Analysis of the goal conceded against Chelsea (22/12)
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Daniel Sturridge’s goal – Chelsea take a quick free kick, feed the ball into Drogba, who lays the ball off to Cole. It runs kindly off his arm, and he crosses well for Sturridge to finish at the back post.
Chelsea are wrongly awarded a free kick for a Modric foul in midfield – he takes the ball cleanly, and Webb has a good view of this, so it is surprising that he blows for a foul.
Chelsea take the kick quickly – note Spurs’ 4-5-1 shape, with van der Vaart on the far side, and Walker dashing forward to pick up Mata.
The ball is fed forward to Drogba, who has dropped off Gallas. He could turn, but instead plays a first-time flick to Cole, still tracked by van der Vaart. Notice Walker, who in trying to close Mata, has ended up out of position.
Also at this point, note Assou-Ekotto’s positioning, and Sturridge just starting to make a move in behind him. Assou-Ekotto is positioned quite wide to deal with Sturridge, but he is so intent on watching the ball, that he hasn’t spotted Sturridge making his move.
Van der Vaart goes to ground, probably knowing that he will be out-run by Cole. He dives in with his wrong foot, and only manages to glance the ball upwards towards Cole. The ball does strike Cole’s arm but, as his arm is not in an unnatural position, there is no way that it can be deemed handball, especially as it comes from such close range.
The ball runs really kindly for Cole. Notice King, central, with his arm up appealing for handball (and therefore caught on his heels), and Assou-Ekotto, who has rather embarrassingly afforded Sturridge yards and yards.
Sturridge is left with an easy tap-in at the back post.
Really poor defending from Spurs, but it was a poor free-kick award (so we lost possession when we should not have done), and Cole got a stroke of luck with the way the ball ran kindly for him. Still, Gallas standing off Drogba, van der Vaart going to ground with his wrong foot, Walker charging up-field and committing himself, King wasting time appealing when the game is still going on, and Assou-Ekotto’s criminal ball-watching is a pretty ugly combination.
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Also, that's twice in 3 weeks we've wrongly had a goal ruled out for off-side. That's 3 points dropped (assuming nothing else changed).
Jfranks - we are being hit by some bad refereeing calls right now, but hopefully we'll get some in our favour at some point!!
Anon @ 12:13 - Most of us agreed that it was borderline and went in our favour and could easily have been given as a handball.
Anon @ 12:31 - agree about Kranjcar, would have been my sub of choice too!
Anon @ 12:48 - I thought Adebayor was lucky too, and the Assou-Ekotto barge should have been a foul. Ramires got away with a few (on a booking) too, and having watched the Adebayor "goal" again (having initially thought it handball), I think it was a perfectly good goal.
Anon @ 13:42 - made his debut there vs Charlton, scoring a great goal. He and Bale could have switched regularly to mix it up.
As for the ectopic Gooner, let me tell you that you have won nothing with any team wholly of Wenger's making. Also, there is only team that won nothing but could still be called great: Brazil 1982, the greatest team to have walked the earth. Guess what they have in common with the present Spurs side? They got shafted by the referee, too!
Sweetsman
I think BAE's recent form has been worrying, he's being caught in possession more and more and him not tracking Sturridge was criminal for this goal.
I understand why Van der Vaart went to ground to try to intercept the ball, he simply is never going to keep up with Cole even over very short distances.
1) His arm was outstretched away from his body. If this happened to a defender at the other end of the pitch, they would have been punished.
2) If it's accidental, what you are saying is that a goal can be awarded if an outstretched arm accidently deflected a shot in. That would be incredibly contentious to me. Sometimes, its a matter of fact over opinion with regards to hand ball.
Otherwise, good analysis, I thought BAE struggled and doesn't look happy with the new setup that has forced us more narrow. I would consider a 3-5-2 formation with Walker & Bale the two widest in the five, dropping Assou-Ekotto for an additional centre back. It worked well against Stoke.
Also thought BAE was lucky to get away with hand ball, but the difference between the Cole one was that it didn't affect the play per se and it wasn't as if his arm was outstrethced towards the ball. I think it's a shady area.
Also, Adebayor offside goal decision was a shambles again by another linesman.
Also, going off on one a bit, players can only be offside with a part of their body that is legally aloud to touch the ball. Imagine if a player's arm is offside but the rest of the body isn't, they play on, and then somehow the man in question accidently scores via a deflection off his arm. That's where the rule is inconsistent for me, and it's probably apt that Howard Webb (aka Mr Inconsistent) was involved here again.
Also, I'm seriously fed up with the praise this guy gets, not just because I'm a Spurs fan, but Webb just makes a mess of every game I watch with him in charge. There's a few others obviously, but the best ones are those that never grab the headlines. The official v Norwich was a good example of this.