Fulham 0 – 1 Arsenal: Thoughts on red cards, Giroud, and Suarez
648 comments April 21st, 2013
Fulham 0 – 1 Arsenal
Match Report | Highlights | Arsene’s reaction
This was a dismal display from Arsenal…
…but it really doesn’t matter. At the end of a season, you’ll often hear managers saying they face “five cup finals”, or some such guff. And here’s the thing: no-one remembers who played well in a cup final. They remember who won.
Arsenal’s record in the seven games since the North London Derby reads six wins and one draw. Â It’s a remarkable run. Prior to Spurs, we’d won just 46% of our league games. Since then, it’s 83%.
Steven Sidwell couldn’t really argue with his red card…
Partly because a card is an inanimate object incapable of discourse. Also because the tackle was more clumsy than calculated, but it was still dangerous. Arteta was lucky to escape without injury, and Sidwell had to go.
Arsenal failed to impose themselves upon the ten men…
The attacking trio of Giroud, Walcott and Cazorla were particularly poor. Walcott spent much of his time charging in to crowded central channels when he would have been better off stretching an outnumbered Fulham defence by providing width on the overlap.
It was satisfying to finally score from a set-piece…
Our failure to convert more of our corners and free-kicks is inexcusable. If the brain-dead orcs of Stoke can manage to rehearse and execute a few set-pieces, we should be able to as well. Watching Santi Cazorla fire a corner in to the first defender is like watching Picasso fail to draw a stick man. In this instance, Theo Walcott’s lofted free-kick was neatly converted by the combination of Koscielny and Mertesacker.
Giroud has little chance of an appeal…
Even though his tackle had all the force of a Gervinho shot at goal, his foot was clearly over the ball. Even if Arsene Wenger goes back on his post-match assertion that a red card was fair, Giroud has little chance of being let off.
Perhaps Arsene’s readiness to accept the referee’s decision is borne out of concern that Giroud may be burning out. The Frenchman was particularly poor at Craven Cottage, and taking him out of the firing line may be no bad thing. It is maddening, however, that we have no obvious replacement for the central striker role. I will forever regard Arsene’s reluctance to bid for Demba Ba as one of the most baffling decisions of his reign to date.
Results elsewhere…
…didn’t go exactly as we hoped. With Spurs facing City and Chelsea at Liverpool, this was a weekend on which we could have reasonably expected both of our rivals to lose. Instead, Tottenham came from behind to comprehensively beat City, while Chelsea were pegged back to earn a point at Anfield.
It makes the race for the top four incredibly tight. It’s important to remember that Spurs and Chelsea’s game in hand is against each other, so they can’t both take maximum points. At this stage, my gut instinct is that Chelsea’s fixture list is simply too tough to navigate without dropping points, so the North London clubs have the advantage for now. Three wins from our remaining four games will probably be enough for us, barring an extraordinary sequence of results from the other two.
The first of those games is against Manchester United, who could well be Champions by then. I’d certainly rather face a side hungover from a title-winning party than a side on the verge of winning the league at the home of a rival club.
On Luis Suarez…
Luis Suarez is a despicable human being. We’ve known that for some time.
In the aftermath of his latest transgression – biting Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic – he has been widely criticised by the football media. The same football media who have spent much of the season praising him and may have already voted for him as the Football Writer’s Footballer of the Year.
Gary Lineker has begun a campaign last night to see Suarez removed from the PFA Player of the Year Shortlist. I can’t help but think: isn’t it strange that it’s his behaviour today that has precipitated this reaction, rather than Suarez’s past behaviour?
Don’t exclude him from a shortlist because he bit someone. Exclude him from all shortlists – exclude him from English football entirely – because of his racist behaviour. It’s a thousand times worse; a thousand times more significant. I’ve been sickened and disappointed by how easily English football seems to have forgiven Suarez for his proven abuse of Patrice Evra.
Pundits will queue up to ask what kind of example Suarez biting Ivanovic sets to kids. I’d ask them instead what sort of example their season-long praise of a man guilty of proven racist behaviour sets.
I recognise that Suarez is a fantastic footballer. But that, like the biting, is something of a red herring.
This season, some Premier League players chose not to wear t-shirts that bore the slogan ‘Kick it out’. It saddens me that the stark and important message of that campaign seems to have been forgotten.
