“It’s a disgrace, it’s a f***ing disgrace, those bloody foreign Arsenal players are a disgrace to the game of football”.
Oh dear, twitter went a little bit crazy yesterday. Twitter always goes crazy whenever an Arsenal game is televised, particularly on ESPN, which seems to be an anti-Arsenal propaganda machine (not that I’m paranoid or anything).
Yesterday we saw Sebastien Squillaci being quite rightly sent off for pulling down Huddersfield’s Jack Hunt. The challenge was in my opinion 50% cynical and 50% clumsy, but 100% down to SS being about as handy in defence as a gravy boat full of runny excrement.
This incident prompted twitter’s first outburst; “rugby tackle from the ‘football’ team” said one uninformed keyboard crusader whilst others accused Arsenal of cynical tactics. I would agree with them, if their remarks were not exactly parroting something said by the contemptible Chris Waddle moments earlier.
Where was I? Oh yes. Red card – very annoying, but entirely the defender’s fault and fairly indefensible. Fine.
Roughly an hour later, the hapless Danish show-pony Nicklas Bendtner was fouled in a similar manner to Hunt, resulting in a penalty. However, the Huddersfield defender wasn’t sent off.
Even ESPN couldn’t find a reason to somehow blame this on Bendtner, the Arsenal fans, the Arsenal directors or Satan himself; that Frenchist Arsene Wenger.
However, within seconds of the incident Cesc Fabregas and Nicklas Bendtner tossed the dogs a bone. They motioned for Clattenburg to brandish a red card.
To their credit, ESPN didn’t make too big an issue of it, but twitter, my god.
“Disgusting, Arsenal moan about people cheating, diving, tackling hard but look at them. LOOK AT THEM!!! They make me SICK”.
Why is motioning for a card such a sin? I mean, it’s not great, that I’ll concede, but in a game full players who dive, elbow and kick players not even near the ball, is trying to ensure that a referee doesn’t bottle a decision really so awful?
When a player snaps another player’s leg in two, the media and fans (particularly if the player is English) immediately start gushing over the poor defender who was only trying to win the ball back off of a foreign bully who wasn’t playing fair.
Remember when Ryan Shawcross tried to kick Aaron Ramsey over the roof of the Brit? How quick were ESPN to defend the player and condemn Wenger for criticising what was an unnecessarily heavy challenge?
When Gerard and Rooney spend an afternoon falling over in the opposition’s area, isn’t this a greater crime than trying to ensure that the referee doesn’t bottle it, and blow a huge decision.
Perspective, please.
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