All Xhaka did was pull Silvas shirt out of his shorts…
Never pulled it hard enough to pull him over.! 
And Ederson has many times gotten away somehow without getting a red/ giving away a pen in many situations this season when he’s coming haring out of goal.
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We should have had two stonewall red cards for us (Cresswell on Hendo vs West Ham and Kane on Robbo vs Spurs) which would have totally changed the match for us (not to mention penalty at Spurs) and we didn’t get them.
And Man City seem to get them whenever they need it (drawing against Wolves them Martinez and now today).
All we want is consistency but all we get is favouritism towards City (both for them in their matches and against their rivals).
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Staying away from games is easily done, i’ve lost all interest in going to matches this season. It almost feels like all the refs have a bet on City to win it. It’s not just us feeling this either, other teams have it all to do to beat City without the refs helping. Arsenal can feel hard done by on both pen shouts today. Us and Chelsea (citys nearest rivals) have both had blatant penalties dismissed (both a lot more clear cut than Citys today) over the last few weeks alone.
I even tried to think what i’d be thinking if it was our player brought down today with that vicious shirt pulling and i honestly don’t think i’d be expecting a pen or moaning about not getting it. The fact both VAR and ref looked at monitors and still gave it is baffling. For every contentious pen we get given i can name 2 that didn’t get given that should have. When it comes to City i couldn’t do that the other way around, i can’t think of even 1 pen they didn’t get that was an obvious mistake let alone 1 for every 2 they’ve had that they shouldnt have
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Watford v spurs, Watford can’t keep a clean sheet.
Also, refs have no problem red carding City opponents but against us “it will ruin the spectacle”
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One of my favourite moments has got to be the time he did that against us, and then Salah just finishing him off from distance…
Looked at the number of postponed games Cheaty has had. Zero. Part of the plan to play depleted sides?
Nahhh it’s all good.
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EXACTLY!! How come very single team in the PL has covid cases but NONE for them?
And of course the matches.
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I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if something Juventus-style comes out about City and the PL refs
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Wouldn’t mind a bit of bumblebee magic for New Year’s Day. Not that there’s any other reason to watch this match.
Smells very iffy…
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On reflection, what really frustrates me about that pen is I bet the ref has gone back into his room and is really pleased with himself. There is a category of fouls where an attacker decides to go down because they have been illegally impeded but see the ref is seemingly not going to give anything so elect to go down to make the ref intervene. We as fans usually, conceptually at least, think these are good fouls to give, because if refs gave them more readily then the player wouldn’t need to dive. I guarantee you the ref thinks this pen was in that category.
Overall though what I think was frustrating was just the seemingly different threshold the ref had for the two sides. While Arsenal are required to keep their cool as a professional requirement, the ref did create a situation where he was giving things to city he wasnt to arsenal which riled them up and then he compounded that by carding them for reacting to his seeming double standards.
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That’s the heart of it for me. Xhaka was (as always) a moron for pointlessly holding Silva’s shirt, converting a yellow card-worthy dive into a clear penalty. But what was the standard that led that to be reviewed, versus the much harder to see contact by Ederson - which was also a penalty, but didn’t look it until you were shown the right angle and Ederson’s foot going through the Arsenal player’s foot in order to make contact. Why was that one not reviewed at the insistence of the VAR room?
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Not sure how well the ref saw that penalty incident but looking at the freeze frame clips on twitter, it looks like Ederson got to the ball first, so I don’t think it was a penalty. However, I didn’t see it in real time but can imagine that it would be given in a lot of cases.
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The freeze frame I saw, it looked the opposite - the Arsenal player’s foot going through Edersons.
Kane falling over looking for a penalty.
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That’s what I saw first as well. The second contact was when the Arsenal player’s weight transfers forward, and his foot goes into Emerson’s.
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0-0 half time, Watford have defended well.
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Our co-commentator in the US going nuts over Kane not getting a penalty for being held, and then a diatribe on VAR - “what is the point of VAR if theyre not going to give that?”
We then get to half time and neither studio guy, Mustoe or Howard, thought it was a foul.
Just shows that for all the legitimate flaws in VAR, the vast majority of the controversy is just over idiots creating it out of thin air.
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