Nine Jimmy Rimmers – Arsenal and Football

Never mind that traditional New Year feeling of optimism and hope, the football world seems to have seriously got the hump.  Arsene Wenger is angry with Lee Probert.  Kenny Dalglish is angry with the FA.  Joey Barton is angry with referees conned by players feigning assault by other players (yes really).  Neil Warnock is angry with Robin Van Persie. John Hartson is angry with Arsene Wenger.  The only person having a ball right now is Martin O’Neill.  The way he’s going he’ll turn Nicklas Bendtner into the league’s top scorer. Or perhaps not.

Most of it’s born out of personal frustration of course.  Where Joey Barton gets his ideas from is anyone’s guess.  When will we have the have the first player suing a referee he wonders?

On Twitter yesterday he wrote: ‘I wonder how long it is before a club sues a referee for making a bad decision?  Or a player sues another for playacting.’

Dunno Joey, perhaps it will be when someone is pulled to their feet by the neck and then gets a red card when the person who attacked them falls dramatically to the floor like they’ve been taken out by a sniper.

Or maybe, like Gervinho, you can just take your ban and give the world a break from your banal spin-doctoring over your latest red card.

Another bout of amateur spin-doctoring comes from Liverpool Football Club who claim that the outcome of the Suarez investigation is a complete travesty with no justification whatsoever.  But ahem, by the way, they’re not appealing it.

They’re not appealing it because they wouldn’t have a prayer of success.  Anyone who has an interest in this issue should take the time to read the investigation report here.  To try and cover their retreat, Liverpool throw out a couple of completely spurious attacks.

They attack the outcome as one which only found Suarez to ‘probably’ be guilty.  They are clutching to the word ‘probable’ in the standard of proof required.  They are trying to give the impression that the FA panel has done something unusual and harsh.  Completely ignoring that the standard of proof used by the panel was the standard set out in the FA rules that Liverpool and every other club are signed up to and that this is the standard of proof used in the civil courts across the country everyday of the week.

They also accuse the FA of producing a 115 page report to try and justify their wrong decision.  Liverpool are trying to imply that the length of the document is unusual and signifies that the FA are trying to bury a weak argument.  But actually there is nothing unusual about the length of the report at all.  It is typical of legal documents the world over.  If it were shorter, they would be accused of a cover-up.  Liverpool should either appeal or walk away quietly.

Meanwhile the feverish business of the transfer rumour mill goes on.  The January window is worse than the summer because you get the same level of rumour but less actually happens.

Sam Allardyce says that Arsene Wenger is a clever man.  I’ll go along with that.  Though of course Sam isn’t talking about the teams that Wenger has built on limited budgets.

Sam says that Wenger is clever because he talks referees into giving Arsenal players more protection than is right for the game.  Up to a point, and Sam’s horizon here is just the Premiership survival of the clubs Sam gets to manage, he is right.

I’m sure that Arsene Wenger quite deliberately intends that his comments will make it more likely that his talented, quick thinking players will be protected from players who have no skillful means of stopping them.

And I can see why the Prof’s style of delivery sometimes winds up his chippier managerial rivals. (What does Wenger’s voicemail greeting say?  Please leave a message after the high moral tone.)

In the context of each doing their job, both are right.  But there is a wider question.  What sort of football do we really want in England and how do we get it?

If the answer to the first is that we revel in the consistent competition of the talentless levellers, who close the skill gap with high, stud-first lunges, then nothing needs to be done.  Timid referees are given covering fire by hard-bitten commentators and summarizers who grew up watching Stiles, Harris and Hunter.

But is that really more attractive than what we saw in the Arsenal-Braga match on Wednesday?  Or the sort of games we see played out by the top clubs?

Obviously my answer is no and I believe that the supporters of the other top half dozen clubs, for all there weariness at Wenger’s tone, probably think the same.

Buy that’s the issue at the heart of this – the top club managers are employed by club directors who never fear the big drop into the Championship.  They can afford the big player fees.

Sam Allardyce is employed by those who understandably fear the financial consequences of relegation.

Sam Allardyce and those in the same boat know there are six to eight clubs his team cannot match technically.  They have to be stopped.

That means denying them space and time on the ball- or giving them a good kicking physically discouraging them. That’s how it is.  Simple as.  Injuries, says Sam, are inevitable.

There are teams that try to mount such an energetic, disciplined challenge that they hope will deny space to teams like Arsenal for a whole ninety minutes.  But that’s a very tough ask.  One lapse in concentration and the game is lost.

There are teams that stick to good football without the personnel to pull it off.  We admire Ian Holloway’s Blackpool right now but how many think they will stay up playing that way?

Sadly, the efficient tactic for these clubs is the physical option.  It’s a cold-hearted logic.

In the end, it isn’t entirely Big Sam’s fault.  He’s just stuck in the system and provides the narrative to make it seem ok.

So what can be done?

Maybe the big clubs could share more of the wealth with the Championship to reduce the financial penalty of relegation.

Maybe we could have a smaller Premiership, but keep the wealth, to reduce the gap between top and bottom.  Fewer games would also benefit the national side.

But I can’t see enough clubs being brave enough to vote either through.

In some sports they do away with relagation altogether and also force the clubs to share out the most talented players.  But I don’t think that would be popular and may even be an illegal restraint of trade here in Europe.

So that leaves us with the option of the English game’s regulators being brave and laying down the law.  But were talking about the FA here!

Would they do it.  They have the responsibility and in the long-term it would probably improve the quality of the England team.  Could they do it.

I wish I felt more optimistic.

- Feel free to offer other solutions below.  And you don’t have to go along with the partial defence of Sam Allardyce if you don’t want to!