Soccer News Soccer Match Reports, Football News
Morning all, welcome to Friday.
It’s the day we all look forward to most in the week. The day when a reporter asks Mikel Arteta about the physical condition of some of his players, and he gives them a vague answer and we try and work out if he’s been 0.000001% more open than usual, or 0.000001% less open than usual.
What a time to be alive.
We’ll hear from the manager ahead of our game against West Ham a bit later on this afternoon. As ever we’ll bring you the stories over on Arseblog News. By the time we play the Hammers, we’ll likely be behind Man City who will unquestionably trounce Everton in the early game on Saturday, and further behind Liverpool who are at home to Burnley. Even if 8 of Burnley’s 13 points this season have come away from home, the idea of them getting anything at Anfield is pretty far-fetched. Pretty, pretty, pretty far-fetched.
And thus when Sunday comes around, there isn’t just the pressure of the game itself, but the external weight of what the other two teams have done. But look, we had that last week when we played Liverpool. Would the gap be 8 or would it be 2? We coped pretty well with it then, and when it comes right down to it, this is the reality of being in a title race. While it causes its own kind of stress and anxiety, it is, by any measure, far preferable to foostering around in mid-table wondering if it would be better to finish 7th and have play in the Europa Conference League or finish 8th and have no Europe at all. Those kind of rationalisations are testing.
Meanwhile, IFAB (International Football Association Board) will reportedly announce upcoming trials for sin-bins in top-level football. A mooted ‘blue card’ could be used for players who show dissent and for cynical fouls. The full announcement is expected today, and we don’t know yet where and when these trials will take place. Sin-bins have been in operation in grassroots levels of English football for a while now, but how effective they have been, I don’t know.
I…
Source link : https://arseblog.com/2024/02/youre-off-for-10-minutes/
Author : arseblog
Publish date : 2024-02-09 07:22:57
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