Manchester United sympathy for Arsenal over Rice is lost in a sea of ‘consistency’ chat

The general consensus seems to be that Declan Rice committed a yellow-card offence and was punished as such. But there is some sympathy for Arsenal.

There is also a Mailbox on Manchester United’s humbling against Liverpool. Send your thoughts to [email protected].

Greatison Park
Two seasons ago I wrote a long article about this fixture on the last day of the season. I won’t bother to repeat all the emotion of that piece but I never expected to be back at Goodison.

On Saturday we were. And the old place can still generate a ferocious noise.  For 86 minutes, Bournemouth were wretched.  No control in midfield, physically intimidated by Calvert-Lewin and our ‘strengths’ of interchangeable wide forwards absolutely nullified.  After a nervous – and frankly dreadful – first half the natives were roused by two goals in quick succession, some questionable defending leaving Keane then DCL in acres of space.  Noise rolled down from the Gwladys Street, the chat around me in the away corner was of Dycheball getting us again.

Then something changed.  Not for the first time this season, Cherries’ bench looked deeper.  Dango has had two well-documented disallowed goals already and is unquestionably improved this summer.  Sinisterra too often looks more of a threat off the bench than as a starter; we fully expected Kluivert and Tavernier to be hooked but both stayed on.  Credit to Iraola because suddenly Everton’s defence didn’t know who to pick up.  Dyche waited ages to make changes then took off DCL whose press and presence had bothered us throughout and suddenly we sparked.  As soon as Semenyo scored the mood changed.  Instead of our fans heading for the exits it was theirs, they’ve seen this story before.  A central defensive partnership of Keane and Tarkowski should not be conceding headers to many players, to do so to the relatively diminutive Cook is frankly unforgiveable.  Tremendous play from Tavernier in the buildup to this one.  The winner was inevitable after that, Kluivert was one of the many underperformers until late on but his energy and cross were exceptional and Sinisterra had a laughable amount of space to head home.

Bedlam in the away end.  It is seats bolted onto terracing in the Bullens paddock and there really isn’t a lot of room so bodies are flying everywhere.  The capacity of this game to make you really feel something is unmatched.  Ten minutes earlier we were resigned to a glum 5+ hour drive back to Dorset, now we are picking people we’ve never met before up off the floor and blinking disbelievingly.

Earlier in the day we’ve seen the new ground.  It looks seriously impressive, rising spaceship-like from the run-down dock area west of the Scotland Road.  Everton have been here before of course and the first 86 minutes and weakness of other teams suggests they probably have enough to survive again.  But that last few minutes was absolute anathema to the way Dyche teams normally lock things down and when presented with pace that back four looks very suspect.

For Bournemouth, five points from three games is a presentable start to the season.  A few concerns for me, Evanilson looked horribly isolated today and is the absolute embodiment of ‘needs a goal’.  Full-backs Kerkez and Araujo are massively more progressive (and glamorous!) than Kelly and Smith but defensively I am not convinced by either yet.  Partnerships throughout the team are only partly formed and whereas in former seasons the international break presented an opportunity to work on this, so many of this team will be away that is no longer a luxury Bournemouth have.  The next two games are Chelsea at home then back here to Merseyside and the opposite side of Stanley Park.  Hard to see the unbeaten start continuing but the capacity of this team and its manager to keep attacking means at least we will have a go.
Andy J, Bournemouth

MORE ON BOURNEMOUTH BEATING EVERTON FROM F365
👉 Dyche slams Everton ‘body language’ after Bournemouth capitulation – ‘threw it away’
👉 Everton find new ways to torture their fans while others ponder transfer choices

Tooning up the band
Newcastle have the 4th best team in the PL and if they can improve their injury record, keep Eddie Howe and strengthen in January will qualify for the Champions league:

Pope/ Livramento Schar Botman Hall/ Tonali Bruno Joelinton/ Barnes Isak Gordon (subs: Dubravka/ Trippier Kraft Burn Kelly/ Longstaff Miley Willock/ Murphy Wilson Almiron).

Tonali, Hall and Barnes hardly featured last season and are all like new signings. Playing one game a week with their epic home support there’s no reason they cant have a great season.
Ben

Sunday thoughts
Outstanding email from SC, Belfast there about the prissiness of refs (on-field and VAR) and their ‘technicalities’ of the law when it comes to events or body positions that don’t gain an advantage compared to genuinely physically dangerous play that gets waved away. It’s a frustration shared by many.

It’s depressing to hear people calling time on Arsenal’s title challenge because they dropped 2 points in game 3.  While I think that’s a little bit hyperbolical due to how early it is, I understand the feeling having been through heart rending campaigns where 97 and 92 points weren’t enough. It shouldn’t be normalised.

I genuinely hope Everton sort their sh*t out. A lot of Liverpool based reds have had enough of their toxicity and I admit I don’t have as much personal interaction with their more rabid element but I feel that Derby matches add a lot of colour to the league so it would be sad to see them go down.

Pretty easy watching match at Old Trafford today, ‘murderers’ chants notwithstanding.  Again ignored by the commentary team.  Disgraceful attitude from thousands, if not 10’s of thousands. Sadly unsurprising.

The football was joyously entertaining from the get go, end to end stuff. Man United looked more compact and better drilled than on previous occasions, for the first 15-20 minutes at least, but that wasn’t to continue.

I’m really pleased with the variety of Liverpool’s passing play, switching from tight controlled ‘rondo’ like elements to crossfield gems from the scouser in our team (mainly).  Also, the team ethic that’s clearly on display appeals to my innate feelings about the sport.

Mo’s deftness of passing and crossing was just beautiful and it would’ve been a shame for him to have missed out on the scoresheet. Has he scored more against another team? Genuine question. Love the juxtaposition with our other greatest goal scorer Ian Rush who didn’t score against these until the twilight of his time with us.

I hope to see a bit more action from more of the squad as Arne gets to know them.  F*** the international break.
James Outram, Wirral

Stewie is back!
Apologies if this is a copy-paste job of several previous mails, but you can only craft with the facts you’ve got! The year is 2024, it’s a new season, but the same old Arsenal Groundhog Day.

* Arsenal fans wailing about marginal refereeing decisions and completely ignoring the actual football that took place and Arsenal’s inability to find a way to adapt to adversity. The lackadaisical defending for the Brighton goal where Partey (who has a duty to fill the midfield gap left by Rice) decides to stroll casually back, allowing renowned technical maestro, errrrm….LEWIS DUNK to look like a prime Zidane/Bergkamp hybrid with a through ball that mugged off the entire Arsenal defence. Watch Gabriel’s abysmal positioning and weak tackle. But oh no, the ref. 🙄

* Arsenal yet again failing to make a success of the transfer window. No striker brought in, no midfield partner to complement or compete with Rice (like a de Jong), a desperate last-minute dash for yet another Chelsea outcast who is a squad player. Options like Coman of Bayern, or Sané etc were available to go for on the market. Instead, they released Nketiah (good), and relied on the Brazilian crock Fake Steve Bull.

* Gabriel Jesus with a groin injury. Something that occurs when the day of the week ends in the letter “Y”. Just a week ago, Arteta said he didn’t need a new attacker as Jesus was a “different beast”. Shame it’s a beast made of balsa wood! Lol

* Arsenal having absolutely zero attacking creativity and ideas outside of Odegaard – if he’s muted, the entire attacking apparatus comes to a standstill. This has been the case since 2022, but different year, same sh*t.

* Arsenal dropping points at home to a team they ought to have finished off, and many of their fans reverting to referees as the objects of blame. Harsh sending off or not, this doesn’t imply Arsenal have to immediately fold, play five at the back, and have Raya booked for time wasting. This is not how a big club behaves, you take a risk and go for the win. What should be concerning is the ease with which Brighton were able to completely control the midfield the minute Rice went off. How’s that going to work if Rice is ever absent for say…oooh I dunno, a North london Derby away? We saw Arsenal’s small mentality when playing away at Citeh and getting ecstatic about a 0-0 draw that was ultimately, futile. This was more of the same, playing not to lose, at home, to Brighton. Nah.

Arsenal we can safely say, aren’t going to win the title this season, just as it was obvious they couldn’t win it after dropping points at home to Fulham when drawing 2-2 at the start of last season. Arsenal will yet again come undone as a result of their transfer “gurus” failing in yet another summer window.
Stewie Griffin (Rinse, repeat. Havertz misses another sitter but it ain’t even news 🙄)

📣TO THE COMMENTS! Should Declan Rice have been sent off? Join the debate here

Boiled Rice
You can complain it’s harsh all you like but just ask one question – is kicking the ball away a yellow card offence?

Yes

I’ve seen people argue that the ball was moving so it couldn’t be a free kick yet but that’s irrelevant. The point in this rule is to stop an opposing team slowing down the taking of a set piece , did rice make the set piece take longer? Yes. Still or rolling is irrelevant.

I also find it amusing that the same group of fans who had nothing to say when avoiding two pretty clear penalties Vs Liverpool over the last two years now moan about referees.

Is it a frustrating decision? Yes. Is it an incorrect one? No. I keep seeing people say referees job is to keep the flow of the game but that’s wrong. Their job is to enforce rules. That’s it. If it interferes with the flow of the game, don’t break the rules.

I’m not arguing refs are good because I think the issue in the UK is the standard of refs, I don’t think they’re good enough. But if you’re gonna complain at least complain about an incorrect decision. Arsenal had 3 or 4 one on one chances which they should have buried and if they had that ref decision would be forgotten.

Finallg, slot had a great day today. I honestly didn’t know what to expect today but 3-0 away is definitely a good result. Insert lame slot machine pun
Lee 

One-off decisions and the clubs that get them
Weird sentence, but as a United fan, I have real sympathy for Arsenal fans. Reason is simple: what Rice did is not, according to precedence, a second-yellow offence. The way football officiating is done has always been art rather than science, which is the reason VAR is a farce in principle for any non-binary judgements like offsides. Regardless.

Tapping the ball away is done by every player, on every team, several times a match. The world’s very ‘best’ teams – your Barcelonas, City etc are the world’s best at cheating in small ways. Get lil Bernardo Silva to tug back a player trying to break, never gets a yellow. If a team is countering and trying a quick free kick –  watch KDB – he will absolutely sprint in front of where the ball is and stand there. Every player does it. It’s cheating. It should be a yellow card. It isn’t.

Until Saturday. Same thing with the Martinelli double-yellow. Technically within the rules, but matches are not generally officiated according to the rules, it’s always the opinion of the ref and his interpretation of them in context.

And here let me dust off my tinfoil hat real quick: these decisions tend to only happen to certain clubs. United fans carry on about Casemiro’s treatment because it was – like Rice’s yesterday – out of step with how the game is officiated. See also Dalot’s sending off, which in many ways is just like Martinelli’s – technically fine, but not in the way the game is actually officiated. You know what happens when a ref is overly harsh on Arsenal and United? 99% of pundits and fans love it. Even better, the 1% is disproportionately loud, and it creates a load of media buzz. So you have the line from officials and pundits ‘well technically by the letter of the law’ – do buzz off. There’s a penalty in every corner taken this weekend if you go by the letter of the law. Every winning team’s GK should be sent off for taking more than 6 seconds about 20 times a match. Football is not actually officated that way.

Until it is. And it’s hypocritical, and deserves calling out.
Ryan, Bermuda

Am I missing something with this Rice red?

Commentators and media (including your own write up) all suggesting Rice kicked the ball away, as if he deliberately, consciously chose to do so.

Yet I see that Veltman kicks the ball _into_ Rice, who has his back turned, and is actually walking away… And this is all about a single second after the initial foul is called.

Never mind the illegally taken second attempt or the kick on Rice afterwards (and if you’re suggesting that Rice is carded for then taking a step towards the still-rolling ball that’s just been kicked at him, reminder, the ball needs to be stationary for a free kick)… Just how can Rice be at fault for just being there, without any time to get out of the way, and clearly without any knowing attempt to interfere with the ball?! And why is all the narrative about the incident suggesting agency on Rice’s part?

Maybe it’s time to get in refereeing conspiracy theories after all.
Matt, London

Had a Liverpool player been sent off in the same manner as Rice, I’d have grumbled. For a minute at most. Then I would’ve conceded he deserved it. But that’s not really the point of this letter.

I’m actually way more interested in what some Arsenal fans wrote because, frankly, it’s kind of bonkers.

Consider Rich. It seems he believes Arsenal is the only team that suffers “some staggering decisions – never to be repeated decisions”.  And he’s apparently convinced refs mete out such decisions deliberately, as they have “to want to do it”. All of which leads him to wonder, conspiratorially, why it is so many refs come from (gasp) the northwest.

There’s also Deadbeat Cat Dad insisting Veltman knew exactly what he was doing: “The Brighton player absolutely sucks (Rice) in and creates a red card scenario . . .”

Then there’s SC insisting refs let all kinds of mayhem go unpunished (he makes a football pitch sound a bit like Thunderdome) while “minor things are punished by rote”.

I don’t know. It seems to me that what really happened was a guy already on a yellow (interesting that none of the letters mention that) had a brain cramp and did something dumb enough to merit further punishment. That’s it. No grand conspiracies, no sinister Dutchmen, no “refs from the northwest” sticking it to a team from London. Just a professional footballer already on a yellow being foolish.

That’s the Occam’s Razor explanation. That’s the sane explanation.
Chris (of course Arteta moaned) from Canada

I see a lot of fans writing in asking for consistency in refereeing following a red card decision against Arsenal.

I’m not here to defend the referee, except to say one thing, he’s human. Humans are inconsistent. Do you know what’s consistent, what will do the same task in the same way every single time? Machines.

Fans have argued and pushed back against VAR, against using technology to improve decisions. So the use of VAR has been scaled back, and what we have instead is inconsistent humans and their human errors. If you don’t want this, back an expansion of VAR.

Rich, AFC, says that his team and fans have a right to moan. I agree, 100%, but as long as fans continue to push VAR out of the game, they’ll be wasting their time.

I have always supported the use of VAR. I’ll go further, the various FAs are always making slight tweaks to the rules, in future, these tweaks should always favour the automation of refereeing by adopting rules that are easier for computers to interpret and enforce.

A lot of people will balk at the idea that a computer should decide rights and wrongs of a foul, but that would still be better than letting a human’s bad mood, or dislike of the colour red or, if Rich is correct, a ref’s snotty attitude to Londoners, be the reason a game or the league was won or lost.
Barry, LFC, Chippenham.

MORE ARSENAL REACTION FROM F365
👉 Wright slams Arsenal man for ‘jogging back’ to allow Brighton equaliser
👉 Arteta, Saka react to Rice sending off as Arsenal are held by Brighton: ‘None, like always’