Good morning everyone, a brief summary of Friday for you.
With the North London derby on Sunday, Arsenal’s ‘discipline’ is back in the spotlight as the FA have charged us for the third time this season following an incident in a 3-0 win over Oxford United Monday night.
In the 34th minute, Albert Sambi Lokonga pulled a shot off the hand of an Oxford defender. The Arsenal players called for a penalty. The referee said no. We have a corner. He took the corner and the game continued. There didn’t seem to be much going on beyond the routine appeal any team would make for a penalty (which I think they would have given us if VAR had been active that night).
However, yesterday afternoon, the FA released a statement saying:
Arsenal FC have been charged with breaching FA Rule E20.1 during their match against Oxford United in the FA Cup on Monday 9 January 2023.
It is alleged that Arsenal FC failed to ensure their players behaved in an orderly manner during the 34th minute, and the club has until Monday 16 January to respond.
I’ve seen some people suggest that this rule applies to fans, but I checked again, and the wording on this is the same as Newcastle’s. The same rule is cited, and I don’t think Arsenal fans have done anything to justify such FA scrutiny, so we can assume it’s because of the behavior of the players.
I personally think this is a bit crazy, and if that’s the threshold for an FA role, then I’m looking forward to a jam-packed second half of the season for clubs across the country. Last night’s match between Chelsea and Fulham is sure to see both sides censured for behavior that was the same, if not worse, than that of the Arsenal players on Monday night.
I realize on TV we may not have gotten the full picture of what happened but on Arsecast I spoke to Charles Watts who was there on Monday and he was genuinely astounded when I told him about the FA statement . He didn’t see anything to justify it, but like I said, if the threshold has been lowered, they’ll be busy dishing out charges everywhere.
I imagine part of this is the fact that Arsenal are the best, and certain Doha-based lycanthropic meddlers have been doing everything they can to put us in the spotlight. I wrote about this after the Newcastle incident, and my gut feeling is that within the club itself, this can be used as a positive to build that siege mentality and ‘us vs them (where they = everyone)’ mentality. That is absolutely something we should take advantage of.
However, I do worry when all this happens before a North London derby, a game that has seen some pretty outrageous decisions made over the years. Think about that penalty they took last season, and we know it doesn’t take much for Harry Kane to take one against us.
Strong gust of wind. Penalty fee. Lightly brushing off him. Penalty fee. Looking at him with intent. Penalty fee.
So if you were of a cynical mind, you might wonder how the Arsenal players would react to another generous decision going in favor of the home team on Sunday. I’m not really one to referee conspiracy theories, but I also think that certain referees on the PGMOL panel are very interested in becoming a part of history. Paul Tierney, who refereed the game for him last season, is on VAR this time.
All I will say is that we have a manager who will be no stranger to all of this. He knows there will be a lot of focus on him and his players, and I’m sure he’ll make that a part of his pregame preparations. It will be interesting to hear from him later this afternoon when he meets the press and he will no doubt be asked about this. How much he’s willing to talk about it remains to be seen. He could try to play it down, or he could potentially go big in the hopes that the spotlight will shine elsewhere. Let’s see.
On the other hand, Joao Félix’s debut at Chelsea ended with a direct red card and a three-game ban after an attack at knee height. I don’t think I can have any complaints, but when you’re paying an £11m loan fee and wages of £250,000 or more every week, it certainly affects the value of that deal when a player gets suspended. Oh well, he made his decision because of the Chelsea project (££££££), put up with it.
Well, I’ll leave it there. There’s a new Arsecast for you below, and we’ll have all the press coverage on Arseblog News later.
