Eduardo Dives, FIFA responds, Wenger overreacts

As an Arsenal fan, I was very pleased with the teams 3-1 victory over Celtic and the Emirates on Wednesday night.  I was not however pleased with Eduardo’s blatant dive which resulted in a penalty and the first goal of the game.

FIFA have now repsonded to this by declaring that they will punish Mr da Silva with either a fine or a match ban.   Wenger’s reaction to this has been predictably grump, stating that Eduardo is a victim of a FIFA witch hunt and that it can’t be prvoed that Eduardo meant to decieve the referre and win a penalty.

My take on all this is that Eduardo should be punished.  He went down looking for a penalty depsite the fact that the keeper didn’t even touch him.  This isn’t acceptable and shows one of the ugly sides of football: the fact that many players simulate fouls and overact or feign injury when hacked to gain a set piece and possibly the booking of the offender.

However I can understand where Wenger is coming from.  Why FIFA have decided to punish Eduardo in the incident on Wednesday when for years they have silently sat by is a mystery.   The punishment of Eduardo will only be just if similar punishments are now implemented for other offenders in football under FIFA’s jursidicition.  Whether this happens or not is hard to say.  It would be espically unlikely in leagues such as the Italian or Spanish ones where simulation and over dramatic reactions are almost an expected part of their football.  Or what about the upcoming World Cup?  Should this be implemented?  If so some of the South American teams will struggle to adjust and probably get half their team sent off.

So in summary, I applaud FIFA’s action, but only if it is backed up by a widescale implementation for other teams and Eduardo is not used as some kind of ‘example’ to other teams.

James

Arsenal’s start to the Season

As I haven’t blogged in a while on here, I thought it was time to do so and the most fitting topic seemed to be discussing Arsenal’s start and my thoughts for the rest of their season.

It seems that before the season had begun, everyone had written off Arsenal.  They were slated for losing two of their most experienced players to Man City (Kolo Toure and Emmanuel Adebayor) and for not replacing them.  I myself was saddened by the lost of both players, particulary Adebayor and his big African grin. 

In my opinion before the season started, Arsenal desperately needed a central defensive midfielder and a player who would be the backbone of the squad (similar to how John Terry is at Chelsea or Steven Gerrard at Liverpool). 

However after only two games it appears that Mr Wenger does actually know what he’s doing as Arsenal have won both their games with a solid win at home to a struggling Portsmouth and a whooping of Everton on the first day of the season.  The main difference with Arsenal compared to last season seems to be the steady improvement of lesser players on the squad – such as Song, Diaby and Bendtner, and the strong team spirit that seems to inhabit the players.  Arsenal seem to be back to playing their way of football which not only looks lovely, but at the moment is getting results. 

I believe that Wenger was right to get rid of Adebayor and Toure.  The former didn’t want to play for Arsenal anymore and the latter also seemed to have lost faith in the club.  With Toure gone, it seems to have allowed Gallas to step up and become the player that Arsenal need who will motivate the team and get them going.  I’m just hoping he doesn’t have a bizarre hissy fit reminscient of his one at Birmingham and year and a half ago.  With Gallas at the helm, Arsenal appear to have a good cohesive team spirit, which they were lacking last season.

As for Arsenal’s season, I believe they will do very well, but I don’t believe they will challenge for the title.  The squad will suffer when players get injured and Arsenal will no doubt continue to draw against teams they should beat due to their insistence on playing a certain way. 

But in conclusion I do have the umost respect from Wenger.  He has stuck by his method of playing and given younger players the time they need to improve.  His not resorting to buying to solve problems won’t win him much, but has won my respect as an Arsenal fan.

Lets just hope they beat those Mancs on Saturday!!!

James

Jimmy Bullard being a legend

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U73VYXir0Ls

Poor Old Alex…

Further to Dave’s post:

Not sure what I enjoyed more. Oh wait, yes I do !!

What an enjoyable sight we all witnessed last night!  Was it the sight of Torres opening his account ??  Erm no! Was it the sight of Defoe banging in a hat-trick at Hull, most definitely not!!!  Was it seeing Liverpool shut up all those people who have been jumping on the “its all over for Liverpool this season” bandwagon, maybe!! But I think the most beautiful sight of the evening was seeing that red faced Scottish numpty nearly choking on his chewing gum as Robbie Blake ripped the net off and in the process sent the Manc scumbags to their first defeat of the season.

I know as a Liverpool fan I should have been happier that we had beaten Stoke 4-0, but seeing the Mancs getting beat stirs up something deep inside every Liverpool fan, something that cannot be put into words.  I was listening to BBC radio Merseyside last night, and after the game had finished the commentators were just wrapping up their broadcast when in the back ground I could here the full time results being broadcast over the loud speakers at Anfield, and then it happened, Burnley 1 Manchester Utd 0.  The roar that followed gave me goose bumps and I wasn’t even at the ground.  Yes it is great that Liverpool got off the mark last night and yes I loved it that they did it in such emphatic fashion.  But the pleasure of seeing them Mancs getting turned over somewhere where I am sure they had already mentally taken the 3 points and moved on is indescribable!!!

Here We Go Again!!

So the season is here again and after the first weekend of fixtures there is already so much to talk about.  Performance of the week has to go to the Arsenal.  Although Everton did not turn up on the day I don’t think anyone would have predicted that the Gooners would travel up the M6 and dole out a slapping of that variety.  People can point the finger at Lescott all they want and I have to agree that surely the situation surrounding him did not help things but it was not just him that was poor, the whole team were still on the summer break!!   Arsenal looked lively and fresh, full of confidence and looked like they had a point to prove to all the doubters out there that had already written them off before a ball had been kick.  On this performance we have to ask can they mount a challenge for the title this season ??  My view is if they can sign Hangeland before the deadline yes they can.

It was a very weird weekend overall though, so many teams going away from home and winning, and no draws, who would of predicted that. Although the final game of the weekend maybe should have finished in a draw, even if the end result was the right one.  Spurs v Liverpool ended with a bit of a black cloud over it for me.  Maybe is am looking at it through red tinted glasses but surely Liverpool should have had at least 1 penalty at the end of the game that would have surley levelled it up at 2-2.  It appears Mr Dowd does not like giving Liverpool penalties, I was at the pre season friendly against Atletico Madrid and Phil Dowd waved away 3 strong claims at Anfield and I feel he bottled it a bit on Sunday as he had already given one pen.  This is not to say that I feel that the red men have been robbed, they were clearly not at the races and Spurs fully deserved the 3 points. Spurs were better than Liverpool in all area’s on the day and look like they have a good season ahead of them, although I think Top 6 will be about where they will end up, all the claims of top 4 that seem to be surfacing I feel are pipe dreams, but hey I am sure any Spurs fan will admit Europa League is fine with them.

As for the rest, Chelsea looked decent and probably deserve their favourites tag for the title, although they left it late against Hull they were always in control of the game and Drogba looked very impressive.  It seems now his future has been decided he has got his head down and is giving his all again for Chelsea which is a worrying thought for any Premier League defence!!  The Manc’s well the less said about them the better, but let me say well done on struggling to beat Birmingham!! very impressive.  Wigan were the surprise of the weekend for me, Roberto Martinez seems to have Wigan playing good football and he certainly shocked Martin O’Neill on Saturday, it was nice to see the Irishman’s team getting a good seeing to.

From the other results of the weekend there were no real surprises, West Ham and Stoke beating two of the new boys was kind of to be expected, Fulham winning at Portsmouth was no shock as Portsmouth are in all kinds of trouble and Fulham under Roy Hodgson will be pushing for a top 6 this season I believe. And City winning at  Blackburn again not a shock, but I did feel that if City had come up against sterner  opposition they probably would have got beat, Blackburn had 6 or 7 clear opportunities and it was only down to poor finishing from McCarthy and the always awful Jason Roberts that they managed to come through unscathed.

All in all though, a good weekend of football.  It is great to have the Premiership back in full swing, roll on Tuesday and Wednesday!!

Introducing New Contributor, Mr. David Tonks

James and I can formally announce that we are welcoming a new author to the Seven Sisters pages – Mr. David Tonks. Dave is a Liverpool fan, and lives up in Chester, and we thought he would be perfect to give us a bit of northern perspective on all things football. Thankfully, he shares mine and James’s hatred of Manchester United.

I’m sure his first post will be up sometime soon!!

Premiership Predictions – Comment is Free!!!!

1. Chelsea
2. Man. Utd
3. Liverpool
4. Arsenal (just)

– Man. Utd have failed to properly replace Ronaldo, and have a much weaker forward line this year. Liverpool don’t seem to have the strength in depth or the strength of manager to win it (though they may prove me wrong). Arsenal will be lucky to scrape fourth this year (but I think they will). So I’m taking a pot shot at Chelsea just because I think they have the best squad. Their success, however, will be largely dependent on how Ancelotti settles into the Premiership, so if he fails to settle well I could be proved spectacularly wrong.

5. Tottenham
6. Everton

– I think Harry will do the trick for Tottenham this year and push us up into fifth. This may be misplaced optimism (in fact, it probably is) but we have had a very stable and considered pre-season in the transfer market, and will start the season with the best balanced squad we’ve had in years. Everton will finish sixth I feel, leaving Man. City and Aston Villa below.

I simply cannot see Man. City pulling it together this year. Again, I may be proven spectacularly wrong, but I don’t think they’ve bought particularly well this summer, and think they have a poorly balanced squad – it will be hard to keep all those attacking players happy. More important than all this, however, I simply don’t think Mark Hughes has what it takes to make them into a top four side. He doesn’t seem to be that good of a tactician, nor that good of a man-manager, and you need both of those skills to be able to succeed at the top level.

18. Wolves
19. Stoke City
20. Burnley

No real reasons for these, just gut instinct.

THOUGHTS ANYONE??

Man City – Really?

Craig Bellamy (Striker)

Robinho (Striker)

Roque Santa Cruz (Striker)

Emmanuel Adebayor (Striker)

Carlos Tevez (Striker)

Benjani (Striker)

Martin Petrov (Att. Mid)

Shaun Wright-Phillips (Att. Mid)

Kelvin Etuhu (Att. Mid)

How the fudge are they going to fit all of these into a football side, or even on the bench? Mr. Hughes is going to have some unhappy attacking players this year...