How was that back pass deliberate?
WORK commitments interrupted my viewing of last night’s game so I’ll keep this short and sweet.
The cross/shot for the first goal…
Was the kind all keepers must hate. But even so, Fabianski had more than made up the ground and quite why he couldn’t divert the ball away from goal is beyond me. It is true that goalkeeping in general this season hasn’t been great, but I really think our lack of a top class one has cost us this season, which is a great shame.
The game…
Was hugely open but in a game where you’re the away side, that’s not always a bad thing. We fought back well and deserved our equaliser.
How can it be acceptable…
For penalty decisions such as the one on Rosicky to be given?
And if the pass back rule is for “deliberate” pass-backs…
What could possibly be deliberate about what Sol did? Should never have been a free-kick and the referee should never have been so proactive in helping Porto take it.
That said…
What were we doing. You can forgive the initial screw-up. But then the defenders should have been on their toes and Fabianski should have booted the ball downfield and just taken the booking. Unsporting, but hey.
We’re always told Diaby is not like Vieira…
But what is it about his current positioning that differs from the once great man? It’s a compliment by the way. He’s playing really well at the moment. Unlike Denilson.
And that’s yer lot. I’ve got to be back in at work very shortly.
Easy enough to say Fabianski should have booted the ball away and taken a yellow… but you have hindsight. The whole sequence of events was rather improbable.
reactions after the back pass was blown as a foul. i strongly believe that if it was Bunley or any other nothing team, we would have seen the players rush back to at least argue with the ref to buy some time. Oh no, not Arsenal. Why then? cos a club that is 99% based on youth and that is what we are seeing in every game
Like California Gooner says, I wouldn’t expect him to boot it away. Why should he? He just assumed we would be given time to put up a wall, like we should have.
Also, the Porto players took the free kick a yard ahead of where the ‘foul’ occured. That isn’t allowed from an indirect free kick inside the box. Ludicrous. The goal should not have stood.
It was a bit of a mess wasn’t it? Sol was shepherding the ball back while Fabianski who was telling him to leave it had made up his mind to pick it up when Sol lost control and touched it on. Then it was all farce. Sol bent over like he wanted to take it up his Arse, Fabianski holding on to the ball, idiot ref demanding it to be given to him, puts it down, blocks out Sol, lets kick be taken, puts up arm to indicate indirect, goal scored. Crazy stuff!!
Re the first goal. Sorenson scored one like that against England.
Also did anyone notice any offsides? I don’t think there were any at all.
Come on RS, what’s your take on this?
Good observations as always Goodplaya. I have to express my dismay at Denilson’s performances; I track my man on a Sunday afternoon 5 aside game but the young Brazilian seems to chase shadows all game. Experienced players can drag him out of position (& sometimes he does it for them anyway) with ease and his efforts to run back are quite simply appalling. How someone with such little positional awareness can operate within the Arsenal first team is an absolute mystery. What’s more, he hasn’t earned a place in this team; after less-than-outstanding appearances in the squad prior to last season he was gifted a first team place by default rather than merit. Aaron Ramsey already offers far more than Denilson does yet stays behind him due to the hierarchical structure in place at the club.
And I believe Arsene now realises he must buy a goalkeeper in the summer. I would suspect that Arsene would be keen to go for Hugo Lloris.
Luckily i have access to UEFA’s media bundle stats. People see what they want to see with regards to Denilson. He made the most tackles on the pitch and towards the end when Diaby (who had played well) visibly wilted and gave the ball away repeatedly in the last 20 minutes Denilson covered more ground than ever.
I agree his tracking back at times is suspect, but he covers more ground than anybody else, its not like he’s lazy. Anyone that comes out of that game saying Denilson played poorly frankly had a pre-concieved idea in their mind at kick off.
It’s a relief to read a blog that’s not calling for Wenger’s head. Also interesting to read the stats on Denilson. I think we’ll be in the last eight of CL this season but doubt if we’ll go much further as we’re not a very good team anymore… a simple truth.
Stephen,same right back at you. You had a pre-conceived idea in your head at kickoff & have found stats to back it up. Denilson was playing the deepest of our midfielders;it stands to reason he would make the most tackles. What the stats don’t tell you are the tackles he didn’t make cos people ran straight by him or the countless times he was bundled off the ball cos he wasn’t strong enough. And his passing was nothing short of shocking. (I guess there’s stats that you’ll come up with to ‘prove’ otherwise but again to me stats can be used to ‘prove’ anything)
Denilson was abysmal last night & has been for a while now.I think he’s got great potential but he is simply not ready to play at this level as regularly as he is currently.
The goalkeeping situation is just depressing. It’s hard to believe that a manager as intelligent as Wenger has let this happen. Anyone else want to bet on Fabianski/Almunia not screwing up again in a big game before the season is out ? Doubt it.
Still think we’ll go through though – nothing on show last night to fear in 2nd leg. Just pray for a good draw in quarters. And please not Chelsea or Utd !!
Sol’s back pass was deliberate – he passed it – back. Fabianski had already made his mind up that he was going to pick it up.
I’m still confident we’ll go through.
Fair points, but when the ref takes the ball in his hands you are not expecting a quick free kick. Had the Porto player grabbed the ball, you would have hoped we would have sensed the danger and acted accordingly, but when the ref takes the ball, you expect it to be in his control until the free kick is organised. Can’t blame Fabianksi for events that followed the back pass, for not hoofing it up field when the ref has asked him for the ball. However, the whole situation was his doing for picking it up in the first place
Goodplaya, point no 3 –
How can it be acceptable…
For penalty decisions such as the one on Rosicky to be given?
It probably should have been “..on Rosicky to be not given.” unless ofcourse you were being sarcastic.
That said, agree with everything you say barring that I thought Sol did backpass the ball to Fabianski. Sol’s reaction of putting his hands on the head immediately after Fabianski picked the ball up said it all. Sol was under pressure to pass the ball back but Fabianski was under no pressure.
horrible goals both of them… And Fabianski has to take the blame… Btw, what is the rule on back pass? if a player backpasses to his keeper and the keeper touches the ball with his foot first and then picks up, is it still a free kick? I think Fabianski touched the ball with his feet slightly and then picked it up….
Looking forward to the second leg though…
The referee might as well as have chucked it in the net himself so keen was he to get that free kick taken quickly. Have you ever seen anything like that ?
The second goal was a mistake of sorts from Fabianski, but not as catastrophic as it looked. He’d obviouslyly committed himself to picking the ball up and Sol didn’t need to touch it. The first goal was a complete shocker. Shame, because apart from those two moments Fabianski handled and kicked well.
Ever seen a team target Cesc more than Porto did ? Ever seen him get less protection from a ref ?
Denilson was quite good last night. He’s not strong enough yet and he pales in comparison with Song when it comes to shielding the ball, but the attitude and commitment was all there last night. He looks what he is, a decent first reserve in midfield who you don’t really want playing in bigger games.
We’ll still go through mind…
Good points- difficult game, overall we played well considering we had 3 passengers. Even though we had players who are not in form- like Bendtner,the team fought well – apart from Fabianski, Clichy and Denilson. Fabianski lost us the game with a shocking performance. He should be sacked after a performance like that.
When Dunga gets to see those stats of Denilson’s, he won’t have any choice but to bow to AW’s superior stat-analysing skills, and put Denilson straight into the centre of Brazil’s midfield for the world cup.
I can’t wait to see Dunga’s expression as he watches Denilson casually trot back down the wing as another attack blazes through the empty centre of the pitch…
TDP & Goonergerry:
As much as I hoped those Sorenson rumours were true, I don’t think we should kid ourselves that Wenger will respond to the goalkeeping situation.
If you take the two howlers out of the game Fabianski actually played well. Considering the howlers: we know that Wenger will allow his young players to make mistakes and learn from them. It just hurts that for a goalkeeper those mistakes will almost always be fatal.
I think we’re now stuck with 3 second-choice-standard keepers. How long do we have to wait for Chesney?!
Come on, let’s be honest here.
It is Fabianski’s mistake all day long, even Sol was surprised when the ball was picked up.
our keeper made two mistakes in 5 secs, he did not shout at Sol to tell him the porto player behind is way back AND he had already made up his mind to pick it up before Sol touched it.
the IDK stands, the ref made the big mistake of allowing it to be taken so quickly knowing that his decision is going to be a definite goal as well as blocking Sol in the process.
At the end of the day, I know we all keep complaining .. it is time we need to accept that our aspirations every season is a top 4 spot in England and a top 8 in europe, anything other than that is simply a bonus.
This will not change as long as the club structure is at it is from board to dressing room.
Before we ask for new players, the club needs some changes in the management team in a tactically vibrant assistant and a defensive/goalkeeping coach to start with.
Steve Bould for No.2 !
What i never understood is the inconsistency with Wenger .. in the way certain people were treated and the way some others are treated now ..
Gilberto Silva vs Denilson
Wenger’s reason to move him out was that he is too slow for the way we play, our speedy game is affecting his tracking back, and he has a back problem.
Denilson has all the above, but still gets the nod.
Lehmann vs Almunia/Fabianski
the reason to drop him was the ridiculous mistakes he used to make, conceeding silly goals by being a numpty.
but why then stick with Almunia/Fabianski ?
i Don’t understand.
bobby, i also believe chesney will be a very good keeper, i like the guy. but now, almunia is the best we have. he was good last season, people were even tipping him to be the england keeper…
yesterday was painful…
When you see a good ref allow a quickly taken free kick you’ll see the player asking the ref if he can, the ref looking around to make sure he has somewhere to run to and only then saying yes, then the ref takes a couple of fast steps away fro0m the ball so he can’t be acused of blocking anyone. This ref & linesmen were crap. Make no mistake, we lost because the ref was happy for porto to keep fouling Fab, Bendtner and anyone else they felt like. With a good ref & linesmen we’d have been 2 up against 9 men before we even got to the second half.I assume we’re not stuck with the same officials for the emirates game.
Yes we can blame Fabianski, yes we can say Campbell was too slow, Clichy wasn’t on top form and so on….
But face it, we just weren’t good enough up front. Everyone complains that Rosicky didn’t get his penalty call…. Is that what we’ve come to? Hoping for penalties to snatch draws or one goal wins? At the start of the season we were averaging 3 goals a game. Now? Yes we’ve lost RVP but that isn’t the point. We had a chance to improve our lineup and our dear Wenger didn’t splash the cash when required.
I’ve always backed Wenger in everything he does but Arsenal fans can’t be expected to wait this long. Don’t blame Fabianski for not being the best of the best. If Wenger had done something in January, he wouldn’t have had to even be in this position.
Don’t blame Bendtner for not appearing in front of goal enough. He didn’t get the service needed. Why? Because Porto blocked of Fabregas. How did they do that? Everyone knows that he is Arsenal’s main weapon, take him out and that’s it for our strikers. Once again, Wenger needed to beef up the midfield, protect people like Fabregas. Did he do it? No. He left it to Song alone. And he got injured. Surprise! Surprise!
The players can’t be blamed if the manager just didn’t pull through. I’m sorry to say this and people will criticise this statement but….
Arsene’s reign is over. He needs to go.
denilson was awful, yet again
the stats are meaningless, he won so few tackles and his defending is always so poor that one wonders why he gets in the side, add this to his wandering distribution and you have a liability,
fabianski has never looked good enough to me, flappy and erratic,
clichy is a big problem as well, truly poor defensively, beaten so so easily time and time again, he looks like a novice, with his experience he should not be making such errors
our squad is now being found out big time,
i think if you replaced denilson with song, clichy with gibbs and fabianski with almunia, plus nasri for arshavin, then you would have seen a side rip porto apart,
we don’t have the quality backup in midfield or up front and it’s starting to be very very obvious
Stats are only meaningless when they completely contradict an idea in your head.
The facts are Denilson won alot of tackles, however it is now the in vogue position to slag off Denilson so he will get no credit even when he was by no means the culprit last night.
This is a common occurance at the moment, starting with Eboue we’ve gone through about 5 or 6 players who at one time have been the flavour of the month for slaggings off.
Diaby, who was getting all sorts of stick earlier in the season, and was similarly defended by some is now the golden boy (unfortunately just learnt he is out for Saturday). The fact that these players have inevitably proven the critics wrong is what amuses me.
Song, Diaby, Bendtner all shown they have what it takes at the top, yet they would all have been bombed out long ago if some of you were in charge.
Players play badly, God knows Denilson isn’t in great form but he wasn’t bad last night. The fact that i’ve seen him and Bendtner get stick for last night in various places whilst Nasri and Cesc have survived scot free is a bit of a joke imo.
Diaby’s injury is a step too far I think for the league.
rosicky chance should of been a penalty. we lacked cutting edge up front, runs into the box. also, cesc should not take corners or free kicks, absolute waste of so many set piece opportunities. his stats on free kicks and corners must be terrible. completely disagree about denilson, he did very well holding the ball and drawing fouls in midfield and also had some good penetrating through balls.
What an absolutely hiddeous picture of RVP that is Goodplaya, at the top of the page.
He looks like a complete moron doing a stupid seagull impression – or a chav yawning and stretching as he gets up at midday to draw his dole cheque.
Diaby out now with medial knee ligament damage. Rotten luck – he’s on his best run of form since…er, well since signing for us?
Does anyone know where I can get some data on players injuries without trawling through blogs/ news feeds etc to found out who was out when? The injury list over the last 3 or so seasons beggars belief.
The first goal resulted from poor defensive play by Clichy yet again and goalkeeping out of the Stephen Hawkins ‘guide to how to be a good goalie’. The second porto goal was Fabianski letting his aura of calm and confidence infect Sol. He is so indecisive Sol got befuddled. Even so as soon as Sol touched it Fabianski needed to boot it away as any switched on confident keeper would do, reacting to the situation. Instead the stupid cunt picked it up like the moron he is. I feel sorry for him but I feel angry at the twat as well. Csec could hardly contain his anger in the post match interview and who could blame him.
I don’t think the ref had any choice but to give the free kick – he wasn’t to know it wasn’t deliberate. What galled me was how he put it down and said hey – go ahead and socre a quickie. The Porto coach pointed to several of Henry’s quick free kick specials – but the ref wasn’t aiding him in those cases and Henry still had to clear some bodies to score. Goalie and left-back are definiite weak links right now.
Fabianski, another shit acquisition of arsene wenger
I would placed Fabianski alongside Ramsey… so called brilliant/good once in a full blue moon… but bad 90% of the time
If you blame Fabianski, then you should do the same to Ramsey…. otherwise the double standard is too obvious akin the british media
Another fine goalkeeping performance,and what good did the weekend rest do,we couldnt string two passes together in the second half. The second goal we have to blame ourselfs first for not acting quick enough to get back but at the same time the ref is completely out of order. Giving them an easier chance than a pen,for an accidental backpass,he didnt even raise his arm to indicate its indirect ,until the ball was in.
Sol had a great game again i thought. Maybe it was ramsey’s fault
Ramshit is here to blame Ramsey for everything that goes wrong with Arsenal…
Indeed, i feel Instead of Denilson Diaby could have played in front of the back four and Ramsey could have played alongside Fabregas… Denilson’s form has been pathetic off late and he needs a breather or two…
Denilson was far from the only culprit, nobody said he was. He was poor though imo (& lots of others), simple as. I couldn’t frankly give a fuck whether it’s in vogue to say so or not. I form my opinions by watching what’s in front of me. If you think Denilson played well that’s fine, I disagree completely but that’s your opinion which I would respect. That’s football. Saying he played well cos ‘Luckily i have access to UEFA’s media bundle stats’ is just irritating.
If stats are so important ask yourself one question ? Pre-2005 did you ever hear Wenger talk about stats?? The answer is no. He’s only started talking about them (& as a result so have lots of Gooners) as a distraction since we’ve stopped winning trophies.
And for the record re: other players getting stick :
Eboue………the slating of Eboue was not wrong. He is a completely different player since the booing incident so he has in fact not proved the booers wrong; he’s actually proved them right.
(And if anyone read Wenger’s comments before the Wigan game this season you will know he agrees. That is the closest he wil lever come to admitting one of his own players was a complete knob !)
As for Bendtner , totally agree some of the stick he’s got has been undeserved but the jury is definitely still out. To say he’s proved he has what it takes is a bit premature. Hopefully soon he will but he hasn’t yet.
I believe Bendtner will be a top class striker! Ramsey will be european footballer of the year one day, im sure ramshit will not agree tho.
NEW KEEPER PLEASE IN THE SUMMER ARSENE!
goodplaya I almost always agree with you but it was a backpass. And I dont think we can complain about the quick free kick.
Squabble squabble, fight fight
no your wrong and I am right
can we do it or are we fucked
he played well, no he sucked
we should have bought an established striker
sod that we need a midfield fighter
what about a decent goalie
fuck up son and change the story
coping with the managers plan
it aint easy being an Arsenal fan.
There once was a coach called Arsene
Whose team in Two Thousand and Ten
Were woeful defenders
And in goal were horrendous
So they won bugger all yet again
On Eboue…
He is a good football player and where you see him stand in the opposition box against two players, you know he will pass.
On Vela…
He is a good player. I hope he will he play for Mexico in the World Cup.
PD, good for you for forming your views independently. On the boo-boys be correct about Eboue, I don’t think Arsene agrees they were right. Players have ups and downs. I’m sure he would have preferred that his player wasn’t booed off the pitch. He praises Eboue for responding well instead of just losing confidence .
I never meant that Wenger agreed that it was right to boo. I meant that Wenger agreed that Eboue needed to change & that the incident caused that change to happen.
Wenger’s “I think he has learned from that [incident] and changed’ is not praise for just responding well, it’s praise for realising his behaviour had led to the booing & changing it.
Fair play to Eboue for doing it in the end;it’s just a shame it took so long & took such a drastic incident for it to happen
playa, bring back the ratings!