It is nearly three years since Arsene Wenger first coined the term ‘Sky Sports Justice’ following the Carling Cup final with Chelsea. That day, in case you’ve forgotten, Adebayor was sent off for slapping Wayne Bridge, when that was in fact Eboue’s action. The press machine went into overdrive, focusing heavily on the ‘brawl’, and Eboue in particular, and as a result both clubs were disproportionately fined, with Eboue banned (Adebayor’s ban was not rescinded). Drogba, meanwhile, slapped Cesc away from the main cluster of players, but Sky refused to show it in their coverage, and no charge was brought. It was one of the clearest cases of media-driven action (and lack of) we’ve seen.

Since then, it has become worrying prevalent. We are now in the age of 24 hour news coverage, Sky Sports News running stories on a loop while the written press pick their targets, going after them online and each morning. Phone-ins give voices to those who read the Sun’s agenda-filled stories and wish to emphasise and embellish them, and suddenly fiction becomes fact. A minor incident becomes the disgrace of the century, and an individual finds himself the victim of a bloodthirsty witchhunt. It is all rather unedifying.

Moreover, it is a tough subject for a manager to broach – challenging the power that the media have over the football authorities can and will turn them against you, which only increases the focus on those incidents in which your players could be seen to be in the wrong. For example, any Arsenal fan can tell you that the Daily Mail has become the anti-Arsenal rag, with a constant stream of stories mocking everything that goes on at the Emirates, irrespective of whether there is any shred of truth in the words they print. With every story they twist reality to make us seem like the bad guys.

That isn’t a complaint, incidentally – I’m sure fans of other clubs can find columnists and even entire papers that continually paint them in a bad light. Much like political affiliation, they like to appeal to a subset of the country’s readership by taking a consistent line on the ‘good guys’ and the ‘bad guys’. They pick their targets, and stick to them. If their numbers dwindle, they switch. It is classic marketing, but so many are gullible enough to soak in every last word.

Sometimes they even announce their change – witness the Sun’s recent political declaration of support for the Conservative party over Labour, a complete about turn after a decade of allegiance. Now every story comes from the opposite angle. Do all the columnists and reporters back the switch? Of course not – they’re just doing their job. It is the same in sport.

If the media are effectively only doing their job, the same cannot be said of the authorities who should be strong enough to act independently of public furore.

First, of course, we had the Eduardo farce. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I believe it was a dive and I would like to see divers punished. But, and this is a big but, UEFA charged him and found him guilty based entirely on the media outrage sparked by the Scottish FA. FIFA’s rule is clear – if there is any contact it cannot be deemed a dive. UEFA were attempting to pacify the outcry with a scapegoat, but had to back down when they realised the punishment would never stick, and that they were only giving themselves a massive headache going forward.

Had the press not focused on the dive, the charge would never even have been brought. Was FC Zurich’s Alphonse hauled before judge and jury for his dive against Real Madrid on the first day of the group stage? Of course not. It was the first in a string of examples that exposed UEFA’s hypocrisy.

More recently, we had Henry’s handball. More instinctive than a dive, it was blown out of all proportion because of the magnitude of the event, and the timing. No other handball incident (Scharner and Defoe, to name two who transgressed in the weeks after the furore) even got a mention. The hypocrisy is staggering, yet once against the press triumphed, Henry today being forced to attend a disciplinary hearing.

Not only did he face sanction, but he was found guilty before the trial. Sepp Blatter said:

“This is a matter of the disciplinary committee but it was blatant unfair playing and was shown all around the world, but I don’t know what the outcome will be.”

Henry escaped a ban, but it was made abundantly clear that it was due only to a lack of legal options. You can be sure that had laws not been set firmly in stone, FIFA would have found a way to suspend him, effectively giving the press carte blanche to vilify individuals and get them taken to task for offences no worse than we see week in week out.

Worrying times, indeed. But all it takes to fix this problem is for FIFA and UEFA to be strong and communicate. Resist the hype machine, and explain clearly why fair decisions are taken.

But instead, they pander, and show themselves up as weak-minded in the process, presenting the media with an opportunity to influence by carefully selected stories to fit their agendas. They no longer report the news, they create it.

Man United 2 (Rooney pen 59, Diaby og 64) Arsenal 1 (Arshavin 40)
(Premiership)

I missed Saturday’s game as it was the last day of our club’s cricket season, but having listened to it on the radio, and now watched the whole match in retrospect, I finally feel in a position to comment. There is so much to focus on from the match, but let’s start with the actual football first.

United were poor throughout, and we were in complete control of the first half without ever creating all that much. Eventually, seconds after he should have had a penalty for Fletcher’s clattering, Arshavin picked up the ball thirty yards out and smashed it past Foster, who should have done much better. That was how it stood at half time.

The second half improvement from United never came, and only Foster kept them in the game with a stunning save from Van Persie. Soon after, Rooney won a penalty when Almunia caught him – he picked himself up and struck the equaliser home from the spot.

Van Persie then came close to restoring our lead, striking the crossbar with a free kick, before we gifted them the winner, Diaby heading home Giggs’ free kick when under no real pressure. We searched for an equaliser, but didn’t test Foster again until injury time, when Van Persie’s goal was correctly disallowed for offside against Gallas. Wenger was sent to the stands in the aftermath.

Now, you’ll notice I’ve been very factual there, not going into much detail for each of the flashpoints. Doing so would have made the match report an epic. Let’s look at the incidents in turn:

The Fletcher-Arshavin penalty

You won’t see many more clear cut penalties this season. Fletcher scythed into Arshavin in the box, only afterwards taking a piece of the ball before handling it for good measure. Anywhere other than Old Trafford it would be given every week.

Fortunately for Mike Dean, Wenger’s fury, and that of Arshavin, was mitigated moments later when he smashed in the opener. You could argue that this doesn’t make up for the penalty, that the Russian would have done the same later, but it was the same attack, and the goal we deserved came in due course. So although it was a dreadful decision by Dean, I don’t think it affected the result.

Rooney’s dive

Let me preface this by saying – it was a penalty. However, the actions of Eduardo midweek, and Rooney on Saturday, were absolutely 100% identical. Both players charged into the box, reached the ball before the keeper and took a dive to the turf, expecting contact. The only difference was out of their control – Boruc withdrew his hands to make the dive crystal clear, while Almunia was not as savvy or quick in his reactions, and he made contact as Rooney collapsed to the turf.

It is a crucial difference, because it turns a dive into a dive that ends with a foul, and therefore the penalty is given (technically, the dive comes first, but that would be splitting hairs). I don’t have any qualms against the decision whatsoever.

What does wind me up is the polar opposite reaction by the media following the event. You could argue that most didn’t study the pictures closely enough to realise that Rooney was halfway down before reaching Almunia, but that isn’t true for everyone. Andy Gray pointed it out in his post match analysis, but instead of calling a spade a spade (which would be Rooney a diver, Almunia clumsy and daft), he praised the striker, citing it as clever play.

The hypocrisy of that statement is remarkable. And it gets worse – Tim Rich in the Independent of Sunday attempts to defend England’s favourite troll-a-like by hinting that diving is out of character:

“It is not in Rooney’s character to throw himself over a goalkeeper, but Wenger, called Dean’s award “Old Trafford-ish”.”

While suggesting that slights on Rooney’s character would be unfair, it does at least show awareness of his past by claiming it out of character to dive over a keeper. Certainly few will forget his swan dive over Sol Campbell that ended the Invincibles run in this very fixture five years ago. But to be aware of that fact and still to back him is double standards of the extreme kind, especially when you consider the lampooning of Eduardo, a player who really doesn’t have that kind of history.

Diaby’s own goal

I sympathise a little with Diaby here – clearly of the opinion that Rooney was lurking with intent behind him, he was offered no help by Almunia, who could have a) claimed it, or b) communicated the situation. That said, Diaby was certainly not blameless for a woefully misdirected header.

Mike Dean

Irony of the day was the fact that Radio 5 were praising his performance throughout the match. Having seen the whole game, that statement is guff beyond imagination. He had a really really poor day. Cautioning six Arsenal players was incredible bearing in mind that I can barely remember a poor challenge, and it could hardly be for persistent fouling as United committed comfortably more offences (Fletcher six by himself, not including the penalty that wasn’t, and he escaped without a card).

Song and Gallas are the only two bad fould I can remember offhand – Van Persie seemed especially hard done by given that his challenge was almost identical to Fletcher’s on Arshavin.

And then there was the farcical scenes of the final moments that I’ll come on to shortly.

That said, despite his poor officialdom, I don’t believe he affected the result. The reason we lost was not the referee, it was that we capitulated from a poor position, handing United two goals they barely deserved. We have no-one to blame but ourselves.

The Wenger sending off

The most ridiculous event of the match was saved for last – following Van Persie’s disallowed goal, Wenger kicked an empty water bottle a few feet up the touchline and was duly sent to the stands by Dean, on the advice of fourth official Lee Probert.

Never mind the fact that dissent (for that is the worst it could be deemed as – had Wenger kicked the bottle at someone, it would have been a different story) carries only a yellow card for a player, it was enough for him to be dismissed by an official who knew exactly what the consequences would be.

There was nowhere for Wenger to go – Probert will have heard the disgusting chants he had to endure the entire match (the ‘Sit down you paedophile’ song has been a favourite with United fans for a decade now, for those who don’t know), but still thought it a smart idea to give the baying masses their target of hate. To his eternal credit, Wenger has never raised this chant as an issue, presumably because he knows it would ensure it would be sung at every ground, and he went and stood behind the dugout, surrounded by those same individuals, not batting an eyelid.

Eventually he was ushered down the tunnel, but the farcical nature of the situation has not gone unnoticed. Keith Hackett will by now have apologised to Wenger as promised, with Probert particularly chastised in the aftermath. Richard Bevan, LMA chief, says:

“Lee Probert totally failed to manage the situation and created a needless pressure point taking the focus away from the pitch in a big event with only a minute to go.”

Quite.

However, the bigger issue is the horrendous nature of the chant itself. The FA has a core value of making football in this country a family friendly affair, and is justifiably proud of its record of stamping out racist nonsense. But it turns a blind eye to possibly the most vile song I’ve ever heard at any stadium. And these aren’t the actions of a mindless few – there are literally thousands belting out the song.

It isn’t like it has gone unnoticed – watch the live Sky coverage of Wenger being sent to the stands, and then watch the Match of the Day highlights of the same incident. The pictures are the same, but the sound isn’t – the BBC have deliberately tried to muffle the singing, presumably aware of how hideous it is.

So why is no-one acting? Until they do, the FA have their priorities hideously mixed up.

The internet is dominated by teenagers. If you doubt it, go to Yahoo, look at any sports story, and take a look at the comments. Those that are decipherable (why do people use text speak when space isn’t limited?) are almost exclusively the extreme views of the fickle, the black and white majority that see either unprecedented success, or unmitigated disaster on the horizon. Any voices of sanity or reason are comprehensively drowned out.

That is not necessarily their fault. Many know nothing but a world of instant gratification, immediate news stories and wild opinions, and soak up the insanity, believing every word. Like it or not, they are the future fanbase of the game.

It is the reason I find blogs so fascinating. No matter the opinion, it has to be rationally backed up to give the writer any credence. There are no shouting matches and no ROTFLOLs, just the honest opinion of the individual behind it. That sets it apart even from mainstream media, complete with editors and worst of all, agendas.

One of those agendas became painfully apparent on the radio station of our most trusted news source, the ‘impartial’ BBC, who aired an interview between David Davies, former acting chief executive and executive director of the FA (and a man who knows a great deal about spin given his political background), and Farhad Moshiri, the erstwhile silent business partner of one Alisher Usmanov.

On first listen, it seemed that Usmanov had managed to get his London-based and somewhat less unpopular colleague on to an edition of Sportsweek, and was therefore free to spout his wild opinion like anyone else (and his opinion was…pointed to say the least). But one source tore the interview and its motivations apart more completely and succinctly that I certainly could.

So this is, to coin a phrase from another site, a re-tweet. Yes, I know what one of those is – I’m not that old.

So I urge you all to read this piece, over on Goonerholic, where the somewhat suspect and staged nature of the interview is brought to light. I don’t think ‘holic will mind me saying that he isn’t one of the teenagers I referred to earlier, and if you don’t already read what he has to say, I would recommend starting about now. Ever positive where reasonable, his is a voice of calm in a Newsnow-fuelled world of instinctive and reactionary words. If you want considered writing, check it out.

I have nothing to add to the excellent work already done in that article. Great work ‘holic.

The crunch second leg of any big European tie is the match all broadcasters want. Two giants of the game, perfectly poised from the first encounter, coming together again – it guarantees drama and massive viewing figures. In fact, second leg numbers are usually around 20% higher than the first, and that is even taking into account dead rubbers.

Before last night, ITV must have be quietly chuckling to themselves – showing the first leg of the theoretically weaker half of the draw meant that they got to screen a potentially classic Bayern-Barca match, and the showdown between Chelsea and Liverpool at Stamford Bridge. After all, history suggested that the two English sides would cancel each other out in a cagey first match, leaving everything open.

Right? Wrong. Now, their poor presenters are forced to inject some life into two ties that are, essentially, already over. It is a good thing they have a short build-up programme – Sky, with their two hour pre-show, would really struggle to cope.

Liverpool travel to Chelsea needing to score at least three to have even a sniff of a chance, so I’d give it two minutes into the programme before the pundits, clutching at straws, mention their Istanbul comeback for the millionth time, trying desperately to suggest that history might repeat itself. Or raise hope from their win at Stamford Bridge early in the season, a notion that is plainly ridiculous given that Liverpool scored just once that day, a lucky deflected goal at that. It isn’t likely to strike fear into Chelsea hearts.

Over on ITV4, a channel so familiar to us Arsenal fans who expect to see a match between us and Barca there because United’s big game against PAOK Salonika is so much more critical to terrestrial viewers, Bayern have an even bigger challenge – four goals to take the tie to extra time, and all the while knowing that the Barcelona attack that destroyed them last night need only score once to require the Germans to hit six. Not likely, really, and even their chairman admits the tie is over. But don’t expect that to stop ITV mentioning the twelve goals Bayern put past Sporting in the previous round, as if Barcelona are somehow likely to roll over as poorly as the Portuguese did.

Quietly, however, ITV must be fuming, in the knowledge that the anticipated drama of next week is now going to be exclusively on Sky. Will ITV even put ‘in the case of extra time, programmes may run late‘ into their planners?

Sky, meanwhile, have two ties that have their favourites, but could swing in an instant. We may be in the driving seat right now, but if Villareal hit us with an early away goal, the tide turns completely – we would be in the same situation that Liverpool were against us last season when Diaby scored early, knowing they had to chase the game while being aware that a second away goal could kill the tie.

In the other match up, Porto are in a great position, but United are perfectly capable of going out there and winning, and the requirement to attack sets the game up beautifully.

Sky, not for the first time, must be laughing their heads off. ITV, though, are seeing their football season go from bad to worse.

Euro 2008 is coming up, and predictably, with England not in it, the spotlight has once again come down on the perceived lack of English players in the Premiership. In an article which shows just how statistics can be warped, the BBC claims a ‘dramatic slide’ in those available to Capello.

They begin the article with a graph, showing how the number of English starters has changed over the last eight years. Here it is:

Looks pretty dramatic, doesn’t it? Except when you look closely, you’ll notice that there only appears to be a big drop because of the scale used, with the number of players only ranging from 160 to 208 on the axis. I distinctly remember being taught at school that graphs should not be exaggerated in this way.

But let’s look at the numbers. Five years ago, the number of English starters was 179. This season, 170. Hardly a dramatic drop, nine players in five years. In fact, this year’s drop comes off the back of four years of climbing, despite what the Daily Mail would tell you about ‘forriners taking ah jobs’.

All this completely misses the point. 170 English players is plenty, Capello needs a small fraction of those. It doesn’t matter if there used to be 500 (there never were, incidentally), it isn’t the best players that are missing out, it is those that were never good enough to get near the national side anyway. Those that remain should benefit from playing with quality rather than substandard leftovers.

For England to be successful, the top twenty or so need to be of a high quality, and performing as a team. The former is aptly demonstrated by the fact that there were ten English players in the Champions League final, and the latter is Capello’s job.

There are no excuses. If England fail, it is not the fault of the clubs, it is the fault of the players (who are good enough), and the management team. No-one else.