The Daily Mail’s coverage of Arsenal’s 2-2 draw is nothing short of hilarious as they ignore Wilfried Zaha’s dive, declare Arsenal’s 2nd illegitimate and lay into Mesut Ozil once again.
To start, they have a feature from Mark Clattenburg discussing how Arsenal’s second goal should not have stood that fails to mention that Wilfried Zaha dived to win Crystal Palace’s late penalty.
Arsenal had, indeed, been fortunate to take the lead.
Although Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s 56th minute strike was shown to have crossed the line by just 9mm, there was a clear handball in the build-up by Alexandre Lacazette that was missed by the officials.
https://twitter.com/arseblog/status/1056561480697634816
On a day when Arsenal struggled to find top gear, it was safe to say the football gods had literally given them a helping hand
But, no sooner had they offered their gift to Arsenal did they turn around and hand one to Palace, whipping a 12th-straight win away from Unai Emery.
Granit Xhaka certainly asked Zaha the question when he stuck out a leg but the man who has won 11 penalties since 2014, couldn’t wait to answer by throwing himself over it. Only Jamie Vardy has won more in that time.
Not only does Clattenburg not mention Zaha’s dive as he discusses how fortunate Arsenal were, the Daily Mail’s football editor, Ian Ladyman managed to leave it out of his match report entirely.
In fact, not only did he fail to mention it was a dive, he actively defended it, hailing Zaha’s skill while bemoaning the ‘disastrous’ refereeing that Palace endured on Sunday afternoon.
True story.
Here’s a sample of what Ladyman wrote:
They are rare, players like Wilfried Zaha. It is because he is so direct that makes him so dangerous.
English football does not necessarily encourage this type of play and at times Zaha will frustrate people by making the wrong decisions. But the Crystal Palace winger carries a consistent and almost unique threat and can be exhilarating when in full flow.
Here at Selhurst Park, Zaha’s late contribution was typical of his afternoon and enough to overcome the odds and indeed the fall- out from some disastrous refereeing to earn Roy Hodgson’s team a point and ensure Arsenal’s sequence of victories ended on 11.
Here’s how he described Palace’s second penalty:
But Zaha knew that if he ran at Xhaka he would unsettle him and maybe even panic him. You will never worry someone with a square pass but you will if you get on your toes and as Zaha drew the challenge from the Arsenal player he went to ground and Atkinson was always going to give the penalty from which Milivojevic scored.
There was not a huge amount of contact from Xhaka and Zaha could have tried to stay upright. But that does not mean it was not a penalty. Things work differently at full pace and Xhaka’s movement towards his opponent was enough to unbalance him and the penalty was the right call.
Here he is on the handball:
The handball from Alexandre Lacazette in the build-up to the second goal was as clear as day and how referee Martin Atkinson and his assistants missed it we will never know. It was clearly visible from the back of the Main Stand.
So Palace were up against it when Zaha was given possession down the right with less than 10 minutes to go.
In addition to all this, they also have a piece from Graeme Souness slating, surprise surprise, Mesut Ozil.
Watching Souness slate Ozil before the game, during halftime, and after the final whistle on Sunday, I’m starting to wonder if he actually knows the names of any other Arsenal players.
Somebody tell Souness the name of another Arsenal player so he can fuck up about Ozil
— Daily Cannon (@DailyCannon) October 28, 2018
While we’re here, the Daily Star wasn’t much better:
Nor the Telegraph:
