A Spurs view on a Conspriracy Theory….why not?

Article by Mark French

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I blame Jose Mourinho for this, it’s his fault I’m on this track.

A few days ago the ‘Special Needs’ one talked about how lucky Manchester City had been recently with their run of results. The article quote is as follows: -

"Mourinho also suggested City have been fortunate game-changing decisions have gone their way this season - something he described as a coincidence but was at pains to point out as Mike Dean prepares to referee Monday's match.

"They are lucky," Mourinho said. "The reality is they have many crucial decisions in their favour.”

"Against Liverpool, the (Raheem) Sterling 'goal'. The penalty on (Luis) Suarez. Against Newcastle the goal that is a clear goal.

"Against Tottenham, (Michael) Dawson's goal, the penalty, the (Danny Rose) red card. They are having everything.

"I repeat, because I don't want to be misinterpreted (it is) just pure coincidence.

"The referees, they try to do their best and sometimes they make mistakes and normally during the season the mistakes are split between teams.

"In their (City's) case, they have everything in their favour."

I am not usually a conspiracy theorist (oh OK when it comes to football I can be easily swayed) however, when I saw the Nastasic rugby tackle on Oscar I started to look for the gunman on the grassy knoll…..

The ‘tackle’ – using the word loosely – was just past the City halfway line and was deemed to be only a yellow card offence and yet, Nastasic was the last man and Oscar is not only very fast but also very skillful and was clearly denied a run on goal. From that position anything could have happened and with Chelsea’s speed a second goal was not out of the question. You can argue that the offence was 40+ yards from the goal but to me it doesn’t matter where the incident takes place, last man is last man and a denied goal scoring opportunity is a denied goal scoring opportunity. Now IF Citeh had equalised after this and robbed the Chavs of 2 points then how would that decision be viewed then? Chelsea were fortunate that a poor decision did not affect the final outcome (and I’m glad of that). But we were not.

The Watford game proved that Citeh under pressure can be rattled and Chelsea proved it again last night.

So, as far as our 1-5 result goes, there are three things: -

1) The disallowed goal. OK with many views of the replays it can be argued that it was correct BUT we’ve all seen them given and it was marginal.

2) With his red card rescinded, it has already been proved that the Danny Rose sending off and the penalty decision were wrong.

3) So we get Danny Rose back but no chance to re-run the game and play it out as it should have been, 0-1 down and 11 men on the park.

I don’t care what you say about City being the best team (of course, when you get a sending off and a penalty to go two up, the rest is pretty much a formality with a team of City’s calibre) but again, at the time we were in the game, only 1 goal down (if the equaliser decision stands) and starting to build on our possession.

Games of that magnitude turn on big moments and big decisions; points are won and lost; league positions affected; European competition places gained; money made; Managers sacked…..it goes on and on.

Only more technology will prevent this from continuing to happen and in the case of our game, as play was already stopped, how much time would a review have taken? Most fans wouldn’t care if the right decision was arrived at. It happens in both Rugby codes, in Cricket and in both the NFL and MLB. So why not in association football.

So a conspiracy? To ensure City win the title? Who knows? But there are people out there who make a lot of money out of placing bets and who’ll lose a lot of money if those bets don’t pay off.

This is all speculation of course and complete and utter b***s. Isn’t it.

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