That was horrible.
At half time, Sunday was quickly turning into one of my greatest non-trophy winning days at the football. By full time it nearly became one of the worst.
To say I was an emotional mess would be an underestimate.
At 3-1 the nerves got the better of me and I could take no more. For the last 20 minutes of the game I could be found in the concourse walking from end to end. When the final whistle sounded, I was unable to celebrate. My legs gave way and I was frozen. It took a mate to pick me up, give me a hug in celebration and assure me that everything was going to be OK.
The stress levels of this game are what caused me to have a mini-mental break.
To go 3-nil up, see us get pegged back to 3-1 (and then 3-2), against that lot, in a must win game for the title. I could see the headlines, hear the mockery if we threw it away. I just could not cope.
Two days on and I am still not as happy as I should be having just seen us go top of the table beating Tottenham on their patch. I should be on cloud nine, in a celebratory mood. But I actually feel down. It feels like we lost.
At half time when 3-nil, I made the point to my mates that we had not actually played that well and, that like Chelsea mid-week, Tottenham had their chances. But I could never have predicted how close we would come to chucking it away.
We came out for the second half in second gear, but never really looked troubled and actually had the best chance of the game. It felt like only a matter of time until we got that 4th – and Bukayo Saka really should have ended all hope of Spurs.
Then David Raya inexplicitly kicked the ball straight at Cristian Romero.
I thought the Match of the Day analysis of what happened was fairly accurate. There is no blame to Raya as he is asked by the coaches to play that way and had the chip over Romero worked, Arsenal would have easily beaten the press and be facing Tottenham with one of the central defenders up field.
Mistakes happen. We have seen both Ederson and Allisson miskick it to an opponent over the years and it is part of the risk / reward of not simply hoofing it forward and creating a 50/50 challenge in the air.
As for the penalty, the incident highlights the inconsistency in VAR decision making.
Earlier this season we were denied a penalty against Aston Villa when Gabriel Jesus had his ankle booted by a Villa defender whilst trying to control the ball. Jarred Gillett was the VAR at the time and made the decision that it was not a penalty, and not a clear and obvious error.
At White Hart Lane, the referee waved play on having decided it was not a penalty. Declan Rice was attempting to clear the ball and had his eyes on nothing else when he caught Ben Davies. Gillett was once again on VAR and this time decided the ref had made a clear and obvious error and a penalty was awarded.
The same referee, sitting in their portacabin, making two different decisions for very similar incidents. I have always said the issue is not the technology but those who operate. The inconsistency is frustrating.
As for everything else, Gillett got the offside decision correct, even though Spurs fans have questioned it, and it was never a penalty on Dejan Kuluveski in the lead up to Saka’s goal.
A play running and his heel clipping an opponents knee can never be a freekick or penalty. It is clearly just a coming together and it would be impossible to determine who had made contact with who.
Tottenham fans cryarsing has got me out of my slumber a bit. the way they have moaned about the weekends result shows they have well and truly bought into Ange Postiwhatshisname’s “greatness”. The fact is they are 20 points behind us and 8th in the form table since the turn of the year. The longer they continue to back a man clearly out of his depth tactically the better!
We move on. 3 games to go we are in the title race, although Manchester City are favourites.
Up next is Bournemouth who are clearly not in beach mode having thrashed Brighton on Sunday (Brighton themselves clearly are already on the beach!). Win that game and it is basically than a “rivals” shoot out.
Manchester United v Arsenal
Tottenham v Manchester City
Will we get a favour from Spurs? Will City get a favour from Manchester United? Either way, the title race is going down to the last week of the season and that is all we could ever ask for.
UTA.
Keenos
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 
morning, fair points, except Gillett was the on pitch referee for the Villa one….
and to highlight VAR inconsistency, the Onana penalty he gave away on Saturday was exactly the same as the Snachez one on Jesus at the Chavs……
LikeLike
Sadly I think it could easily be over before the spuds play City as they’ve got the next three games to play in the space of nine days, two away to Chels and Liverpool then Burnley at home, can’t see them winning either of the first two. Cannot see city slipping up against Fulham or Wolves, just hope I’m wrong. UTA
LikeLike
The NLD is definitely not good for your health. At the start of every season, I`d take two boring 0-0 draws against that lot. The pain of losing is far greater than the joy of winning for me. On Sunday, we never had the luxury of nicking a draw, we just had to win. Not a good situation to find yourself in.
I think Roger above makes a good point about their top 4 chances being over before they play City. They`ve got some right hard games coming up. For the first time in my life, I`ll be cheering on the kangas against Chelsea on Thursday. Hopefully they`re still in with a shout of CL football when City turn up at their gaff.
City will definitely win both their home games, just hope they don`t run up a cricket score in them. Can`t see Fulham taking anything off them either, Fulham are one of the easier teams in the PL to play against in my opinion which makes the fact that we`ve dropped 5 points to them even harder to stomach.
It all comes down to the Kangas doing us a favour, they`re more than capable of getting a result at home to anyone but think they`ll just roll over if they`ve got nothing to play for. If the boot was on the other foot, I know that I`d want us to do the same thing.
LikeLike
In fact, if the boot was on the other foot, I wouldn`t give a shit about the CL. I`d just want City to murder us.
LikeLike