Interlull: Robin hates them all + Arsecast 194

Oh man, it’s one of those days already and it’s only just begun. I won’t bore you with the details but suffice to say having to re-do all of last night’s work first thing this morning is frustrating.

For some reason the Arsecast developed a mighty hiss. Which is like painting your sitting room, waking up the next morning and finding someone had then covered it with a layer of ash and dust. And as the only thing I have to punch is my computer I can’t take out my rage the way I want to. Still, it’s all fixed now, I think.

Someone else who’s annoyed is Robin van Persie who finds everyone else getting on his wick. Firstly it’s Chelsea and Man City:

A club like Manchester City change their philosophy every year and Chelsea spent about €80m this season … two clubs who had a big mouth before the season, thinking that Arsenal wouldn’t play a role in the title race but we are still ahead of them. And just by playing our own game, through our own philosophy

And then Barcelona:

Barcelona players were trying to influence the referee from the first minute. They were talking and complaining all the time, without being punished. It’s getting annoying.

Getting? It’s been annoying for ages but then I’m very firmly of the belief that pretty much everything football related outside Arsenal is annoying and tedious. I find being magnanimous unsettling, accepting the talent and skills of others sets my nerves on edge, and giving credit to others … well, if I wanted to do that I’d have become a primary school teacher with a big bag of gold stars.

“There you go Johnny. Despite the fact your drawing of a house looks like the scribblings of a retarded penguin have a gold star!”

So I kinda like it when our players are on that wavelength. For example, I understand most players don’t hate each other the way fans hate them. Jack Wilshere conversing with Rio Ferdinand on Twitter makes me want to weep gently but I understand it from Jack’s point of view. However, you get the sense with Robin that if you gave him just the slightest encouragement he’d be pointing people out and giving his honest opinion on them:

Cunt. Twat. Wanker. Horse-fister. Self-fingerer. Adam Sandler fan.

And so on. And I do think it’s kind of important because for all the motivation you have yourself and as a team there’s nothing quite like a bit of hatred to get you going and get a bit more out of you in terms of your performance. Robin wants to win for the sake of winning, I’m sure, but who doesn’t like the idea of winning so you can turn around to the cunts and wankers after and gloat a bit? As for the run-in he says:

I still strongly believe in our title chances. We have a great team, with great focus. Everyone within the club is really positive about our chances

Let’s hope that positivity is translated into results and then serious, serious gloating. Some goals from Robin would obviously help, over to you Mr RVP.

Bacary Sagna talks about bad challenges and references Paul Scholes lunge on Samir Nasri:

He almost had his leg cut off. If he breaks his leg what shall we say? It’s too late. The problem is you can’t have a discussion with them [referees], you can’t have a debate.

The debate really shouldn’t be with referees though. Generally speaking bad tackles get punished with red cards. There are some exceptions and Scholes the other week was one of them, the problem is that the punishment for reckless tackling remains too lenient. Bolton’s player misses 6 months, Johnny Evans 3 games. It was the same with Shawcross on Ramsey.

And just to make it clear: I’m not suggesting that either of those incidents was a deliberate attempt to hurt the opponent, lest the waters be muddied yet again, but if you swing a leg at force 50 or go in studs up on someone else you run the risk of hurting them badly. If and when you do that then you ought to miss more than the standard three games because otherwise no lesson will ever be learned. Look at Shawcross now, still scything through players in the deluded belief that this is ok.

If he’d been given a 6 or 8 match ban after the Ramsey incident maybe he’d have stopped to think that the way he plays is wrong and maybe it would act as a deterrent for other players. Instead ‘raising your hands’ to someone’s face means you get banned as long as a leg snapper and in no sane world is that right.

Congratulations to Aaron Ramsey who has been named Wales captain ahead of their game with England. A real show of faith from Gary Speed and hopefully it’ll provide Aaron with a nice boost as we head into the final stages of this season.

Not such good news regarding Jack Wilshere and the fact England U21s want to use him in the summer for the European Championships. We can worry about this closer to the time but I expect relations between the manager and the FA to deteriorate badly if that’s the case.

Right so, on with this week’s Arsecast and I’m joined by Goonerholic, the man from East Lower and Tim from Arse2Mouse for a round-table (virtual like) discussion about the state of play. On the agenda, West Brom, goalkeepers, injuries, Jack Wilshere’s emergence and much more.

Also in there the winners of the Pele Sports competition. Check out Pele Sports and/or their Facebook page and make sure you listen to find out if you’ve won.

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 (25mb MP3) or you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.

And that’s about that. Have a good Friday. It’s not time for a beer yet, is it?

Bollocks.