United v Arsenal preview, Eduardo madness and Phil Neville is a cheat too
Match report:
LET’S start with today’s actual football and then move onto the diving row.
Today should be very interesting. Not so much in terms of who wins and who loses because there is so long to go and as we saw last season United were able to take the title despite a dismal big four record, just as in spite of a decent big four record, we were miles off the pace.
And that works both ways – if we lose (or at least don’t get tonked) then we needn’t obsess over it and can instead put it to one side and worry about winning the bread butter games that we failed to win last season.
The interest lies to an extent in how we cope. How will Vermaelen cope against Rooney? Is he the kind of guy who gets the runaround from the best or can he mix it?
In the absence of Cesc I’m also fascinated to see what team Arsene plays. Of Diaby takes his place, it will make us more attacking and less defensive in midfield. Will Eboue then play on the right as a way of offering some balance? I think that would be no bad thing because for me playing Diaby and three of Arshavin, Eduardo, RVP and Bendtner at Old Trafford is probably a little too bold.
It will be fascinating to see how we (and United) play and in a sense I’m quite glad to get the game out the way when the title race is at such an early stage and there is an international break round the corner.
Now, onto Eduardo and by now you probably know UEFA yesterday charged him with deceiving the referee over the incident against Celtic. He faces a two game ban.
First things first: if a striker goes looking for contact they play a risky game and have only themselves to blame when the contact either does not arrive or is minimal. I think in Eduardo’s case it was minimal at best and so on that premise, unlike Arsene Wenger, I am happy to call it a dive. You have to draw the line somewhere and I think he played for it.
I also think it a little disingenuous towards Celtic to say it had no impact on the tie as it was only 2-0 with an hour to play. A Celtic win was unlikely but not inconceivable.
That said, the decision by UEFA to charge him over the affair is scandalous for so many reasons.
1) Picking on Eduardo appears completely arbitrary. Why have they suddenly charged a player now for diving? Either they are making up the laws of the game on the hoof or they are suggesting that Eduardo (and the Lithuania forward Saulius Mikoliunas who was also banned for diving, ironically against Scotland) are the only two players in the whole of top flight football in recent years to have successfully pulled the wool over the ref’s eye.
In which case, I’d suggest the problem rather less pronounced than people would have you believe.
2) Just because someone once drives just over the speed limit, it doesn’t give the government the right to plaster their name and face on thousands of leaflets and hold them up as the face of speeding in their country.
Eduardo is now tarred as a diver in a way far worse offenders have not been. Arguably if you now ask someone in Europe to name a diver they would say his name above even the likes of Ronaldo.
3) The irony of UEFA using video evidence to sort this out is almost funny. By the time Eduardo strode up to take the penalty a video ref could have long since ruled it a dive, given a goal kick and instructed the ref on the pitch to book Eduardo.
4) How can something worthy of a yellow card if seen equate to a two game ban if not seen? At the very least those yellows should either be rescinded or turned into bans.
5) Read what the UEFA rule he has been charged with breaking actually says:
“Players may be suspended for two competition matches, or for a specified period, for acting with the obvious intent to cause any match official to make an incorrect decision or supporting his error of judgment and thereby causing him to make an incorrect decision.”
On that premise of that second bit about supporting an error of judgement, every Bristol City player should be suspended for not telling the ref Palace’s goal the other week was in. Equally, anyone who has ever falsely claimed a corner should be suspended. And any keeper who has put a ball out for a corner but been awarded a goal kick.
You think I’m being pedantic here? Well imagine it’s the final minute of a Champions League semi final second leg and one team is winning 1-0 and the losing team’s winger’s cross sails out of play after deflecting off a defender. But the ref misses it and gives a goal kick and blows the final whistle ten seconds later
That is a really crucial decision and surely the defender either owns up there and then or else is banned for the final.
6) Why is Phil Neville not regarded as a cheat?
That may sound like a very arbitrary statement. But two years ago with the score at 1-1 in the Merseyside Derby, Dirk Kuyt hit a shot that was going in until Neville deliberately saved it with his hands.
Sure, Neville was sent off and Liverpool scored the ensuing spot-kick.
But he was still guilty of massive cheating.
And yet he was condemned nowhere and is held up as a great professional.
The inconsistency is staggering.
Hypocrites the lot of them UEFA!With all the noise going on about the Edu dive, the introduction of video tech will be a permanent solution especially in the CL and Europa league.We are still a long way to the CL finals next year so let him take the ban;its good for his conscience and it will be over in no time. But as Arsene said, we hope Platini knows what he’s getting into…we are set up for a very interesting run this term and I see controversies rising so many places as the CL progresses.
I compltely agree. Even in the same game there was a crazy amount of shirt pulling off the ball on eduardo, bendtner and diaby. Does this not fall into the same category of cheating and deceiving the referee? For some reason other teams with persistent divers seem to get away with it but as soon as an arsenal player does it, he is branded a cheat for life. Pores only dived once (even that was debatable) in his career against pompey but it was always remembered and referred to afterwards!
Is there a rule for how long after a game you are allowed to complain? If they are setting a precident here, maybe we should put in a complaint with the fa for rooneys dive to end our 49 unbeaten! If we’re quick maybe he won’t play today!
It would be a suprise that Diaby plays from start because last week Wenger won’t play Diaby in three games in row. So I think the midfield would b made of eboue, song and denilson. And the strikeforce of arshavin van persie and bendtner. Or will he throw a suprise? Play either wilshere or merdia from start! Nah.
i’m worried about three things:
a) We getting kicked by Fletcher and rest. Will we cope that?! I think they will negative football.
b) We might get carried away with Evra.
c) How will we react if, god forbid, we go a goal behind?!
Otherwise, I am super confident about this game. We ought to win this game.
Also, like we never became men after beating United at home, we won’t become boys if we lose to United today. Hope that makes sense.
PS: I think, Eduardo will be cleared. That’s all I have to say about this.
Sorry to disagree but I still can’t see how the penalty had any impact on the outcome. Up to the point of the penalty, Celtic had mustered a grand total of zero shots on goal. They then proceeded to keep up the same level of shot shyness for the next 66 minutes until they mustered their first shot on goal. This came about after Arsenal had been reduced to 10 men for 5 minutes. Surely if anything, going a goal down would make the opposition rather more gung ho. To have gone a further 65 minutes after conceding without actually making the keeper do anything attests to the fact that the penalty made precisely no difference to the outcome. They just weren’t good enough.
Have people forgotten that Eduardo is just too fast for normal players? That’s why poor Tiny Taylor ended up breaking his leg so surely they should understand that Boruc was to slow in his evasive action.
The situation was almost a classic: The goalie has to commit early to stop the shot, the striker taps the ball forward and is brought down by the keeper only Boruc is a bit better than average and had the presence of mind to try to get his arms out of the way. Unfortunately he still had the same amount of momentum (or more, he’s built like Robbie Coltrane) so his legs swung forward and possibly tapped Eduardo on the side. From Eduardo’s point of view that must have been a surprise. I suspect that he was expecting to be tripped and had prepared for it to soften the fall and not break Boruc’s arm. There are lots of situations where footballers can’t wait for the actual obstruction without endangering themselves or their opponents and I think this is one of them. That being the case it would be grossly unfair to call Eduardo a cheat. If strikers didn’t prepare to go down softly as I believe Eduardo did there would be a lot more keepers with broken arms or ribs.
The fact that UEFA’s charge would be an overreaction even if it had been a Gerrard/Ronaldo/Rooney/Babel special shouldn’t mean letting the slur on Eduardo pass too easily.
Goodplaya – You are the only site that has picked up on the issues regarding the law Eduardo has been charged with breaking. Under this premise: a player is through on goal and the GK takes him out, the ref waves the protests away but there was contact by the GK. The GK should then not only tell the ref to award a penalty but that he should also be sent off. Can’t really see it happening myself.
i think today’s team will be song-denilson-diaby, eboue-van persie-arshavin.
on eduardo’s stuff, i am sure he’s feeling quite shocked. in brazil, diving is sort of a bad thing, but dangerous sliding tackles are a much worse thing, even if noone is hurt. by the standards he was used when he grew up, he would have never been a bad boy in that game.
@marc Quite agree…
Rooney dives and deceives the ref into giving a penalty. How many people will talk about this? 5 Arsenal fans and their dogs?
Ourclassed yes, but things you forgot in your biased report,
1: No contact at all and he hits the deck,
2: Smiles like a typical diver after being awarded the penalty,
3: Celtic didnt look like scoring but the first goal was crucial, surely didnt need to hand it to you on a cheating platter since you were in control,
But i’m glad Man Utd stuffed you tonight, Fletcher’s tackle was never a penalty right?
“As usual referee’s didn’t help” lol nice quote at the end, been blogging since 2004… my advice is give up if you can’t be impartial, here’s my opinion…
my Celtic were outclassed by Arsenal, 2 lucky goals and a cheating penalty and 2 world class goals, overall Arsenal much superior, what gets me is people like you that can’t just hold their hand up and say… ok eduardo cheated….. not asking for the world but some honesty if you take off the red shades…
Arsenal outplayed Man Utd and Fletcher’s tackle was a penalty, Wenger shouldnt get sent to the stand, but you know what….. i seen nearly all arsenal fans defend Eduardo for cheating us and Wenger defended him too, so justice has been done and UEFA have charged the cheat, :)
No, are you blind? Goodplaya said it was a dive, but the problem is that now he is treated worse than Ronaldo, Rooney, Drogba, Owen and Gerrard because of their diving put together. Understand now?