My observations from the game was the Silva yellow card was correct as Ayew was heading towards the edge of the 18 yard box and they had covering defenders in the middle.
Olise playing more central was interesting. I thought attacking wise he was great and as others have said he should have got more Chelsea players booked as they were forced to foul him to stop him getting away. Defensively he still has a lot of work to do but he can improve on this the more he plays. I would play him against Leeds in same position.
For the winner what was Mateta doing ? He dived in and went sliding past Gallagher which was what gave him the room to get his shot away.
Tomkins looked rusty but improved as the game went on.

Even Potter has gone on record now saying Silva was lucky. Everything went their way on Saturday. I still think one of the weirdest decisions was the so-called back pass off of Ward's shin. Referees never give those nowadays and it wasn't a pass, it hit his shin! In the Man City game (I think it was?) a defender did what was a far clearer "back pass", did we get anything? No, of course not.

I think referees should have to have a testicle examination to qualify for the PL, as clearly many of them don't have the balls to give decisions against the big teams.

As I mentioned earlier, it's the subconscious element that kicks in - knowing how the gravy train rolls along smoothly and being a part of it. Another example is a business meal entertaining the client, common place activity in business circles, no one seeks to question it, or call it bribery or corrupt - it is in plain view and a free meal is to be had. All aboard the gravy train!

As fans we are heavily prone to bias, so I would be interested to see a tally of how many times contentious decisions go the way of Liverpool, Man Utd, Man City and Chelsea when they play everyone else. Of course it is hard as often it is just the repeated smaller fouls they get away with, which is now the preferred tactic of these teams to stop the counter. Kovacic was the main offender for Chelsea yesterday and the referee waited until about his sixth foul before finally, and reluctantly, booking him.

On a side note, I know the Edouard booking was soft, but he does keep getting booked for that same lazy trip which serves no purpose. Either smash into them Ayew style, or just don't bother.

So a defender who is caught out of position and nearly gets sent off for a deliberate foul is worth a place in the team of the week. Blimey Harry Maguire is a shoe in for player of the season.

Edited by Badger11 (03 Oct 2022 11.43am)

One more point

This would make an interesting, and ‘doable’ research project: identify contentious and contested events where red cards had, or had not bee awarded (would need to find quite a lot to get a statistically significant result). Tabulate the outcomes showing which team had benefited from the outcome. We’d then be able to see if the ‘big’ teams were benefiting disproportionately from refereeing decisions.