“Arsenal don’t like it oop norf.”
“Arsenal don’t like it up ‘em.”
“You need to get in their faces.”
The above represents “conventional” wisdom about taking on Arsenal. It is widely believed that to attempt to play football against Arsenal amounts to little more than sporting suicide, with the result that teams utilize anti-football when facing the Arsenal. Anti-football involves rotational fouling, kicking the shit out of Arsenal’s players, and, where the opposition go up a goal, instant time-wasting.
Anti-football enjoys the full-blooded approval of the media who constantly harp on about Arsenal’s “foreignness” and “lack of an English spine” and Arsenal being a “French team in England” amongst other gems. Arsene Wenger was labeled a “whinger” for complaining about how opponents are allowed to brutalise Arsenal week in, week out and his boys get demonized for every tackle. A few years ago, Man Utd’s players were given carte blanche by Mike Riley and they proceeded to kick Jose Reyes out of a game at Old Trafford. In the same match, Wayne Rooney flopped to the ground without any contact, and was awarded a penalty which helped end Arsenal’s unbeaten run.
The English press like to go on and on about “grit” and “steel” and “manliness” and such other attributes. It is all well and good to possess these qualities but in England, sheer physicality is prized over technical ability. The result is that you only very rarely get an English player who’s got flair. But when rough play is hailed as the right thing to do, I begin to wonder about the sanity of the English pundit. It is no surprise that British teams tend to pick up loads more bookings when they participate in continental competition. This is because the continental refs don’t stand for that “getting in their faces” bullshit. So many times you watch a qualifier on the telly, a British lad gets booked for a wild lunge, and the commentator says, “That’s not even a foul in the Premier League.”
Last Sunday, Arsenal travelled to Bolton Wanderers or, as Tony Atwood of Untold Arsenal calls them, Notlob Srerednaw, and picked up a hard fought 2-0 win. In that game, after Cesc Fabregas had been denied a second clear penalty, Matthew Taylor of Notlob knelt on the Arsenal Captain’s neck for a few seconds, tried to drag his foot across his face, then pulled his hair. These actions, in the full view of the assistant ref, were not punished or remarked on by the commentators. Sky Sports went ahead to edit them out of the match highlights so, in the media’s world, nothing untoward happened during the game. Fabregas didn’t react violently, as I would have, but let his football do the talking.
A few days later, Arsenal entertained Notlob at the Emirates, and while down 1-2, an incident occurred. In full view of the ref, William Gallas and Mark Davies went for the same ball. Davies got there first and poked the ball away, Gallas arrived a second later, and caught Davies’s ankle. Davies stayed down, Gallas got the ball and sparked the move which led to Arsenal’s equalizer. Was it a foul? Certainly. Did the ref rule otherwise? Certainly. Was the goal valid? You bet your ass.
Immediately after the game, an irate Owen Coyle labeled the tackle “akin to assault” and accused Gallas of trying to murder his player and the entire Notlob bench. Davies was said to have had his ankle ligaments surgically separated by Willy’s boot, and his bones were said to have been transformed into sharp splints headed for his heart. So, apart from needing a new ankle, Davies also had need of Tony Stark’s mini arc reactor to keep the bone splinters out of his heart.
The media went absolutely crazy. Gallas was labeled the worst serial killer since Jack the Ripper. The tackle was shown over and over and over. Comparisons to the other Taylor’s wild lunge on Eduardo were made. The media called on the FA to censure Gallas. When this failed, the media responded with headlines declaring that Gallas had “escaped punishment” for his heinous crime.
The sheer hilarity of Notlob whimpering about getting a kicking from an opponent was just about lost in all this. Notlob are the archetypal “kick him” team. They almost single-handedly invented the tale about Arsenal not being up to it physically. When I was a wee lad, I had a sports coach tell me, “If you miss the ball, don’t miss the leg.” With Kevin “Elbows” Davies as their spearhead, Notlob team elevated that philosophy to its zenith. Just a few days before the games, Elbows gave an interview in which he said Arsenal’s players “screamed like little girls” if you tackled them. Shocking then, to see the entire Notlob playing and coaching staff whining about a tackle like a bunch of Beverly Hills bimbos.
Arsene Wenger has staunchly defended his player, and took on the media yesterday when he pointed out that the hair pulling went unmentioned, while a mistimed 50/50 has gotten so much airtime. He asked why teams are allowed to declare before games that they intend to kick Arsenal, and then after they have carried out their plan, he has to deal with some smarmy reporter going “Well, you didn’t like that did you?” which sparks the whole “Arsenal can’t handle the physical stuff” bullshit again.
This season, as a result of an alleged dive by Eduardo in a Champions League qualifier, Arsenal no longer get penalties in England. This season, Arsenal have been awarded 1 penalty, while 4 penalties have been awarded against us. Chelsea have been awarded 7 penalties, Man Utd have been awarded 5, and Notlob have 3.
Any incident in which an Arsenal player can be portrayed in a negative light is repeated over and over again to drum into the consciousness of the viewer that Arsenal are a dirty team of cheating foreigners. That the wild lunges of Robinson on Fabregas at the weekend also went unremarked and unnoticed simply reinforces this issue.
Basically, Arsenal have been made the media’s fall guys for every problem in the game. It’s pathetic, lazy “journalism” if one can even call it that. Looks more like a witch hunt to me.
The Law
