Morning all, good to see the Thierry Henry stuff has blown over. Erm … I wouldn’t normally bother but I think it’s only fair that someone tries to counter the lies and the hysteria. He’s not one of ours now but he was and he was one of our best. Plus it’s kinda quiet.
Liam Brady last night branded Thierry Henry “shameful“ after launching a bitter attack on FIFA for fixing the outcome.
Or did he? In fact LB7’s use of the word “shameful” was aimed at FIFA. On Thierry he said:
I wouldn’t blame Thierry Henry for what went on. I would maybe look at what happened three months before and the fact that these seedings for the play-offs were made to favour the bigger teams. I would ask why that went on.
Then we have Henry Winter in the Telegraph calling for Henry to be banned from the World Cup, saying:
Thierry, you have just given football its “Say it ain’t so, Joe” moment. From Shoeless to Shameless.
If the reference eludes you Winter is talking about “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, a baseball player for the Chicago White Sox who participated in a match fixing conspiracy to allow the Cincinnati Reds to win the World Series. So Thierry’s handball is now being equated with deliberate, considered and systematic cheating. I really expected better from Henry Winter because this is the kind of shite you would see in the worst kind of tabloid. Instead he’s jumped on the bandwagon and made himself look like a total idiot. He goes on to say:
A cheat like Henry should not be allowed to attend the World Cup while honest souls like Shay Given, Robbie Keane, Damien Duff and Ireland’s wonderful supporters stay at home.
Since when did an English journalist care so much about Irish football? It’s cloying in the extreme to have them fake sincerity towards Ireland just to have a pop at Henry. How nice of them to be so outraged on our behalf. And ‘honest souls’ like Robbie Keane and Damien Duff. After the game Damien Duff spoke to the BBC, here’s what he said:
If it was myself or Robbie down the other end we’d have tried it … you just expect the linesman or referee to see it.
Honest souls, indeed. I haven’t even bothered looking anywhere else because I assume it’s all the same shite, not a voice of reason anywhere (although Barry Glendenning did say he’d buy Henry a pint if he came to Ireland – he’d probably buy him a pint of Coors Lite though, which would be fair punishment it has to be said).
When you have the FAI and the Irish Government making the country look foolish in the extreme with their absurd claims for a replay you know this story is nothing more than a smokescreen for them. It suits our government perfectly, actually. Get everybody fired up about a football match to take their minds off the fact the entire country, under their pathetic governanance, is fucked. You have to question whether or not the Taoiseach and the Minister for Justice have better things to be doing at the moment than worrying about a replay. And the FAI – well, as they build a new stadium they’ll grasp at any straw to try and fill their coffers.
And caught in the barrage is Thierry Henry who was wrong and who cheated but did nothing that footballers don’t do in every game. He sought an advantage by breaking the rules and that happens every week from claiming throw ins which aren’t yours, making fouls, pulling jerseys, diving and countless other actions intended to put yourself in a position to win the game. Not all of them are pretty, some of them more costly than others, but what’s great about football is shit happens to you one week, it happens to someone else the next. Ireland got the shitty end of the stick this time but not many Ireland fans complained when we got a penalty in Georgia which wasn’t a penalty. From a match report:
A long ball found its way to Robbie Keane who seemed to control the ball with his hand only for the referee to let play continue. The ball was then cleared but only as far as Kevin Doyle as it deflected off the Waterford man and into the path of Ucha Lobjanidze. The referee then gave a shrill blast of his whistle for what appeared to be an offside by Keane.
Instead to everyones surprise, Hyytia pointed to the penalty spot and deemed Lobjanidze to have handled the ball. Replays showed that Keane had handled the ball in the lead-up to this decision and that Keane was also offside as play continued.
Watch the footage. What’s the difference? Was there outrage at Robbie Keane’s deliberate, but much more sneaky, handball? Did the English press condemn the referee for favouring the ‘bigger’ team at the expense of the plucky eastern European underdogs? Did the honest souls Damien Duff and Robbie Keane tell the ref it wasn’t a penalty? Of course they didn’t. Robbie Keane scored it and celebrated. So, what goes around comes around? Maybe not, but it certainly highlights the difference between the reporting of that incident and this one, doesn’t it? As someone on Twitter put it:
Just like Eduardo against Celtic, the rule here isn’t “don’t cheat.” the rule is “don’t cheat certain teams.”
I feel sorry for Thierry Henry. I know he’s a big boy and he can cope and I agree entirely with those who wish to condemn his cheating. However, it has gone so far beyond what is normal, or what should be acceptable. Has football journalism really sunk this low? It’s like everyone has been injected with Daily Mail and pumped full of Harry Harris. You have The Mirror putting words in Liam Brady’s mouth, you have previously respected journalists like Henry Winter fuelling the fire with ludicrous copy, and the bottom line is the football match is over. France have won, Ireland have lost. There’s nothing that can be done about it now despite the outrage. And those who are stirring up controversy for web page hits, for their own profiles, or anything else ought to just shut up now and get on with something else.
If that means more talk of video evidence or five officials in a game, then let’s have that debate because it will do something to stop incidents like this happening again. Vilifying one footballer for doing what every other footballer would do will not.
Right then, the good news is that real football returns tomorrow and we’ve got a fairly tricky assignment away to Sunderland who have been improved by the arrival of Steve Bruce as manager. We’ll get full team news today but while Walcott, van Persie, Gibbs, Bendtner, Diaby and Clichy all miss out, Denilson, Traore, Vela and Fabianski return. With Standard Liege in midweek and Chelsea next weekend you suspect the manager might shuffle his pack a bit but we’ll probably know more after his press conference today.
Not much else from an Arsenal point of view so before the Arsecast let me give you the winner of the most excellent Dennis Bergkamp canvas provided by Modern Canvas Art. The answer to the question was Inter Milan and the RNG did its thing and the winner is : Stuart Stratford. Well done to you and I’ll be in touch to get your details. To the rest, better luck next time – and do check out their website for other Arsenal related canvases. More competitions on the way next week including a chance to win tickets for the Chelsea game.
Now then, Arsecast. On this week’s show Goodplaya joins me to talk Thierry and the return of Arsenal, Sylvester is in there, as is the penis of William Gallas, plus there’s a chance for you to win (see how much I give you?!) a Savile Rogue scarf (by the way, if you buy a scarf through their website and use the code ARSEBLOG at check-out you get a 10% discount before Dec 6th. Not too shabby).
You can subscribe to the Arsecast on iTunes by clicking here. Or if you want to subscribe directly to the feed URL you can do so too. To download this week’s arsecast directly – click here (22mb MP3) or you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.
And that, thankfully, is about that. Till tomorrow.
