Arsenal will be Premier League champions again but they’re not much fun to watch, are they? And Liverpool fans love a moan.

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Arsenal have a team of removal men
I once read a brilliant description – maybe on these pages, or maybe Barney Ronay – of peak Klopp’s Liverpool midfield trio of Milner, Hendo and Gini as ‘extremely committed removal men’. Essentially workman-like allowing the flair of Mo, Bobby and Sadio – and Trent – to do their thing.

Basically Arteta has got himself a whole team of removal men – no sofa too heavy, no table too bulky – these lads will turn up in a giant van and have you out of your gaff no worries. Let Raya and his safe hands handle the silver and the china.

Massive respect to their commitment. They cheer defensive blocks like they were goals. They throw themselves into challenges with no worries about getting hurt – in fact they want to get hurt so they can lie on the ground an extra minute or two. They take an ice-age over throw-ins. An aeon over corners. It’s brutal, brilliant 21st century football – Pep Ball crossed with Catenaccio.

Eze watches on from the sideline with confusion as Bruno roars with delight at making a simple block. They will be worthy champions again — but as Bill Shankly never said, if they were playing football down the bottom of my garden, I’d draw the curtains.
Dan, London

There was ONE shot on target, actually
Please…Mac Allister had one long shot on target. People saying it’s a miss hit pass need their eyes checked. I shouted at the TV about him shooting from there, I’m counting it 😉

This doesn’t minimize the defensive, well coached yellow wall, but that stat is made up. Also, blocking is allowed in football and Arsenal were just extremely good at blocking.

The media likes to sensationalize things. Remember that.
Nik (hate Arsenal’s tactics and the way they played, but winning is winning is winning), Paris

An imaginary text conversation
An hour before kickoff on Sunday had the following exchange over text:

Friend: you watching?
Me: Nah. Nice weather – better things to do than watch 1-0.
Friend: but our attack could give them problems.
Me: eh maybe but im just happier not watching a billion dollars deliver an inferior product to our local pro-am team where at least its fun with no var and games hinge on more than just one mistake.

Friend after the match: sigh.
Me: I assume it was thrilling?
Friend: it almost was and could have been but being told over and over how great a product is tends to achieve the opposite. It was a pretty average game between two teams who wouldn’t be close to challenging in any other era.
Niall O’Connor

Arsenal far worse than Mourinho’s Chelsea
Can people please stop comparing the current Arsenal team to Mourinho’s first Chelsea team? The only comparison appears to be the amount of sh*t-housery going on – when it comes to the actual football, that Chelsea team played some fabulous stuff, scoring loads of goals in the process. This current Arsenal team seems either unwilling or incapable of doing the same. We can all agree that Jose was A Bit Of A Tool but don’t allow that to obscure the facts. Thank you.
Marky Mark, Ipswich

Timber, Isak and the Convenient Disappearance of the Fourth Dimension
Hats, I’m sure you’ll be inundated with emails on this one, but I’ll bite this time.

That’s an extraordinary amount of mental gymnastics to justify a defender blatantly pulling someone’s shirt.

You’ve managed to acknowledge the foul, admit it could easily have been a penalty, and then conclude that VAR deserves praise for ignoring it. Impressive!

The best bit is your groundbreaking discovery of the third dimension, apparently a concept understood only by Arsenal fans and completely beyond the intellectual capabilities of referees, pundits and broadcasters.

But here’s what makes your argument particularly ridiculous. Timber doesn’t just momentarily tug Isak’s shirt. He holds it for a prolonged period, restricting his forward momentum as he’s trying to attack the ball.

You’ve then conveniently selected the moment the ball passes Isak’s head and declared it unreachable, completely ignoring the fact that the preceding hold may be precisely why he wasn’t in a position to reach it.

You’re effectively arguing that because a player couldn’t reach a ball after being impeded, the interference couldn’t possibly have affected his ability to reach it in the first place. That’s spectacularly circular reasoning.

And the irony of lecturing everyone about three-dimensional perspective while completely ignoring the fourth dimension, TIME, is quite something. Footballers move. Balls move. Holding someone back for an extended period changes where they can get to. A freeze-frame at the end of that sequence doesn’t magically erase everything that happened beforehand.

Then there’s your apparent belief that a penalty requires the denial of an obvious goalscoring opportunity. It doesn’t. You’re confusing the criteria for a penalty with those for a potential red card.

As for Isak not appealing, since when did the laws of football become dependent on how enthusiastically someone throws their arms in the air?

And somehow, after all this, you even manage to acknowledge VAR might have arrived at its decision through sheer incompetence, before congratulating them on their excellent judgement anyway.

So we’ve got an obvious, sustained shirt pull, a player whose forward movement is restricted, a freeze-frame being used to dismiss the consequences of that restriction, a misunderstanding of the laws, and a lecture about spatial awareness from someone who has apparently forgotten that movement takes place over time.

All to arrive at the conclusion that everyone else is too stupid to understand what you’ve uniquely figured out.

Sometimes the simplest explanation is the right one: Timber got away with one.

But I suppose that doesn’t sound nearly as impressive as pretending you’ve discovered a new branch of physics.
Amit (The one shot that hits the target from us was the one in our own foot.) YNWA97

More Liverpool carping
So ex-PGMOL referees, defending the non-penalty call on Isak, use the excuse that Isak himself didn’t call for the penalty or fall over like an Arsenal player as the reason it wasn’t a penalty.

So what does that say about players falling over like a bad Peter Lorre death scene? While I abhor that it seems like it you really do have to do that. Perrhaps Iraola is right. I am sure Arteta has a dossier on that!

Sure, MacAllister deserves shit for falling over after being head butted by Madueke, but then by the same token so do nearly all the Arsenal squad, no?

Sounds so much like City’s already refuted irrefutable proof. We have two abhorrent teams at the top – one for cheating financially another for pushing the boundaries of shithousery.
Paul McDevitt

…”He’s pulled the shirt, but not enough for me”.

“It’s holding, but not sustained “.

And the ever popular, “he’s made too much of it for it to be given”

But now we have, “he’s not made enough of it for the VAR to look at it”!

Had Isak thrown himself to the floor, held his head, screamed as if he’d suffered a career ending injury, we’d have hundreds of comments calling him a cheat and saying the officials are not helped by the players. In reality it’s the other way round, the players are not helped by the incompetence of the officials. We now have the ridiculous situation where a Premier League manager is saying he will now instruct his players to exaggerate any situation for fear that the officials will not get involved as the player “didn’t make too much if it”.

This is not a “woe is me, everyone’s against my team” rant, as my mantra has always and always will be, “what if that were the other way round?”. VVD on Havertz and I’ve no complaints of the penalty and red card being given.

TBF most Arsenal fans and Arteta himself accept that “we got away with one”, but isn’t that the whole point of why VAR’s were introduced?

Premier League clubs need to get together and force change or this will just go on and on, no one really wants law changes, they just want the one’s we have to be applied correctly.
Howard (woe is me rant to follow) Jones

…Data from the last 7 years clearly shows that Liverpool are the Premier League’s biggest cheats.

Their % of fouls per tackles made is the highest – dirty b**tards!

Their % of fouls per tackles received is the lowest – clearly they fake fouls more than anyone.

Their diving in the box is legendary as is the “they get everything at Anfield” myth. Liverpool have been awarded 1 (!) penalty at Anfield from a VAR intervention since it’s introduction. No other team has had less than 4.

No opposition player has been sent off for DOGSO for 17 years inside the box and 20 years outside.

Since the introduction of VAR:-

No opposition player has received a red card from a referee for violent conduct.

No opposition player has received a red card from a referee for dangerous play, cough, Doku!

No opposition player has been sent off for two yellow cards.

No opposition player has received a red card from a VAR intervention, cough, Doku!

I think it’s great that opponents come to Anfield and play the game fairly and with true Corinthian values and that officials are steadfast in their refusal to be intimidated by a feral, baying for blood, cheating set of players and their fans.

Special praise needs to go to Mr. Andrew Madeley who has now given an average of 7 more fouls against Liverpool than for, he did tremendous on Sunday when at half time he had inexplicably given Liverpool more free kicks than Arsenal but by full time had reversed that to an 18/10 split. Perhaps that was the basis of his tunnel chat with the gravitationaly challenged Gabriel.
Howard (said rant was coming) Jones

There’s an Anfield Tax
Nice of Johnno to share his thoughts on Liverpool fans in today’s mailbox, suggesting they’re a little bit thick and once again “victims” (truly odious language that has it’s roots in tragedy chanting/baiting – yeuch)

Anyway, it might interest Johnno to know that Liverpool have not got a DOGSO at Anfield inside the box, defined as a professional foul for a foul tackle or shirt pull, since 2009. It’s 2006 for one outside the box. Back when Rafa Benitez was the manager. Six managers and 18 years ago.

I mean, it’s not as if during that time they haven’t had some of the most fearsome attacking players in the world like Torres, Sterling, Suarez, Salah, Mane, Firmino…..oh hang on, wait a minute.

It’s the Anfield Tax. Refs don’t want to be seen to be “weak” or “intimidated” by the Anfield crowd because of the inevitable media pile on, so they overcompensate, they just see what they WANT to see, not what they ACTUALLY see.

It is also the reason that in the vast majority of home games, Liverpool top the foul count, despite having the lion’s share of possession and contending with most opposing teams parking the bus and trying to frustrate them by stopping play, tactical fouling etc.

But yeah, vIcTiMs etc etc blah blah.

Stay classy Johnno.
Andy H, Swansea

Chest pains
I had a good old chuckle reading the mail from Paul McDevitt this morning. Down here where I stay, we have a slightly biased joke about giving chest pain to those who displease us. And halfway through his writ that came to me, as an Arsenal fan, we claim all the chest pains our club and us give to those who struggle so hard with us. Please, have more, we will be enjoying them thoroughly.
Christo, Arsenal and South Africa

How to stop the grabbing
Grabbing. It’s really starting to get to me. It’s rife in the game and it’s really hard to officiate without ruining the match. Every year there’s a ‘crackdown’ on it but still every match contains many cynical pulls on the shirt or grabs to arms which stops an attack and thus removing the exciting moments that we all watch the game for. It’s a blight on the game. And there is an easy solution: Force players to wear anti-grabbing gloves so they physically can’t do it. They have them for dementia patients and problem children, time to add professional footballers to that list.
Andrew CPFC

VAR from ideal
After watching the Liverpool – Arsenal game, a few observations.

Isak should’ve made more of the shirt tug. However, if your trying to head a ball, then someone tugs you back you’re left with zero momentum. A dive would’ve been incredibly difficult. Best case was to remonstrate with the referee.

McAllister went down after the headbutt presumably because the standard of refereeing is so crap, you need to do something to get a decision. Remember Gabriel on Haaland last season? If Haaland went down, that may have been a red, three match ban, and possibly the title changing hands.

The “Clear And Obvious” rule is clearly and obviously a load of turd. VAR should be there to ensure decisions are correct, no matter what. I don’t really care if the referee has or hasn’t seen it.
Simon S, NUFC, Cheshire

Defending Villa v Carragher (ish)
The Villa Chairman’s legal threats to Carragher and Sky was a tad embarrassing and over the top however I think a lot of those mocking it are failing to see some of the wider context.

We all know success in football is now firmly dependent on the ability to generate more revenue than your rivals so that you can spend more. Revenue generation is now heavily dependent on recent successes but also on how each club is perceived. Globally an awful lot of plastics and armchair fans in China, Indonesia, Africa, as well as those living in non-football towns in the UK will be heavily influenced by Sky coverage, and by the opinions of pundits like Jamie Carragher.

It’s obvious they see the sky 6 as the main attraction and constantly push their product on the back of them. That’s hard enough for the other clubs to compete with. But for Carragher to then come out and say explicitly to a global audience that Villa will never be part of that clique serves to place in the minds of both local and far-off “consumers” that Villa are not worth following as they’ll never have the level of success or kudos of the likes of Manchester United.

I think Sky have such influence that, like the BBC/ITV with political broadcasts, they have a responsibility or duty of care to provide balanced coverage and avoid negative influence. Like it or not Football is now so much more a product than a sport that such comments are potentially detrimental to Villa’s public perception and reputation, which in turn can be commercially damaging, which in turn can lead to being less competitive on the pitch. It’s anti-competitive, it wouldn’t be tolerated in any other industry and Nasser Sawiris is dead right to be up in arms about it, and the fact that Carragher is pushing that idea to a global audience. Unfortunately we cannot depend on everyone watching realising that Carragher is a gobshite numpty.
Kevin Villa (Fulham looked pretty good on Saturday – just need a striker)

Academy players please
I believe it’s now a shade under 90 years that United have included an academy graduate in their matchday squad. Sounds impressive, until you ask yourself what the feck they were called.

I vaguely remember names like Amass, Obi, Kampala, Fish, Elanga, Shoretire. All marked down as future superstars, right up until they disappeared down the tunnel, never to be seen again.

It would be great if our academy chipped in with a couple of decent players now and again, especially in our decade of fiscal desperation. A left back here, striker there. Or just someone with a spine and a pair of bollocks would be nice. What’s the point otherwise?
Keggs, Salford

No sympathy for Newcastle
Where are all the teatowel wearing Newcastle fans? Why haven’t they all gone out to stock up on their Thawb or Shemagh?

I’d feel sorry for the club if their fans hadn’t so willingly and delightfully indulged in their Saudi masters.

You get what you deserve.
Will

A late convert
Totally my new favorite football read. I love you guys. It’s hilarious and very informative.

I need to bookmark your site or something.
Banger