Its a foul
its a foul on the keeper therefore it was rightlyfully disallowed. Your frustration should be aired at the goals arsenal have scored similar to this in other games this season and allowed - hence why there is a huge clamour for a review of what happens at corners etc - this is my complaint but in the end its also irrelevant
Arsenal are top due to winning more points than us...others can say they are the least deserving potential champions and I woudlnt like to formualate an argument against that but Arsenal fans wont give a shit
Here are some examples you asked for - this shows that other teams have complaints andcould argue that they should have more points/we should have less which ever way you want to say it:
Wrong VAR decision that would see us have one less point
The Premier League's Key Match Incidents panel has confirmed VAR officials made a critical error by not awarding Everton a penalty against Manchester City.
www.express.co.uk
They also had a penalty overturned vs Newcastle by VAR
Limited to no VAR reviews of penalty incidents for Arsenal in a game vs Everton.
Van Dykes ruled out goal against us. Robertson offside - intefeering with play incident - Arsenal fans would argue that affected the eventual result
US getting a penalty by VAR vs Brighton....other fans said it was soft at very least
This is the point however - Im not saying any of those decisions are right or wrong.....EVERY fan of everyclub complains like you are - complaints of bias by officials etc - are we the only ones that are right and everyone else wrong?
You can come back and pick holes in all of those and other fans will pick counter holes.....as I said the complaints abut refs/VAR are a waste of time - humans make mistakes or are curruptable which ever way you want to look at it.
Arsenal fans still go on about a handball by Rodri that helped us win a title...Im not sure what incident they are talking about. Scouse fans point to the Douk challneeg on Mcallister - (for what its worth to me that was one we completely got away with! - happy as it was against the scousers however just to hear them spit their dummy out!)
We have to be good enough to win despite ref errors - Pep himself has said that - fans need to remember it and focus on supporting the team instead of bitching about VAR all the time...
To finsih for me I would remove VAR completely....all accept automated offside and goal line tech. We still wont get consistency or perfect decisions BUT because it slows the game down and gives the media too much access to debate hairline decisions - its turning the game into a circus which the media thrive off - the game itself is becoming a side show and a joke cause of it....We wouldnt have had the Aguero moment quite the same as there would have been a VAR review...nothing to disallow of course but simply cause all goals are reviewed and there would have been a small delay in celebrating which takes out the organic celebrations which we saw - this is the true nature of the game
The trouble is, as you've said holes could be picked in the argument over all those decisions, the fact that they are all easily debatable and you've had to go back over numerous seasons suggests that for most teams the good and bad decisions do kind of balance out over the seasons.
The difference between those decisions you cited and the shit Arsenal have been getting away with the last two years is that there have been far too many factually incorrect decisions that have helped Arsenal over the line. These are the Laws of the Game regarding direct free kick incidents;
1. Direct free kick
A direct free kick is awarded if a player commits any of the following offences against an opponent in a manner considered by the referee to be careless, reckless or using excessive force:
- charges
- jumps at
- kicks or attempts to kick
- pushes
- strikes or attempts to strike (including head-butt)
- tackles or challenges
- trips or attempts to trip
If an offence involves contact it is penalised by a direct free kick or penalty kick.
- Careless is when a player shows a lack of attention or consideration when making a challenge or acts without precaution. No disciplinary sanction is needed
- Reckless is when a player acts with disregard to the danger to, or consequences for, an opponent and must be cautioned
- Using excessive force is when a player exceeds the necessary use of force and endangers the safety of an opponent and must be sent off
A direct free kick is awarded if a player commits any of the following offences:
- a handball offence (except for the goalkeeper within their penalty area)
- holds an opponent
- impedes an opponent with contact
- bites or spits at someone on the team lists or a match official
- throws an object at the ball, opponent or match official, or makes contact with the ball with a held object
Apart from the rules regarding biting, spitting or throwing objects Arsenal have been allowed to break all of those rules multiple times a game.
I'd ask you to read those rules and also have a look at the Laws regarding Sporting Behaviour and Cautionable Offences in the Laws of the Game (particularly the Laws around persistent offences, dissent, unsporting behaviour and attempts to deceive the referee) here;
IFAB Laws of the Game
www.thefa.com
Once you've read them have a think about the way Arsenal play and their set piece tactics, can you then honestly say Arsenal are the deserved winners of the league and that they won it fair and square without help from referees? Deserved in not only winning the league but also being the first team in history to win the league without giving away a penalty, without receiving a red card and simultaneously having the lowest yellow card count in the league. Does their record breaking disciplinary record seem to marry up with the laws of the game? Does it hell.
As you said, there will always be incorrect decisions and inconsistencies but the decision of Arsenal to turn cheating into a scientific discipline combined with PGMOL's decision to essentially ignore all cheating, diving, handballs and holding in the box (apart from when teams play Arsenal as West Ham discovered to their £200m+ loss) means that the key drivers and influencers of this Premier League season have been Howard Webb and Darren England, not the players, coaches or the managers which in a multi billion pound 'sport' is beyond unacceptable.
If "We have to be good enough to win despite ref errors" why do Arsenal deserve to win the league when they have weaponised refs errors in their favour? Is breaking as many rules possible to gain any advantage multiple times per match what we want from the game now? Are we going to become like European football where mastering the 'dark arts' is the biggest part of deciding winners and losers? Because that's where we're headed now if people still have the attitude of "we have to be good enough to win despite the refs" when other teams are using referees incompetence and cowardice in the face of a media in thrall to the US clubs to win cups and titles.
Just to be clear, I don't particularly think the referees are overly anti-City more that they're pro-media backed teams, or maybe just anti-press criticism but we're now at the stage where the league needs to act to get back any kind of credibility after the farce of the season just gone. Masters and Webb have to go for starters, we need a league that is run for all the clubs, not just three of them. If the three American clubs were held to the same refereeing standards and Laws of the Game as the rest of the league think of how much more exciting it would be, Bournemouth could have been pressing for the title this year with Villa just behind them who knows?
The press need to stop being American team fanzines and click bait chasers and actually go back to being journalists speaking truth to power, that's in every walk of life too, but I have no idea how that happens now. It's a sad look for the press corps when social media and YouTubers are the only ones putting together any kind of media discussing how Arsenal have successfully integrated and perfected cheating as their tactics.
VAR needs to just go, it's just not working and the quality of refereeing has plummeted to levels we've never seen before. With Howard Webb's instructions to 'allow a more physical game' and referees relying on VAR to make their decisions we've just created a 'sport' where cheating is actively rewarded and fans are feeling increasingly ripped off and alienated. There are still the same errors as there have always been, it hasn't made refereeing decisions better or more accurate, the game isn't fairer to all teams and it's increasingly being manipulated by teams to their own advantage.
The Laws of the Game need to be applied properly by referees too, none of this high threshold/glancing blow/didn't make contact with his head so no red card nonsense either. Players and managers need certainty going in to the season next year. Howard Webb said at the start of the season just gone that they were going to be clamping down on holding and diving in the box at set plays after fans, managers and players complained about Arsenal's cheating the prior season, then the exact opposite happened. How are we supposed to plan for next season when we don't know if we'll have to go the Arsenal route of buying big, strong limited footballers with no qualms about cheating to be successful or will they actually clamp down on the cheating in the box and the two footed lunges meaning we would be better with skilful technical players? If we don't know how they're going to be 'interpreting' the rules how can we plan? Are we going to go back to the Liverpool Covid season where any and all contact is a foul or are we going to have an all in wrestling season like the last two years? Basically, are we going to have an 'there's contact so he's entitled to go down' year or a 'he has to be stronger there' year? I'd quite like a 'let's just apply the Laws of the Game fairly for everyone' year but with VAR under Webb that seems increasingly unlikely.