The Rolling Football Thread: Season 2025/26 - thread 4

[DuncinToffee]

Previous thread

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/sports/5481141-the-rolling-football-thread-season-202526-thread-3?page=40&reply=151472506

Definitely a foul, and if Gary N says it is then who are we to argue. Even Roy said so.
Wasn’t pretty but it didn’t have to be, as Roy said if that was City people would say that they got the job done so credit to us.
Now means either Spurs or West Ham are going down.

Very disappointing weekend for all 3 of my teams as well.

Except Raya got both hands to the ball. He just failed to catch it. I have no skin in the game. But I don’t think it was a clear and obvious error.

that was such a clear foul that i, without the benefit of my specs, managed to see that in real time.

The length of time the VAR took was ridiculous.

Palace and Everton 2 all draw. Guess that’s ok.

DS was watching Arsenal and he said it was chaos in there but he felt there was potential for a West Ham penalty.

I was invested in Rochdale.
2 nil down with about 12 minutes left on the clock but they managed to win on penalties.
They finished the season 26 points ahead of Borehamwood in the league so it would have been such a kicker if they lost promotion to the EFL to them.

The decision will just make everyone hate Arsenal more than they do already. It’s such a shame that they have become known as a cheaty, dark arts cynical team when they used to play lovely football. I guess winning is all that matters to them but they are not making many friends with the endless playing for set pieces and sneaky fouls. Ho hum. Glad my team are not in the Premier League so I don’t really care who wins but it would have been good if the team that do played attractive football.

Yet Raya managed to get both hands to the ball...

But his arm was being held as was his top, the fact that he had both hands on the ball is irrelevant.

No VAR in the championship and it's bloody amazing!

I do think that they should go back to no VAR, it made it a bit more interesting and it slows the game way too much.

The post I quoted stated he couldn't catch the ball, he had both hands to it so he could have. His arm was across the top of his chest so he couldn't jump as high

Apologies, my mistake. Still a foul though but a big decision.

Yes, quite clear. If he wasn't being held and having his arm held he would clearly have caught the ball. People saying it's not a foul are showing their biases.

And all the people on SM saying "but Arsenal do it all the time" are buying into a narrative that doesn't stand up to any scrutiny should you actually watch the matches...

I'm not sure how a VAR decision in Arsenal's favour makes them "cheat-y"
Every pundit agreed the decision was right-which is a miracle in itself.

I wish more people would use this energy to call out Man City's actual cheating-think it is a lot more than 116 charges now with no punishment and they carry on buying players whilst other teams have been punished for much less.
That is cheating.

The current social media thirst for clicks and likes has found mocking Arsenal is a great sport.
Look at that City fan drinking his bottle of "Arsenal tears"
Teams having banners and tifo's mocking Arsenal.
Commentators on every game having a dig at Arsenal.

Arsenal played beautiful football and were called weak, spineless bottlers.
Always a bridesmaid etc, so many times coming second.
Mocked and mocked.

What team do you support?

And the PL isn't really for them to "make friends" but to win.
And they do play attractive football-but have also found a way to win ugly.
I'll take that.

Fingers crossed 🙏

Feel free to win ugly. It’s the only way Arsenal will. I support Leyton Orient feel free to criticise if you’ve ever seen them play. Arsenal fans are very very touchy!

Just fed up of the false narrative that people seem so eager to buy into.

Maybe think for yourselves once in a while...

I used to love Arsenal. Went to the old Highbury and remember them beating Liverpool at Anfield in 1989 to win the league. Celebrated with Arsenal fans jumping out of our cars in traffic jam when Michael Thomas scored the winner. I think for myself thanks very much and this Arteta approach of tactical time outs, wrestling players at corners has spread beyond Arsenal and the Prem, and the game is worse for it. It is unlikeable.

Man City seem to be untouchable, they have blatantly cheated and nothing is happening.
If we win, and I say if, we won’t have cheated to get there.

He did the same on Pickford, VAR decided differently then but as they say, it all evens out

VAR got it right this time, problem is the inconsistency

The PL panel said we also should have a penalty that game

I don't like all the wrestling at corners any more than you do and it would be so simple to stop by saying that you can't put your hands on an opposition player.

It’s a contact sport though so that wouldn’t work either without changing the entire game.

But the referees aren't stopping Arsenal and other teams going to extremes so I really think they need to stop it completely.

I just heard that Darren England said that he thinks that no one should be allowed in the 6 yard box.

But the reason he failed to catch it was because his arm was being held down.

Would you really be happy for your goalkeeper to have his arms held down.

I just read that an Arsenal player held the Man United GK's arm down at the start of the season. Well that goal should have been disallowed too.

The issue is that this has been going on for ages and this is one of the few times that VAR intervened and ruled the goal out?

Inconsistency with VAR remains the biggest problem.