J\u00fcrgen Klopp publicly criticised the decision to rule out Jonathan Tah\u2019s late goal as Germany lost to Paraguay, using the incident to highlight tactics that proved controversial during the 2025\u201326 Premier League campaign. Appearing on Magenta TV, Klopp said: “If the goal is illegal, then Arsenal won\u2019t be English champions,” and added, “They scored 60% of their goals this way.” Those comments sharpened attention on the wider discussion about physical blocking in the penalty area.<\/p>\n
The article of debate is straightforward. Arsenal were among several teams that used blocking to limit defenders and increase chances from set-pieces. They were not alone, but their reliance on the method became a defining talking point as they secured the title in 2025\u201326, finishing with a record 19 goals from corners.<\/p>\n
FIFA\u2019s refereeing chief, Pierluigi Collina, addressed similar concerns when he highlighted a goal from Ben White during a March friendly while announcing a new set of rules to be applied at the World Cup. The regulations make clear that any player judged to be intentionally blocking an opponent without genuine intent to play the ball will be penalised. Fans quickly labelled the measure an “Anti-Arsenal” rule online.<\/p>\n
Replays of the disallowed Tah strike showed Anton standing in the path of the Paraguayan goalkeeper. The contact was described as minimal and its impact on Gill\u2019s movement debatable, but officials concluded the action was intentional and thus contrary to the new standard.<\/p>\n
Those World Cup-specific regulations do not automatically apply to the Premier League. Still, the situation prompted a response from the English governing body, which has already taken steps to address the problem of blocking. Klopp\u2019s high-profile reaction has therefore re-opened a debate that spans international competition, domestic enforcement and the ethics of set-piece preparation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Klopp attacked a disallowed Tah goal, tying it to Arsenal\u2019s set-piece approach and FIFA rules widely<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15889,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,969],"tags":[1505,1162,984],"class_list":["post-15890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-premier-league","tag-accountability","tag-analytics","tag-ben-white"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}