Sorry to go off topic but just saw the goal from Chelski. This is something that can be debated for days and you still don’t have a clear answer.
The question is: when is a player interfering the play. It is down to the ref to make a judgement and therefore some will say he interfered and others will say he didn’t.
I think he did interfered and it should have been disallowed. He was in the line of the ball in front of the keeper in an offside position. The fact that he tried to play the ball by kicking towards the ball proved to me that he intented to play the ball and thus tried to interfere. So this again shows how difficult it is to put one line in refereeing decisions.

I just think it’s the cons of playing total attack football…..

And you just cannot stop Mr.Craddock scoring on either ends at the moment!!!!!

PS: any thoughts on Ramsey at DM position????? it seemed very strange to see him there although for only 20+ minutes or so. I would really prefer Wenger playing the young players like Coquelin or Eastmond there!

It’s clear that there are 3 teams playing for 1st and about 10 playing for that one final CL spot and Europa spot….

Really am looking forward to playing chelski and showing them the real way of playing football….next trip to Sunderland is not going to be easy though…let’s keep this momentum going for, I’d say, the whole season?

All this talk about the top 4 becoming the top 7 with the addition of Villa, the Tinies and Manchester Arab. Looks to me more like it is just a top three, with everyone else scrabbling to get the fourth place in Europe.

Starting now we are going to do a Alternative Encyclopedia of Football – including all the stuff that no one else publishes. Same idea as UNTOLD ARSENAL – if someone else is going to publish it we don’t. I don’t include the Molineux thing because that is good info and really obscure and gets 10/10 as one of the most incomprehensible ground names of all time.

I will try and define the categories to write in – but all input is welcome, and see if we can find a way to gather together the best data that comes up into a book, or maybe a web site.

Certainly we must include the worst League grounds that Arsenal have ever played at, the worst singing fans… all the stuff no one else covers. (And if I have got this wrong and someone else has done this, let me know and I won’t waste your time).

It will help pass the next two weeks.

Tony

Thanks for all your blogs!

Hah, Charlton have been abysmal and are losing to Nortwich Victoria in the FA Cup

I totally agree with this, the ratings are most often total bs. Some reasons:

- Nobody explains if the range of points is from 0 to 10, 4 to 10 or whatever?

- You never ever see anyone get a 10, well at least in the papers. Actually even a nine is once-a-season kind of stuff.

- You actually very rarely see grades below 5, if ever. Exception to this are some German papers like Kicker who can give like 3 to every player of Bayern when they lose…

- So the grading system is actually from about 4.5 to 8.5, makes no sense at all.

- Even more stupid they are because most of them even from fans of a team are made without watching a replay of a game. So it’s like, ‘Yeaah, great goal by xx’, give him 8.5 and ‘agh, xx missed a pass in the 2nd minute, 5 for him.

“The Molineux name originates from Benjamin Molineux, a successful local merchant (and a distant relative of the now extinct Earls of Sefton) who, in 1744, purchased land on which he built Molineux House (later converted to the Molineux Hotel) and on which the stadium would eventually be built. The estate was purchased in 1860 by O.E. McGregor, who converted the land into a pleasure park open to the public. Molineux Grounds, as it was titled, included a wide range of facilities including an ice rink, a cycling track, a boating lake and, most crucially, an area for football.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molineux_Stadium#Origins

I kind of like that story, 9 out of 10 maybe?

I think we should all call on the FA to institute the “Attwood System” of match rating. Special appearances on MOTD would be mandatory to cover all the associated elements and ratings.

Some more possibilities:

1. Twitch rating – Unique to Sp*ds matches, this would be assessed accordingly during a match.
– 1 – The missus put too much starch in ‘arry’s shirt
– 10 – Being tailed by IRS agents on the way home from the accountants

2. Losing/drawing coach gruntlement – Some coaches are more animated than others, especially when losing or drawing a match.
= 1 – The Drunk Scotsman – Jovially laughing and chatting up the 4th referee during stoppage time because you know the match will go on and on…and on until you score.
– 5 – The Pensive Dutchman – Sitting in ones chair the entire match, looking rather like waiting at the doctors office to have a prostate exam.
– 10 – The Tangerine Dream – Having your halftime team meeting at midfield. Oh, and singing to the crowd on the last day of the season because you didn’t get relegated gets bonus consideration in case of a tiebreaker.

hearing the young espn lady call cesc – ’sex’ – Priceless.

i didnt see motd last night, but its interesting that the bbc saw fit to put us on second.

what is more interesting is that the cmmentators have gone from not giving us a chance to slagging us off for letting teams get one back without actually admitting how good we are.

the glee in the espn commentators voice when he realised he could call both of the first two goals – ‘own-goals’. that coupled with the notion that wolves was the best team for the first 20 minutes.

they havent finished building us up yet and they are already anticipating knocking us down.

i believe much humble pie is on the menu come may.

And for each game from now on we must add in STADIUM NAMING RIGHTS. Half the stadia in the EPL are up for naming rights purchase.

Molineux I would give 3 out of 10 for, on the grounds that I never understood what it meant.

I really don’t get why all the sites do this rating out of ten for players and then ignore the important things, like leaves on the pitch, toilet facilities, view, number of squirrels on the pitch, colour of Sir Alex F Word’s nose, idiocy of the questions asked by commentator afterward (“just how happy did that goal make you?”).

This is a whole area of serious football commentary that we have not even begun to touch. Can you imagine the headline on Goonernews:

Wolverhampton v Arsenal: toilet ratings.

Anyway, I am still slightly hungover from the Melot. I honestly wanted to drink just a glass, but ended up finishing more than a bottle. How much more, I really can’t say.

I have read just a few pages of Making the Arsenal. So far, it is “SuperBad”; uncannily witty and pleasant to the senses. I’ll continue after the ManU/Chelsea game.