With mere seconds left to play against Burnley, it looked like Arsenal fans were going to get to celebrate Arsene Wenger’s 20th anniversary with the club by continuing their calls for him to be sacked. But Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Laurent Koscielny and the match officials all did what they could to ensure that Wenger didn’t suffer embarrassment by getting him a 1-0 win with an offside, handball goal at the death.
Sean Dyche will be steaming. Koscielny well offside when Ox struck ball then massively diverted by LK’s arm pic.twitter.com/8ZeyMYHrff
— Jacqui Oatley (@JacquiOatley) October 2, 2016
During their post-match interview, Oxlade-Chamberlain was asked whose goal it was, prompting him to respond: “It hit both of us. It doesn’t really matter. The important thing is we managed to squeeze that in at the end and that’s one of the biggest wins we’ll have this season, I’m sure.” Reminder: This was a match against newly promoted Burnley.
Asked if it was a handball, Koscielny replied: “I don’t know. I tried to smash the ball with my right foot and after I don’t see where the ball is going so I don’t know if I touch the ball with my hand, but the ref gave us the goal, so you need to respect the decision.”
Maybe the rules of football are the same as the rules of grammar and a double negative equals a positive? It couldn’t be a handball if it was offside and it couldn’t be offside if it was a handball, so it’s neither and the goal stands? In the words of Laurent Koscielny “I don’t know.”
it is not a handball. doesnt fulfill the 3 criterias for giving a handball
Those criteria being??
Criteria 1 – ball hits hand
Criteria 2 – ???
Criteria 3 – ball explodes like money pinata
Cheeky bastard. The call is up to the refs discretion, but by definition if the ball hits your hand, it is handball. This does not require a linguist.
If you’re saying that the goal should not have stood because of a handball you’re also saying that Arsenal should have had a penalty only minutes before the goal was scored. Burnley clearly handled a ball in the box only minutes before the end of the game. I think the ref gave a makeup call for missing what was clearly a penalty only minutes before.
Whether or not you agree or disagree, I believe the standard is different; handball in one’s defensive box requires intent to give a penalty, while handball that leads to a goal scored should always be disallowed because intent isn’t relevant.
As far as the offside part of the title above the ball clearly goes off of Koscielny’s foot (the greenish colored boot) in this clip. How can he be offsides if he kicked it himself????? https://my.mixtape.moe/mfnped.mp4
Koscielny was in front of the ball when it got to him. Being in front of the ball makes him offside. Incidently, Chamberlain was probably offside when the ball was headed to him. So there may have been 2 offsides on the play. And since Koscielny knocked it in with both of his hands 2 handballs for a total of 4 reasons to blow the whistle
I hope this article is tongue-in-cheek cause if it’s not, it’s pretty poor.
i) No chance Koscienly knew it was going to hit his arm.
ii) In real-time, it would be pretty hard for the linesman to spot the offside.
iii) And yes, it is a big win as Ox said. If Chelsea / Man Utd / Man City had won in a similar manner, you’d never hear the end of “Champions grind out results.” “You’ve got to win ugly to win the league.” “Luck favors champions” etc..
Also, Burnley beat Liverpool and Turf Moor won’t be an easy place for anyone to go to. I bet they’ll cause a few more surprises this season.