tedebear
Legal Alien
I don't boo anyone, but completely understood most boo's yesterday.
But if I did boo, it would have been Arteta firstly, in his post match interview. The Arsenal I saw yesterday were niggling, hanging on, holding, pulling back, diving, cheating, stopping the flow of the game, and everything European (Spanish) that I've never liked about football, which he applauds in his interview as words to the effect of clever football (can't remember his exact phrasing). If they really are that good, why do they need to do it. Just play football.
Then secondly the referee, for allowing Arsenal to get away with it. Walking 20 yards down the side line before throwing the ball in needs calling back, but he never saw it once. Blowing the whistle every time an Arsenal player fell to the ground to stop the flow of play. None of them went off with injury and they all got up and played on in the end, so all it was, was taking the flow of the game away. Gross being held back time and time again off the ball was infuriating, Gross is incredible to play as hard as he does with someone hanging on to him, holding his shirt or his arm. Dunk had quite a lot of it too, and doesn't deal with it well (and nor should he have to), the issue with Dunk is we see his reaction and no referee asks VAR to tell him what caused it. The first half was one of the worst officiated halves of Brighton at home I've ever watched. It truly was. I'm in two minds about the penalty, veering to the side of it was a penalty, but even taking that out of the equation, it was hard to see anything other than incompetence from the ref and VAR in the first half. Errors and complete missed calls, and then allowing Arsenal to put every little situation to their favour, a hold here, a grab there a dive here and there. The number of times the referee had a smile on his face when chatting to the Arsenal players and his little touches of them, was really odd too. The booing of the ref as he walked off the field for half time was justified. We weren't good enough, have no doubt, but the referee was very very poor.
But if I did boo, it would have been Arteta firstly, in his post match interview. The Arsenal I saw yesterday were niggling, hanging on, holding, pulling back, diving, cheating, stopping the flow of the game, and everything European (Spanish) that I've never liked about football, which he applauds in his interview as words to the effect of clever football (can't remember his exact phrasing). If they really are that good, why do they need to do it. Just play football.
Then secondly the referee, for allowing Arsenal to get away with it. Walking 20 yards down the side line before throwing the ball in needs calling back, but he never saw it once. Blowing the whistle every time an Arsenal player fell to the ground to stop the flow of play. None of them went off with injury and they all got up and played on in the end, so all it was, was taking the flow of the game away. Gross being held back time and time again off the ball was infuriating, Gross is incredible to play as hard as he does with someone hanging on to him, holding his shirt or his arm. Dunk had quite a lot of it too, and doesn't deal with it well (and nor should he have to), the issue with Dunk is we see his reaction and no referee asks VAR to tell him what caused it. The first half was one of the worst officiated halves of Brighton at home I've ever watched. It truly was. I'm in two minds about the penalty, veering to the side of it was a penalty, but even taking that out of the equation, it was hard to see anything other than incompetence from the ref and VAR in the first half. Errors and complete missed calls, and then allowing Arsenal to put every little situation to their favour, a hold here, a grab there a dive here and there. The number of times the referee had a smile on his face when chatting to the Arsenal players and his little touches of them, was really odd too. The booing of the ref as he walked off the field for half time was justified. We weren't good enough, have no doubt, but the referee was very very poor.
