A good read, I find with my club (Arsenal) that we’ve won a reputation for ‘dark arts’ in a sea of other guilty parties. Therefore we have seen our keeper booked for time wasting in the first half of matches when we often see the first opponent (particularly if they are hanging on for a point or more) get a yellow for time wasting in second half injury time. You mention Pope at NUFC, two seasons ago when they held us to a 0-0 at the Emirates he was appalling and the ref ignored 60000 fans loudly pointing out his time wasting from the half hour mark. I’m not sure he was even booked by the end. It’s like the 5 foul players (Rodri, Casemiro, Caicedo) who refs refuse to book for a series of bookable offences but will happily book a less guilty player for their first challenge if the mood takes them.
Our officials are poor, the rules don’t always help them but too often we talk about the ref’s performance almost as much as the teams we paid a lot of money to watch.
Some good points you make there. I didn't mention Arsenal because while I do think they are not averse to some of this, they are too easy a target and there are others who deserve more scrutiny.
We are all guilty of it but I think some play in the fact that teams get media fuelled reputations for it. Arsenal fans have a chip in their shoulder about this kind of stuff (I would argue rightly so but I’m biased) after we experienced a season under Wenger when we were the most fouled team, committed the least fouls and still had the worst disciplinary record in the league.😂
A good read, I find with my club (Arsenal) that we’ve won a reputation for ‘dark arts’ in a sea of other guilty parties. Therefore we have seen our keeper booked for time wasting in the first half of matches when we often see the first opponent (particularly if they are hanging on for a point or more) get a yellow for time wasting in second half injury time. You mention Pope at NUFC, two seasons ago when they held us to a 0-0 at the Emirates he was appalling and the ref ignored 60000 fans loudly pointing out his time wasting from the half hour mark. I’m not sure he was even booked by the end. It’s like the 5 foul players (Rodri, Casemiro, Caicedo) who refs refuse to book for a series of bookable offences but will happily book a less guilty player for their first challenge if the mood takes them.
Our officials are poor, the rules don’t always help them but too often we talk about the ref’s performance almost as much as the teams we paid a lot of money to watch.
Some good points you make there. I didn't mention Arsenal because while I do think they are not averse to some of this, they are too easy a target and there are others who deserve more scrutiny.
We are all guilty of it but I think some play in the fact that teams get media fuelled reputations for it. Arsenal fans have a chip in their shoulder about this kind of stuff (I would argue rightly so but I’m biased) after we experienced a season under Wenger when we were the most fouled team, committed the least fouls and still had the worst disciplinary record in the league.😂