Neil

This is appalling defending from Arsenal. They look absolutely clueless whenever Udinese come forward They have to hope they get a 2nd goal and Udinese's confidence goes.

Because he got the most points last season?

Arsenal look like they're going to concede every time Udinese go forward.

Done.

Make it quantifiable. How many goals?

Define a flop.

There's that Arsenal keeper making a mess of a simple job. Sound familiar?

Nice defending from Vermaelen in the Udinese box.

Cogged out for 5 minutes there. Cogging out on and off. Anything serious or just me mucking up?

Think Arsenal will win, but don't think it'll be comprehensive. 2-0/2-1.

And £5 on Sheff Utd, Southampton DNB, Crystal Palace DNB. Literally going wild in the aisles with me money.

£12.93 on Arsenal and Crawley.

The league registers my GW1 score in the league standings despite not joining until after it? Good stuff.

Oh it's a bit of a mess, I agree. Disruption at corners as you say - the application of the rules is horrendously inconsistent.

Flexibility in terms of what is excessive force, sure, that is the referee's job to determine what is excessive force. Barton used excessive force when not challenging for the ball. He is guilty of violent conduct. He should have been sent off. If Barton pushed him he'd be using 'excessive force' man Force should technicaly be never used AT ALL in an off the ball incident, but going word for word by those rules we'd see players sent off for jostling in the box before a corner. He hauled him up by his shirt, man. How many times do you see something like that? That's excessive force in my book. Without doubt. Cowardly and malicious.

Flexibility in terms of what is excessive force, sure, that is the referee's job to determine what is excessive force. Barton used excessive force when not challenging for the ball. He is guilty of violent conduct. He should have been sent off.

A quick search tells me Ronny got a hatrick.

Barton used excessive force and hence committed violent conduct. I don't particularly agree with how it's worded but there should be equal application of the rules, no? It just shows the issue with the application of the so-called rules of football. In other words:

Finally added myself to the N-O league, assume I'll be registered as being in that league from this gameweek coming? I'll keep in mind I need my GW1 score on, not that I'll be in serious contention.

62. Good start.

Am I right in thinking Udinese were in the CL about 06/07? Seem to remember Ronaldinho running the show against them at the Nou Camp in a 4-1 win.

But Barton used excessive force/brutality when not challenging for the ball, so I'm not sure why he didn't go.

Get back to work, Michael.

From what I've seen of the 2nd half, they gave a good account of themselves as Liverpool grew frustrated. However that completely ignores the 2 big pieces of luck they received in the 1st half which prevented them in all likelihood losing comprehensively.

It's one of those where if you're the defending team, you'll claim Carroll contacted him and technically it's a foul; if you're the attacking team, you'll be pissed off by how ridiculously soft the foul was. Sunderland were fortunate to get away with that, and they were incredibly lucky to avoid being down to 10 men after 3 minutes of the match.