Sunday’s win over Tottenham Hotspur delivered some brilliant entertainment, much-needed relief for Arenal fans and a chance to smack Tottenham back into place.
But it also delivered a ton of really interesting facts, stats, oddness and idiots in the media.
Here are 8 bits of awesomeness, wtfness and hahahaness that caught my eye as I made my way around the interweb today:
4The media are still gaslighting
The Telegraph’s Jeremy Wilson called Arsenal losing their one-nil lead “a crisis of their own making.”
Really Jeremy, really?
Mark Clattenburg: Both Tottenham’s goals should not have been allowed #Arsenal https://t.co/LWMQgvp4u4
— Daily Cannon (@DailyCannon) December 3, 2018
Even Mark Clattenburg came out and said that NEITHER Tottenham goal should have stood. He called Eric Dier offside (although that doesn’t forgive Leno’s awful keeping) while we all know Son dived with no contact despite the media’s determination to gaslight us all.
Former referee, Keith Hackett, even reinterpreted the laws of the game to show that, even if Holding didn’t touch Son, it was still a penalty.
“On first view,” Hackett wrote, also in the Telegraph, “I thought it was a penalty, as did Mike. Holding slides in front of his opponent and appears to catch him. Mike was excellently positioned, took his time and pointed to the spot.
“However, television replays showed Holding did not touch Son, with the Tottenham forward going to ground far too easily.”
That all sounds perfectly reasonable. Then he adds, and I swear I am not making this up, “But what makes this decision so difficult is that you could argue it is still a penalty, even though no contact has been made. Law 12 states that a direct free-kick is awarded if a player makes a challenge “considered by the referee to be careless, reckless or using excessive force”.
Holding’s tackle was daft, but it was not careless, reckless or using excessive force as they are meant in the rules of the game and Hackett knows it. He tries to explain, “Holding’s challenge was desperate and, as a result, careless. He made no contact because Son took evasive action rather than because he took any care to avoid his opponent.”
But we all know this is total bull. Son did not ‘take evasive action’. He dived. He was not trying to avoid Holding, he WANTED to be caught by the Arsenal defender. Holding, therefore, did not ’cause’ Son to go down, he did that all by himself.
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The definition of ‘careless’ in the rules is to protect players from dangerous tackles, not daft ones. By Hackett’s logic, any player sliding in to block the ball that misses both ball and man is a free-kick.
While we’re talking conspiracy theories…