Not much to offer on our 3-1 loss to Man Utd; more erudite bloggers than me have already said all there is to say.
However, the Fletcher incident WAS a penalty and WAS a sending off. It was. Watch it again.
His intention was clearly to stop the player first, and divert the ball second. If you look at the incident, he poked his left leg in the vague direction of the ball whilst simultaneously (and most importantly) wrapping his other leg around Cesc's knees and ankles, bringing him down. Yes, he did get the faintest of touches on the ball (which I don't deny) but that was not enough to alter its course so much that if Cesc had continued his run, he would clearly have had a chance to score. He was blatantly prevented from continuing this run by Fletcher; thus he was denied a goalscoring opportunity. Under the rules, that is a penalty and a red card.
The referee got it right.
We can feel sorry for Darren Fletcher - and even as a disappointed, lifelong Arsenal fan, believe me when I say I do feel some sympathy - but bleating that he got the faintest end of one of his studs onto the ball and that means he didn't commit a foul is totally, utterly, completely wrong.
Thanks. If anyone wants me, I'll be over there trying to flog Adebayor to AC Milan.
UPDATE: Graham Poll agrees with me. I'm not sure if that's a good thing :)
I agree completely. I was perched on the edge of my seat in disbelief at the ITV commentators spending the last NINE minutes of the match criticising the referee for making what was obviously the right decision. He had his studs up in front of Fabregas' face and brought him down in the area when he was the last man on goal.
ReplyDeleteAn equally important question, for me, is 'Why did the commentators spend so long criticising the referee for the decision and what would have happened if BBC commentators had done the same thing?'