Sometimes, football is rubbish

If we’d have held on to our 1 goal leads away at Chelsea, United and Liverpool, then we’d be in the Champions League semi-final and a win on Sunday would clinch the Premier League title.

Football is all about ifs and buts and we will walk away with nothing this season, despite coming so close to so many trophies.

As I’ve said before, things are positive for the future (as long as Flamini stays, in my opinion) but for some reason, there was an awful lot of talk of “where has it all gone wrong for Arsenal” after our Champions League exit! The criticism was that Arsene Wenger’s insistence on playing attractive football and not spending hundreds of millions of pounds in the transfer market cost us this season. I don’t subscribe to this theory for one minute – I agree that a greater depth of squad could have made the difference but it might not have done. Who could he have bought and for what price? We cannot compete with the Chelseas, Liverpools and Manchester Uniteds of this world. There is no point in spending money for the sake of it if you don’t have much. And yet, for some reason, Arsene is apparently “under pressure” because we haven’t won one of the 4 trophies available per season for 4 years!

Laughably, Avram Grant is also “under pressure” for not playing the “right way” (or for not “being Jose Mourinho”, it seems to me) at Chelsea! They may win the league and the Champions League! How can he be under pressure?! Rafa Benitez is another of the top 4 that may lose his job unless he brings home 2 trophies a season. There are only 4 to win! And one of them is also coveted by clubs like Real Madrid, AC Milan, Barcelona and Juventus! How are the managers of all these teams supposed to avoid the sack under these conditions?! It is ridiculous.

Not quite as ridiculous though, as Alex Ferguson and Carlos Quieroz insisting that “something is wrong with the game” because referees don’t give their team penalties for even the slightest of infringements! I didn’t see the Chelsea game at the weekend but I’ve seen the highlights and, for once, I agree with Alan Hansen – the referee got all the big decisions right. The only debatable one being the Ronaldo/Ballack wrestling match but, as I say, it was debatable! The antics of the United players during the incident after the game, Ferdinand’s angry kick which made contact with a steward, Drogba’s pathetic spat with Ballack about a free kick and his behaviour in the Vidic accident just shows that there is no such thing as a gallant loser in the Premier League. Almost all of the players are just grown-up children who spit the dummy whenever they don’t get their way. Drogba, in particular, is an embarrassment – twisting in “agony” after his knee knocked Nemanja Vidic out, only to see that Vidic was actually properly hurt and then bravely calling for assistance for him, shows what a pathetic ponce this huge man is.

Sometimes football is rubbish.