Morning all.
So the first weekend of the Premier League is done and dusted. Arsenal, along with Man City and Liverpool, took three points. Ours was the most difficult task of the three, I’d say. Away at Old Trafford is never fun, and we came through that test well. Not with flying colours, but walking at a brisk pace colours. Liverpool had a nice home game against a Bournemouth side that spent the summer selling most of their defence, while City played a Wolves side who looked lively to begin with, but who ultimately self-destructed.
Last night I watched Leeds against Everton, and I’m quite sorry about that. If you were hoping for some Monday night football with an edge, this wasn’t it. The game was decided by a penalty late on which, for some, is contentious. Not for me. I think James Tarkowski knows exactly what he’s doing. He tucks his arm by his side, then leans into the shot to try and block it with his chest but knows there’s a good chance it’s gonna come off his arm. If Arsenal didn’t get that as a penalty, I’d be upset. I mean, I’m more upset that we never seem to get any penalties anymore, but still.
I did think it was quite funny that the Manchester United players, manager and, I assume fans (but I don’t really get any exposure to them these days because I’m not on Twitter), were complaining about a possible foul on the goalkeeper for our goal. I think we all know when one of our players is deliberately playing the NFL-style blocking role. This is known as the Ben White Scale, and on the basis of what we’ve seen before, William Saliba was a 0.5 on the BWS.
Basically it boiled down to their goalkeeper not being strong enough. Meanwhile, as they complain about the faintest contact in the box on their feeble glove-butler, they ignore what was a very obvious foul by Matheus Cunha on Martin Zubimendi. As the Spaniard ran into the box, the United man literally just grabbed him in a wrestling hold, impeding his path and ability to challenge for the ball. That’s basically a 10 on the BWS.
Speaking to Sky Sports after the game, Bruno Fernandes said of the incident with their goalkeeper, “We know in the Premier League they don’t give much. Even if they had a meeting with us saying that they will whistle more if players block and don’t look at the ball but it is more of a saying but doesn’t really go into the game.”
Oooops. I strongly suspect if we hadn’t scored from that corner there’s no way we’d have been awarded a penalty, despite how obvious the foul was and despite all the talk about how referees are going to crack down on holding/grappling in the box. As I said last week, I think it’s going to open something of a Pandora’s Box, and I wonder how it’s going to be implemented. Will it only be for things the referee sees in real-time, or will the VAR people be looking at every corner etc to see if there’s something he misses? I really hope it’s not the latter, because every set-piece will be scrutinised to the Nth degree, and there’s always going to be some kind of foul going on. Then it becomes a matter of judgement as to whether it’s a free out, or a penalty.
If we start down that road, there are going to be long delays with referees advised to go to the screen to re-watch things they didn’t see in real-time, and I bet the inconsistency from one game to the next will drive people absolutely bonkers. Anyway, the main point is that perhaps United should have used some of their £200m+ outlay this summer on a goalkeeper who isn’t made of balsa wood and tears.
For more on the the first weekend of Premier League action, you can join us on Patreon later today for The 30, our round-up of all the games, goals, and incidents. There’s a bit of dust settling after the trip to Old Trafford, but I do wonder if we might see some outward movement from the squad this week. We went to Manchester and left Jakub Kiwior, Fabio Vieira, Reiss Nelson, Oleksandr Zinchenko, and Albert Sambi Lokonga behind, which should demonstrate to those guys the need to move if they want to play regularly this season. I don’t think Andrea Berta has an easy job when it comes to selling, but it’s also a big part of the job of a Sporting Director, and thus far we have literally nothing to judge him on in that sense. Let’s see how the week goes.
I’ll leave it there now, there’s the Arsecast Extra below if you haven’t had a chance to listen. More here tomorrow, and you’ll find any breaking stories on Arseblog News.
