Premier League Nonsense

Abou Diaby v Sunderland
Eduardo v Birmingham City
Aaron Ramsey v Stoke City

Three shocking injuries. Three lengthy lay offs. Three northern shit pits. Three non footballing opponents.

Can you imagine the fuss Fergie, and by extension the media, would kick up if it was United players on the receiving end?

But be sure that as ever the Premier League will brush this under the table. Shawcross, like Taylor at Birmingham and Terry at Chelsea, is a top bloke, wouldn't hurt a fly, heps grannies cross the road. In fact perhaps the victim isn't really that tough? Southern softies...

The Premier League was born corrupt. Every perceived threat sees a spirited defence al FOX News with tame journos and tired pundits repeating the same old mantra. You know the one, best league in the world, attendances are up etc vomit etc.

So rich pricks can buy and sell football clubs and no one sees anything wrong in it. Captains can shag their team mates missuses and it's all right, it's what lads do innit. And knuckle dragging northern simians can get away with hideous tackles on the field 'cos they're top blokes. 'Cos we have the best team in the league and it ain't our fault.

And anyone who thinks otherwise, well they must be a few screws short of a hardware store.

Just read that Wayne Bridge has decided that he no longer wants to be part of the same England set up as that twat John Terry who betrays his mates, and team mates, trust by rutting their wimmin.

What I find hard to beleive is all the people queuing up to say Bridge is being soft, he's copping out. It's almost like Terry is being turned into the victim by a fawning media cause he scores so well off the pitch while Bridge, the guy he shafted, is being a soft nancy boy and he should be more laddish and pass it off as just a boys thing.

I may be no prude but somethings are off limits. Terry crossed that line when he pulled down that bint's knickers.

Forget all this bullshit of country first, of loyalty to the Three Lions. Your captain shagged your missus! Where was his loyalty?

For all those journos who are quick to blame Wayne Bridge tell me this. If I shag your missus would you wanna work with me again in the future? In the name of being 'professional?'

Me and Arsenal go back a long way. Back to some pretty dire days indeed post 71 double. Bertie Mee, the man who guided us back then, failed to build on what we had in that season. Alan Ball was brought in, yes, but Frank McLintock was allowed to leave just two years later. Bob Wilson 12 months after that.

That wonderful team was broken up way to quickly and by the mid 1970s we were struggling against relegation. 39,000 against QPR one December was considered a good crowd, we signed players like Terry Mancini and Alex Cropley but mostly we prayed.

But I don't recall fans hollering for Mee's head. Even then, pre teenage years, I knew instinctively it wasn't the way we did things. The Arsenal way. And that is, was, a way that we on the terraces imbibed from a very young age.

Terry Neill came in and for a while things looked up. But a few appearances in a few finals couldn't hide the fact that we were never challenging for the title. We were Arsenal of course, we judge success by title wins. Lesser pots are for lesser clubs.

Things cam to a head in 1983. Big money signings Charlie Nicholas, Tony Woodcock, Lee Chapman and Kenny Sansom were not taking us where we felt we should be and things were turning ugly. The North Bank became a battleground as fans divided themselves between the Neill must stay and Neill must go camps.

I sat on the fence. We lost to Walsall and I knew things weren't good. But we were Arsenal, Terry Neill was old skool Arsenal, hell he had even helped get Tottenham relegated. But I couldn't sing songs aimed at sacking him. Just didn't seem right. And for those that did I'm sure many of them felt the same unease.

For a couple of years things stagnated before George Graham arrived in 1986. Boring footballs but trophies. In 1993 we became the first team to win both the FA Cup and League Cup in one season. 12 months later we won the European Cup Winners Cup. Three cups in one year. With what was to be fair a poor team. Selley, Hillier, Morrow, they will never be Arsenal legends even though they came through the ranks and did their bit for the club.

Arsene Wenger has changed all that. We are now considered the neutral's favourite team, a sobriquet I am unhappy with. I want trophies. Thoughtful fans have told me we are close to being a brilliant team and part of me wants that to be true. But Wenger is making bad judgement calls and that worries me.

He says the players aren't use to winning big games, that's why they fall apart against the likes of Chelsea and Manchester United. But that is his fault. He adopted the policy of Champions Lague or Premiership...nothing else will do.

If he had been more serious about cup competitions in the recent past then believe we would not be having this post now. Had we beaten Chelsea in the Carling Cup Final back in 2007 he would have seen a young team getting an early taste of silverware; a habit they would have found hard to lose.

Instead we lose and the players find losing normal. It's their mindset now and Wenger has done nothing to alter that perception. Stoke away in the FA Cup being the most recent example.

We are top scorers. We have an awful defence made up of other teams hand me downs. We have a keeper who is average on his better days. Yet we keep up there in the top three, top four.

Sack Wenger and bring who in? Pesonally I would be happy to see Jose Mourinho come in and win us a few trophies and have people hate us all over again. But I don't wanna sack Wenger. Not after what he has done in the past. Like I didn't wanna sack Mee or Neill.

I just wish ... he'd win us something, anything, to let the players know what it means to win something. That is all that's missing.

Lost at home to Manchester and United, away to Chelsea this year. Last year United done us in the Champions League. Chelsea love to stick it up us when it matters. Forget Liverpool, they are no longer major players and until we win something, anything, neither are we.

Wenger doesn't give a shit about the FA Cup; witness the team he put out away to Stoke last week when 5,000 travelling Gooners witnessed another poor, gutless display seeing us slink out of the world's greatest cup trophy without even the bookies getting excited about our chances.

We HAVE to win something and it don't matter if it's the Carling Cup or the FA Cup. 'Cos this current team are a bunch of losers until they do pick up a pot. Forget all this nonsense about the Champions League or the Premier League are the only ones that matter...after a drought dating back to 2005, when Manchester United outplayed up in the FA Cup final only for us to win on penalties, these players have to show they have the guts and desire to do it in the big games.

The evidence is they haven't and quite franky if selling Cesc Fabregas would guarantee us a trophy next season I would accept it.

All those promises about moving from Highbury to the new stadim would allows us to compete, all that extra money, 3 million quid a game, and for what? What have we got to show for it? Cast off defenders from Chelsea, Manchester United and Notts County, an injury list that gets longer and longer with every bloody season.

We need a quality keeper. Every top team needs one, we have Manuel Almunia who looks like he should be selling the Big Issue outside tube stations in London. We need fighters, grafters and we don't have them. What we have is a team packed with bottlers and naiveity.

I can accept not winning trophies. I can accept mediocrity. It's what I grew up with after all. But what I can't accept is bullshit. Be it bullshit from the board, the manager or the players.