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Morning.
With Champions League action tomorrow night, Mikel Arteta will meet the press later today, and no doubt there will be some follow-up to his comments made after the defeat to Newcastle on Saturday. Will he have calmed down a bit? Probably.
Will he be in the mood to talk about it all again? Let’s see. I suspect he might try and draw a line under things, but after the club’s statement, and another night where officiating and VAR dominated it might well be difficult to avoid. It’s one of those where the response was so strident, there’s not much more to say, but if he wants to be a bit more expansive about refereeing standards – without verging into Rafa Benitez ‘facts’ territory – then I’d certainly listen.
As I’ve said over the last couple of days, I don’t believe Arteta’s anger was down to just this game. It’s an accumulation of things and as you’d expect there’s been push-back. The ‘We must respect referees, they have a difficult job’ brigade have been out in force, and even during last night’s mayhem of a game, Gary Neville made more than a couple of references to Arsenal. As if any of that had anything to do with us.
For me it’s simple: while I think referees should be respected, and there’s nobody here saying they deserve abuse, they shouldn’t be a protected species either. The idea they should be above any kind of criticism or scrutiny is far too pervasive, and it’s part of why managers and fans – not just Mikel Arteta and Arsenal supporters – have concerns about the standards. If you insist on shutting down any legitimate discussion, then you’re part of the problem. Instead of a blanket dismissal of those concerns, regardless of how they are expressed, the game would be better if people took this more seriously. But then, that doesn’t make good headlines or farm you engagement on Twitter.
We’ll bring all the press conference stories on Arseblog News, and maybe somebody could ask the question…
Source link : https://arseblog.com/2023/11/artetas-presser-voting-monday-night-mayhem/
Author : arseblog
Publish date : 2023-11-07 07:27:12
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