JoeI’ve decided after letting the dust settle to finally pen my thoughts on the football-less weekend we all watched unfold as Arsenal fans. As Arsenal fans we all know that we get treated differently to other fans. Liverpool and Tottenham enjoy media darling status from the british press and that has only been further highlighted this weekend. The postponement of the NLD caused so much piss boiling amongst other fans and so called “experts” it was embarrassing.
For example, a colleague who supports Liverpool laid into me for “my clubs actions” whilst avoiding my question about Liverpool’s one BILLION to one, three “false positives”. I asked whether he thought they were lying, he didn’t answer. Tottenham fans up in arms about it despite doing exactly the same thing weeks ago. Special shout out too to Jamie O’ Hara, whose Twitter meltdown was absolutely spectacular. The Tottenham statement showed you every you need to know about that establishment and how they operate. Classless, clueless and oh so bitter. But when you have to watch your rivals pick up trophy after trophy what do you expect?
But nobody could answer the most obvious and simple question: what did Arsenal do wrong? The answer of course is nothing. We did as (incredibly) Graeme Souness said, what every other team would do. Whatever you think of the rules, they are just that, the rules. The Premier League set them and now they have to die by them. The only party to blame here are the Premier League. And they have some big questions to answer from all sides about those rules.
The bottom line
Personally, every game should have been played, there are simply not enough justifiable reasons for me for a postponement. Teams have very well established and run U23s and U18s. Any Premier League club can fill team sheets with youngsters, strong team or not, it is a team. But the league set their stall out early and badly on this and they must fall on their sword or face dire consequences.
That’s your lot for today, I’ll be back on Friday after our semi-final second leg against Liverpool. As always, I’ll see you there.
COYG!
-Joe