Saturday was amusing in so much as I got ratted on the free beer and was shouting abuse at a certain Mr. Howard Webb from club level. Surprisingly – after a few shocked looks – a few of the corporate boys (also enjoying the hospitality) got us and started shouting stuff too... although it was mostly random crap, but amusing none the less. The chap next to me got up and shouted:
"Adebayor you fucking lazy... err... you're so waseful!"
A 'Big Ron' moment followed by beered-up corporate twat flying over the barrier and into 'Red Section' was thus swerved by a mere whisker.
Talking of Adebayor (and Red Section) – I was glad to hear the boys in Orange Quadrant giving him the benefit of the doubt and cheering him on... strangely this never made it onto Match Of The Day – instead a close up of Adebayor was shown with loud booing from the crowd – the commentator saying something along the lines about the Arsenal fans hating him. This is nonsense – if he did receive boos then they were inaudible from where I was sitting, there were a number of murmurs when he missed a sitter but nothing like the MOTD coverage (unless the boy on the mixing desk selected 1 particular microphone and cranked it up). The only major boos coming from the crowd were for the certain 'Mr. Howard Webb' – who was up to his old tricks once again. I suspect that this was the soundtrack that was played – or the producer flipped the camera at Adebayor when the boos for Webb rang out and the commentator just went along with it. Are we to be targeted yet again or was this just to make 'good television' – it certainly had nothing to do with the reality of the day... maybe this sort of thing goes on for all teams and it's not just us?
Before I get on to Howard Webb – I'm going to continue with MOTD. The coverage shown was, as I said, selective – and the post match analysis consisted of Alan Hansen going on about how good Chelsea and Manchester United are in comparison with the associated they-don't-stand-a-chance-isms relating to Arsenal's chances of winning the league – what about the game Hansen?
...Back to Webb and the game...
It started well and Nasri looked very good indeed – he scored at the point when I was trying to work out what the fuck Eboue was doing playing centre mid with Walcott on the right (and what was going on with Toure coming on as a sub and playing right midfield?). He (Nasri) impressed throughout – Walcott did not look comfortable... Eboue was quite good – he’s a flexible player... I know he sticks the boot in and dives occasionally but on the whole I like him and I think he will silence his critics this season – he’s tricky init... and the boot, when stuck in, is usually a sly retaliation to an earlier indiscretion on an Arsenal team mate. When Bergkamp threw in the sneaky elbow nobody complained... neither did they with an occasional Vierra hack – although Eboue is clearly no Bergkamp or Vierra.
The first goal was scored so early because West Brom, fair play to them, fancied a bit of a game – who’d have thought it; straight up from the championship and trying to out pass the Arsenal!?
Respect.
We were very easy on them for the rest of the half and eased off the pressure considerably. The second half was a different story – West Brom came out thinking they were in with a chance and Howard Webb gave them every opportunity. They got away with foul after foul (nothing malicious) where as we got nothing unless we were breaking forward and tearing them to shreds... Webb’s whistle would come out and we would have to bring the ball back while West Brom dragged their arses back in time to defend. What is all the ‘get on with the game’ initiative all about anyway when the ref can destroy the run of play with a clear bias and the team affected can’t even complain about it? It was panic stations whenever they got close to our goal as everyone could see Webb fingering his whistle – it was horrible to watch as an Arsenal fan as the players daren’t try and take the ball back and were left just waiting for the shot... they came close a couple of times too.
Howard Webb is a fucking joke – he was an embarrassment in Euro 2008 and he is a professional liability to the refereeing fraternity… like most of the other premiership referee’s – it’s part of the job description: “must be incompetent”.
A bit like being a Sun journalist really:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/article1574444.ece
Paul Jiggins – one question, who the fuckin’ hell are you?
Twat.
