The Beautiful Groan

It’s a déjà vu feeling this morning as Arsenal once again come under fire for the lack of Englishmen in the squad, their transfer policy, and being entirely to blame for England failing to qualify for Euro 2008.

The major talking point is the PFA’s new report, the ridiculously titled ‘Meltdown’, in which the reasons for England’s failures are made clear. And most of the papers have picked up on the talk of a lack of Englishmen in the Premiership, and launched an attack on Arsenal. But when you read a little closer, it becomes apparent that Arsenal are not guilty of the charges laid out in the report:

“The bottom line is a very simple one. Older, ready-made foreign players are blocking young English players’ path into the Premier League.”

“We are not objecting to clubs bringing in young foreign players to their academies, because at least there is a level playing field there for young English players.”

Earlier in the week I explained how long young players have to wait before they become regulars for Arsenal. In the meantime, they are usually placed into the academy and youth setup, to learn their trade. Importantly, this is alongside the English players, of which there are plenty (the PFA point out that only 13 of 57 academy players at Arsenal in recent years have been foreigners).

Once in the youth setup, everyone has the same chance to graduate, and only the very best will. Is it Arsenal’s fault that the best ones happen not to be English? Or perhaps, is it because those English players of 14, before they reach the Arsenal setup, are far inferior technically and mentally to their foreign counterparts?

Arsenal rarely buy ready made foreigners, in fact they do this far less than Chelsea, Man City, Portsmouth, Liverpool and a whole host of other clubs not being accused by today’s tabloids. They buy young, nurture, and let the natural selection of talent occur. If Fabregas is better than Sidwell after a few years in the youth system, then which one will break into the first team and which one will be allowed to leave?

The PFA are trying to encourage youth development, by saying ‘we don’t mind if you bring foreigners in to your academies to join the English there, as long as you focus on your youth development to give all these players the best possible chance of reaching their potential’. What club does that better than Arsenal? The laboured point that the team often contains no Englishmen conveniently ignores the fact the players such as Cole, Sidwell, Bentley, Muamba, Harper and more came through the Arsenal setup and have made names for themselves in the Premiership. Cole and Bentley have even represented England, the others have simply not been good enough.

The PFA then makes a suggestion which doesn’t appear to help the English at all:

“Uefa have a rule that eight players in the 25-man squad for European club competitions must be home-grown.”

“We would like to extend that so at least three or four in the team, irrespective of nationality, have come through the club’s development programme.”

I can see what they’re trying to do here. By making clubs focus on players in their academy, even though they allow foreigners there, they are hoping that that the good English players will also receive more attention and perhaps become part of these three of four home grown players.

But Arsenal already do this. ‘Home-grown’ counts any player that has spent three years at the club between the ages of 15 and 21, so includes Fabregas, Clichy, Djourou, Bendtner, and Traore, as well as the English contingent of Randall, Connolly, Gilbert, and of course Walcott and Hoyte. This ruling will change nothing, except for altering the bench, as explained by Wenger:

“I was at the centre of an experience [in France] where we had to play three players in the squad who were under 21. You know what these people became? Professional bench players.”

“Every week they sat next to the manager, not only did more French players not play but they did not even play in the reserves or practice enough”

Quite.

Wenger has tried the English approach before, spending vast sums on Francis Jeffers, Richard Wright and more, but these players turned out not to be good enough. Look at the English players who came through the Arsenal setup - with the exception of Ashley Cole, who left through no fault of Arsenal’s, the likes of Sidwell, Harper and Bentley wouldn’t get in this Arsenal team. And if there was an Englishman out there who could, can you imagine how much they’d cost?

The fact is that the top English players are priced at a level only affordable by United and Chelsea in recent years. Only now, through foreign ownership, are other clubs able to splash the cash so freely. Arsenal, still under English rule (a point always ignored by the xenophobic press), have always had a policy of not spending beyond their means. The English equivalents of their team are wildly priced, if they even exist (which, comparing England to Arsenal, I suggest they don’t). Even Walcott, for all his talent, would’ve been cheaper if he had held a Spanish passport. It is a point endorsed by Gianluca Vialli:

“The sheer price of English players is the main turn-off. Shaun Wright-Phillips is worth £20 million because he’s English. If he were Portuguese, he’d cost a quarter of that.”

This is seen not only in the Premiership, but abroad. Not only do English managers refuse to spend ridiculous sums on these players, but how many Englishmen move abroad? Compare that to Spain, whose league rivals the Premiership, yet exports plenty of players to our shores. Could it be possible that the whole world sees our players lacking in value for money?

If buying English players is too expensive, only one realistic option remains - producing the players yourself. In 1998, Arsenal’s new academy opened, overseen by Arsene Wenger, and entrusted with the responsibility of training players the Arsenal way. And that includes English players, such as Henri Lansbury, who joined the club a year later, at the age of nine. Now seventeen, he is an England youth international and has now appeared for the Arsenal first team. The trouble in football is the lack of patience afforded by fans and the media - Lansbury has been with the club for eight years, listening to how Arsenal don’t give a chance to English players, and probably itching for his opportunity to prove the doubters wrong. And he isn’t alone - with a decent representation of Arsenal in young England sides, it will be a justification of every Wenger policy when they begin to step up and shine in a few years time. England players playing like Arsenal? And some have the temerity to suggest that Wenger is harming the English game?

While some of the PFA’s findings are based in reality, Michel Platini’s are anything but. He made a fresh attack on Wenger yesterday, and it was one of his more bizarre claims:

“Wenger is a friend but I don’t like his system to acquire young players.

“He never develops someone himself, he only buys the talents. That’s the wrong way.”

Really? Sixteen year old don’t come fully developed - Wenger signs young talent and develops them, guiding their career. Most players that have ever played for him dedicate their achievements to him. So quite how Platini makes the claim that Wenger ‘doesn’t develop players’ is beyond me. There are plenty of other clubs in the Premiership buying a team full of foreign players at their peak. To me, a criticism of those clubs would be more appropriate, but that wouldn’t match the flavour of the month, now would it?

With friends like Platini, who need enemies?

The intention of all of this is to find a way to revitalise the England football team, which is fair enough. So here’s a few pertinent facts.

There are 191 English players in the first team squads of the twenty Premiership clubs. An England teams fields eleven of these, or sometimes last season, nine, when Beckham and Hargreaves flew in from America and Germany respectively. There are plenty of players around, getting opportunities. The problem is simple - they are not good enough.

If the press truly believed that we haven’t been producing decent English players over the last decade, they wouldn’t have been going on about a ‘golden generation’. The fact that they’ve repeated this term ad nauseum until this year’s ultimate failure, suggests that we have in fact been producing a set of excellent footballers, and perhaps the talent in the country is there.

That the team has failed has been due to a number of factors. An inept coach certainly didn’t help, as these players were more than capable of qualifying for the tournament. But it was the style of play that was the giveaway - as Wenger has said repeatedly, the standard of football schooling in this country is atrocious, giving every other nation a massive headstart that it is rare to claw back after the age of sixteen. If you wish to compete on the world stage, you have to understand ball retention at any early age, and have more subtlety to your play that simply lumping the ball as far forward as possible.

The national footballing centre at Burton was supposed to solve this, based on the French talent factory of Clairefontaine, but was scrapped due to the spiralling costs of Wembley. This project must be relaunched.

The solution is not to mandate quotas, not to join the blame culture and insist that it is all the fault of Johnny Foreigner. The top players benefit from playing with others with comparable talent, and by the very definition of these players as the best we have, their teammates, if English, cannot be as good. Bringing excellent talent in from abroad will force everyone to raise their game.

And for the purposes of the England football team, it is only the top talent that we care about. How does it matter if the number of Englishmen in the Premiership has dropped from 400 to 200 if we only require the best eleven?

I doubt you’ll find an Arsenal fan who has much of a liking for the French coach, Raymond Domenech, who appears to put irritating Arsene Wenger above looking after his players in his list of priorities.

Whenever one of our players is injured, you can be absolutely sure that they’ll play the full ninety minutes in France’s next meaningless friendly in Guadeloupe, just to make sure they’re crocked for at least two months. And then he’ll shrug in that annoying way of his, as if to say ‘not my problem, why do I care?’.

So it is highly amusing to hear him complaining about the injustice of the Euro 2008 seeding system, which sees France amongst the bottom group. The system is based on qualifying for the last two tournaments, and not the finals themselves, so France’s run to the World Cup final does not count. Instead, their two unimpressive qualifying campaigns form the seedings.

And with Austria and Switzerland, as hosts, and Greece, as holders, claiming three of the top four spots, some of the bigger nations find themselves right down the list, with France facing the potential of a group containing Germany, Italy and Holland.

It seems so unfair, so I genuinely do feel sorry for Domenech.

Oh no, hang on, I don’t. My mistake.

One thing that infuriates me when watching a match is when the commentator or analyst starts to spout complete garbage that it so blatantly wrong that you wonder how no-one is shutting them up.

Repeating these idiocies over and over often makes me reach for the mute button.

Take Tuesday night’s game. Throughout the second half, we heard repeatedly, ‘If Sevilla win this game, Arsenal can only win the group if Sevilla lose their final match’.

No.

If Sevilla draw, and Arsenal win, Arsenal win the group. It’s not that hard to work out, given that in that circumstance, both teams would’ve achieved exactly the same results in their games, Arsenal winning the head to head battle on goal difference. But over and over again they insisted that a draw would be good enough for Sevilla, which it quite blatantly wouldn’t.

It got even worse elsewhere. Rangers began the night one point ahead of Lyon, but having won 3-0 in France the Scots held the head to head advantage.

Throughout the night, Lyon kept falling behind and equalising. Rangers also kept falling behind and equalising. The upshot of this was that Rangers were sometimes level with Lyon, sometimes still one point ahead, and sometimes two points ahead.

The commentators went on and on about how each goal was either fantastic news or a complete disaster. In truth, they mattered not one jot.

Lyon and Rangers square off in the final match. If Rangers win or draw, they go through. If Lyon win, they go through. The scorelines on Tuesday never changed that. I couldn’t care less whether Rangers were one or two points ahead by the end of the night, and frankly, neither could they - they lose, and they’re still out.

This inability to see the bigger picture is not an affliction that only affects ITV. In last night’s Liverpool game, they kept on insisting, after the match, that Liverpool’s win gives them a much better chance of qualifying than if they’d drawn.

Really?

When both Liverpool and Marseille were level, Marseille were holding a three point lead, meaning Liverpool had to win the final game against them to go through.

Liverpool then took the lead, cutting the gap to one point, leaving them…..still needing to beat Marseille. A ‘crucial goal’, the commentators claimed.

And then the final bit of ‘good news’ - Marseille conceded a late goal, so both sides ended the night level of points. With Marseille leading the head to head battle, this series of events left Liverpool, erm, still needing a win.

So none of those ‘wonderful news’ goals made the slightest difference.

Sometimes I wonder what these clowns are paid for.

Arsenal 2 (Gallas 83, Rosicky 86) Wigan 0

It was a long time in coming, but the three points were eventually gained on Saturday, against a resilient Wigan who looked a lot more solid than in recent weeks.

Once again, it was captain William Gallas who made the decisive breakthrough, heading in Sagna’s excellent cross after good work from Bendtner. Rosicky’s second was inevitable once Wigan were forced to respond.

For a long time, it looked like last season again, plenty of possession but no cutting edge. But with the midfield makeshift but talented, and Adebayor losing a little form in front of goal, that isn’t a great surprise. The most important thing was that three points were taken on a day when they could so easily have been lost.

Elsewhere, Bolton forgot to roll over when United came to town, Anelka scoring the only goal of a game in which Ferguson was sent to the stands - he has since been charged. His post match comments were laced with hypocrisy:

“You expect a team near the bottom to battle, scrap and fight. But the key thing is how the referee controls it. He is the arbiter in terms of the application of the rules of football. That is where we feel a bit aggrieved.”

We’ve been saying the same about Bolton for years, but funnily enough Ferguson has always dismissed our complaints.

There was also good news from Chelsea, who, despite beating Derby, had Essien sent off for violent conduct. Essien only scored twice last season, but given that both were against us, it is superb news that he will be suspended for the trip to the Emirates.

John Terry had his customary strop, and I still have no idea how he gets away with it, while Avram Grant had this to say:

“I don’t want to say something against him [the referee] but I have a feeling - and I was warned about this before I came to Chelsea and I fear it’s true - that we are an easy target for getting red cards.”

Essien unnecessarily and aggressively whacked Kenny Miller round the head. And Grant wants to appeal the red card. Crazy.

Looking forward, and tonight sees the return Champions League fixture in Sevilla. With qualification already assured, Gallas, Clichy, Adebayor, Van Persie and the injured midfielders are left at home, so it should be an excellent opportunity for the likes of Bendtner, Traore, Gilberto, Senderos and maybe Eduardo to get some first team action.

It is in no way a meaningless match, as Sevilla would go top with a win, so Arsene is putting his full faith in the squad, and I for one am looking forward to it.

On a sour note, Michel Platini has once again decided to renew his attack on English football, and yet again, it is his considered opinion that it is all the fault of Arsenal:

“In Arsenal now you don’t have an English coach, English players, maybe not an English president soon. So why are they playing in England?”

Let’s break this down. Arsenal have one of the best coaches in the world at a time when it is widely accepted that there is a lack of decent Englishmen. Wenger is backed by a largely English team.

As for the players, if Platini examined the situation a little more carefully he’d realise than soon after Wenger arrived, he plowed resources into the youth setup, which is now bearing fruit as Arsenal have some excellent English talent aged between 15 and 18. As for the current England lot, they wouldn’t get in the Arsenal side.

But it is the last point which is most ridiculous - ‘maybe not an English president soon’. Putting aside the fact that English clubs don’t have presidents, he is criticising the club for something that has not yet happened, and that everyone connected with the club is doing everything they can to prevent.

Why, when the rest of the top six in the Premiership are all foreign owned, does that particular attack fall on us? It is simply a case of Platini following the badly researched, popular voice. The day he was elected UEFA president was a bad day for football. The man is a complete idiot.

Sometimes you read an article or a newspaper column and nod along, agreeing with the good points being made. Sometimes you don’t agree with the arguments, but understand the point of view.

And sometimes you read a column and wonder how on earth such moronic opinions could ever earn someone a pay packet for writing them. Come on down, Paul Parker.

I’ve long since disagreed with most of his columns, which are generally written to provoke, in the same way that so much of NewsNow is taken up with dramatic and misleading headlines. But this article takes the proverbial biscuit, coming up with ’solutions’ to the England debacle.

Here are his genius ideas:

1. Pick the right man for the job

Couldn’t agree more. We all know McLaren wasn’t the right man, the next choice must be a wise one. So Parker, in his infinite knowledge, makes his choice:

“Alan Shearer may be a 16-1 outsider, but he certainly gets my vote. I appreciate that he is inexperienced in terms of managing a team, but the players he will be working with do not need any more coaching - they are already good enough.”

England need a strong manager, someone who makes tough decisions and says things as he sees them. Shearer, judging from his punditry, has a backside full of splinters from all the fences he sits on. He is dull, uninspiring, and would pander to the media.

As for the notion that the players are ‘already good enough’, Parker must be living in the same deluded world as some of these so-called ’superstars’. Was he not watching on Wednesday night?

2. Limit the number of foreigners in the game

Ah, here we go again. Never mind the fact that these foreigners have added so much to the English game, taught the homegrown players skill and craft, and changed the style with which football in this country is played, Parker and his band of Little Englanders insist on blaming them for the shortcomings of the national team.

This argument is so transparent that it is incredible it is given any credence, yet it is repeated ad nauseatum as if nothing could be more obvious.

There are 355 English players registered with the twenty Premiership clubs. Granted, most of these are reserves, but there are still plenty in and around the respective first teams. It is a much misrepresented fact that foreigners have pushed Englishmen out of our top teams, when in reality, they have mostly replaced the Welsh, Scottish and Irish. When you begin to examine the figures, they show quite clearly that there are still plenty of homegrown players available at the top, not the sharp decline the press would have you believe.

And so what if it is more difficult for a journeyman player to make it in the Premiership? They are not the sort of player England looks to. If the number of English regulars reduces from 100 to 50, how does that matter? Those that miss out are those not good enough, and the top talents still make it, benefiting from playing with the best players from overseas, rather than the inadequate also-rans.

The only way a top club can harm the English national team is by buying the top talent and not playing them. Yet Chelsea, for their treatment of Shaun Wright-Phillips, are vilified far less than Arsenal, whose lack of English players therefore does not affect the national side one iota.

Steven Gerrard’s comments about reducing the number of foreign players in the league are ludicrous when you look at the Liverpool squad, complete with average players from overseas, while xenophobic and lazy opinions such as Parker’s are borne simply of a desperation to blame anyone but our own.

I thought Britain was proud of being multicultural and open?

3. Address the silly money in today’s game

Good luck with that one - football is a massive business. Television companies make extraordinary sums from their coverage, and thus pay top dollar for the privilege. With that money flowing through the game, the players are right to feel, as the product, that they deserve a large cut of it. It is the simple law of supply and demand.

Besides, there is a myth in the country that footballers are the richest sportsmen on the planet. Have you seen the salaries of top baseball and American football players recently?

“Money changes everything and when huge rewards are laid on a plate for players, it is all too easy to become idle”

The gap between the salaries of the top players, and those behind them, is astronomical. So conversely, the financial reward of being at the top is surely a great motivation for getting there?

4. Scrap academies

For his final point, Paul Parker finally and completely loses the plot.

“Scrapping academies can only have a beneficial effect in the future. Kids of 10 or 11 do not want to be forced into playing or training three times a week; they love the game because they love winning and playing with their mates”

Does this not say everything about the character of footballers in this country? His argument that players should not actually be trained to play football, but should lark about with friends and learn next to nothing, is ludicrous. Players from abroad are honing their skills at this crucial early age, learning technique and precision. Ours are running around like headless chickens, being taught to ‘give it 110%’.

If ‘kids of 10 or 11′ want to make it as top class footballers, they have to be willing to train or play three times a week. And if they truly love the game, surely they’ll love getting better at it?

“By forcing them to train at academies in a regimented atmosphere, all the fun is taken out of the game; how then are they supposed to develop into top players?”

How exactly will they turn into top players if the don’t train? And surely a down to earth young footballer wouldn’t lose interest in the game simply because someone was teaching them how to pass the ball along the ground instead of hoofing it up to their tallest friend?

And then, as a coup de grace, Parker concluded as follows:

“I used to train once a week when I was a kid - the likes of Matt Le Tissier did the same, and he turned out alright”

Holding Matt Le Tissier up as an example of a footballer with the right attitude, who reached the peak of his abilities because he never lost enthusiasm for the game?

As I remember it, Le Tissier was one of the most naturally gifted footballers to grace these shores in decades, but never fulfilled his massive potential because, quite honestly, he couldn’t be bothered.

If his is the attitude we want to instill in our young players, we’d better get used to the mediocrity we saw this week.

Arsenal and Man Utd. Two teams that haven’t got on since the dawn of time. We had the brawls in 1990, which ended with both teams being deducted points, we had the Van Nistelrooy incident, which saw a cumulative ten match ban for Arsenal players alone, Pizzagate, red cards, fights in the tunnel, the list goes on.

Keane, Vieira, Van Nistelrooy, Keown, Neville, Reyes - all of these had spats with each other. And it does not stop with the players - Wenger and Ferguson have been taking pot shots at each other for years.

But the build up to this match was different. There were compliments, there was respect, in fact there was barely a hint of animosity. Could it last?

The answer was yes, mostly. The game was fiery and competitive, but played in an excellent spirit. Players would commit fully to tackles then help their opponent up, there were pats on the back, nods of appreciation and, at the final whistle, mutual respect shown in the congratulations for both sides. Even Eboue and Ronaldo, well known for their histrionics, behaved impeccably. It was a truly honourable occasion.

Except for two people. Alex Ferguson, and Anderson.

The former started early. After Evra had picked up an early yellow card for a wild challenge, he clearly tripped Eboue right in front of the dugout. For once, the Ivorian made no fuss of the challenge, getting up without complaining, and everyone prepared to carry on. There was no question of a second yellow for Evra, as the foul was entirely innocuous.

But Ferguson went absolutely ballistic on the touchline, as if Eboue had punched Evra, or stamped on him. And it was over absolutely nothing. Experienced observers knew exactly what was going on, however. Ferguson was playing off Eboue’s (deserved) reputation, trying to influence the referee by suggesting that he was making the most of fouls. He wasn’t, but that isn’t the point.

I can’t remember which former player it was that said Ferguson taught them to appeal for every throw in, as if utterly convinced it was yours, even if you knew it wasn’t. He was using the same tactic. He knew he wouldn’t change the referee’s mind - what he was trying to do was allow Evra to get away with a later foul on Eboue by putting doubt in his mind. It is a tried a tested tactic that he uses. And it is utterly infuriating.

But what followed was far worse. Ten of the United players were playing with dignity, but they had an exception in their ranks, Anderson, who on his first Arsenal-United outing, was becoming roughly as popular as Teddy Sheringham.

After debating numerous decisions by the officials, Adebayor committed a foul, and Anderson barged to within an inch of the referee, sending him backwards a few steps (and there was me thinking you couldn’t touch the ref). Worse still, he frantically brandished an imaginary yellow card, pleading for Adebayor to get booked. Which, as you know, is a mandatory yellow card offence. But Howard Webb did nothing.

Then Cesc fouled him. It wasn’t a good challenge, and may have even picked up a yellow anyway, but Anderson took it upon himself to stop, then start on a manic rolling spree, flipping himself over and over again on to his ‘injured’ ankle until the card came out. He then stood up and casually walked away. Cesc’s mocking of him in the aftermath was highly amusing, and I hope this sort of pathetic play acting gets his the reputation he deserves. Simulation is, of course, another yellow card offence.

On the stroke of half time, United took the lead, and Anderson made a point of breaking the huddle, turning to the Arsenal fans, and putting his fingers to his lips. Players have rightly been punished for this before - incitement coming under the hood of ungentlemanly conduct. Which, in case you haven’t got the theme by now, is another yellow card offence.

But back to Ferguson. After the match, he came out with an extraordinary rant, which although it initially deflected attention from the match on to his comments (as was his plan), has since been ridiculed in more than one newspaper, and in fact on MOTD2.

“They got their second goal from pumping the ball into the box. It got a bit of a deflection when they pumped the ball into the box in injury-time and ended up at the back post”

What match was he watching? Clichy made a fantastic run down the left, and whipped in the perfect cross. If Giggs made that cross he’d be purring. Instead, it was ‘pumped in’. Comments like that make you look like a fool, Alex. But it got worse:

“Their second goal came from him not giving a free-kick for a foul on Louis Saha on the far side. It should have been a foul for us.”

After the ‘foul’, Arsenal played the ball into touch, United threw back in, Arsenal won the ball back, attacked, and lost possession, giving United a goal kick. Then Arsenal won it back, before losing it once more, until Clichy won it back and embarked on that run.

Following the same logic, any manager can watch his team concede a goal, and then complain about a foul twenty minutes earlier that led up to it. Talk about clutching at straws.

Up to that point, these were just the rants of a frustrated manager, annoyed that his side had lost a three point swing in injury time. But then he took a turn for the sinister.

“I think Howard Webb has a great chance to be the top referee but today was a big game for him and, at times, he favoured Arsenal”

I have no qualms with managers being annoyed with referees after they’ve had a poor game. What infuriates me is hearing a manager question their impartiality, especially after a match in which they have largely performed well. The patronising tone with which he makes this accusation is even worse - the clear message is that Webb did not do enough for United.

Well, here’s the news Alex. Referees are not there to give you everything. They are supposed to call each decision as they see them, and on the most part, he was good on Saturday. All he did wrong was be over officious at times, which affected both sides, and not give Arsenal a penalty for a clear shirt tug on Hleb in the first half. Quite rightly, the FA have asked Ferguson to explain his comments. I imagine he’ll struggle.

And as if that wasn’t enough, his final rant was hypocritical in the extreme.

“On our bench, we were getting terrible abuse from people two or three feet away from us. “

“There is a lack of security here. It is absolutely disgraceful the abuse you and your staff take. All sorts of things are been shouted and screamed at you and there is an absolute danger here.”

A few things. Firstly, I do not condone abusing players or managers to the extent that goes on in most Premiership grounds - some of the chants are shocking. Neither do the stewards, who ejected one such fan during the game on Saturday.

But the most shocking chant I have heard can be heard most prominently at Old Trafford and White Hart Lane, and it is aimed at Arsene Wenger. For Ferguson to complain that he takes abuse at the Emirates, yet sit there smiling at Old Trafford as tens of thousands of ‘fans’ sing about Wenger bring a paedophile, is utterly ridiculous. Pot, meet kettle.

Whether Ferguson was rattled into making stupid comments, I cannot say. But he must take abuse at every ground, not least for angering people with the sly digs and comments he makes in the media leading up to a game. What does he expect when he specialises in winding people up?

If he goes to Old Trafford, and condemns his own fans for the song they sing about Wenger, then he can criticise Arsenal fans who hurl abuse at him. Otherwise, he is a hypocrite of the highest order.

But in an attempt to end on a positive, 21 players and one manager acted impeccably on Saturday, to the surprise of many. Wenger, Eboue, Ronaldo, Rooney - all had the potential to come out of the game somewhat negatively. All behaved with honour.

Such a shame that two had to spoil it.

What more can you say about this man?

First came this incredible naivety:

“The European clubs who open training centres in Africa do it to further their own interests, not to help with the development of African football.”

How dare a business look after its own interests by scouring the continent for talent? They should open training centres and fund them with no interest in reaping the rewards. Of course.

Never mind the fact that no one can deny that the African game has improved and thrived since the opening up of the European leagues to their players. I thought that was a good thing?

Now, Platini takes issuewith Arsene Wenger:

“I do not like the system of Arsene Wenger.

“In France, Italy and Spain it is easy to buy with money the best players at 14, 15 or 16. I don’t like that.”

So, attracting some of the best young players in the world to an environment in which they can thrive, using the best available training facilities and greatest chance of playing top level football, is bad, is it, Michel?

This strikes me as an utterly ludicrous argument. If the scouting network is good enough to find these players, why shouldn’t they move? They will only move if they want to, and who is Platini to insist that they don’t follow their dreams? He goes on:

“If the best clubs buy the best 15 or 16 players that is finished for all the clubs in Europe.”

“If my son is playing at Millwall and at 16 Manchester come in for this player then when will Millwall have a good team?”

When they achieve the rise like everyone else, not by holding back the development of a player who just happens to have been born in the area.

Should you force a player to stay at Millwall when he wants to move to a top club? No. If the player is good enough to make it at the top, he should have the chance. If he isn’t, he’ll find his level before too long.

All players dream of playing at the top. If Platini insists of restricting their possibilities then the game will take a massive backward step.

Think about it this way - a team like Arsenal have an incredible training setup, coaching personnel, and so on. And the biggest stage of a player’s professional development occurs in their teens. Preventing the best players from having the best facilities available to them is ludicrous.

Say Cesc started at a third division Spanish club instead of Barcelona? How late in his development would Platini deem acceptable for him to leave? And how much further back would his career be now?

Blithering idiot.

It takes a wise man to be talented at the art of the mind game. Each of the top four managers use mind games in their own way, but there must be an element of humour and subtlety if they are to work as desired.

In other words, a clever man who picks his words with care, understanding psychology and just how to get at people, will succeed. If you have a ability to stoke up an argument with a few words and then back away again, you’ll find yourself a talent for mind games.

Darren Bent is not such a man. In an effort to poke his nose in where it doesn’t belong, he’s been chatting away about Thierry Henry, in the build up to Saturday’s derby:

“If it was me selling him, Thierry would be going for a lot more than that. Barca did well to get him for that price. “

“I went to Spurs a couple of days after he went so comparisons between the two transfers were bound to happen.”

For some reason I find myself doubting Bent’s abilities as a smooth talking negotiator, but even putting that aside, he is right that comparisons were made between the two. Of course, what he completely fails to realise is that the similarity isn’t because Arsenal got ripped off, it’s because Spurs did.

He goes on:

“It’s what Tottenham were willing to pay and what Barca were willing to pay.”

I’d be willing to bet that he was trying to say that Barcelona did particularly well. What he’s actually saying is that Spurs were willing to fork out a fortune for a player who doesn’t really add much to what they already have.

Nice one Darren.

In other news, the international fortnight seems to have gone very well from an Arsenal perspective - given that we usually return to a crocked team, the injury news is surprisingly quiet, while the reports on the players’ performances are encouraging - Eduardo in particular, who scored three times in Croatia’s two matches.

Stuart Pearce wants to see Theo Walcott get more of a run in the side this season, after he failed to impress for him, but I don’t see that happening for a while given the Croatian’s form - it means we will almost always be playing two strikers, which in turn pushes Hleb out wide. Injuries alone will bring the youngster in, but at his age that’s fine.

Two days to go until the real football restarts.

For anyone wondering if players are driven purely by money, the answer is yes. Witness one Daniel Alves, furious at his president at Seville for rejecting an offer from Chelsea for his services:

“I am disappointed by the way I have been treated. In the four-and-a-half years that I have been here I have given everything and I want more respect.”

“The fans understand what is going on because nobody in their right mind would not accept an offer that would see their salary doubled.”

And that says everything. He mentions no reason for wanting to join Chelsea other than the money. No mention of pedigree, medals, regular Champions League football, pushing himself further…

No. Just the salary. He wants more money, so he wants to join Chelsea. And he thinks its disrespectful of Seville to reject an offer for him even though it is not up to him how much he is worth to a club.

He should join the Blues. He’d fit right in.

That, in case you hadn’t guessed, was sarcasm.

Michel Platini, our erstwhile UEFA president, elected by gaining votes from smaller nations thanks to his intention of stripping the top leagues of so many European spots, is, as predicted, having to change his plans.

Having had his proposal rejcted to cut the number of teams England, Spain and Italy have in the Champions League to three, he has a genius new plan. Allow the FA Cup winners the fourth spot, not the fourth place team in the league.

Fabulous. So now there’s a new way into the top club competition, should freshen things up, right? Wrong.

Predictably, if the FA Cup winners come in the top three, and have therefore qualified anyway, their place is taken by the fourth team in the league. And if the fourth team win the cup, they obviously qualify.

So, it only makes a difference if the FA Cup winners come from outside the top four, i.e. there aren’t called Chelsea, United, Arsenal or Liverpool.

So, let’s have a look at those winners, starting at last season and moving backwards through time.

2007. Chelsea. Big whoop.

2006. Liverpool. Still top 4.

2005. Arsenal. Yep.

2004. Man Utd. Yawn.

2003. Arsenal. Yes, us again.

2002. Arsenal. And again.

2001. Liverpool. Oh, the novelty.

2000. Chelsea. Getting the point yet?

1999. Man Utd. Those pesky top four teams are good, no?

1998. Arsenal. Just for a change.

1997. Chelsea. Would this really help, Michel?

1996. Man Utd. I didn’t think so, either.

1995. Everton! Hurrah! Finally a team from outside the top four break the monopoly. But of course, they did this two years ago by finishing fourth in the league, too, a whole ten years after the cup win, so that’s not really such a massive issue. Platini wants a shock team in there. Everton aren’t that team.

1994. Man Utd, Here we go again.

1993. Arsenal. Lovely.

1992. Liverpool. Wake me up when this is over.

1991. Spurs! Ooo, another non-top four team (whatever they’ll have you believe).

1990. Man Utd. What a shocker.

1989. Liverpool.

So, none of the last twelve FA Cups have been won by a team outside the current top four, and only two of the last nineteen. This genius new plan would have about as much effect as firing a water pistol at a burning down house.

So, tell me, just how is Platini justifying his salary?