Ben Foster reckons Arsenal didn’t do the right thing when they kept on playing with a Watford player down in the build-up to the Gunners’ lone goal when both clubs met at the weekend.
However, he also blames his teammates for not being clever enough.
Danny Rose appeared to have kicked the ball out of play, but Arsenal threw it back in and went on to score.
The Gunners were right to have kept on playing, but in the spirit of fair play, some feel they should have given the ball back or passed back to the keeper.
Foster, however, believes the Watford players should also have done more to get the referee to act after seeing that Arsenal has restarted play immediately.
“I have a little problem with it,” said Foster to Sky Sports.
“I think, in my book, that deserves to be booted back up to the pitch towards their goalkeeper.
“That’s the way I would have seen it going. The way it happened, we need to kind of look at ourselves a little there because we need to be clever.
“If Danny Rose is kicking the ball out there, then we need to make a song and dance about it before the game gets carried on.
“We need to be throwing our arms in the air by saying ‘get it back to the goalkeeper’. All that kind of stuff.”
This controversial moment will be talked about by pundits and players alike that is for sure.
However, Arsenal will delight in their win and as long as the referee never asked them to stop playing, the Gunners did nothing wrong.
In football, you have to be clever sometimes and in this situation Arsenal was and they simply reaped the benefits from it.
Even if they hadn’t scored from that move, chances are the Gunners would still have netted another goal in the match considering their current fine run of form.
yes, i do think the sporting thing was to give the ball back.
Also tho, there was 3 clear passages of play between rose kicking the ball out, to when we scored, there was enough time there for Watford to get back in position and defend.
The letter of the law we did nothing wrong and players should always play to the whistle!
In football, you have to be clever sometimes and in this situation Arsenal was and they simply reaped the benefits from it.
It would have been easy to talk this talk only if I was leading by say 2-0. I needed 3 points and you expected me to stop play because one lazy player was pretending to be fouled in front of goal? If it was worth it, then the ref would have blew and thanks to God he didn’t. COYG
You say chances are Arsenal would have netted another goal…which begs the question…why didn’t you?
So you’re talking utter tripe.
In this particular instance, no they should not have given the ball back. Watford spent all game serial fouling so can also be accused of lacking sportsmanship. In the incident in question, the player who was down got up soon afterwards and was clearly faking an injury. Having said that, I do think AMN took a Watford player out of the game with a body check in the build up to us scoring, but hey ho, sh it happens. Good to see our soft side has got a little harder!
Watford should look at the way they play, their sportsmanship and their way of trying to kick the living daylights out of us before complaining about this incident.
How many times did we see their players rolling around, feigning injury – only to get up and be “cured” after wasting time?
On the subject of time wasting, I think Ramsdale has to be careful with his actions.
I would be going berserk if he was the opposing keeper.
KEN if Ramsdale were indeed the opposing keeper, Id also be going berserk, in fact I would be miserable as sin. He is currently the single best keeper in the Prem and we cannot afford to lose him.
And in all seriousness I ASK ALL GOONERS, how many of us wanted him here?
One, two, or none at all? Only MA, who SHOULD get huge credit for doing so.
Eh DAN KIT, SEAN WILLIAMS, REGGIE ETC!!
Don’t tell lies Jon to get a story, you are lying for effect, show me the post where i said what you accused me of, you cant.
Where is my original reply Ed, you keep removing them, why?
It causes so many arguments so I don’t agree with all this kicking the ball out when someone is supposedly injured. Let the referee decide to stop the game if he thinks a player is genuinely injured. The Watford player in question was not injured , he was just on the end of a strong tackle. There was no need for Rose to kick the ball out. They just wanted to waste time and we had no obligation to give them the ball back. Anyway, the goal didn’t come directly from the throw in and they had opportunities to clear the ball.
AsMarty, inhis post above , correctly says , there should be no obligation at all for the non injured players team to give the ball back, UNLESS the ref blows to make that decision.
When you leave players to make decisions, you will always get confusion and possible arguments later on.
This problem arises out of about the ONLY act in football that is “considered sporting” and which does not involve cheating. Players routinely cheat in almost every other situation; diving, stealing throw on yards, not retreating at free kicks, argy bargy by BOTH teams at each corner and fouls galore at every dangerous free kick. Plus massive time wasting too, ALL of which are routinely cheating
EXCEPT, in this case it WAS cheating, but by Watford, who were wasting time deliberately by kicking the ball out when their own player was not actually injured at all. We had no moral responsibility to return the ball to them therefore.
In any case, they resumed defending their goal and quite some time passed before the goal, in which time THEY CHOSE to play on.
AMN then clearly fouled their player but there was no whistle and players KNOW to play to the whistle. They are taught this from an early schoolboy age, as is well known.
Watford have no gripe that holds any water and were simply bad losers.
HAD AUBA NOT BEEN WASTEFUL, IT WOULD HAVE FINISHED 4-0 ANYWAY, as we all know. So do Watford BTW!
But cuddly Claudio “forgot ” to mention that.
I wonder why!!
The truth is we have some hypocritical people, who try to excuse something that if it was the other way round would be telling a total different story. The truth is it wasn’t very sporting by Arsenal. Anyone who tries to say different is kidding themselves. Please be honest, if you are having an opinion on it. Looking from an Arsenal point of view and saying its ok because Watford played dirty, is like saying, you slept with my Mrs, so me sleeping with yours is ok. Come on!!!!!!!