uncle Mike on half time team talks.

 

[Illusion]

Nice slice of big swing decisions that all went against us in just one game:

Diame second yellow - clear yellow offence, no card given, West Ham avoid going down to ten men early on in the game.

Gervinho booking - clear dive, absolutely zero contact, yellow card given and West Ham nearly score from the subsequent free kick.

Ramsey penalty appeal - definite foul, you could debate it being in the box or not but the fact is Dowd didn't even give the foul.

Nolan offside chance - Nolan was offside, nothing given, fortunately for us he didn't score.

-

The more these things happen, the more I start to believe there is some corruption in the league as there is clear bias all over the place.

It's now at the point where there are too many games like this to list.

Seeing Fergie escape criticising the referees yet again and Man Utd being on the receiving end of a bunch of stupid decisions already, we can see a huge contributing factor to our apparent drop from regularly appearing at the very top of the table.

This is without going through the fixture lists of recent seasons to see just how many extra days rest United managed to garner themselves compared to their close rivals. It's also ignoring the situations where referees that perform poorly for United often get demoted immediately after, or simply never return to ref another Man Utd game.

You put all of this stuff together in a well written dossier and you'd surely have more shenanigans than they had in Italy.

 

[titi perfection]

Nice slice of big swing decisions that all went against us in just one game:

Diame second yellow - clear yellow offence, no card given, West Ham avoid going down to ten men early on in the game.

Gervinho booking - clear dive, absolutely zero contact, yellow card given and West Ham nearly score from the subsequent free kick.

Ramsey penalty appeal - definite foul, you could debate it being in the box or not but the fact is Dowd didn't even give the foul.

Nolan offside chance - Nolan was offside, nothing given, fortunately for us he didn't score.

-

The more these things happen, the more I start to believe there is some corruption in the league as there is clear bias all over the place.

It's now at the point where there are too many games like this to list.

Seeing Fergie escape criticising the referees yet again and Man Utd being on the receiving end of a bunch of stupid decisions already, we can see a huge contributing factor to our apparent drop from regularly appearing at the very top of the table.

This is without going through the fixture lists of recent seasons to see just how many extra days rest United managed to garner themselves compared to their close rivals. It's also ignoring the situations where referees that perform poorly for United often get demoted immediately after, or simply never return to ref another Man Utd game.

You put all of this stuff together in a well written dossier and you'd surely have more shenanigans than they had in Italy.

Yep been happening for years, i love my footy but do not take it serious anymore.

 

[entropy13]

LOL yeah Martinez gets fined but Fergie is not even given a warning.

 

[progman07]

Unfortunately missed the game, but really pleased with the goals, all beautiful and especially assured by Giroud, whose movement is brilliant. Gets into the positions to score, and after that it's mostly confidence and consistancy, because he definitely has the technique to finish.

 

[TheCandidate]

Nice slice of big swing decisions that all went against us in just one game:

Diame second yellow - clear yellow offence, no card given, West Ham avoid going down to ten men early on in the game.

Gervinho booking - clear dive, absolutely zero contact, yellow card given and West Ham nearly score from the subsequent free kick.

Ramsey penalty appeal - definite foul, you could debate it being in the box or not but the fact is Dowd didn't even give the foul.

Nolan offside chance - Nolan was offside, nothing given, fortunately for us he didn't score.

-

The more these things happen, the more I start to believe there is some corruption in the league as there is clear bias all over the place.

It's now at the point where there are too many games like this to list.

Seeing Fergie escape criticising the referees yet again and Man Utd being on the receiving end of a bunch of stupid decisions already, we can see a huge contributing factor to our apparent drop from regularly appearing at the very top of the table.

This is without going through the fixture lists of recent seasons to see just how many extra days rest United managed to garner themselves compared to their close rivals. It's also ignoring the situations where referees that perform poorly for United often get demoted immediately after, or simply never return to ref another Man Utd game.

You put all of this stuff together in a well written dossier and you'd surely have more shenanigans than they had in Italy.

There was also that shot by Podolski that clearly came off the back of the West Ham defender. He initially gave a goal kick until the linesman spoke to him. But what the fu.ck was he looking at to not see the ball hit the player?

The decision on Diame was scandalous really, especially as Gervinho got booked for a much less nasty challenge just after. (Although I don't think Diame should've been booked for celebrating with the crowd in the first place).

The only conclusion is that Dowd is either anti-Arsenal or incompetent. Probably the latter in reality as I've seen him ****-up in a few other games for other teams. The fat useless idiot needs demoting to the championship at least until he gets fit if for no other reason.

Also, I always thought a foul on the line is a penalty anyway - like if the ball is on the line it's still in. So it was definitely a penalty if he'd given a foul.

 

[Hunta]

The best of all was when Fergie, before the Liverpool game said United never get penalties at Anfield, they then got the winner from the spot after a dive from Valencia.

 

[bojed]

Giroud was simply fantastic.

I really love his goal. Not as classy as Theo's or Santi's but Olivier's goal is the "hardworking and determined" type of goal which I really adore.

 

[redanddread]

Dowd again with another bent refereeing performance in a game involving us.

How was that clear foul on Ramsey not given? Why did Diame stay on the pitch?
Why was Gervinho booked?

He really must have something against us the fat ******* tosser.

I still haven't forgotten about the 4-4 against Newcastle. He might as well have put on a Newcastle shirt whilst refereeing that day.

Any one else see the nasty trailing leg from Vaz Te clearly intended to 'do' Mannone? Looked more deliberate than Hunt on Cech but thankfully not the same end result. How sweet to find out he had dislocated his shoulder straight after, the dirty bastard.

Funny they showed a replay of that incident ONCE and not again. It looked deliberate and the commentators said as much but then never brought it back up again. It looked very deliberate!

In fact, West Ham employed ALL of Big Fat Sam's roughhouse tactics yesterday. Make no mistake this was a BIG win in a hostile environment. Glad we slapped 3 past them.

 

[Glovegun]

Great win. West Ham will give a lot of teams a serious work-out this season, if not more, especially at home. Let's be honest, Carroll can consider himself fairly unlucky not to have scored yesterday. Hearts in mouths when he outjumped Mannone in the second half.

Very pleased for Giroud. Great striker's run and finish, exactly what we've been missing. Offered us an outlet as well. Also feel that Theo showed why he should be given a crack centrally. Best finisher at the club along with Podolski.

 

[Dokaka]

We once again exposed Fat Sam as an incredibly overrated manager.

Come on now, really? You beat a newly promoted side who didn't even win the Championship and spent a total of £17m in the summer. Yeah, you really showed just how poor BFS is..

Especially considering we had 3-5 huge chances, 3 of which would've been goals more often than not.

Yeah, you won, but as I said it was your game to lose. If anything, BFS showed just how good he is considering how many chances we created against one of the best defences in the league.

I was proud of our performance. We didn't just park the bus and hope for the best. We had 75% posession in a 15 minute spell in the second half against ****ing Arsenal FC, and Carroll gave Mertesacker and Vermaelen all sorts of troubles.

You won, you played the better game, but you also spend what we did the entire transfer window pretty much on 1 player - 3 times. So making this into a "this showed how overrated BFS is" is really pathetic in all honesty.

Actually, the fact that we're 8th in the league shows just how GOOD BFS is.

 

[eye4goal]

Nice goal by Theo, but it was on a counter and he was on the wing, it remains to be seen if he can unlock a parked bus at CF.

Yeah I just don't get how people say he should be playing upfront just because of the goal. He'd be in Giroud's position(when he played him through) if he was playing CF wouldn't he? It was really well taken but there's more to playing CF than finishing

 

[bojed]

@Andre_Santos27 he drives how he wants! Haha love that #Gunner” I like that ) lol

looks like santos liked the new song haha.

I've said it before, it's quite impossible to hate Santos.

 

[DJ_Markstar]

Nice goal by Theo, but it was on a counter and he was on the wing, it remains to be seen if he can unlock a parked bus at CF.

Yeah I just don't get how people say he should be playing upfront just because of the goal. He'd be in Giroud's position(when he played him through) if he was playing CF wouldn't he? It was really well taken but there's more to playing CF than finishing

Not necessarily.

 

[qs]

Nice goal by Theo, but it was on a counter and he was on the wing, it remains to be seen if he can unlock a parked bus at CF.

Yeah I just don't get how people say he should be playing upfront just because of the goal. He'd be in Giroud's position(when he played him through) if he was playing CF wouldn't he? It was really well taken but there's more to playing CF than finishing

No one expects Walcott to play like Giroud though. Theres more than one way to skin a cat.

 

[redwhiteAustrian]

Giroud won quite a high amount of headers against their CBs yesterday, which he knocked down to his teammates, don't think Theo could do that. His technique is also superior to Theo's, so I still struggle to see how we should play with Theo up front, as a lone striker.

Theo is the perfect counter attack striker, one player you'd love to have on the pitch once the opposition pushes up for to get an equalizer (or winner). As soon as the game opens up, he's perfect, but each game starts at 0-0 (-.-) so I struggle to see the point of him up front.

 

[infineon]

Walcott is a goal scoring winger at best. He isn't built to play upfront in the modern game. I feel for him because he genuinely believes he can make it upfront and Wenger has encouraged the idea even though it probably was never going to become fact.

 

[Vinci]

each game starts at 0-0 (-.-)

Even though the scoreboard at OT may suggest otherwise, going there and Webb as a ref you are already 1-0 down.

 

[DJ_Markstar]

Yeah I just don't get how people say he should be playing upfront just because of the goal. He'd be in Giroud's position(when he played him through) if he was playing CF wouldn't he? It was really well taken but there's more to playing CF than finishing

No one expects Walcott to play like Giroud though. There's more than one way to skin a cat.

Precisely. No one is asking Theo to win knockdowns, he'll play the CF role in a different way.

 

[RUS arsenal]

My question and concern with playing Walcott through the middle is this: can he link up, help build up play, make space for himself and others inside the box and hold onto the ball long enough to bring others into play in the congested areas in the middle? Or is the best he can do is simply be just a good poacher? It has been shown time and again that strict poachers don't work in our system. Again I'm not asking him to win knockdowns or any physical battles here, so I think it is a fair question/concern, is it not?