We all know by now about Fabregas’ heinous crime of, well, not actually doing much. And, of course, of the dirty Spaniard’s subsequent – and richly deserved – vilification in the English media. The whole affair is quite obviously a load of sloblocks and we can all just count ourselves lucky that Fabregas –as

Just a couple of quick points today (which have become a little longer since writing that).

I know it’s been talked to death, brought back to life, given a nice meal of its choosing and then talked to death again but I thought I would throw my tuppence into the ring for what it’s worth.

We all know by now about Fabregas’ heinous crime of, well, not actually doing much. And, of course, of the dirty Spaniard’s subsequent – and richly deserved – vilification in the English media. The whole affair is quite obviously a load of sloblocks and we can all just count ourselves lucky that Fabregas –as the embodiment of true evil – will be able to feed directly off the anger like a ravenous hellhound and use it spit fire from his foot, onto the ball, firing it off at a trillion miles per hour towards the goal while we all sit back and watch it scream….just…wide….of the near post (as has been happening for him recently).

This is why the witch hunt will never succeed. Burning him would only make his devilish mind even stronger. 

Anyway, for all Arsenal fans I am sure this entire ridiculous exaggeration rings more than a few bells. The Eduardo incident from last season progressed in a similar way (although he was a weaker target and so suffered more) and it’s hard to not feel like our players have been unfairly targeted and singled out by the media. 

Except that it’s not just our players, is it? It’s our foreign players.

For while this incident chimes beautifully with the Eduardo case, it sits a little uneasily with another from the not too distant past. I am referring, as you might have guessed, to Theo Walcott’s dive. 

English thoroughbred Theodore Carrington-Smythe Walcott came out in the press after the Leeds game and admitted to diving to try and win a penalty. There had been no mention of diving before he spoke up but speak up he did, telling the whole world that he was a cheat and that he had cheated in an honest game of football against an honest, hard-working English team. 

Of course after he admitted it there were campaigns in all the national newspapers to have him banned and the FA were able to do so quite easily, what with video evidence, a witness, a confession and…

Zip. Zilch. Nothing. Nada. 

So let’s offer that comparison in summary form (in the below diagram I will denote greasy foreign-types by the use of the letter ‘F’ and stand up British, empire-loving role models by the letter ‘B’):

Eduardo (F): Won penalty. Claims of diving. Massive witch hunt. Cleared by the ref. 

Verdict: Guilty

Fabregas (F): Aggrieved at ridiculous decision. Vented heat-of-the-moment anger. Claims of verbal abuse. Massive witch hunt. Cleared by the ref.

Verdict: Guilty

Walcott (B): Dived in an attempt to win a penalty. Admitted it. No witch hunt. Forgotten. 

Verdict: Innocent. 

Sweet. That’s fair then. And I haven’t even mentioned the Phil Brown incident, for which Fabregas was also cleared. Anyway…

The other small issue I wanted to bring up was our present injury crisis. That’s right, crisis. Because when we get a few injuries, no matter how big our squad is or how well we are coping, it is definitely and unequivocally a crisis. 

I have seen that headline a couple of times of News Now and it has made me laugh to be honest. Having Gallas, Fabregas and Arshavin break down during the Barca game after all just returning to the team. That’s on the way to a crisis. Playing Silvestre. That’s a crisis. Having one of three potential first-choice goalkeepers out, one of four international quality centre backs out (Koscielny having just been called up so congrats there), two of about ten midfielders out and no strikers out is not a crisis. A headache? Sure. But not a crisis. 

Song looks to be back very soon, Nasri isn’t too far away, Vermaelen is a little further and Fabianski is out for the season. I make that two, possibly three proper absences from a squad of 25. Injuries to Denilson, Diaby and Walcott seem to have cleared. Rosicky has just come back from illness and Squillaci is back in the squad too. If that’s a crisis then we’ve been fighting through an apocalypse for the past four-or-so seasons so we don’t have anything to worry about. 

Anyway, that just about wraps it up from me. And remember – if ever you don’t like someone foreign all you have to do is accuse them of something, whether they did it or not. That’s what makes them guilty. 

WB