Five Things
1. Offside? Surely not…
Nothing was made of this at the time, nor in the ensuing match reports and even Arsene Wenger wasn’t alert enough to pick up that Fulham’s goal against Arsenal - Brande Hangelaand’s close-range effort - should not have stood. Jimmy Bullard was in an offside position when he crossed for the huge Norweigan to score - when Danny Murphy touched the ball to allow the ball to be crossed in, Bullard was on or even a little behind the goal line while only one Arsenal defender was level with him, with Almunia a good few yards off his line. Still, it was almost an impossible decision for the assistant referee to make, and nobody can take the blame away from William Gallas’s inept defending.
2. Spurs’s Falcao watch
Tottenham Hotspur scouts flew to Argentina to watch target Radamel Falcao in action for River Plate. The Colombian international striker has also been monitored by Manchester United but by all accounts was awful in River’s defeat to mid-table Banfield. The 22-year-old would cost around £8m, a cheap replacement for the departed Robbie Keane, and negotiations have been opened. Meanwhile, a move for Diego Forlan looks doomed but Diego Milito could still head to White Hart Lane from Zaragoza. Highly touted, a transfer for around £18-20m is being mooted as Dimitar Berbatov prepares to head to Old Trafford later this week.
3. West Ham heading down the pan
Fit for a screenplay, the plight of West Ham over the last couple of years is almost as pitiful as the relegation that preceeded the new era. From the shock and awe of Carlos Tevez’s arrival alongside Javier Mascherano and new owners threatening to bring Champions League football to Upton Park, West Ham are now little more than a selling club as manager Alan Curbishley is forced to cut the huge wage bill. Anton Ferdinand is the latest to leave, and mid-table mediocrity is seemingly as good as it can get for the Hammers over the next couple of years at least.
4. Argentina, deserved champions; Brazil, a deserved failing
At senior level, Brazil have had the upper hand in recent times against their greatest rivals but at age-restricted levels, Argentina have proved more successful. The Olympics is a case in point. Brazil have still not won the gold medal after being thrashed by their neighbours 3-0 in the semi-final - it’s still the only major medal the nation has yet to win - raising questions about the players’ attitude and the future of the Brazilian national side. While they laboured into the last four - and eventually third place - Argentina were sizzling throughout and fully merited their ultimate victory as they retained the medal earned back in 2004.
While Ronaldinho came to China in order to add to his photo collection, Lionel Messi begged Barcelona to be allowed to participate and was Argentina’s finest performer when the Spanish side finally relented. And their success came despite the height deficit of many of their players (see more here). Instead of this being a problem, however, coach Sergio Batista ensured the Argentinian side played their football almost entirely along the ground, resulting in a technically-outstanding style of football, “We wanted to play with intelligence and move the ball around and not run around so much. We wanted the ball to do the work” commented Batista after beating Nigeria in the final. The ball may have done some of the work, but his brilliant technicians orchestrated its movement throughout the Olympic tournament.
5. Super Cup magic for Manchester United?
The Super Cup, like the Club World Cup, is often sneered upon by English clubs as a meaningless tropy with little prestige attached. Liverpool squeeked past CSKA Moscow in 2005 after extra time while Manchester United lost the one-off match in 1999 to Lazio. With its strange setting - always in Monaco, always played in a tiny 18,000-seater stadium - and timing - on a Friday evening, the only Uefa game ever played on that day, the Super Cup never has the intensity of even a slightly meaningful match and losing the game is rarely regarded as a negative. Still, with Zenit St Petersburg as opponents, Man Utd will be keen to leave France without a red face.
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We deserved to lose anyway but Bullard was not offside, Clichy was stood on the line
In Fact Jimmy Bullard WAS Not Offside!!!
To be offside, the ball has to be played forward and Danny Murphy stopped the ball dead and didn’t play it forward!
There is an arsenal player on the line so is GK so he can’t be offside
“Jimmy Bullard was in an offside position when he crossed for the huge Norweigan to score”
So what if he was
The amount of times Arsenal benefited from offside goals by Thierry Henry is beyond count
Also, if you look closely at the video, when Murphy plays the ball, Bullard is standing on and behind the line with Clichy level with him and Almunia and the Arsenal player standing near the corner flag both standing higher up the pitch than Bullard.
Offside is counter for the second-last defender, so in this case Clichy acts as the last defender.
Agreed, however, that Arsenal were shocking and deserved the defeat. Can they honestly win the title this year?
you are only offside if the ball moves forwards. by stopping the ball and allowing someone in front to run onto to cross does not result in offside.
Forget the offside but it could (and probably would have been if it was in Europe) easily have been ruled out for foot up and studs showing. Don’t expect the stupid media and TV pundits to pick up on something obvious like that up though!
You are so completely wrong about bullard because Arsenal had players on the goalline.
sounds an awful lot like sour grapes to me… you lost get over it.. AND your wrong anyways on so many levels
The Ball has to move Forward!! If it didn’t, every team that defended a corner would put all of their ten outfield players on the halfway line so as soon as the corner kick is taken, any attacking player in the opposing half would be offside!!
The last man not defender so in this case almunia would b last man an clichy would b like the gk
ball moving forward doesnt even matter as clichy and almunia were both level with bullard. almunia was not a few yard off his line as you say. This was the reason noone else spotted it you fool!
Definitely not off side for all the reasons above, but what about the fact that Denilson is hanging on to Seol, could/should have been a penalty anyway.
So what you’re saying is Fulham have some nerve scoring against Arsenal.
guess he has been told then! please stop trying to defend the big four and congratulate one of the little guys for once!
[...] What is Negative Balance Protection in Forex Trading? Saved by LilGoth2292 on Tue 18-11-2008 Five Things Saved by GokuthelastSaiyan on Tue 11-11-2008 In Which the Author Confesses to a Lack of Belief [...]
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