MOTD2

I thought it was a pen because Kompany definitely made an attempt to block, even though it was soft. I think he caught him with his thigh but regardless, he definitely made a movement in Monreal's direction which was away from the direction of the ball and asking for trouble.

Re Dean not looking - maybe the lino buzzed him?

What does annoy me is that 3 years ago Mancini was LAMBASTED in the press for employing similar tactics to grind out a good 0-0 draw at Arsenal. Everyone in the media criticised him for boring tactics, parking the bus and playing for a draw. It's no different to what Arsenal did yesterday except they are praised to high heaven for it:


Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini defends safety-first approach against Arsenal
Roberto Mancini made no apologies for Manchester City's negative tactics as they ground out a dour 0-0 draw at title rivals Arsenal.

3

20

0

0

23

Email
Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini defends safety-first approach against Arsenal
Playing it safe: Roberto mancini has defended his side's decision to play a cautious game against Arsenal Photo: ACTION IMAGES
By Telegraph staff and agencies7:33AM GMT 06 Jan 2011CommentsComment
Mancini's team opted for a safety-first approach to hold onto second place behind Manchester United, two points ahead of the third-placed Arsenal.
The Italian believes his side are in a good position heading into the second half of the title race and he said: "I prefer to go home with one point because when you come here, it could be that Arsenal will play better than you and you must defend. This is football.
"Not all teams can play like Arsenal. I think Arsenal also have won some games they don't deserve to win. In the first half they had the chances to score.
"It's not my business. I think they are a good team. It's the same when you play against Barcelona, you must defend well if you don't want to lose the game.
"I think if we had David Silva and Mario Balotelli and all the players were 100 per cent it would be another game.
Related Articles
Wenger slams negative City 05 Jan 2011
Arsenal 0 Man City 0 05 Jan 2011
Sport's civil wars 05 Jan 2011
'Arsenal don't need City's wealth' 05 Jan 2011
Toure: bust up forgotten already 05 Jan 2011
Dzeko will fight for City, not with his team-mates 04 Jan 2011
"We are in a good position, like Arsenal and like United. I think the season is very long. Also Chelsea and Tottenham have lost tonight but both can finish near the top."
Both Mancini and Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger were united in their condemnation of referee Mike Jones's decision to send off Bacary Sagna and Pablo Zabaleta.
Mancini said: "I don't agree with the sending off because two yellow cards is enough. At that moment at the end of the game the players are tiring and the referee should understand this. I asked the referee why and he said for him it was a red card."
And Wenger added: "The frustrating thing of the night was the sending off. That showed they were happy with the 0-0 when the goalkeeper takes the free kick from the other side. When they were down they were slow to get up."
Wenger refused to be downhearted at his side's failure to score despite dominating the game and he claimed the performance only reinforced his view that Arsenal are potential champions.
"I think we had the performances and not the result. But I take a lot of encouragement from the game even if mathematically we are frustrated and the players are disappointed in the dressing room," Wenger said.
"There is no way we should lose courage or belief in our team, it's the opposite.
"We should come out with more belief in our quality and because we have shown that we have what it takes to be a serious contender in this league.
"The regrets I have is we didn't take our early chances because that would have changed the game.
"They came here to have a 0-0 and in they end they got what they wanted but if we had scored the first goal it would have changed the course of the game.
"We faced long periods in the game when we played against ten men, even Tévez, I have never seen him so deep.
"And when we lost some freshness and sharpness in our movement we lost our threat. You have to play with sharpness against a team who defends like that.
"I would more like to take the positives out of the game because I believe my team gets stronger and stronger. We try to win our games always. It was their away to defend deep and try and get us on the break.
"They were organised and we have to respect that. We have to find a way score."
 
Vinny does have this habit of trying a "partial block" when players go past him, it has resulted in numerous free kicks around our box over the years and even more heart stopping moments, yesterday he paid the price
 
dom said:
Rammy Blue said:
Interesting to see the penalty incident again and they highlighted that Dean wasn't even looking at it yet gives the pen, piss poor decision.
Click to expand...

FFS how does that work ?!!
Click to expand...
Linesmen it wasn't the only decision he made when looking the other way.
 
The only piss poor decision in my view was VK's decision to nudge free scoring Nacho Monreal, the Luis Suarez of North London, off the ball as he headed past him. If it had been Sanchez you might have thought..."fair do's, he's likely to go on and slam it in the net" but Monreal?... more likely to shank it 20 yards wide of the post.
 
johnmc said:
One for the bluemoon refs. How do they define obstruction? To me if Vinny was guilty it was more by way of stopping Monreal get to the ball that he wasnt in possession of. Is that not obstruction there and therefore an indirect free kick?
Click to expand...
Obstruction is when a player is holding onto the ball in a way that an opponent cannot get to it without fouling them such as if a player were to lie on the ball except from the goalkeeper or were to have the ball stuck between their legs punished by an indirect free kick.
What Vinny may have been penalised for is Impeding which is penalised by a direct freekick or penalty. But as referees when judging Impeding we look for a few things for example, had the "offending" player made a clear movement towards the attacker, is there any opportunity for the "offending" player to move out of the way was it too fast, was the player even looking at the player being obstructed, otherwise we call it a "coming together" which is a grey area but mostly won't be given as a foul, We also look for whether the attacking player has moved towards the "offending" player to initiate contact, And another thing we can use to judge whether it is kosher or not is look at the way the player has gone down sometimes if they throw themselves to the ground 9 times out of 10 they are trying to con you so we don't give it and maybe even go to our pockets.... I hope this is any clearer
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top
✖
  AdBlock Detected
Bluemoon relies on advertising to pay our hosting fees. Please support the site by disabling your ad blocking software to help keep the forum sustainable. Thanks.