Is it time for Arsenal to tell Lawro to feck off?
Hero of brum
By Boris Mellor
March 1 2008
I thought the worst thing that happened in football last Saturday was the breaking of Eduardo's leg. A break so serious that it could have led to an amputation; but thanks to quick thinking by Gary Lewin that did not happen. However according to the media this event was eclipsed by William Gallas kicking an advertising hoarding.
Seeing a skilled player hacked down by a clumsy journeyman has meant oodles of sympathy for "Tiny Taylor", on the other hand the main reaction to Arsenal's suffering is to criticise Gallas, or Wenger.
Now, even at the time, I did not think that Gallas had the best of reactions, yes it was wrong, but is it really deserving of the day to day campaigning on the issue. Wouldn't it be better to campaign against reckless tackles? I understand that the advertising hoarding has fully recovered, there is no infection, and after a lick of paint, it should be fully available for the next Birmingham home game.It is one thing to criticise Gallas, but another to use the power of the media to run a campaign to remove him as Arsenal captain, as Mark Lawrenson does in the Daily Mirror: "it's time for Wenger to make a stand. A captain needs to be strong and Gallas showed weakness at Birmingham. Someone else should be given the armband. "
This miserable, lugubrious, misanthropic reporter has spent the whole week running Gallas down, he has done it on MOTD, on Five Live, and now in the Mirror, it is remorseless. Gallas made a mistake, no one was hurt, but he must never be forgiven yet at the same time Lawro is always ready with a bleeding heart, and tissues for "Tiny Taylor". Taylor must be treated as a human being that can err, but no compassion for Gallas.
Of course, Lawro is not on his own, there is a tight knit band of Little Englanders on the BBC who just love running Arsenal down, and crowing when they fail. One of them is even Scottish, which must piss off a lot of people north of the border. However, given enough money some people are prepared to become patriotic Englanders.
Urging on the violence
They also speak in a special code, they suggest that teams should get in Arsenal's face, they should get in amongst them. Arsenal are a bunch of foreign fancy dans that don't like it up em. It is hard to judge if it is the skill of Arsenal, or the fact that most of the players are from overseas, that they hate the most. As pedestrian journeyman of the past I suspect it is the former. Schoolboys dream of being Pele, Maradona, Henry, Cryuff, or Bergkamp, not Hansen or Lawro.
As to the idea that Arsenal fans are paranoiac about this motley crew you only have to go back to the Gunners 6-3 drubbing of Liverpool last season. The commentary consisted of a piss take of every thing Arsenal did that game, actually even before the game started, the only thing that wasn't mentioned was that Arsenal outplayed them. Lawro has started off by suggesting that the beast would be better named the nanny. The nanny got four goals, and should have scored six. No retraction from Lawro but it was quite amusing - but it is now becoming a worn and rather bad joke.
Can you imagine Ferguson putting up with it? He has refused to speak to the BBC for several years, for a reason now lost in the mist of time. It is time that the Arsenal responded in the same way. Of course there will be howls of Stalinism, funny that no one has ever accused Sir Alex of that (they would not dare. Ed). However, free speech means that you have just as much right not to speak to someone, as to speak to him or her.
The media, Lawro in particular, are distorting everything that Wenger says; could it be time to take a leaf out of Sir Alex's book?
What is your view-join in the debate below.
Wenger is ALREADY doind the smart thing. I din see it, I don hear it, i don care.
Life goes on!
Warning: Supporting Arsenal is not for the faint at heart... It requires hard balls...
Come on Arsenal.
-Wenger Genius-
Arsenal team is French-speaking predominated.
Just xenopobic English tabliods and Englishmen of:
Rotibeouf vs Frogs.
It is something visceral that the tabliods, and commentators, that held Arsenal in contempt for being french and daring to be so successful and superior to traditional English style of playing, wiht no help from the dominant French Spine that Ferguson and Big Sam knew that only ont tactic can stop 'em - hack and kick.
And compounded it by having a young Reyes, who turned his back on English football and branded a crybaby.
it is like an Asian story:
In a basketful fo crabs, whenever one crab tried to climb out of the basket, the rest of teh crabs will attempt to pull it back.
tehrefore, when Arsene Wenger bought continental style of football to english league, the rest of the managers, commentators and tabliods tried their veyr ebst to drag Arsenal down to their own mediocre level of traditonal hard-charging Route 101 Football.
Put it this way, everybody love to see a winner stumble and fall flat on its face.
Lawro is from the old school, his knowledge stopped there; and he is judging 21st Century Arsenal from his very limited and archaic knowledge of Liverpool 80s to this modern day fo football. and that is one reasn why Benitez is struggling to produce yougnsters when his compatriot heighway was running Liverpool Academy.
Forget him.
When this bunch of Arsenal yougnsters come of age in 2008/09 season, we will make him eat every words of his and more.
Revenge is a dish best eaten cold.
"it's time for Wenger to make a stand. A captain needs to be strong and Gallas showed weakness at Birmingham. Someone else should be given the armband. "
Eat your words Lawro - you are a disgrace to do that to Gallas in the run up to such an important game.
Gallas was superb in the San Siro, the defence concentrated for 94 minutes - maybe he got his point over after all.
