I am a great supporter of Arsene Wenger and I find his commitment to nurturing Arsenal’s young players a refreshing change from a resume builder like Jose Mourinho. He brought out his U-21 and U-19 squad to play Chelsea’s senior squad in the Carling Cup and the young lads acquitted themselves magnificently. But Wenger’s whining about the referees has gotten out of hand. It is one thing rebutting Sam Allardyce’s grandstanding but you really get into a bit of a cesspool when you accuse the referees of lying.
In US politics we have our vast right wing and left wing conspiracies (VWRC and VWLC) but Wenger’s contention is that the referees are a cabal constantly plotting to trip him up. There is one standard for him and different standards for the rest. Wenger victimizes himself and worse still enjoys this misery because in the end he can claim that refereeing decisions did him in. It is now a mantra in France that Wenger would go further if it were not for the bleeding Brit referees. An atavistic form of the Norman invasion is being played out. Mourinho on the other hand loves dishing out pain to the referees. Guess who got away easier in the Carling Cup debacle. The sadist or the masochist. Chelsea is motoring on to the FA Cup final, meeting with Valencia, and still have a whimper of a chance at the Premiership. Arsenal’s season came to an inglorious end with suspensions and injuries.
The FA found Emmanuel Adebayor guilty of threatening conduct and has suspended him for a fourth game in addition to the three that he is currently serving. What are the odds that this would not have occurred if Wenger had not accused the assistant referee of lying?
4 comments on “Wenger’s martyr mentality is taking a toll”
Eh? Can I believe my ears?
Do you undestand English Football.
Wenger’s outburst has kept the second ban down to one. Normally you would get 3 for Adebayors response to being sent off.
By only giving one match ban its tantamount to admitting they shouldnt have sent him off.
Adebayor was charged with second offence before Wengers big outburst after Blackburn
Adebayor would have got an extra day anyway. The FA is not some slick professional body- look at the England debacle- a national embarrassment. Wenger is complaining about an injusice and rightly so. Why was the person who did the most to escalte the incident-Lampard not given a red card or later suspended? Ah but hes English-one of the boys from the same cultural stable as the refs themselves.
Referees in England aided and abetted by sections of the media have consistent failed to offer Arsenal players protection from over physical- foul play. At the same time refs penalise Arsenal heavily for every misdemeanor-is it a co-incidence that we are the only club which fields an entire team of foreign players in the premiership?
A rather shallow and naive argument. Wenger has done the right thing (in Ade’s case) and he has guided Arsenal to many successes in the past. Though we are not wiining any thropies in the past couple of seasons, it doesn’t mean Wenger is a failure. When officials lie, how else would you re-act?
Sorry but you’ve got it wrong this time.
Last week there were astonishing figures spread all over the net about the disparity between fouls and bookings given to Arsenal v. other Prem clubs. The figures are really quite incredible, and show a clear picture in which referees routinely allow other clubs to commit dozens of fouls (many of them potentially career-destroying ones, like the one Diaby suffered last season) against Arsenal with only a very tiny number of those fouls being booked.
While Arsenal’s far fewer fouls get booked far more often. The disparity is amazing: http://www.goodplaya.com/ . The entry in question is dated March 1st. Just type in “astonishing figures” on the search line and you’ll get the entry and all the reader replies.
Plus here is the easiest test of the clear FA bias against Arsenal: Drogba and Essien were clearly seen on the video punching out Denilson and Fabregas in the Carling final “brawl” — yet they got no punishment. Why? Why is it ok for Drogba and Essien to commit violence while Adebayor never committed an act of violence and gets banned?
Why? Because those punches weren’t shown repeatedly on SkySports News. If it’s on TV, the FA will punish it. If not, the FA will usually ignore it, unless it’s a sin committed by Arsenal.
Also-Mourinho calls a referee “son of a bitch” 3 times out loud and confronts him in the tunnel and gets no punishment.
By the way, Wenger did not call the linesman a liar–he called the linesman’s report “lies.” He explained himself by saying that the report contained mistakes. Note that word. In French, the word “lie” does not always connote the deviousness that it does in English. It also quite often means “sloppy mistake.” I think that’s what Wenger meant, which is why he repeatedly explained himself by using the word “mistake” as a clarification.
All that said, I do think it’s more important to focus on building a squad with the killer instinct for goals (tho Arsenal has scored the same amount of Prem goals as Chelsea this season) rather than focusing on referees. But the fact is that Wenger is operating in a culture in which the FA allows far more fouls to be committed against his players than any other club — and in which his players are booked in disproportion to the amount of fouls they commit.
He’s in a tough spot – he keeps quiet and he just allows it to go on. He complains and gets bad press for it.