Fat Tom
13-02-2006, 12:30 PM
Arsenal 1
Bolton Wds 1
Christopher
Davies
THE way Premiership managers speak these days, the impression is that it is only the other 19 clubs that have divers, time-wasters and hatchet-men, and not their team. The one point about which all 20 managers are unanimous, it seems, is that referees are poor and favour the other side.
Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal manager, spoke for everyone except the referee, Howard Webb, and Sam Allardyce, the Bolton manager, when he said that Abdoulaye Faye should have been sent-off for the two-footed lunge on Jose Antonio Reyes which left the Arsenal winger needing X-rays for a suspected broken leg.
Faye's leading foot got the ball, but the trailing leg caught Reyes, although neither the referee nor the assistant referee saw it as the red-card offence that the laws state it was. But Wenger should have said Mathieu Flamini's similar two-footed lunge at Ricardo Gardner was also a dismissable offence (he would surely have done so had it been Gardner on Flamini), yet the Frenchman did not see it so.
Once a player launches himself at an opponent in that way he has no control over the outcome of the challenge. Flamini clipped Gardner, who read the tackle and took evasive action. But the Bolton defender was touched and the laws demand a two-footed tackle that catches an opponent is a sending-off offence.
Wenger did not ask how Webb, likely to be removed from fourth-official duties at tomorrow's Liverpool versus Arsenal match, failed to caution Jens Lehmann, who, in front of him, pushed over Matt Jansen. Webb also refereed Bolton's 2-0 win at the Reebok in December.
Unhappy
"We were wondering why we had the same ref. This seems to me quite unusual. We were quite unhappy - and he turned up again," said Lehmann.
"It is difficult to play when you have problems with his decisions. I was complaining to the ref about a handball and that is when he said 'come on, five minutes'. For a referee to say this is so unusual."
Lehmann complaining will surprise no one, but there is no reason why a referee should not tell a player how many minutes are remaining. Wenger was unhappy with Bolton's time-wasting tactics, although Webb played nine minutes of added time and, while the Arsenal manager has done so much for English football, like his counterparts, he has too often defended the indefensible. Remember when Robert Pires tripped himself up against Portsmouth and an opponent was cautioned?
Players have lost the right to the benefit of the doubt for penalty decisions because too many of them dive.
Managers will not criticise their players because they are paranoid about upsetting them - the answer to football's ills are in the hands of managers and players to support fair play, however, we saw at Highbury that this is as likely as night not following day.
Webb's failure to correctly punish fouls overshadowed a hugely entertaining game in which Jussi Jaaskelainen performed footballing miracles and Bolton defended with skill and bravery before Gilberto's volley in the third minute of stoppage time ensured Arsenal won the point they deserved, having fallen behind to Kevin Nolan's clever first-half lob.
Dreadful
Arsenal were dreadful in the first-half, with Philippe Senderos having a valid claim to be Bolton's best player.
"In the first-half, I agree, that we didn't look really like a unit that knows what to do and how to respond, but I felt that, especially in the first 20 minutes, after we slowly came back into it, we became stronger and stronger," said Wenger.
Had Gardner not headed off the line from Thierry Henry in the final minute Arsenal would have won a game that should be remembered for a wonderful comeback by the FA Cup-holders and Bolton's defensive organisation, but the bad and the ugly outweighed the good. (İDaily Telegraph, London)
Bolton Wds 1
Christopher
Davies
THE way Premiership managers speak these days, the impression is that it is only the other 19 clubs that have divers, time-wasters and hatchet-men, and not their team. The one point about which all 20 managers are unanimous, it seems, is that referees are poor and favour the other side.
Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal manager, spoke for everyone except the referee, Howard Webb, and Sam Allardyce, the Bolton manager, when he said that Abdoulaye Faye should have been sent-off for the two-footed lunge on Jose Antonio Reyes which left the Arsenal winger needing X-rays for a suspected broken leg.
Faye's leading foot got the ball, but the trailing leg caught Reyes, although neither the referee nor the assistant referee saw it as the red-card offence that the laws state it was. But Wenger should have said Mathieu Flamini's similar two-footed lunge at Ricardo Gardner was also a dismissable offence (he would surely have done so had it been Gardner on Flamini), yet the Frenchman did not see it so.
Once a player launches himself at an opponent in that way he has no control over the outcome of the challenge. Flamini clipped Gardner, who read the tackle and took evasive action. But the Bolton defender was touched and the laws demand a two-footed tackle that catches an opponent is a sending-off offence.
Wenger did not ask how Webb, likely to be removed from fourth-official duties at tomorrow's Liverpool versus Arsenal match, failed to caution Jens Lehmann, who, in front of him, pushed over Matt Jansen. Webb also refereed Bolton's 2-0 win at the Reebok in December.
Unhappy
"We were wondering why we had the same ref. This seems to me quite unusual. We were quite unhappy - and he turned up again," said Lehmann.
"It is difficult to play when you have problems with his decisions. I was complaining to the ref about a handball and that is when he said 'come on, five minutes'. For a referee to say this is so unusual."
Lehmann complaining will surprise no one, but there is no reason why a referee should not tell a player how many minutes are remaining. Wenger was unhappy with Bolton's time-wasting tactics, although Webb played nine minutes of added time and, while the Arsenal manager has done so much for English football, like his counterparts, he has too often defended the indefensible. Remember when Robert Pires tripped himself up against Portsmouth and an opponent was cautioned?
Players have lost the right to the benefit of the doubt for penalty decisions because too many of them dive.
Managers will not criticise their players because they are paranoid about upsetting them - the answer to football's ills are in the hands of managers and players to support fair play, however, we saw at Highbury that this is as likely as night not following day.
Webb's failure to correctly punish fouls overshadowed a hugely entertaining game in which Jussi Jaaskelainen performed footballing miracles and Bolton defended with skill and bravery before Gilberto's volley in the third minute of stoppage time ensured Arsenal won the point they deserved, having fallen behind to Kevin Nolan's clever first-half lob.
Dreadful
Arsenal were dreadful in the first-half, with Philippe Senderos having a valid claim to be Bolton's best player.
"In the first-half, I agree, that we didn't look really like a unit that knows what to do and how to respond, but I felt that, especially in the first 20 minutes, after we slowly came back into it, we became stronger and stronger," said Wenger.
Had Gardner not headed off the line from Thierry Henry in the final minute Arsenal would have won a game that should be remembered for a wonderful comeback by the FA Cup-holders and Bolton's defensive organisation, but the bad and the ugly outweighed the good. (İDaily Telegraph, London)