danielwood5
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 27 Jul 2012
- Messages
- 1,592
You can say exactly the same thing for Arsenal though. We're neck and neck with them on points so they'll also be able to look at games where they've dropped points and be able to say that they shouldn't have given the ball away there, or put away more chances in such a game, or not sat off in a certain game in exactly the same way we can.
Ignoring all the non-red card offenses, non-penalties and other debatable decisions, if we just look at incorrectly awarded or disallowed goals in the 3 games we've mentioned this gives us a 6 point swing in City's favour, which would put us a point above Arsenal with a game in hand.
Players, managers and referees all make mistakes throughout a season, that's normal, it happens. However, what isn't normal is that we've given referees further support in the form of VAR. We've had to accept that we've lost so much from the game that it's now become a poor shadow of it's former self with the assumption that the pay off for that loss was supposed to be better decision making and less errors. As Arsenal are top of the league purely because of VAR errors that assumption was clearly wrong, and that's going off the decisions that the Premier League's own independent body has cited as being incorrect.
One of the reasons given for the VAR farce at the weekend was that the officials had to be sure to get it right because it was such an important decision. At the same time though the only reason it was an important decision is because the same diligence wasn't given to the Spurs goal against us. The Spurs goal was looked at for maybe 30 seconds but if they'd have given that VAR inyervention the same amount of time and attention that they gave to the attempt to rule out West Ham's goal, and then came to the correct conclusion, then the West Ham goal isn't quite as crucial.
It's fair to say that if the same levels of VAR scrutiny that was given to West Ham's goal was given to Arsenal's 30+ set piece goals this season then the only relevance of the West Ham goal would have been on whether Arsenal got into the Europa League or Conference, thus negating the need for a lengthy VAR intervention at the weekend, possibly preventing West Ham's relegation.
I've asked various people who've said things like "we cant blame the referees", "all fans complain about referees" or "the table doesn't lie" what big game changing decisions have gone against Arsenal this season. I don't mean just things like "was it a yellow or a red", "that wasn't a headbutt as his nose wasnt broken so no red card", "it was just a glancing blow", or "that shouldn't have been a corner". I mean things like Spurs incorrectly allowed goal or the offside goal Newcastle were given where the VAR images bore no relation to the actual game and nobody has given any clear instances of dropped Arsenal points due to incorrect, or even 'debatable', referee decisions. The fact that there hasn't been widespread outrage on Sky or TNT about even a minor decision going against Arsenal leads me to believe that incorrect refereeing decisions have only had a positive effect on their points tally.
In fact, looking at the points tally awarded to Arsenal and City at this stage of the season, it's equally fair to say that the 'controversial' decisions made by Darren England in just City and Arsenal games have decided the destination of the title far more than City playing slowly in the second half of some games or any missed chances. Darren England has been the biggest influencing factor in who wins the league this year, not the players or managers involved and deserves a winners medal for Arsenal more than Gabriel Jesus does.
