Gabriel Agbonlahor insists that Arsenal were hard done-by in defeat against Manchester City, and it is hard to disagree.
We went into the break 1-0 up, knowing we had been the better side and were keeping our rivals at bay, then after the restart we picked up our first yellow of the match after VAR rewarded Bernardo Silva’s theatrics with a penalty, before the official turned the game on it’s head by reprimanding every 50-50 in favour of City.
Agbonlahor insists that the fans have every right to be annoyed by the decisions on the day.
🤔 “Did he have to send Gabriel off or did he want to make a statement? He was so card happy today!”
👀 “It looked one sided. Everything went in City’s favour…”
Gabby Agbonlahor wasn't happy with how the ref treated Arsenal against #MCFC yesterday pic.twitter.com/HcoH4bSVBp
— talkSPORT (@talkSPORT) January 2, 2022
I don’t disagree with a single word he has said here. It almost appeared as if our frustration with the penalty decision led to the referee turning on us, and becoming biased against us, as from that point onwards we were being punished for every little thing he could.
Can you recall a single 50-50 that went in our favour?
Patrick
Watch Albert Stuivenberg’s FULL Press conference here….
We’ve established the refereeing team was rubbish about 5 articles ago.
None of this will get us more points from the zero we got so time to focus on the Liverpool + FA Cup games.
Really bizarre from the officials on Sat. I thought attwell refereed the first half well. He allowed the game to flow not blowing the whistle everytime a player hit the dirt. Then Arsenal went 1 nil up, and we can’t have that can we. It was like the disguised one of the man City staff as Atwell.
He was ridiculous, Ake fouled Saka during the match 7-8 times. Kicking him pulling his shirt but some how he never got booked. We very rarely got a freekick. Yet he booked Saka for nothing. Also Gabriel got booked apparently for pushing the ref according to reports not scuffing the pen spot. A city play pushed Gabriel into him.
The Xhaka pen was a pen of sorts, Xhaka showing the liability he is in this squad, he did have hold of Bernados shirt. That’s where the rules are shit as the shirt pull wasn’t what brought the city player down, but its what Xhaka was penalised for even though Bernardo dived.
For me is both pen calls were pens. I think the clear and obvious thing is a pile of bollocks and allows referees to control the outcome of the game, and that’s what PGMO want. They are not interested in a fair result, most of the refs want to be center of attention.
What referees should be looking for is if a foul was committed. Whether its clear and obvious is irrelevant, If its a foul its a foul end of. During the Euros VAR was superb, if there was and incident the referee was always asked to consult the monitor. So the VAR didn’t seem to influence the referees on field decision. The PGMO didn’t want that for some strange reason. Makes you think is there some sort of agenda within the PGMO.
In other countries in Europe, a referee never officiates the same team more that twice a season. Also they don’t have the same ref withing a short space of time. We have had Attwell twice within a month against Everton and City. We lost both games 2-1 with controversy about his decisions which seem to stack against Arsenal.
Hugely impressed with the progress the boys are making, it’s a shame the game in England is so cruel.
The difference in both pens which is a grey area is that the ref saw Odegaard get challenged but he didn’t see Xhaka pull the shirt which then comes under a clear and obvious mistake ,like you said it’s a silly rule which is very confusing to the best of us .
Not only that but the consistency of fouls that occur weekly that are identical are deemed differently week by week and that is the big concern ,we saw in with the wolves lad get a yellow for not moving away from the ball but a week later Xhaka does the same but no card .
For me I would be happy to get rid of VAR as it’s not technology that determines the outcome but the bloke looking at the screen which in affect is just a second ref .
Keep it for goal line technology and offsides but the whole penalty problems come down to 2 refs one on the pitch and one behind the screen ,that for me is the problem , I high we saw again yesterday .
Which we saw yesterday *
Also just have a read about atwell and his previous in the last 10 years
It makes comical reading if you are not on the end of his decisions
Totally agree, VAR is also sucking the life out of the game We could add a new dimension to this, scrap VAR, and have two calls by each team one in each half, that the ref can look at on a monitor 🤔, And while we are at it, I would add “time added on” on a massive screen so we can see stoppages accumulate 🤔
I think the Wimbledon Hawkeye style calls were talked about a few years ago @goaldan but they went full pelt on something that hasn’t worked since it’s been introduced.
The thing that p1sses me off is when a goal is scored the first thing that we have to do is wait for a VAR decision which takes all the fun out of it .
How many times over the last 2 years as a goal been scored then 1 minute later it’s chalked off for a challenge that happened 30 seconds beforehand .
IMO it does not work to it’s full capacity because the rules change game from game and there is no consistency
Really can’t understand the lack of consistency with the guys that operate VAR.
Just tell the referee to view the first penalty shout,that’s all we ask.Mind you it seems to me he wouldn’t have changed his mind anyway.
Referees should be invisible,isn’t that the idea?I think he wanted to be in the spotlight!
When a refereeing body is headed by Mike Riley what do you expect? The hatred for Arsenal is passed on. Dean, Atkinson etc
Atkinson always involved in Chelsea big games. The system is corrupt and is always against. Am told Atwell was born in Manchester and he was brought in at the last minute.
Mike Riley never finished with us.
The ref after awarding them a pen that looked 50/50 you not have immediately send off Gabriel leave alone the yellow to Xhaka and Gabriel. That is like killing one team in favour of another.
Attwell saw tomi stamped on his face against everton and did nothing.so nothing is new about him