Mails: Man City were robbed (again) in snooze-fest

Mails: Man City were robbed (again) in snooze-fest

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Arsenal v Man City: Battle for zzzzzzzzzz
That was…interesting. If I’m being honest, that was some of the worst football I’ve seen all season, and it spoke much more about the managers than the players.

* I cannot remember the last time a ‘top four’ (and I use that term very loosely) game was so tepid. Both sets of supporters seem fed up and the players are clearly in wind-down mode. We know we won’t make the holy grail of top four, City know they won’t catch Chelsea.

* The second goal reminded me of the Suarez one that Liverpool scored a good few years ago when Vermaelen gave him the ball with a failed-pirouette clearance. I have watched it over and over and over again, and there is something I cannot understand. When Aguero is played the ball, Coquelin runs away from him and into the middle of the goal where he can’t possibly do anything to stop the ball being pummelled into the net. WHY GOD WHY

* I have to admire Ospina’s dedication to the cause. He seems to die for about five minutes in every match he plays for us letting the game settle. It almost (almost!) makes up for the constant fear of him lobbing it into our own net

* I’m sure you’ve all seen the video tracking Wenger during that second goal. I mean, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t stand there telling them to lose the ball on the edge of our box, and then have your holding midfielder go walkabouts, but it’s just unbelievable we are set up so incredibly openly where teams can play between the lines.

* Did you see Wenger’s face at the end when he told the interviewers about Guardiola mentioning top four as a trophy!! Nice to see the big man smile.

* I love Alexis, but I’m getting really tired of these overt displays of #pashun. Like, the team is pretty much dead on its heels, I don’t think lambasting everyone for not celebrating an equaliser is the best way to go about things.

* All in all, the match spoke of the managers far more than the players. One who thinks he invented football and puts forward these self-indulgent revolutionary ideas of playing everyone in a position they are unsuited for. And another who thinks he invented football and puts forward these self-indulgent revolutionary ideas of not adapting to the other team.

* God I hope this season ends soon.
Sandeep (We deserve to get relegated for that “OOOOOOOOOOOspina!” chant), London

Walcott ain’t great, but…
Mr Storey, you mention Walcott being annoyed about being taken off after doing nothing in the game (apart from scoring of course!). However, I did question the decision because, I felt, on the day, he looked our best player in regard of scoring a goal!

It’s okay for Alexis to throw his toys out of his pram? We all know who’s the better player of course but don’t get too biased as a journalist…that’s not your job! Alexis was poor but he can’t be as far as you’re concerned because he’s holding Arsenal together, no?

Poor defending from both teams but Alexis doesn’t help when he holds on to the ball deep and loses it cheaply. Cracking player when he uses his skills where best but a liability elsewhere!

Welcome back Monreal, good to see you back sir, what’s happened to your compatriot playing at right-back?

Arsenal will take all the criticism for not getting the three points from this game but who really squandered the points?
Chris, Croydon

A miracle!
Everyone seems to have missed the miracle at the Emirates this weekend. Coquelin and Xhaka were both on yellow cards by the half hour mark and neither got sent off. Incredible!
Adonis (Navas’ challenge on Montreal was shocking and should have been a red card) Stevenson, AFC

Man City have been robbed
Given the context of the international break, with Coleman’s injury and the extra attention that such tackles received and the coverage of whether Barkley is ‘that sort of player’, when it came to reading the 16 conclusions on the Arsenal Vs City match, I was expectant to see what Storey would have to think of Walcott’s studs-up challenge on Fernandinho.

To my surprise it didn’t not even rate a mention. The fact that it did not even warrant a foul was even more perplexing. Whether it receives the whole post-match examination and censure from the FA remains to be seen, but I’m not holding my breath. The fact that he then scored when he probably shouldn’t have even been on the field is also galling, and is just another example of City not getting the rub of the green when it comes to decisions in the big matches.

Off the top of my head there have been a number of calls that we have not received including

Luiz as last man taking Aguero out when one on one when we played Chelsea earlier this year – nothing given.

Walker pushing Sterling in the back when clean through on goal against Spurs. Again nothing given.

Klavan and Milner both taking out City players as a cross came through in the recent exciting match against Pool. Surprise surprise nothing given.

And now this match where Walcott’s challenge and then Monreal’s handball are ignored by the officials.

I know there’s the whole swings and roundabouts, these things even each other out over a season arguments, but I’m afraid these don’t really wash when they happen as consistently as they have against us this year. These calls going our way is the difference between us challenging for the title, as opposed to challenging for the top four.
Martin Todoroski, MCFC

On Mourinho, Shaw and Iheanacho…
A quick point on Mourinho’s treatment of Luke Shaw. It’s pretty f**king appalling. If it were any other industry, Jose would be sweating in a meeting room as the entire HR team sit silently across from him. Seriously though, Jose has always needed conflict but it is going to cost the club in the long term. Shaw has been touted as a mainstay LB for England and title-contending team. He can be that player if given a chance. I would love to see him join Chelsea or City to fulfill his potential, I believe that Mourinho is arrogant to allow that transfer to happen. A promising defender who seems to be doing everything he can to get back to full fitness and deal with the psychological impacts of a traumatic injury is getting frozen out, partially because he spoke to an opponent on the pitch at half time. Remind me, who was laughing and joking with his mate Tony Pulis on the touchline on Saturday?

And so to Kelechi Iheanacho, where has he gone? He has not been quite as prolific as last season (8 goals in 753 minutes) but the opportunities seemed to have completely dried up. Maybe I missed it but I have not heard anything from Pep about him being completely sh*t so that is a positive at least. If it is not to be for him at City, and it seems so with Jesus due back from injury and very much Pep’s preferred option, surely Everton should take a good chunk of their eventual Lukaku money and see if Iheanacho is interested.
Kev (Pickford to Everton too)

Dear Jose,
Bastian Schweinsteiger was someone every Manchester United fan wanted to see do well at United. He didn’t do so hot under LVG, and you decided early that you didn’t want him so United fans, begrudgingly, accepted his (undeservedly unceremonious) exit.

Luke Shaw’s impending exit, however, won’t be as easy to accept for United fans. There is literally no reason to believe he has been training at a level lower than Ashley Young, Daley Blind and Matteo Darmian for the entire season thus far. After selling Schweinsteiger (and Lukaku, De Bruyne, etc previously), you’ve been happy to admit that you were wrong to sell the player; I’d just like you to know that will NOT go ever well in the case of Luke Shaw.

I’d like for you to be correct in your assessment that Luke’s not doing well, and he should be offloaded, if need be. However, if offloaded, Shaw’s career trajectory had better be closer to that of Tom Cleverley’s (going down the league looking for someone to take a chance on him) as opposed to that of Dr Bruyne/Lukaku.

More than that however, I want Luke Shaw to succeed at United and be the first-choice left back for ages to come. He’s still young, and I hope this current phase is only a part of his coaching/education. He has all the tools to be a top-level full back and I hope he comes back from this spell as a stronger player…still at United. I certainly hope he is not being forced out by this public criticism.

Get it right, Jose, because this is not going to be an easy battle to win.
EMUFC

Why are we excusing these dangerous challenges?
Pundits make me so angry. It’s like they need someone to be broken in two before they admit it was a bad tackle. Bale lands his high studs on John O’Shea’s knee and they don’t care but five minutes later Bale’s teammate smashes Coleman’s leg into pieces with the same type of challenge, so they admit that was a bad one, but claim he didn’t mean it as though that matters.

Of course he didn’t mean it but he was reckless because he knew he could be reckless. Because he has just seen his teammate be reckless and get away with it.

If Bale had of been sent off, Coleman wouldn’t have a broken leg. You think pundits would realise this, and Koeman too!!

How do you think Coleman feels watching his manager justify Barkley’s tackles in that match. If he gets sent off for that first ridiculous challenge then there’s no more challenges like that and no one has to risk a broken leg. But the pundits would claim it was harsh. Then he makes a worse challenge that could easily snap Lovren’s leg. Why??? Because he got away with it already. I’d prefer every match have a harsh sending-off of it meant no one got their legs smashed.

And don’t give me any of this derby match bull…rules are rules. I’ve seen plenty of people sent off for flying into challenges and not even connecting in that fixture.

The rules don’t say ‘did he kill the opponent’…it just has to be reckless. Both Barkley’s challenges were reckless. So was Davies’ challenge. And as for claiming there was nothing in the stamp…what a joke. That was completely on purpose…but he just didn’t break a bone!!
Joe Watt, likes his bones intact!!

…In a week where Seamus Coleman’s broken leg has garnered huge media coverage with Daniel Taylor, Ken Early and Andrew Mangan writing insightful and appropriate pieces on the unacceptable tolerance of dangerous tacking within football rules and culture, I’m struggling to keep my breakfast down from the fury and despair having just watched the highlights of the Merseyside derby on MOTD. It again draws attention to the insular world of football in the UK, disconnected with reality and morality.

Firstly, Ross Barkley, who suffered a double leg break himself in 2010 and is a club teammate of Coleman, showing no emotional control, ounce of perspective or shred of intelligence planting his foot well over the top of ball at high pace into an opponent’s shin. A potential leg-breaking challenge after escaping, at least, a booking in the first half for a late, dangerous tackle. How disengaged from the world around you must you be to behave in this manner, this week?

Secondly, Ashley Williams, who played in the Ireland-Wales game and also shares club colours with Coleman, sliding in high and recklessly misguided into a rival’s knee. Another potentially serious incident. Williams had already escaped penance for an obvious stamp earlier in the game. If Martin Keown is correct that it wasn’t the ‘same sort of thing’ as Mings, then it is because it even more blatant. A comparable incident with Liam Cooper in the Reading-Leeds game perhaps illustrates that footballers are as prone to playground imitation as the kids in a playground imitating them. Neil Redfearn in a wonderful piece of satire rolled out ‘Cooper is not that kind of player’.

Ronald Koeman deflecting censure towards the Liverpool bench was as a comical as it was disheartening. And then lastly, Match of the Day. The mass media, the ex-pundits who, in a form of nepotism, are granted this self-entitled pedestal to talk to the future generation of sportsman in this country. Products of the same, self-perpetuating environment, they are unable to waiver from this conditioning and think outside or even move the window of thought. They are unable to judge, deliberate or opine beyond bias, fallacy or cliche. They are the ones, as responsible as any, for preserving and spreading this culture and this tolerance within football that infiltrates the next generation and so on and so forth.

After highlighting at length the atrocity of the tackles in the game and seemingly the absence of the requisite restrain of temperament from Barkley and Williams in the midst of an intense sporting contest, how do they sign off the feature? Lineker “Merseyside derby though I suppose”, Keown “Yeah I mean he was right, Koeman was right that there is going to be these sorts of tackles in this game.” There you are, justification and validation of Barkley’s behaviour at the most critical juncture, when they absolutely needed to show recognition for the unnecessary, avoidable, potentially career ending damage it could cause.

Intense, aggressive tackling and competition are not interdependent with violent acts such as Taylor’s and Barkley’s, they can be mutually exclusive if football takes note and acts. However, with archetype ex-footballers calling the shots at the all levels of the game on all platforms, the action may only occur from the outside in, e.g. medical or legal, because right now football is a little scared, very stupid and extremely regressive. Thankfully Lovren and Can aren’t pondering this today amidst the blur of wearing general anaesthesia. And I wonder what Coleman is reflecting on and contemplating this morning? A penny for this thoughts.
Jon P, North London

Ed’s weekend thoughts
Literally phoning it in this week, as I’m on holiday and using my phone to avoid (continue) disappointing everyone.

* What a result. What a result. There’s no schadenfreude because this Chelsea side is much more likeable than previous incarnations, but even so, it’s a result to enjoy.

* I’ve previously made sarcastic comparisons for non-former reasons between Sam Allardyce and Terry Venables, but this one’s serious. Palace lined up in a Christmas tree formation, something El Tel was partial to using. It also enabled the Eagles to use a tactic they’ve employed previously, where the lone striker drifts wide and can out-muscle a full-back, while the wide men target an overmatch on speed against the centre-backs.

* Wilfried Zaha is an incredible player. In the Championship our fans used to sing “he’s just too good for you”, and he’s every bit the full-back’s nightmare he was then and more now.

I’m five years behind everyone else but I’m currently reading Jonathan Wilson’s Anatomy of England. One thing I’ve taken from it is that for all of his national allegiances being unfairly questioned, he’s part of the English game’s tradition of tricky wingers, officially the best kind of player.

Incidentally Zaha’s goals and assists puts him in the same bracket as Mesut Ozil and Raheem Sterling. It’s not for me to say if he’s as good as they are, but maybe it’s time to recalibrate any opinions of him that consider him vastly inferior.

* Mamadou Sakho deserves his plaudits but as Match of the Day pointed out, the entire team defended superbly. He’s a calming influence on the others in the back four, and this was a major contribution to Wayne Hennessey’s confidence. He’s a very inconsistent goalie, but as he’s shown for Wales, he has days where he’s incredible.

*Luka Milivojevic was also brilliant. He brings steel to the Palace midfield that eases the pressure on Jason Puncheon and Yohan Cabaye. The only slight disappointment is his inclusion means the harsh exclusion of James McArthur, who has had a good season.

* Christian Benteke’s goal was hilarious. Impudent in the extreme, and a composure a world away from someone who has been struggling for goals and confidence of late.

* I get stick for my running joke of saying Palace are f###ed all the time. It’s exaggerated for comic effect, but there’s still a long way to go this season. It’s a huge step in the right direction, but we’re not all the way safe yet.
Ed Quoththeraven

Peter G’s weekend thoughts
* Leicester City and Stoke City both played 4-4-2, but Leicester’s was closer to a 4-4-1-1, and that was the difference. Shinji Okazaki dropped back to put pressure on Stoke’s midfield and delivered a man of the match performance, and the Foxes controlled the action. I’ve never been a Glen Johnson booster, but it was painful to watch him on Saturday; he can’t ever have had a worse match. Coming back from injury, he may not have been fully fit, but still.

* In this week’s post-game e-mail, David Moyes said “I think we deserved something out of the game.” No, you didn’t. Jordan Pickford saved your butt about 30 times, and at one point the shot count was 17-3. Once again Jermain Defoe got zero shots. You explain to the supporters why Didier Ndong started on the bench again.

* I’m glad Slaven Bilic got a vote of confidence, but he was outcoached by Marco Silva. Losing by a goal, Silva switched at halftime from 3-5-2 to 4-4-2, putting Kamil Grosicki on the left wing. The change opened up midfield and allowed Oumar Niasse and Abel Hernández to put more pressure on José Fonte and James Collins, and Grosicki delivered the pass for Andrew Robertson’s superb equaliser. When Hernández tired, Silva brought in Shaun Maloney and switched to 4-5-1, and Maloney won the corner kick which produced Andrea Ranocchia’s winner, again assisted by Grosicki.

* You have a striker who is a classic number nine, but he’s unavailable due to injury, and is replaced by a striker who is not a classic number nine at all. What do you do? If your answer is “send in 46 crosses anyway,” you are Swansea City. Hence 0-0 with Boro. On the other side, never has a more glorious pass been wasted than Alvaro Negredo’s injury time outside-of-the-boot stunner to Rudy Gestede. You couldn’t read his lips afterwards, but presumably it was Spanish for “thank heavens I’m only on loan”.
Peter G, Pennsylvania, USA

The Wembley arch is sky blue…
YEEEESSSSS!!! It cost a sodding fortune and I’m utterly knackered but my God that was fun. Gael Bigirimana, George Thomas, were it biologically possible I’d bear your children.
David (might be the beer talking) Szmidt, Brno, Czech Rep., briefly of That London

…I know it’s a tinpot competition that no-one cares about. And I know that our relegation to League Two will be confirmed in a couple of weeks. But standing in the midst of 45000 Coventry fans while we saw our team win a trophy at Wembley was beautiful.

#pusb #stillemotional
HJ

When you briefly fall in love…
I’m sure you’ll get plenty of emails about Wenger/Pep and all that so thought I’d go for something different.

Watching highlights of the UEFA Cup final of ’05 when a CSKA Moscow went to the final and beat Sporting Lisbon in their own stadium 3-1. I remember all year I was interested in that team and how they done in the competition. Looking back at it they had a really exciting and hipster like team. Akinfiv in goal, the Berezutskiy twins, Dani Carvalho, Yuri Zhirkov, Ivica Olivia and Wagner Love.

Has this ever happened to anyone before where you’ve had no interest in a team only for a slight period and then no interest afterwards??
Craig P, Dublin