Man we were so spoiled in the first 8-9 years of Wenger’s reign.
I remember quite vividly in 2002 saying to my 3 year old cousin “listen buddy, you see these players, you see Henry and Bergkamp and Pires, they are special players. We won’t always have players like this.”
Needless to say, he was a 3 year old dummy and nobody remembers shit when you’re that young.
I’ve since told him this story and he remembers more of Henry’s latter years, and when Fabregas broke through but those of us who witnessed Wenger in his prime are truly fortunate.
The 03 win against Inter is one of my favourite moments as an Arsenal fan. I felt like we could batter anybody put in front of us. I’ve never felt that confident in the best part of 20 years now. What a feeling that was. Give it up to Arsène for making me feel invincible.
Yep, 2001. Been to all our FA Cup Finals and it’s the only one we lost, that shit has truly stayed with me. Also saw us lose to Brum in that League Cup Final but that gave me more of a numb, kind of detached depression as opposed to the all out devastation of that fucking Cup final.
Fucking Henchoz. Or rather, whatever fucking ref it was, as I can’t blame Henchoz as I’d have done exactly the same. I was at the other end of the Millenium Stadium and even I could see it was a fucking handball. Cunt.
Woah there were two handballs.
Where are all the VAR deniers? VAR would have given us an FA cup
it took two fucking decades post this match for VAR to become reality
Henry should have done better with the second handball
At its heart though offside is black and white, it’s the human interpretation that adds the shades of gray.
I have no clue how they would automate it but I imagine it would be top down cameras or lasers or something, maybe using some kind of sensor on the ball and have the players wear something akin to motion capture devices similar that used in video games.
The only question is setting the parameters, if a defender and striker are side by side does the technology allow a thicker offside line that favours the attacker.
I thinks it’s going to be difficult but certainly not impossible with today’s technology, it would also be amazing for the sport if implemented correctly. Think how quick and accurate goal line decisions are now, if we could get that for offside it would be worth the expense and head ache.
This is the natural evolution of VAR and one of the main reasons I was a proponent of putting the onus more on technology and less on useless officials.
Things that would be difficult would be instances like Mbappes goal the other night where it was deemed onside because it nicked a Spain player.
I feel like you could easily remedy that though by refining the rules to Mbappe being offside in that situation which would make more sense even without tech.
