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How will Unai Emery solve Arsenal defensive puzzle?

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Unai Emery is facing a defensive puzzle.

With Rob Holding out for the season, yellow cards to both Sokratis and Shkodran Mustafi against Huddersfield means both are suspended for the game at Southampton on Sunday.

Not only does this give the Spaniard a headache for the Premier League match, but also disrupts his planning for the visit of Qarabag in the Europa League on Thursday.

Thursday’s game would have been used to give Laurent Koscielny and Nacho Monreal a run out. Get 90 minutes of senior football under their belts after long lay offs.

Koscielny would have most certainly started at centre back, with Monreal at left back. The problem now for Arsenal is that with Sokratis and Mustafi now out, the pair are now likely to be our central defensive partnership against Southampton.

So what does this mean for Thursday?

Does Emery continue with the rehabilitation of Monreal and Koscielny by giving them 90 minutes against Qarabagm hope they both get through and hope recover quickly enough for Southampton at Sunday lunch time?

Or does he play Sokratis and Mustafi (injury permitting) against Qarabag, keeping Koscielny and Monreal out of danger for Sunday.

The fear will be against Qarabag, the one of either Koscielny or Monreal picks up a little niggle ruling them out of Sunday. This is highly likely. Small injuries often occur after a long lay off. And even if they do both get through unscathed, are either yet fully fit enough to play 90 minutes twice in less than 3 days?

Arsenal were already without first choice U23 pairing Daniel Ballard and Julio Pleguezuelo, as well as Kostadinos Mavropanos. This would mean that if either Koscielny or Monreal were to not fit for Sunday, either 18-year-old Zech Medly would start, or Arsenal would have to move either Stephan Lichtsteiner or Granit Xhaka into the back four.

Logic dictates that you do not involved Koscielny or Monreal against Qarabag. It would also make sense to not play Sokratis if Mustafi’s hamstring injury is to rule him out of further games.

So Medley and Big Carl Jenkinson it is then/

Keenos

Arsenal punished due to refereeing inconsistency

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Referee Paul Tierney was completely correct in booking Granit Xhaka, Shkodran Mustafi and Matteo Guendouzi for diving.

We have to remember that a dive is not just feigning contact. FA rules state:

Diving is defined as an attempt by a player to gain an unfair advantage by falling to the ground and possibly feigning an injury, to give the impression that a foul has been committed.

Just because their has been contact, it does not mean that a foul has been committed. All too often, a player go’s to ground with minimal contact, rolls about feigning injury, exaggerating the contact, in the hope of gaining an advantage.

FIFA call this “simulation”. Just because you might have been touched, it does not give you a right to go down. If the contact was not enough to impede you, then it is not a foul. If, at the slightest brush, you then decide to go down instead of remain on your feet, you should be booked for diving.

Unfortunately, when it comes to diving, referee’s in England tend to be very inconsistent.

Against Huddersfield on Saturday, Tierney followed the rules of the game, booking Xhaka, Mustafi and Guendouzi. The problem is all too often referees wave play on.

We often see Dele Alli, Jamie Vardy, and others go down with little to no contact. The referee waves play on a we get on with the game. Against Leicester on Saturday Dele Alli feigned injury to give an impression that a foul had been committed. The referee in that game waved play on.

So Arsenal (rightly) got 3 players booked – one of which will lead to a suspension – whilst other players never get punished as referee’s wave play on.

Against Tottenham, Son Heung-min went down to win a penalty. Rob Holding lunged into a challenge, and made zero contact with the South Korean.

The media response was that due to Holding sliding in, Son had a right to go down. He did not. He cheated. He went down with no contact (or at most minimal) and rolled about feigning injury. He should have been booked. Instead the referee gave a penalty.

Mistakes happen, but what has happened since just highlights the inconsistency of the FA.

November last year, Everton’s Oumar Niasse was banned for 2 games having been deemed to have deliberately attempted to con referee Anthony Taylor to give a penalty.

The FA charged Niasse with “successful deception of a match official” and an Independent Regulatory Commission was unanimous in its decision to ban the Senegalese.

After the game, Crystal Palace’s Scott Dann (who made the challenge) said the referee had been “conned”.

 “I don’t like to see people getting punished but also I don’t like people diving to win penalties. [Niasse] probably knows he has conned them.

“If there was [contact] it was minimal. I haven’t tried to tackle him; he has gone past me and you can see on the replays he has dived. At half-time, [Taylor] probably knew he made the wrong decision.”

Replays showed that there was contact between Dann and Niasse, but it was extremely minimal. The Holding incident with Son was similar. If there was contact it was minimal.

Yet a week on from that game, Son has not been charged by the FA – let alone given a 2-game ban like Niasse. Meanwhile Arsenal have 3 players booked for similar incidents. Mustafi now suspended after reaching 5 yellow cards.

The incidents involving Xhaka and Mustafi had a similar level of “contact” as Son against us last weekend.

If the FA believe Xhaka and Mustafi were dives why have they not charged and suspended Son?

Too often they hide behind what the referee has “seen” and “not seen”. Were Xhaka and Mustafi incorreclty booked? Probably not. Should Son have been suspended for 2 games? Well the precedent is there with Niasse.

Further inconsistency was shown on Wednesday.

Marouane Fellaini pulled Guendouzi back by his hair. A similar incident happened back in 2016 when Robert Huth pulled back Fellaini by his hair. Huth was banned for 3 games.

In the incident with Guendouzi, Fellaini has escaped any retrospective action.

Now some will say you are only moaning because it is Arsenal and you are right, I am moaning because it was Arsenal. But up and down the country every weekend fans of clubs are complaining about referee decisions. We are all affected by it. The quicker VAR comes in the better.

All fans want is consistency.

Keenos

Match Report: Arsenal 1 – 0 Huddersfield Town

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Arsenal (0) 1 Huddersfield Town (0) 0
Premier League
Emirates Stadium, Drayton Park, London N5 1BU
Saturday, 8th December 2018. Kick-off time: 3.00pm
(4-2-3-1) Leno: Bellerín, Mustafi, Sokratis, Lichtsteiner; Torreira, Xhaka; Guendozi, Kolašinac, Aubameyang. Lacazette
Substitutes: Čech, Elneny, Koscielny, Mkhitaryan, Iwobi, Monreal, Nketiah.
Scorers: Torreira
Yellow Cards: Lichtsteiner; Mustafi, Sokratis, Xhaka, Guendouzi.
Referee: Paul Tierney
Attendance: 59,893
Before us, it was them. Theirs was the star that illuminated the third decade of the twentieth century. They were the first club to win three championships in a row, (followed by two runners-up positions in the corresponding seasons), also four FA Cup finals in sixteen years, winning the trophy just once, along with the Charity (now Community) Shield in the same season. They were our opponents in the 1930 FA Cup Final, when a brace of goals from Alex James and Jack Lambert not only assured our first cup final win, but ensured that the football pendulum drifted gently south from Leeds Road to Highbury. We share common ground after all; we have the same father. His name was Herbert Chapman, simply the greatest club manager the English game has ever seen, bar none. Although their fortunes have waxed and waned over the years, we still hold The Terriers in a special place, and we unreservedly welcome the players, supporters and officials of this unique West Yorkshire football club to our stadium this afternoon, and genuinely wish them well on their sometimes difficult journey battling their way through the lower half of the Premiership. Take care out there old friends, yours is a hard road to hoe.
On this cold December aftrnoon in North London, there appeared to be a very slow start to the match, which perhaps showed the cautiousness of the home side and the fears of the visitors. Arsenal managed to dominate possession in the first half, and although we were by far the better side with several spirited chances, frustratingly we squandered them by being too hasty in front of the Huddersfield goal. Frustration became the order of the day with five bookings across both sides by referee Paul Tierney within five minutes, with perhaps the worst one being a bad foul committed by Danny Williams, their pugnacious United States international full-back. A few minutes before the break, Alexandre Lacazette got the ball into the back of the net only to see it cancelled out for a debatable offside decision; when the half-time whistle came, the mood in the stadium was a bizarre mixture of confusion and anger.
Immediately after the restart, Mr, Emery made two important substitutions, with Stephan Lichtsteiner and Alexandre Lacazette being replaced by Alex Iwobi and Henrikh Mkhitaryan. Admiitedly, the match went up a few notches with the influence of the new substitutes becoming evident in the early stages of the half, but yet again frustration set in quickly. There were noble attempts on both goals, and the match saw more bookings, and with no surprise to anyone, Arsenal used their last subsitute as a final fresh throw of the dice; on the pitch came Nacho Monreal, who replaced the injured Shkodran Mustafi with 25 minutes of the game remaining. However, Arsenal were both patient and relentless, so when Lucas Torreira’s excellent bicycle kick caught the Huddersfield goalkeeper off-guard to score (what turned out to be) the only goal of the game, the relief on the Arsenal bench was there for everyone to see, so when the final whistle was blown, our supporters left the stadium with the satisfaction of three points in the bag.
Well then. As usual, our second half performance had more excitement in it than the first, but 21 matches unbeaten across all competitions somehow tells its own story. We were gritty and dogged and kept the pressure up on the visitors, even when yellow cards were being handed out for what seemed to be the most minor of offences. The one concerning issue is that of the defence, with Rob Holding not returing to the first team until next season, and Shkodran Mustafi hobbling off with a hamstring injury. However, all this aside, we won again, and we are putting pressure on the Premiership leaders. Mr. Chapman would be pleased. Remember everyone, keep the faith, get behind the team and the manager, as these early days are going to be crucial for our future success in all competitions. Stick with the winners. Victoria Concordia Crescit.

Steve

Too Dearly Loved To Be Forgotten: Arsenal v Racing Club de Paris 1930-1962 by Steve Ingless (Rangemore Publications, ISBN 978-1-5272-0135-4) is now available on Amazon.

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