Pep Guardiola is on a mission, He has started using press conferences and after match interviews to call for protection for this hugely expensive assembly of very talented and skillful players. He is demanding that referees give them protection from the deliberate assaults on them.
We now see many of the great and good journalists agreeing with him because it’s “only a matter of time” before one of the delicate little flowers get their legs broken. And do you know what? Pep is right and so are they. We have seen disgusting attempts to injure them in recent weeks.
These assaults are justified, by some, because less skillful players have to find a way of stopping them,otherwise they get battered. Even “good teams” like Spurs do it, with England’s finest, Kane and Alli, bang at it. Both of these two should have seen straight reds last time they met.
Every team, bar Arsenal and Liverpool perhaps, are at it. They are not going out to be strong and compete ,they are going out to injure. Of course they don’t want to break legs and ruin careers, they just want to hurt them enough to stop them playing well in that particular game. However, because the intention is to hurt, there is a huge chance that this approach leaves the victim with career changing damage. Its like driving past a school at 90 mph and then claiming you didn’t mean to kill the child you ran over, It was an accident, you are not that kind of driver. Dangerous play leads to injury. Simples.
Managers are sending players out to “get in their faces”, “leave some on him” and ” slow him down with physicality” They are asking players to overstep the mark and see how much the referee will let them get away with. They can deny it all they like, claim “its a contact sport, but anyone with half a brain knows what is going on.
Pep and his friendly journalist are right, they should be protected.
But here is where I have a problem, Arsene has been saying this since 2004, when United decided they couldn’t win a game of football, and with Mike Riley’s help, they would kick us off the park. That day they literally kicked José Antonio Reyes out of the game and all the way back to Spain.
In 2008 ,Arsenal were 8 points, clear, playing much like City are now, except with a far thinner and less experience squad. We all know what happened, rotational fouling of Fagregas ,Hleb, RVP and Rosicky was the norm and Eduardo was smashed beyond repair. The injuries bit and we didn’t have anything like the required quality to come in (unlike City). The best football I have seen Arsenal play, was ended by brute force that was sanctioned by the referees.
Was there outrage in the media? Was there bollocks. We ,and specifically Arsene , were told to “man up”. We were told we had a soft center. Were not up for the fight. Were fragile. We were told we were a team of lightweights that were not up to the English game.
Pep Guardiola is 100% right, its disgusting what is happening to his team, but it has been happening to us for 14 years and continues every time we take the field. Ramsey effectively lost two years, Jack for God knows how long, and I suspect we have lost Santi because of the constant assaults on his achilles, Diaby?, and many more.
Where is the outrage from the press been for 14 years?
Pedantic George @arseblagger .
Positively Arsenal 
I don’t know about Manyoo signing a midfielder to bring the best out of Pogba
They may have noticed Allegri’s contact is up in Turin in June though
(Taps nose)
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Eddie
I am really sorry for your loss
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Aw, Eddy I’m so sorry about the loss of your beloved dog. They really are family members aren’t they? Condolences.
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Hmm. So going back to the article- a paper (Sun) went and did a big compilation of the fouls on City.
Sticks out like a sore thumb when the journalist fraternity show they are able to join together different incidents in order to form patterns and pose questions.
I’ll always remember in the Hull cup final them saying ‘oh, maybe they’ve been unlucky there’ for each of our good three or four pen claims, while never getting close to joining them up, which would obviously mean recognising extreme bad luck on the day.
The exact same thing happened with the bad fouls and the pen claims over the years. Never join them up and you can safely attribute each one to bad luck, one of those things, an accident,etc.
But, lo, they have discovered an ability to do otherwise with City fouls. It comes and goes with them.
By the way, anyone see the Zabaleta challenge which broke Sako’s ankle? Only seen a still of it, and the deluge of comments after saying it can’t be a foul because Zabaleta won the ball.
A good opportunity, if fouls and dangerous play is on the agenda, for journalists to look at that incident and once again try help people understand touching the ball doesn’t determine if a challenge is reckless, dangerous, a foul, yellow, red, etc. But again that’s something that comes and goes with them.
Darling Harry put out a Newcastle player first game of season with a textbook- scissor from behind with lot of force; trapping opposition leg with a lot of force through joint- red despite touching ball, same as Dier did on Cleverly last year to break his ankle.
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Bad luck Eduardo, terribly sad news.
I picked up one of our two rescue greyhounds on the day of Giroud’s debut for Arsenal and listened to the game on the radio on the way back from the rescue centre. It made complete sense to name our gentle giant of a dog ‘Oliver’ after the great man himself who duly crowned the moment by scoring.
We lost Ollie to cancer 18 months ago but I still have his photo on my phone’s screensaver, with Gracie, his partner-in-crime, looking over his shoulder.
Some sadness never passes.
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New post up
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Spot on article !!!
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I am very glad you wrote this article. When Troy Deeney said after a ref inspired win over Arsenal: you got to roughen them up, those arsenal players, every plundit was all for it! When Arsenal is kicked out of the park it seems perfectly ok, because those fretboys need to ‘toughen up’. Im affraid that the Peptalk will not vindicate Wenger and his team but lets hope that VAR and this debate will protect the players a little better. That will play in the hands for the real footballing squads: Arsenal
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