Are Arsenal actually placing bounties on opposing players?

[Xhavenjoe]

Its true.

 

[Eccles Blue]

Well I can’t see any mention of specific incidents. Other than the Havertz one, I didn’t personally see any others.

The camera angles on the Havertz one aren’t favourable as they all appear to be quite far away, but he did look to initiate contact with Rodri, can’t tell if he raised his shoulder into him, but possibly was fortunate not too be booked.

His actual injury was just bad luck. Seemed to jar his knee when running.

So if we are talking about two incidents, ‘targeting’ him seems a bit far fetched.

I sit on the front row and they were targeting Rodders from the word go or the whistle go! I don’t know the names of all the Arsenal players but their number 29 and 19 definitely kept at him. Plus 33 at one stage if I remember rightly. Rodders was targeted and as he was only on the pitch for about 20 minutes I think we can definitely say a marked man.
There could have been more but I didn’t think we would be having to justify a statement about one of our players to a City fan or I would have taken my notebook and pen!
Believe us when we say they wanted Rodders off the pitch and Arteta and his team are thugs!!

 

[SebastianBlue]

I sit on the front row and they were targeting Rodders from the word go or the whistle go! I don’t know the names of all the Arsenal players but their number 29 and 19 definitely kept at him. Plus 33 at one stage if I remember rightly. Rodders was targeted and as he was only on the pitch for about 20 minutes I think we can definitely say a marked man.
There could have been more but I didn’t think we would be having to justify a statement about one of our players to a City fan or I would have taken my notebook and pen!
Believe us when we say they wanted Rodders off the pitch and Arteta and his team are thugs!!

Watching at home, so obviously couldn’t watch as closely, but I counted at least three instances before the innocuous incident that saw him limp off where they left a bit on him, not counting Havertz’s cowardly barge from the kickoff.

He had actually gone down after a late challenge just a minute or two before which Oliver did whistle for.

He was absolutely being targeted, even if the injury itself was not any Arsenal players’ doing (though, I am sure the constant elbowing, kneeing, and booting helped him play 100% in to that incident).

I will say, having played at a decent level for the better part of 15 years as a young lad going through the development system, you are far more likely to pick up an injury when you are being targeted like that in a match.

 

[Bournemouth Blue]

Trossard deserved a second yellow for barging in with his elbow, never mind kicking tha ball away. Ederson was wrestled to the ground for the second goal. That said, the Daily Fail seems obsessed with Erling throwing the ball at Garielle, FFS!

 

[kaz7]

Look lets be honest here, Rodri only has himself to blame for coming out and saying what he said.

If someone said that about us and our players didn't react, we'd be fuming.

Haaland more than took care of it.

We're in their heads so, so badly right now and Stones goal will have absolutely broken them.

We best be well ahead of them by the return game because that will be a war and its in our interests that they've nothing to fight for at that point.

Rodders has himself to blame for saying words , taking him out two seconds in is ok then , utter bollocks

 

[Centurions]

Trossard deserved a second yellow for barging in with his elbow, never mind kicking tha ball away. Ederson was wrestled to the ground for the second goal. That said, the Daily Fail seems obsessed with Erling throwing the ball at Garielle, FFS!

Sky are doing the same, they seem desperate to paint Haaland as a brute whilst glossing over the Arsenal dirty tricks.

Here's what Haaland got up to...

• As already mentioned, the Norwegian striker threw the ball at Gabriel following Stones' late equaliser
• Haaland then barged straight into Thomas Partey following the restart
• He then went head-to-head with Gabriel following the incident and appeared to ask Myles Lewis-Skelly: "Who the **** are you?"
• And finally, Haaland exchanged words with both Mikel Arteta and Gabriel Jesus after the final whistle
• Haaland said to Arteta: "Stay humble eh, stay humble eh." He then told Jesus to "get the **** away."

Partey deliberately ran across his path to block him, Gabriel was there to try and throw the blame Haalands way.

The rest of it is equally bollocks.

 

[Barcon]

Well I can’t see any mention of specific incidents. Other than the Havertz one, I didn’t personally see any others.

The camera angles on the Havertz one aren’t favourable as they all appear to be quite far away, but he did look to initiate contact with Rodri, can’t tell if he raised his shoulder into him, but possibly was fortunate not too be booked.

His actual injury was just bad luck. Seemed to jar his knee when running.

So if we are talking about two incidents, ‘targeting’ him seems a bit far fetched.

Looked like his knee banged into his other knee after he was pushed by partey the (alleged) rapist.

 

[smevchenko]

I sit on the front row and they were targeting Rodders from the word go or the whistle go! I don’t know the names of all the Arsenal players but their number 29 and 19 definitely kept at him. Plus 33 at one stage if I remember rightly. Rodders was targeted and as he was only on the pitch for about 20 minutes I think we can definitely say a marked man.
There could have been more but I didn’t think we would be having to justify a statement about one of our players to a City fan or I would have taken my notebook and pen!
Believe us when we say they wanted Rodders off the pitch and Arteta and his team are thugs!!

Players get targeted all the time though, not saying it's right or wrong, but it's been going on for decades. Do you honestly believe a team trains for a game and has specific sessions or discussions about injuring a player?

Of course they will say 'Rodri controls the game, we can't allow that to happen, we need to be at him quickly etc etc' That will obviously include fouls because that's the nature of the game. You can't try to make a player uncomfortable by closing him down quickly without giving away fouls, that's then up to the ref to decide if anyone is crossing a line.
Perhaps we have been spoiled lately with Pep and how he controls the game, as I don't see that currently from many City players but we've all been to many a city game where we had players doing the same to opposition players.

Many managers over the years have said the same about the treatment their players have had, Ronaldo, Hazard spring to mind.

At the end of the day, both teams had stuff to moan about, which is usually the case.

Imagine some of the incidents happened the other way round, Dias scores a header after Haaland and Akanji block Raya from coming out, would anyone be moaning?

Gabriel Jesus picks up the ball after Arsenal score an equaliser and throws the ball deliberately at Bernardo.... plenty on here would be calling for punishment.

Haaland sticks one on Gabriel after 10 seconds (the stadium would be cheering)

Other than Oliver calling Walker over and perhaps allowing play to continue a little early I didn't see much wrong with the game to be honest.

We would probably have a lot less to moan about if we didn't do the same thing for 45 mins and actually gave them something to worry about in the second half.

 

[malg]

No.

 

[Man_City_Loyal]

Sky are doing the same, they seem desperate to paint Haaland as a brute whilst glossing over the Arsenal dirty tricks.

Here's what Haaland got up to...

• As already mentioned, the Norwegian striker threw the ball at Gabriel following Stones' late equaliser
• Haaland then barged straight into Thomas Partey following the restart
• He then went head-to-head with Gabriel following the incident and appeared to ask Myles Lewis-Skelly: "Who the **** are you?"
• And finally, Haaland exchanged words with both Mikel Arteta and Gabriel Jesus after the final whistle
• Haaland said to Arteta: "Stay humble eh, stay humble eh." He then told Jesus to "get the **** away."

Partey deliberately ran across his path to block him, Gabriel was there to try and throw the blame Haalands way.

The rest of it is equally bollocks.

Exactly this!

The time-barred rapist and his defensive team mate were both blocking the way forward for Erling to get towards the ball.