What you prefer out of those two depends on the squad you have, for us we definetly want them pressing us, with Raya now we have at least the second most press resistant back line in the world. 95 times out of 100 we’ll just play through them and get a dangerous attack going.

That said I do remember in the Emery days and all the way up until last season with Arteta I was a bit jealous of City in how teams just sat back. When we were playing it out with Leno, Luiz and Mari that felt easier

Seeing Villa start an internet rivalry with spurs in the aftermath of the Matty Cash incident is so funny, what’s even better is they’re falling for it.

But man that was way too close to being us, thank god for Arteta

I hadn’t watched them much at all this season so was a bit worried, but this game actually calmed me down a bit.

Their midfield looks horrendous apart from Luiz (and maybe Tielemans but he usually doesn’t play I’ve heard). Their cbs are incredibly slow, Pau Torres is good with the ball but his defending looks suspect, their play out of the back looks shaky at best, they mainly create through crossing but their fullbacks are slow too.

They’re good at switching the play out to the wings and Watkins looks scary in behind but apart from that I see nothing special. A though game but not harder than Brentford imo. Start Tomi and White to defend transitions and their defence should be easier to break down than most of the lower table sides

A big part of the beauty of football is the simplicity, you make the rules messy and convoluted and people will hate it.

Also I don’t think it’s fair to punish teams because of how their opponents set up against them. Last season everyone realised you can’t give us space centrally, and you have to double team our wingers. Now we have to play the lowest block in the world on average, and 90% of teams don’t even press us, they just lock down the middle and hope they can deal with the crosses.

In these games it can be impossible to score four (especially since teams like Everton, Burnley and Sheffield don’t even change their tactics after going down a goal). And I also don’t feel like they should be punished for playing to their strengths, if that’s the best chance they have to get something from the game then let them play like that.

Instead what we should focus on removing is the unsportsmanlike behaviour which often (but not always) comes with these types of performances. I’m talking about rotational fouling certain players the moment they get in a position to hurt them. Incessant time wasting, often even while a goal down because they want to keep it 1-0 until the 85th and then score a corner/free kick so you don’t have time regain the lead. The diving as soon as they get into the opposition half, big strikers throwing themselves to the ground in every aerial duel because a free kick they can put into the box is the best chance they’ll get at a goal.

These are the unsportsmanlike parts of traditional “parking the bus”, and that’s the part we should focus on getting rid of imo. Not sitting deep and defending well, that’s a skill too

They didn’t just disagree with the majority they disagreed with the rule book.

Violent Conduct /…/ In addition, a player who, when not challenging for the ball, deliberately strikes an opponent or any other person on the head or face with their hand or arm, is guilty of violent conduct unless the force used was negligible.

That combined with the “he’s already made an action towards the ball” which is nowhere to be found in the rule book, not based on any precedent, and complete nonsense. Shows that this panel is judging on vibes only and shouldn’t be taken seriously.

Sure it was correct by the letter of the law, the problem is that we’re the only team that gets reffed to the letter of the law.

I remember just a couple weeks later there was the pen against Liverpool where someone tripped over TAA while he was lying on the ground. I don’t really agree that it’s a penalty but by the same logic you have to give a red there, but they didn’t ofc. Just like they haven’t done it any other time since the double jeopardy rule except for blatant shirt pulls (and even then most of them get away with it).

Something can be correct by the letter of the law but still be wrong due to inconsistency. At the end of the day the most important thing is that reffing is fair between teams and games, rather than the rules being followed to a tee at one specific moment (but not all the previous times for some reason). That’s why precedent is such an important factor in judicial decisions