Years ago, pre-season friendlies were invisible to all but the hardcore fan who travelled to watch the team take on a bunch of part-timers or second string players. Newspapers did not report on the games – the most you would get was the result buried on the inside pages – and without the 24/7 news cycle there was no need to desperately fill hour after hour with mundane exclusives. In short, no corporation cared enough to analyse the July calendar, and as such we had no visibility of the goings on.

Today, of course, we live in a different world. Matches are streamed online, reported on Sky Sports News as if the results were critical, and every player is scrutinised before they have even had a chance to build up basic fitness (or in the cases of Arshavin and Vela, work off their expanded waistlines).

It is easy to slip into the trap of drawing conclusions at this stage. Defensive mistakes are to be expected when teammates have only just met, partnerships have not been formed, and even some language barriers are yet to be negotiated. To an extent, we understand that and forgive a certain lack of impermeability. But it goes further than that.

While many rightly shy away from excess criticism in these early days, we are less restrained when doling out platitudes, especially when indicating a certain player to be ready to step up in the coming season. What we forget is that most of our opposition are lower league or even part-time opposition, and looking impressive against them is a false barometer.

To put it another way, how many times have we seen a player shine in the Carling Cup, but would hesitate before suggesting they should be featuring in the first team? Most people’s description of Vela’s current position comes to mind, and I’d argue that the likes of Hoyte, Randall and Simpson are among others who will never break through the glass ceiling despite excelling at that level. Yet most of our pre-season opposition are not only weaker than those faced by our kids in those competitions, but they have little to play for themselves. Anyone can thrive when the pressure and intensity are dialled down.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that those that have impressed cannot make that step up, only that it would be false to demand their promotions based on these meaningless run-outs. I fear that if we lose a couple of early games, there will be many fans saying ‘Frimpong was excellent in pre-season, he should be playing’, and using it as a stick with which to beat the manager. We’ve seen it before with the constant calls for Wilshere to get playing time – this is the third consecutive pre-season in which he has appeared ready.

So I try not to draw too many conclusions, especially this early in proceedings. The Emirates Cup is a better indicator purely because the opposition are stronger, so I’ll begin to take a keener interest from Saturday (not least because I have a ticket). I’ve always thought our annual preparations are spot on – get the fitness up against the cannon fodder before testing your sharpness against quality.

Transfers

In other news, I have mixed feelings about Campbell not signing a new contract. On the one hand, his attitude in the dressing room would have set an example to others, but at the same time if he had agreed a year extension, Wenger might have been tempted not to sign another defender. Now he absolutely has to. Sol’s decision may yet prove to be a blessing in disguise.

As for Cesc, the latest story is that he is ‘torn’ between Arsenal and Barcelona. However, the quotes are attributed to an interview with DIR Emotions, a Spanish magazine that holds no mention of the conversation on their site. I suspect that his expressing an affection for both clubs has been deliberately twisted, and moreover that such an interview pre-dates this summer. I would be very surprised if Cesc’s next move was anything other than talking through official channels. In short, don’t panic.

That’s it for today. August, and real football, is around the corner.

Those who believe our season to be over already should remind themselves of the number of back stories coming into tomorrow’s game with City. There are so many I may miss some, but here are the ones that stick out:

• The return of Adebayor to the Emirates. His first game against us came at the relative sanctity of Eastlands, yet he was still whipped into a mindless frenzy. Lest we forget, he put in an awful challenge on Cesc, stamped on Van Persie’s face, slapped Song and then did that celebration. Now he’s in our town, and the reception will be red hot, irrespective of Wenger’s call for calm. He knows as well as anyone that such pleas are pointless.
• In contrast, we welcome Vieira back. Sure, we’ve already done that once in European competition, but he is back in the Premiership now, and the greeting he will receive will put the Adebayor catcalls in sharp focus.
• And then there’s Toure. Still a legend, if you ask me.
• Van Persie is likely to make his first start since 1946, and Song returns to the squad. After their experiences at the hands of Adebayor earlier in the season, the handshakes could be far more interesting than the Bridge-Terry rebuff.
• And of course, there is the football itself.

For me, the last point remains the most important. I don’t believe either Spurs or City are challenging us for third, despite the opinion of the worriers, but even though it pains me to say it, I am desperate for Spurs to win the battle for fourth. One simple reason – City have the cash to capitalise on a Champions League place, whereas at least Spurs would have the decency to lose to Dubrunevik Village in the qualifiers.

If City win, they become a far more attractive proposition for the mercenaries they will be searching for in the summer. And if you think that type of player won’t help them, you are wrong - it was exactly how Chelsea started in the Abramovich era (Crespo, Veron et al). They may already be bound for a similar rise, but at least if Spurs pushed them down to fifth it would be slightly delayed. I can live with another hilarious summer of optimism of our neighbours for that.

Looking at the match itself, most of the bookies seem to agree that it will be a goalfest. They also think it will be close,  but after a week of reflection, I expect a reaction from the players tomorrow. The media silence tells you everything you need to know about their mood – our club has made some PR gaffes on the official site this season but even they knew excuses and platitudes were pointless. What we need to see is a totally different performance in the next game.

That drives my bet of the day, which is a 4-0 win available at a massive 40/1 with Sportingbet. I’m tempted to bet on a few scorelines in that range – 3-0, 4-1 etc, as I’m convinced we’ll be seeing one of them tomorrow. We owe City, and the players owe us.

Elsewhere, much of the talk has been around our goalkeeping situation. With Almunia out of favour injured, Fabianski has been given the chance to prove his mistakes of the past were just blips. As we all know, all he managed to do was compound his previous errors to gift Wigan their equaliser.

The consensus everywhere is that he is useless, hopeless, a clown, a muppet, a no-hoper and definitely has no future with the club. Don’t get me wrong, I understand why so many take that view – his mistakes have been so frequent that it is easy to write him off.

But (and I think I’m alone in this) I still believe he can be a top keeper. I’m not sure what it is (it isn’t just blind optimism as I’ve written players off in the past), but something about him makes me think that when he gets over his confidence nightmare, he can finally prove himself. And while I’m certain that at least 90% of you will think I’m an idiot for that opinion, I’d hazard a guess that you never thought Heurelho Gomes would turn out to be a decent keeper either. And his gaffes were arguably more frequent.

I’m not stupid enough to claimthat Fabianski definitely will turn into a top keeper, all I’m saying is no-one can say that he definitely can’t. Call him Song Mk II if I’m right.

And call him Aliadiere Mk II if I’m wrong.

Szczesny is very highly rated, but still too raw to become our first choice keeper, so no matter how much of a shoo in he is for the number one jersey in the future, we need a reliable option for the next few years. If Wenger doesn’t buy one this summer, I don’t think he will for a number of years – he will either abandon both Almunia and Fabianski, or keep faith with one of them for the long term.

If he does decide that we need a keeper to last a few years, hehas previous – signing Lehmann for the final few valuable years of his career. Tim over at 7am Kickoff suggests Marcus Hahnemann. We could do worse.

My prediction is that we won’t sign a keeper - Wenger will point to having four at the club who played first team football this season, and will expect at least one of them to grasp the mantle.

One final thing I wanted to touch on today, and that is the decision to exclude Portsmouth from Europe next season. I’ve thought for a while that although everyone seems to be focusing on Liverpool’s failed attempt to reach fourth, the problem may be worse than that – they may not qualify for Europe at all. Thanks to United lifting the League Cup, fifth and sixth get you in, but Liverpool are in seventh and have a tricky run-in (two relegation fighters away from home, and Chelsea).

Now that Pompey are barred, seventh is good enough, which is highly convenient, don’t you think?

Enjoy the game.

Something has been puzzling me ever since Hull were awarded a penalty on Saturday. Not whether it should have been awarded, or whether it was a goalscoring opportunity or not, but something else.

Having decided that it was not a goalscoring opportunity (which the referee has since said was his reasoning), why was Sol Campbell booked?

When keepers take down attackers who are running away from goal, they are booked. When referees decide that players have not prevented an ‘obvious goalscoring opportunity’, but there is still a decent chance, they sometimes still book them instead of showing the red card. And having come to the same conclusion, Andre Marriner took the same action on Saturday.

Here’s the kicker: there is no such cautionable offence as ‘well, it was almost a goalscoring opportunity, but it wasn’t quite, so I’m going for yellow instead of red’. Unless there is some other reason for a yellow card to come out, the referee has a black and white decision to make – was it an obvious goalscoring opportunity? If yes, red card, or if not, no card at all.

It has become accepted in these instances that the yellow card is given, but let’s look at the rules to see what offences can cause that punishment:

Unsporting behaviour – given for wild fouls and cynical, deliberate fouls. Sol’s was neither – he brushed the player.
Dissent – nope. He was pretty restrained given how incorrect the decision was.
Persistent infringement - no. It was his first foul.
Delaying the restart – no.
Failure to respect restart distance - used for encroachment at a free kick. That’ll be a no, then.
Leaving/entering the field without permission – no.

No mention anywhere of a ‘nearly goalscoring opportunity’, you’ll note.

Just to be clear, I’m not just referring to Saturday’s incident. Time and time again, at all levels of football, players are booked when a referee doesn’t feel the chance was quite good enough to show the red. Keepers in particular barely ever commit a foul without receiving a card.

But there is no rule to back this up. There is no reason for a referee to caution these players, so it is bizarre that it has become such accepted practice. A bit like flashing cards in the last ten minutes for identical challenges to those that went unpunished in the first ten.

Can anyone enlighten me on this?

It has been a telling week in the media. Aaron Ramsey’s dreadful injury, and in particular Shawcross’ tackle, have divided opinions everywhere. More pertinently, the way the story has been presented has differed wildly – while most reasonable writers have noted that it was a terrible and avoidable moment, only some have called for a change of mindset in the English game, while others have shrugged it off as ‘one of those things’.

There is nothing wrong with a difference of opinion. I maintain that the Shawcross challenge was not in the same league as the Taylor or Smith equivalents from recent seasons. Some disagree with me entirely, and that’s fine. Having the debate in the public domain has kept the issue on the back pages for four days, and that can only be a good thing. It is an issue that requires attention.

But at the same time, the absolute worst type of journalism has reared its ugly head as a result. There are certain parties that, for any major news story, wait to see what the general consensus is, and then go utterly against it to create controversy. It is perfectly deliberate – I don’t think for a second that these writers believe the words they write, as no-one in their right minds could subscribe to such a preposterous view.

That comes with the territory in the blogging world – there are so many that some see controversy as the short cut to being noticed. It matters little that 90% of the comments slate the writer, because all they care about is that there are comments. But you should be able to expect better of columnists paid to write for our national newspapers. Unfortunately, some of the more poisonous of their number would rather write an abysmal piece for attention, than an intelligent one that causes less of a stir.

There was a good piece on Gunnerblog yesterday, exposing a few such examples. The published views included the belief that Wenger should apologise to Shawcross for being angry at the challenge (no mention of Shawcross apologising for the challenge), that he was wrong to condemn the challenge in the first place, and even worse – that Ramsey had somehow ruined Shawcross’ glorious England call-up by having the temerity to have his leg broken on the same day. Classy.

Tim at 7am Kickoff then posted another insightful piece, exposing one of the most poisonous articles I’ve ever read, that of a Stoke columnist claiming that Cesc and Wenger couldn’t care less about Ramsey, they just wanted Shawcross sent off and paid no attention to the stricken Welshman. The entry is so packed full of lies I can’t even begin to go into it here, but it is an embarrassing read for even the most blinkered Potters fan.

The trouble is this – by getting angry with these idiots they get the attention they so desperately crave. They sit on the comments section, shouting back at anyone who criticises them, lapping up the extra hits and their moment of glory. Fifteen minutes of fame and all that.

But as I said, that is understandable in a world stacked with blogs trying to differentiate themselves. But former players who are being paid to spout this offensive nonsense? How do they even get the job? If anything, it shames the editors more than the columnists themselves, that such drivel is not only tolerated, but encouraged.

The easy answer is always to say ‘well, ignore it’. But when you read something that is offensive to that degree, it is almost impossible not to react. The only good news is that one such article destroys the credibility of the author – if Collymore wants to make a point he really believes in next week, is anyone going to take him seriously?

The main problem is that these columns shift the focus away from the rational and constructive talk, giving the authorities an excuse to do nothing. You can already see how this is going to go – the debate will continue for the next few days, only to be replaced by a new argument based on whatever happens this weekend. A few lone voices will continue, trying to force the change, but sooner or later everyone will go back to normal. It has happened before, it will happen again.

The FA certainly won’t make any strong decisions. Instead of making drastic changes or enforcing stiff new penalties, they only ever do one of two things. The first is to change trivial rules, usually a tweak of the offside rule, or a change of procedure when a player is down injured. The second is to announce a strong new rule, but fail hopelessly to enforce it. The recent example of this is their claim that if three or more players hound a referee, they will support multiple sending offs. Seen that happen?

We may, at best, have a couple of weeks grace – if a strong challenge comes in early from a Burnley player this weekend, they might be carded. But it won’t last.

All we can hope is that in a few years, we haven’t gone full circle again to talk about another horrific injury. Because ‘I told you so’ plainly doesn’t work.

Aaron Ramsey’s horrific injury has stirred up emotions everywhere this weekend, and the way it is being reported is dividing the nation. Some are looking into the wider issue of the supposed ‘coincidence’ that the team who opposition are encouraged to ‘get stuck into’ are the ones suffering a series of career-threatening injuries. Then they are those going for publicity with sickeningly controversial stories, defending what is, in my opinion, the indefensible.

I gave my detailed thoughts in the aftermath of the game, and I’m very glad to see that many of the points I was bringing up have been expressed elsewhere. In fact, the driving analogy has cropped up in a number of places. Having read around what everyone has to say, I wanted to bring you my ten recommended reads on the subject – not all share the same opinion, but all are worth your time.

Below that are some bullet points from me – I don’t really have the energy or inclination to write another mammoth post on what is a very draining subject.

Here are the ten. I hope you like them.

1) Martin Samuel – How can so many broken legs be down to chance

It is rare that I link to a Daily Mail article in a positive way, but this piece is one of the best I’ve read from the mainstream media. He makes excellent points on how the media focus on the wrong things, highlighting the day that Chris Morgan punched Van Persie, with all the focus at the end being on the Dutchman’s refusal to shake his hand.

2) Bob Wilson calling on the FA to act

Bob Wilson tends to make a lot of sense when he talks. He makes especially pertinent points about how the FA and Premier League have bowed to public perception that kicking technically superior teams is a valid approach and should not be punished.

3) Arseblog – The media have blood on their hands and He’s not that kind of player

Moving on to blogs, and I can’t really add a lot to what is said in these two pieces. If you want poignant and insightful, read both. They highlight all the crucial issues, including the root of the ‘kick them’ attitude, one Sam Allardyce.

4) Arsenal FC Blog – A wonderful discussion about the Ramsey incident

In here you’ll find a link to an excellent discussion from the Sunday Supplement, particularly Patrick Barclay. Andy’s blog is also worth looking at for another post – highlighting the superb way in which Cesc lived up to the captain’s responsibility in getting his team past the incident.

5) Another Arsenal Blog – Losing a grip on reality?

Presenting a different angle, the view here is that while Shawcross has sinned in the past, this was not near the level of the Martin Taylor/Dan Smith incidents. There are also some insightful notes on the type of injury Ramsey has suffered.

6) 7am Kickoff – Shawcross breaks Ramsey’s leg and Dear English FA

One of the things I really like about Tim’s blog is that he presents things in such an entertaining and light-hearted way that when he gets serious, it really hits home. Read them, you won’t regret it.

7) Who Ate All The Pies – This One’s For Aaron

Interestingly, not all the emotive columns came from Arsenal blogs – Ollie’s piece on the club-neutral Who Ate All The Pies has a couple of pinpoint lines in it, particularly when highlighting the nation’s attitude to Johnny Foreigner.

8) Gunnerblog – It’s easy to see why it happens. It’s not so easy to forgive

Another blog going down the rational route – quite often GS’s articles come out a few hours after others, but carry the mark of reflective thought. Another good piece on the favouring of the tough-tackling Englishman over the ‘too quick’ opponent.

9) East Lower – Arsenal take strength from Ramsey’s agony

Whilst recognising that Shawcross is not the worst offender in a long list, mention is made here of the wider issue, and also of how previous victims have struggled to return to their previous heights.

10) Official Site – Send in your messages for Aaron Ramsey

The reason for pointing you at the final link is simple – Arsenal are going to create a book of the messages Ramsey receives, to help him get through the next few months. You can help.

Much has been written, much has been spoken, but I have a few more points to make, in addition to those I made yesterday:

• It is extremely worrying that Peter Walton was reportedly not going to send Shawcross off before he saw the extent of Ramsey’s injury. That says a lot about how certain tackles are accepted.

• Those coming out to defend Shawcross as ‘not that type of player’ should bear in mind that at the ripe old age of 22, he has broken the legs of two players – Jeffers and Ramsey. He also put Adebayor out of action with a terrible tackle last season.

• Columnists who are using this as another excuse to attack Wenger should show a great deal more class. Example – Steven Howard in the Sun writes, in response to Wenger’s belief that the string of serious injuries is not a coincidence:

“Even when he has the sympathy vote, Arsene Wenger still succeeds in alienating people. This was not the time for cock-eyed conspiracy theories.”

Utter drivel. Frankly, if you think there is no link between the ‘get stuck to them’ approach taken against Arsenal, and the resultant injuries, then you are a fool.

• You cannot go down the road of suspending offenders for as long as the victims are out – that would cause ridiculous imbalance, where worse offences would go relatively unpunished because the injured party gets lucky and makes a swift recovery. It sounds an easy solution, but it wouldn’t work.

• However, there must be a sliding scale. I’ve said it before, but giving three match bans for all acts of violent conduct or dangerous play is too simplistic. And I say that in full acceptance that under the regulations I would propose, Shawcross would still only be banned for three games. Dan Smith, on the other hand, would be taking a long break.

It has been stated for a long time that Sky and the written media have a great deal of power in the game. Recently I wrote on that exact subject. So in employing pundits who revel in Sam Allardyce’s teams elbowing, kicking and bullying their way to victory, they are responsible for changing the mindset of the nation. It has become accepted fact that to beat superior teams, you have to kick them. Not to press hard, and outrun them, but to simply kick them. Players come out prior to matches and state this as their intention, clear as day.

So why, when the match starts, do the referees allow it to happen? It has become so ingrained in our nation’s psyche that the smaller sides need this advantage that it has become accepted. But going around kicking players off the ball or deliberately taking them down late is not acceptable, and never should be.

There are those that promote these tactics as legitimate, when they are not. They now have a responsibility to change their attitude, their thoughts, and most importantly, their words. Until then, the list of horrific injuries will continue to grow.