1. Elitist fans.

One thing I’m seeing more and more, perhaps since the dawn of Twitter and the instant, ill thought out response, is the dismissive way some fans treat other fans, as if their opinion doesn’t count because of some arbitrary matter like where they reside, or whether they are a season ticket holder or not. Some of the most interesting and insightful bloggers and commenters live out in the States, and to see their opinions swept aside because ‘Yanks don’t understand soccer‘ is patronising in the extreme, and downright rude to boot. I frankly couldn’t give a monkey’s whether you live in London, USA, Venezuela or squat on the steps of the Emirates – as long as you’re not a dick about it, your Arsenal opinion is as valid as anyone else’s.

A similar fate befalls those who do not possess season tickets, or even more ridiculously, haven’t held one for long enough. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen ‘I’ve been a season ticket holder for fifteen years‘ as a statement intended to win an argument, which is once again ludicrous. For the record, I am not a season ticket holder. I haven’t progressed far enough up to the list to be offered one, but even if I had, I wouldn’t be able to take it – a young family makes that financially impossible. Does that make my opinion irrelevant?

2. Divisive fan labels

It seems we live in a black and white world. You cannot praise the work of Arsene Wenger (even with caveats) or defend him against what you believe to be unfair criticism without someone shouting ‘AKB‘ at you (‘Arsene Knows Best‘, for those who don’t know the lingo of the keyboard warriors). Similarly, you cannot critique any of his decisions without being labelled a ‘doomer‘, or worse, a Spurs fan. Both sides are so protective of their side of the coin that any statement not fitting their notion is slammed, dismissed, and sees you wrapped up in their label of choice, before being unceremoniously pigeonholed and ridiculed.

What I find equally annoying is that once people pick a side, they interpret every news item in such a way as to back up their own preconceived perception. And let’s face it – it is possible to spin pretty much any story in either a positive or negative light, as we’ve seen countless times in the written press.

But what happened to the good old fashioned notion of reading a quote from a manager or player, and deciding rationally what you think of it before coming down on one side of the fence?

3. Sky Sports News

I haven’t subjected myself to much of SSN’s tripe this summer, because their endless headlines of ‘X not about to join Y‘ get pretty tiresome after a while. Not only that, but every time I flick over to it, Harry bloody Redknapp is talking about how his players aren’t for sale, how he needs to sign a few more players to progress and top players cost money, so would Levy please put his hand in his pocket for the millionth time so he can spunk another £18m on the likes of David Bentley.

Today, however, I watched a full hour. I’m not sure what was the reason for this self-imposed penance, but when the hour was up I knew precisely why I’d avoided it so long. They seem to have hired a new male presenter (I don’t know his name, I was too busy growling at his inaneness), who specialises in reporting on the dullest, most tenuous stories imaginable, and pumping them up to the extreme. Honestly, the guy is a complete self-parody.

It seems to get on Sky Sports News, or indeed any of their channels, you have to have an extreme opinion which stops being funny after about thirty seconds when the viewer realises that you aren’t taking the piss. That, or you have to be Harry bloody Redknapp.

4. People turning on Cesc Fabregas

This one really gets my goat. Despite my article semi-defending Samir Nasri, I know that his behaviour doesn’t sit well with many, and can completely understand that (and to an extent, I agree). However, the vitriol directed at Cesc is baffling.

Here is the situation as I see it: Cesc would like to move to Barcelona. He grew up there, his family live there and it is his boyhood club. So far, so logical. However, despite immense pressure from the club he idolises, he flatly refuses to antagonise for a move, because he loves and respects Arsenal too much. He also accepts (as he did last summer), that the end result will be dictated by the clubs, not by him, and is staying out of negotiations precisely because anything he says will weaken Arsenal’s hand. Ultimately, if Barcelona refuse to stump up the cash, he will give his all to Arsenal, as he always has done, for another year.

Now, I can’t see anything wrong in that, I really can’t. I sometimes think we get blinded by the fact that we love and support one club, and one club only. Cesc has two in his heart, a natural situation for a travelling footballer, but an alien one to fans across the world. So Cesc’s priorities are:

a) Do not do anything that destroys his relationship with Arsenal fans, which has been built up over seven years.
b) Do not do anything that destroys his relationship with Barcelona, a club he grew up in and will eventually return to.

So, given that, and given the media propensity for twisting anything he says, what exactly could he do that would make the current situation any better? If he says he wants to leave, he massively weakens our hand – this is precisely the action Barcelona are hoping for. If he says he categorically wants to stay, he is lying, and we will all see through it, and if he tries to explain the above situation as ‘I would love to go to Barcelona, but if they do not meet Arsenal’s valuation I will happily stay and proudly continue as captain’, this will be reported purely as ‘Cesc wants to go to Barcelona‘. We all know it.

So for me, silence is the best policy. He has refused to bow to pressure from Spain, and has left the situation in the hands of his manager. And for this, he gets abuse. Explain that one to me. No seriously, explain it.

5. FC Barcelona

More than a club, my arse. If they didn’t play beautiful football, they would perhaps be the most reviled club on the planet. On the field, their stunning football outweighs the shameless play-acting in the eyes of many, but off it, their mockery of the simple laws of the game shows arrogance to the extreme. Relentless tapping up is just the tip of the iceberg, although in fairness, it could hardly be said to be working – if Xavi thinks his latest comments making the Cesc transfer more likely, then he needs a psychology lesson, specifically around the term ‘strengthening resolve‘.

6. Ligament tears

Whenever I hear of one of our players tearing a ligament, my first reaction is ‘you idiot, how long are we going to be without you?’. No more. Well, I’ll still have that reaction, but it will be preceded by a modicum of sympathy, because, as it turns out, ligament tears are painful.

I know this because I am recovering from one – I had knee surgery a little over a month ago and walking is still nigh on impossible. Which means I am sitting down a lot, which in turn means I’m forced to flick on to Sky Sports News after a while, and catch sight of Harry bloody Redknapp.

So the next time RVP knackers his leg, I’ll imagine him in pain, throwing the remote at the television, and I’ll feel a twinge of sympathy. Only then will I curse him for being absent.

7. Transfer window lingo

Rules of the transfer window:

• All young players are starlets or wonderkids, and all must be labelled ‘the new X‘, where X is a fading star. The players need not have anything in common.
• All transfer bids are ‘swoops’.
• All transfer requests are ‘shocks’ that ‘stun’ clubs.
• All players subject to bids are ‘wantaway’.
• An ‘understanding’ allows a story to be categorically true, despite the lack of quotes, or indeed sensibility in the subject matter.
• Players can have daily medicals from the moment you first ‘break the story’ until they day they officially sign. There is no need to backtrack, ever.

8. Overt cynicism

I can understand a bit of skepticism from time to time. When Wenger says that Almunia has an elbow injury that last three months, smirking as he says so, a certain level of doubt is to be expected. When Samir Nasri says it is all about club ambition, we can frown and respectfully disagree. But the dearth of summer stories means that too often the tidbits are analysed to a ridiculous degree. Take the photos published of the players’ first day back at training. You had people claiming Nasri was staying because he was smiling in a photo, but in another shot he looked more serious, which obviously meant that contract negotiations had stalled. Now, I don’t know about you, but my expressions have a habit of changing based on slightly less career-changing facts than those, but perhaps footballers are different, eh?

And then, people start doubting every news story. Arsenal’s official line is that Cesc picked up a muscular injury in his thigh on his first day back, hence him missing the current tour. Immediately, this was dismissed, not by a vocal minority, but by a substantial chunk of the fanbase. Obviously we are selling him and this is a cover story.

Er, hang on a moment. First day back after holiday, and a return to physical training. Yep, sounds to me like one of the likeliest days to pick up a muscular injury.

9. People purporting to speak for others

Let’s get this straight. This blog is my opinion only. I do not profess to speak for anyone else. It really irritates me when I read people saying that ‘all real fans think so-and-so‘, or ‘we all want X‘, an increasingly prevalent practice used by those who wish to artificially enhance the gravitas of what they are saying.

I speak for me, you speak for you, and never should anything else be true.

10. Online player abuse

When did we, as a race, drop all sense of decorum and start flinging the most personal of abuse at people who do not come close to deserving it? How exactly does the salary of a Premiership footballer mean that the masses feel entitled to act like complete morons to the players within the club they claim to support?

I am well aware than footballers have to put up with a certain level of ‘banter’ on the terraces, but that is different because there is a purpose behind it – it is designed to put them off their game. Most of the chants have a great deal of humour in them, which cannot be said when you switch to the online world. But pick any footballer on Twitter, and have a look at their ‘mentions’ section. It is truly a portal to hell, and frankly I’m amazed they last long at all. Not only is the abuse ridiculously harsh and personal, it usually comes from the club’s own fans.

Footballers have to be thick skinned. But they are also human, and deserve better. I’m not sure I’d want to stay at a club at which I was routinely lambasted by my own fans. And yet we wonder why they sometimes seem cagey when playing in front of a home crowd. Food for thought, hmm?

———-

As ever, feel free to comment below. I know I’ve touched on some fairly inflammatory subjects tonight and you may well disagree with some of my views, and that’s absolutely fine. As I said, I speak only for me. Now it’s your turn.

The muppets have been out in force this week. But before we start, let’s have a look at Wenger’s views on tackling, just so we know the basis for the cluelessness that follows:

“I must say I love the way the game is played in England. The one restriction has to be full commitment with the intention of going for the ball and only for the ball.  The English game becomes dangerous when the players go to hurt each other. You need intention aligned with the type of game you play in England.”

“More protection can become boring as well. I’ve seen some countries when every little push or shoulder-to-shoulder is a foul and then it becomes boring because they interrupt the game too much. I prefer, by miles, the philosophy of the English game but you need to know everyone goes for the ball and only the ball.”

It is difficult to argue with any of that, and repeats a mantra so many of the country’s press like to omit from their stories – Wenger loves a good, hard, fair tackle. What he cannot abide are deliberate fouls, challenges designed specifically to go through the man. Not necessarily to seriously injure – no-one is suggesting players stoop that low (Roy Keane aside) - but to ‘let the player know you’re there’, or to ’get stuck into him’. That sort of justifying euphemism.

And he’s right. But every time a Taylor or a Shawcross shatters a player’s leg with their reckless challenges, there are those who mock him for his subsequent anger, pointing to the likes of Adams and Vieira and claiming their approach was the same. Yes, that pair relished a battle, but they loved the win the ball cleanly in a crunching challenge, not put in a cowardly studs-to-the-knee lunge that does nothing but put another professional at risk. We’re no angels – Diaby and Gallas have been guilty of poor challenges in recent years, and were rightly condemned. All that can be asked is that all such incidents are treated with equality.

Which brings me to Mark Lawrenson, who wrote in today’s Mirrorthat Wenger ‘complains that his team shouldn’t be tackled’. No Mark, he doesn’t. There is a huge difference between tackling, and recklessly lunging, and if you can’t tell the difference between the two, what the hell are you doing on the Match of the Day sofa? Oh yes, calling players ‘jessies’ and harking back to the ‘good old days’.

It is a popular myth that Wenger wants to eradicate tackling from football. And the worrying thing is that this myth is being quite deliberately portrayed by those with a agenda they refuse to change. Every time he says he loves a tackle, but just wants it to be fair, those lines are omitted from the newspapers, and when Paul Robinson put in his shocking tackle on Diaby last weekend, Match of the Day never showed it. The BBC report never mentioned it, but they did write about his anger afterwards. What would those who only watched the highlights be left to conclude? Exactly.

The Soccer Saturday team today were even worse - showing a sequence of decent Bolton challenges from the game before asking each other what the Wenger’s problem was. Listen, you cretins – the problem wasn’t those challenges, it was the ones you conveniently didn’t show. The whole segment was so obviously contrived to anyone who had watched the game that you are left with only one conclusion – it was a quite deliberately misleading piece. I long for the years when news channels just reported - now they invent stories and controversy by viciously slanting the truth. There is simply no way that the entire panel could have been so myopic as to think Wenger’s beef was with some of the fairer challenges of the day. Idiots.

Moving on, we come to Harry Redknapp, who plays the old ‘Arsenal used to be hard’ card:

“Arsenal, a few years ago: Tony Adams, Keown, Bould, Winterburn, Lee Dixon, Vieira, Petit. That was a very strong, aggressive team – a fantastic team. They were great competitors; they had their share of cards, the same as everybody.”

“What Arsene’s saying is they’ve had one or two injuries. But if people are going for the ball and it’s a fair tackle then there’s no problem if they’re aggressive.”

Where do you begin? Yes, that team was physical and competitive, and while they could overstep the mark they never committed the sort of reckless challenge that ends careers. There is nothing wrong with teams being physical, or going in hard for 50-50 tackles. Wenger isn’t saying there is, no-one is. What gets him angry, and rightly so, is these ‘one or two injuries’ were caused by shocking challenges in which the ball was a complete irrelevance to the tackler. How is that so hard to understand?

If that was a motley crew of idiots, the last two take the proverbial biscuit. First, we have the ever-delightful Sam Allardyce, who takes his customary swipe at Wenger, this time claiming he influences referees:

“Arsene has most of the media in his pocket now and is almost – almost – affecting the officials so that you can’t tackle an Arsenal player.”

If that were true, would we be suffering the sort of challenges that we’ve seen this season? I would dissect this further, but Allardyce follows it up with a gem of such delusion that pointing out how wrong he is becomes entirely superfluous:

“I’m not suited to Bolton or Blackburn, I would be more suited to Internazionale or Real Madrid. It wouldn’t be a problem to me to go and manage those clubs because I would win the Double or the league every time.”

“Give me Manchester United or Chelsea and I would do the same, it wouldn’t be a problem.”

Spectacular. Frankly, given how highly the Real faithful value their style of play (there are already mutterings concerning Mourinho’s approach), he wouldn’t last a month. Yes, his track record is pretty good at Bolton and Blackburn, but less impressive than, say, Roy Hodgson or David Moyes. He is a competent manager at his current level but to think he could breeze to titles if in charge of a big club is supremely arrogant and sadly misguided.

And how do you think Blackburn players and fans feel today, reading that he feels he ‘isn’t suited’ to their level. Patronised much?

Thanks Sam, for giving us reason never to take anything you say seriously, ever again.

One more to go, and it is a peach – Tony Scholes, the Stoke chief executive. You may recall that Wenger had a go at Stoke’s tactics in their game against Spurs, likening their approach at corners to a rugby match (Shawcross and Huth ignoring the ball and concentrating on impeding Gomes being the main point). Stoke responded with a complaint to the FA, which was rejected (I’m surprised they didn’t use the word ‘frivolous’ in their response), but they refuse to let it go. Over to you, Tony:

“We have written to him [Wenger] objecting to these comments and have asked for an apology. Much as we respect Arsene Wenger, we cannot allow him to continue criticising us in this way.”

“Therefore, in the absence of any apology, we will continue with our complaint, even though it has been reported that the FA will take no action.”

Stop sniggering in the back. Yes, you read that right – Stoke are demanding action, despite already getting informed that we live in a country of free speech. Wenger didn’t even say anything that inflammatory, and Stoke are unwilling to look at themselves in the mirror long enough to realise that he’s right.

As for an apology, where was yours when Shawcross put one of our most promising player’s career at risk earlier this year? Or is that somehow less important?

*sigh*

In other news, we’ve got a match in a little over an hour. I would preview it, but I feel this piece is already long enough – suffice to say it will be a test for our new defensive pairing. Could be lively – enjoy the game.

No more. Their quest to retain the Champions League was brutally exposed by Mourinho’s Inter, Busquets committed one of the worst acts of simulation in the same game to tarnish their puritan status, and even Messi’s stock fell after a disappointing World Cup. Then, of course, they fluttered their eyelashes in Cesc’s direction.

Fast forward to today, and most neutrals want Cesc to stay in England, if only to prove to Barcelona that their ugly and relentless tapping up can be resisted. The way they have systematically gone about destabilising him at Arsenal has been reckless to the point where even the previously admiring media have turned on them.

One thing is for certain – if our captain does return to Spain this summer there will be widespread calls for a tapping up investigation. In theory, it should be an open and shut case – Barcelona have shown zero regard for Arsenal, the player or his contract, and have conducted their business in public despite calls from Arsenal to cease.

Unfortunately, while their approach seems scattergun, it is actually more calculated, and as such a tapping up enquiry may not result in the punishment they clearly deserve. The footballing authorities have only acted in a few instances (notably, those given high coverage in the press), and then only when club officials have been the worst offenders.

While the saga is certainly getting enough media coverage to force a cursory look from the authorities, the issue becomes cloudier when you analyse who is saying what. There is no doubt that Joan Laporta was guilty in the extreme, but he is no longer tied to Barcelona and as such his words are likely to be ignored. Rosell, since being elected president, has been more circumspect – most of his comments have been along the lines of ‘we want him, but have to talk to Arsenal’, which is no different from the ‘I admire him, but he is unavailable’ angle you hear from all managers, week in week out.

Instead, the blatant disrespect has come from the Spanish media (or at least, those under Barca’s control) and particularly the players themselves. But here is the key point – the players are not club officials. Technically, they could be found guilty of tapping up on an individual basis, but Barcelona are not liable for their words. And individual charges are exceptionally unlikely.

All of this makes it very difficult for FIFA to justify charging Barcelona as a club. Of course, common sense should allow them to see the bigger picture, witness how the media and the players have become the club’s mouthpiece and bring them to rights. But common sense doesn’t sit well with FIFA - they removed every referee’s option of applying it long ago and the goal-line technology farce proved how little they have of their own.

The good news is that Barcelona are finally being exposed – after years of forcing the availability of targets and driving their price down with underhand tactics, the wider world has seen them for what they are – a disrespecting playground bully whose off-field antics are the antithesis of their on-field aesthetic.

But negative exposure will change nothing – their tactic works. If it fails this summer, it will be the exception made possible only by Cesc’s refusal to behave in the antagonistic way they desire. With punishment so unlikely to come their way, they have no reason to give in.

A clash between Spain and Holland was a mouth watering prospect – not only are they usually two of the most aesthetically pleasing teams (along with the current crop of Germans), but there was an added mystique lent by the extraordinary statistic that they had never met in the World Cup or European Championships before. But the Dutch decided to ruin the game by employing strongarm Stoke-esque tactics, and were lucky not to be men down much earlier than extra time – Van Bommel and de Jong getting away with two of the worst challenges of the tournament.

At half time, Alan Hansen laid into the Dutch tactics, calling them ‘a step too far’, eerily reminiscent of the same words used by both Cesc and Wenger after Ryan Shawcross had destroyed Aaron Ramsey’s leg. But on that day, Hansen lambasted Wenger, essentially telling Arsenal to grow up and legitimising the tactic due to it being the ‘only way to cope with Arsenal’s superior technique’.

Well, if that statement doesn’t sum up everything that is wrong the British attitude to football, I don’t know what does. Last night was no different to what we’ve seen for years – teams that know they cannot outpass their opposition so resort to thuggery. It is not a valid tactic in any way, it should not be praised and lauded as such, yet Hansen, Lawrenson and co do exactly that week in, week out. To then do a complete 180 and lay into the Dutch was hypocrisy at its rawest. Those following me on Twitter will have seen me spitting fire on the subject at the time.

Don’t get me wrong – the criticism Holland received was entirely justified. Sure, Spain were no angels, but they were the victims of some frankly shocking challenges, the type of which should grace no game. That Van Bommel was guilty of one came as a surprise to no-one.

But once the first day of the Premiership arrives, the viewpoint will revert. As soon as a Wigan, Stoke, Bolton or Blackburn player scythes into a technically superior opponent, he will be praised for ‘letting his opponent know he is there’ and ‘getting stuck in’. And if those are the traits we value above all, is it any surprise England crashed out so early, struggling even to control the football at times?

Imagine being Wenger today – he will be well aware of Hansen’s contrasting views of Holland and Stoke, and if I were in his shoes, I’d be raising that very point early in the season. But Wenger has more class than that, and understands that such a reaction will give the pundits the satisfaction of getting under his skin. He will instead listen patiently as they slate the lack of an end product to all the Arsenal passes, compare the number of goals Arsenal and Spain score, and shrug with an ironic smile.

Spain did not win the World Cup because of their stellar attacking, no matter what the press are telling you. They scored eight goals in seven games, looking toothless much of the time. No, they won it because they did not concede in the knockout rounds. The difference between Spain and Arsenal is not end product, it is that Spain do not give the opposition an idiotic headstart.

But don’t expect to hear those kind of sensibilities on the BBC anytime soon.

I had high hopes for the coverage of the final – having ditched some of the less useful pundits (as soon as African interest ended, so did Adebayor’s television time), the BBC could have given the tournament a great send off. But each of the panel quickly made their desire for Spain to win abundantly clear, which made for a painful listen, especially given their remit of neutrality.

By the end, I couldn’t stomach any more of Hansen celebrating the ‘victory for football’, or using Wenger’s own ‘anti-football’ phrase to describe the Dutch, so I switched off, although not before witnessing the farcical trophy presentation, where the entire Spanish squad was crammed into a tiny holding area. Ridiculous.

All in all, it has been a disappointing summer. I love the World Cup, I really do, but this one hasn’t sparked me in any way. There were few thrillers, no minnows going the distance, no stunning comebacks. Even the best goals were largely down to goalkeeping errors.

But on a positive note, the end of the tournament signals the beginning of the build up to another season. Due to players being away from their clubs, the transfer window has essentially been compressed, and the next few weeks should be very interesting. Hold on to your hats.

Cue painful commentary from Clive ‘Pointless reference to the past’ Tyldesley, analysis from Andy Townsend and Robbie Earle (at least, until he was sacked), and general annoyance from Craig Burley. Adverts that take up more of half time than the programme, endless slow motion replays, and a complete lack of intelligence all round. And this is coming from someone who doesn’t even mind Adrian Chiles.

But what really takes the biscuit is ITV Live, supposedly the way to track the games while at work. It seemed such a great idea – streaming the matches online, what could possibly go wrong?

Well, for starters, the ITV stream is usually around three minutes behind, although on one hand I don’t mind that so much – I can hear someone in the office exclaiming at the goal, and then flick up the images and watch it ‘live’. Or at least I would, if the online coverage hadn’t already dropped out.

You see, the stream cuts out approximately every two minutes. Sometimes it comes back thirty seconds later (and now thirty seconds further behind reality than before), and sometimes it just dies entirely. No matter, you might say, just refresh the page, and since the online coverage is a couple of minutes delayed, you’ll probably get the pictures back before the goal goes in.

Well, that’s true – you get pictures back. Unfortunately they aren’t pictures of the match – they are adverts. ITV have come up with the genius idea that instead of attaching you direct to their main coverage (and therefore getting adverts at half time with everyone else), they will force you to sit through three adverts every time you load the service. Even if a penalty shoot out is at a critical juncture. Or if you have the restart the ‘service’ every few minutes.

What this means is whenever you hear a yelp to indicate there’s been a goal, you flick to the stream, only to find it has inevitably fallen over. You desperately fumble around to kick it back into life, get the ‘loading’ screen, and sit back relieved. Three infuriating adverts follow, by which time the goal (and all the incessant replays) have been shown. Oh joy.

They have been shambolic from start to finish. Their presenting team is painful, I’ve watched more matches on mute than ever in my life, their online service is crap, and the debacle of missing England’s goal against USA would have sounded ludicrous had they not done the exact same thing in the FA Cup tie between Liverpool and Everton last season.

Not that the BBC get off scot free. While their coverage certainly seems more professional, they still have the infuriating contrast of the monotone Mick McCarthy and the squeaky over-excited Mark Bright. Both come out with complete nonsense – Bright is a master of idiocy, regularly watching a slow motion replay and describing the events wholly wrongly.

McCarthy, meanwhile, was asked why Argentina were so impressive against South Korea, and replied ‘It’s because they play 4-4-2‘. There was a pause, as clarification was awaited, but none came. That was the full analysis, as if the formation was the sole reason for success. Can’t argue with it, after all Messi has been spectacular for Barcelona this season in a 4-….oh.

But with the BBC, there seems to be higher level of professionalism. With Lineker, Hansen, Hodgson, Dixon and Seedorf providing the intelligent points, their analysis is far more insightful, especially for the bigger games, when the hysterical are ditched and the experienced brought in.

The BBC have their flaws. But ITV have an astonishing knack for removing my pre-match excitement just by knowing it is them covering the game. Some feat.

It was dramatic, it was exciting and frankly, it was deserved – Mexico were excellent, France poor. Given how much we love to see the big nations brought down a peg, it should have been highly enjoyable.

But it wasn’t, thanks to the commentators and the reactive media (particularly a few sanctimonious ones on Twitter) taking the opportunity to mention that handball in that playoff match every minute of the game, as if France’s loss was more of a victory for Ireland than it was for Mexico.

I don’t pretend to know the entire Irish population. But while those I do were pretty irritated by Henry’s handball at the time, they soon got over it. They certainly put it behind them quicker than the English media, led by a few individuals calling for Henry to be banned for the tournament, France to be thrown out, and other ludicrous and overblown suggestions.

Tonight was a huge win for Mexico. A draw would have left them needing to beat a flying Uruguay, but instead they proved the talent they have in the squad and are on the brink of qualification for the knockout stages. They should have been the stars, yet inexplicably, too many chose to focus on the ‘karma’ of the situation and how delighted Ireland would be, despite a) as far as I can see, the Irish don’t care anymore and b) Henry didn’t even feature in the game.

Don’t get me wrong, I felt for Ireland at the time, and if some still harbour ill feeling towards Henry, and France in general, then maybe they will have enjoyed tonight a little more than most. But the impression I get is that the majority hold no such grudge, so this continued campaign of vitriol is not representative of their feelings in any way.

The more the written press continue this faux holier than thou attitude on behalf of a nation that do not desire or require their ‘support’, the more they irritate me. And I’m sure I’m not alone.

For the record, I have a sneaky suspicion France will still go through. Mexico will fancy their chances of beating Uruguay to top the group, therefore avoiding Argentina in the second round, and that would open the door to France, provided they can hammer a demoralised South Africa. Don’t write them off just yet.

As for the Arsenal representatives, no-one covered themselves in glory. The entire French team was unimpressive, while at the other end Vela missed a great chance before going off with a hamstring injury. In earlier matches, Cesc inexplicably remained on the bench while his teammates lost to Switzerland, and Eboue was part of an Ivory Coast defence untroubled by Portugal.

On the plus side, the entertainment level of the tournament has picked up after a slow and cagey start – Argentina demolished South Korea today, and teams are certainly playing with a freedom missing in the early days.

Betting Update

After a bad day yesterday – three out of three bets failed to come in – Argentina’s big win over South Korea and Greece’s victory over Nigeria boosted the profits once more. Part of me wishes I was staking more than a pound on each bet…

I will continue to place a bet on each match in the tournament, adding some random ones here and there, so keep checking the tracker to the right to see how it is going.

Other Arsenal news

The fixture list is out for the 2010/11 season and we start with a belter – a trip to Anfield to face a Liverpool side hoping to feel the effect of a new manager. Our next crunch game is also away - Chelsea on October 2.

November, often a bad month, will again be tricky – Everton (away), Villa (away) and Spurs (home) provide plenty of challenges, especially surrounded by Champions League fixtures. We complete the trio of away games against the Big Four before Christmas.

If we are in contention at Christmas, having played Liverpool, United, Chelsea, Everton, City and Villa away, we are in with a real shout.

But that is for another time – I have to be honest and say that I struggle to get excited about the season when it is so far away. When the players start training again, and we play our first pre-season match, everything will change.

Before then, we have the rest of the World Cup. And I love it, at least when the TV is muted.

We always knew this would be the summer of Cesc, or more pertinently, the summer of incessant transfer rumours surrounding our captain, irrespective of whether any truth lay within the articles. Barcelona’s presidential campaign ensured that, and our end to the season allowed the assembled hacks to play their ‘Arsenal in crisis’ trump card.

Today’s rumours began from a fairly innocuous source. Spanish paper AS carried a story in which Joan Laporta (who, remember, will not be Barcelona president much longer) claimed both Cesc and David Villa had expressed a desire to move to Barcelona, with Villa’s negotiations progressing more smoothly of the pair. The Guardian followed up by reporting the story as fact.

Since then, it has been rumour and counter rumour. Various media folk are suggesting that the story is well-sourced, but there is little concrete evidence to suggest that this is anything other than the overblowing of another Spanish media attempt to unsettle a player.

In short, most of us do not know the facts.

What has been incredibly frustrating to watch is the hysteria that has surrounded the story. The day has essentially followed the following pattern:

• Stage 1 – denial. The story written off as garbage.
• Stage 2 – hype. More and more people jumped on the bandwagon, giving the story far more credibility than it had previously – whether or not the story turns out to be true, this is the surefire way of legitimising a rumour.
• Stage 3 – panic. A slew of articles about Arsenal in meltdown, calls for Wenger’s head and the complete removal of the board.
• Stage 4 – abuse. Suddenly Cesc is disloyal, contemptuous of the fans, and not even that great a player. Worse still, his sister gets a torrent of disgusting abuse on Twitter.
• Stage 5 – claims of knowledge. Certain members of the written press actually have some knowledge, as do perhaps 5% of bloggers, but most are simply inventing a unique angle on the outcome. Yaya Toure is a makeweight. No, hang on, Ibrahimovic is coming the other way. Or maybe they’ll give us a keeper. Or Xavi.

I have to be honest – it has been truly awful to watch. Fans turning on each other, the management, the players – anyone they can turn their anger on. Hype has turned into hysteria, worry into panic, disappointment into the worst kind of abuse. I have had absolutely no desire to even attempt to add reason to the debate – those who have tried have been comprehensively drowned out by the wailing of the masses.

In the absence of concrete quotes (from reliable sources, at least) or a desire to invent a brand new angle (we’ll have Iniesta, Bojan and £60m please), I thought it wise instead to return to the facts.

Cesc will return to Barcelona at some point. We all know that, and that knowledge ensures that we cannot simply write off these sorts of rumours as complete garbage. One summer, they will be true.

That said, Cesc’s most recent quotes indicated that he intends to stay at Arsenal for a while yet. Of course, his mind could have been swayed by a number of factors – the end to our season, Barcelona’s superiority in the Champions League, or even something as fundamental as missing home.

If any of those reasons have driven him to request a transfer, then I fail to see why we can possibly hold it against him. A return to your hometown would be appealing to any man or woman in any profession, especially if that homecoming included a hefty payrise and the joining of perhaps the biggest name in your field of work (the analogy’s getting weak here, I know).

However, Arsenal are in better financial shape than they have been in years, so Barcelona cannot drive a hard bargain. Cesc will understand the economics of the situation – if Arsenal do not receive an excellent valuation, he won’t leave - it really is as simple as that. He has four years to run on his contract, and seems level headed enough to realise that if Barcelona under-offer, the transfer will not occur.

The key difference between this potential transfer and so many others is that Cesc’s value is not going to drop – he is young and miles away from the end of his current deal. Under normal circumstances, clubs are forced to cash in to avoid losing their star men for free, but we have no such worries.

If Cesc leaves, it will be a bitter blow, but we will recover as we have in the past. If he stays, he will continue to lead in his inspirational fashion.

Either way, I’ll support him from the rafters. Unlike so many raising their voices today, the man has acted with class throughout.

If I were in Arsene Wenger’s shoes this morning, I’d have called the players in, sat them down in front of a big screen, and played them Sam Allardyce’s post-match interview. And once it was finished, I’d have played it again. And again. And again.

Looking at his smug face, gloating at the success of his predictable tactics, should drive the message home to those who failed to put in the required effort yesterday – if you play one of his sides, you have to be up for a battle. Cruise around the pitch, duck out of the physical contests, and you will be beaten. Stand up to the challenge, and your superior ability should shine through.

And for goodness sake, give your goalkeeper a little protection. If three opponents are crowding him, get in amongst them and disrupt them right back. It isn’t rocket science, people.

But apparently, to some of these players, it is. Traore, given an opportunity to prove his worth at left back, shirked every opportunity to drive forward. Vela missed a sitter early on then vanished. Diaby had another of his lazy days.

You can’t afford that against Blackburn. In fact, you can’t afford that against many teams – go away from home in the Premiership and you will face a challenge – it doesn’t matter who you’re playing, they won’t make it easy. If they work harder than we do, any technical advantage is cancelled out.

Of course there are extenuating circumstances – we lost Song, Rosicky, Clichy, Bendtner and Denilson on top of our existing absentees. But while a drop in quality is understandable, a decline in effort is baffling – the thing with injuries is it gives the squad a chance to shine. They not only failed to take it, they didn’t seem that bothered.

We have one game left this season, and third place is still not secure. A draw against Fulham is all we need, and while that might seem a foregone conclusion, so would some of the other games we’ve chucked away in recent times. We fought so hard to be in the title race this season, and the stark contrast in fortunes as soon as that drive slipped away shows just how little we can afford to let up. A small drop in work rate and the points dry up.

Fabianski has taken the flak this morning, and he was indeed at fault for the second goal – he was bustled but he and the rest of the defence need to be stronger than that. But I’m more annoyed with certain other members of the team – the Pole worked hard and made some fine saves under pressure. Some of the rest ambled around as if the game didn’t matter.

It did matter, to the fans who will be here long after they’ve departed. It will always matter against Sam Allardyce, and if they never want to see his smug face again, they’d better buck their ideas up.

• Shawcross did not mean to break Ramsey’s leg, but that is not the point. 

• Gallas put in a poor challenge on Davies, Vieira and Lauren used to put in hard challenges, and Arsenal are no angels, but that is not the point.

• Wenger was emotional after the game, but that is not the point.

• Shawcross cried, but that is not the point.

• The Stoke fans contained some of the absolute lowest of the low, but that is not the point.

• Ramsey was quick, but that is not the point.

• Shawcross has injured before, has broken legs before, but that is not the point.

• Ramsey has suffered a dreadful setback, and while that deserves more of the focus than any of the above, it is in some ways, also not the point.

No, the point is that we have cultivated a culture in English football in which weaker sides can do more than harry and press, they can close the gap using methods other than the legal approach of working harder, being better organised and coming off the pitch exhausted.

In addition to all of that, it has become accepted to put in sly tackles, flail elbows, and deliberately foul to put your superior opponent off the game. It is even accepted to come out before the match and declare this as your intention. Instead of applauding the workrate of the strugglers, the pundits snigger at the late challenges, the full blooded swipes, irrespective of the danger they cause.

No other country allows this to happen. Wild tackles are punished no matter what the consequences, but they only come into focus here if they result in a serious injury. Even then, they are defended – how else can the smaller team compete, they ask? The answer is simple – by playing football better than us. The clue’s in the name of the game, you morons.

I get it, you get it, the blogs linked to the right get it. So why do 90% of those paid to analyse the game miss what is the real story here?

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.