Here We Go Again – Kicking Arsenal Is OK
Sep 26th, 2008 by 'holic
I was looking forward to the game tomorrow. Hull City have started their first Premiership season in impressive fashion, losing just one of their first five outings.
Now we know what to expect from most visitors to the Grove these days. Pack the midfield and defence with five back, or five in midfield. Try to deny Arsenal the space to weave their wonderful patterns. It is tedious when everybody does it, but if I was managing the opponents I would do the same.
Supposedly bigger and better clubs than Hull do it so it should not be a surprise. What is sickening though is the rhetoric attributed to the Tigers manager. If he is not being misquoted then football really is going to hell in a handcart.
He said: “For me the Kevin Davies tackle, there was nothing wrong with that…If you allow Arsenal to dictate that that tackle goes out of the game, then we are finished.”
It is not Arsenal that are dictating anything of the sort fella. It’s funny how the Pogatetz tackle against Manchester United the other night has been universally condemned, but an almost identical one on an Arsenal player is deemed acceptable.
You are perfectly entitled to deny opponents space, close down quickly, tackle hard but fairly, and lump the ball out of harms way as much as you want pal, but two-footed lunges that take ball and then slam into shins and ankles are deliberate attempts to injure fellow professionals. Just because it was the way of the coward twenty years ago doesn’t make it acceptable now.
Anyway, the team news for Arsenal is encouraging. There is not much chance of a defensive reshuffle, however much we might like to see it. The front six will be fascinating to see, with so many impressive performances from the two Arsenal sides in the last week.
If Samir Nasri is fit to return who makes way? Does Carlos Vela deserve an outing on the back of his hat-trick against Sheffield United? Does Big Nick start or will Robin van Persie get the nod? Are we only going to see the Ivorian Maradonna?
Well, I’m pretty sure whoever is out there the confidence that has been building in recent weeks will see us overcome whatever Hull want to throw at us, by fair means or foul. The ‘holic pound is going on 3-1. Will I finally get a return this season?
Anyway, if you are going mine is a pint of Guinness. Whatever you are all doing this weekend, have a good one. I’ll be back at some stage of Sunday with doubtless drunken recollections of the contest! All the best, ‘holics.
32 Responses to “Here We Go Again – Kicking Arsenal Is OK”
read that article … people are never dragged easily into the future till one of theirs suffers same fate.
One of the wonderful aspects of modern technology, the advent of Arsenal TV and the likes of Setanta, is that even expat Gooners can enjoy Arsenal from afar. Aklthough I’m in Virginia and only manage to get back for a handful of games each season, I haven’t missed one kick that Arsenal have made this season, either in friendlies or tournaments proper.
So, it is with some considerable excitement that I anticipate this Saturday’s visit to the Auld Shabeen for Gunners, Guinness and Gruel (Shepherd’s Pie actually, but I wanted the alliteration). The Young Guns were sensational on Tuesday and I can’t help but think that will have kindled the senior teams enthusiasm to play even more.
I really like the fact that Alex Song is coming onto a game. His defence in front of the back four is a real plus. Up front, what can I say? We’re spoiled for choice no matter who plays. With Cesc, Denilson and, I fancy, Nasri weaving their mid-field magic, the strikers should have chances a plenty and your three goal wish should materialise, holic. Good planning on your part to allow for a set piece goal from a Hull head.
Enjoy!
I would love one of our players to do it to them and then say after the game ‘Well to be honest their manager said it was ok before the game so fairs fair’ haha.
Ona serious note though i wouldn’t like to see us stoop to their levels. I would like us to play them off the park and IF they do any such challenges then i would expect the Ref and or FA to to get involved but looking at recent events both are Pussies that would rather stay away from possible confrontation.
Agree completely with the Man U reference. Pogatezs tackle was almost identical to Davies’ but for the angle at which he was facing the player. FA is a joke as are all the people saying it was a fair challenge. Credit given he got the ball but creating a gash on some ones shin and forcing them to play no further part through injury, how is that a fair tackle????????????
Pogatetz challenge was only massively condemned in the press, most independant supporters saw that and wondered what the fuss was about.
It’s always the same. A bug club suffers a tasty challenge and there’s hell on. Guthrie assaults a Hull player and it’s ‘no further action’.
Year on year Arsenal are always bleating about being kicked – it’s not as if it doesn’t happen to others, but they have the physicality in the squad to deal with it.
Because Arsenal are susceptible, then you all want a rule-change.
It would be far easier, and better for the long-term future of Arsenal to sign a big midfield enforcer, something they’ve been lacking since Viera. That way you’d have somebody with the ability to kick ’em back (like most clubs do) instead of rolling around flashing imagiary cards at the ref and generally crying when a challeng is fairly won, but momentum carries a player through.
bring back them sixties i say !
Yes Mr Rich,
Arsenal do have the right to cry…..We have Eduardo sidelined for months due to the likes of you preaching opponents should kick Arsenal players. If I can recall, Abu Diabi suffered injury from a reckless tackle.
Football is not rugby. Skills, technicality and non dodgy referees win you titles and not the sort of physicality that is best left for Rugby. Which team has won a title bullying, kicking and breaking their opponents’ legs?
sorry rich but which independent supporters wondered what the fuss was about with the pogotetz tackle? a bad tackle is a bad tackle regardless of who made it and the team they play for or who it was against in my view.
Guthrie had no further punishment because the ref had already given a red and the fa are a bunch of tarts that lack any real direction and cant make a decision on the matter that satisfies anyone at all.
both guthrie and pogotezt deserve a lengthy ban (guthrie should miss the rest of the season imo).
Tell you what, let’s make football non-contact so Arsenal can win everything in sight unopposed. That better?
Who said anything about kicking – we’ve just had a lad sidelined for 3 months with a broken leg from a kick – which was a kick, rather than a player comitting fully to a winnable challenge.
Brown’s qoute was ‘If we can’t TACKLE Arsenal then we may as well not turn up’. The only criticism to be thrown at that statement is that he’s staing the obvious.
Arsenal are breathtaking at times, but the achillies heel seems to be that you don’t fancy the rough stuff (not nescessarily fouling or kicking) Most of the other teams in this league have a suitable squad balance to deal with that element of football.
The only intent in the Davies challenge was to win the ball.
Hardly the same league as Thatcher and Guthrie, and you make yourselves look soft and stupid for trying to draw comparisons.
If you can intimidate an opponent by being more comitted in the challenge then surely you have to look at why that is the case time and time again. You have the same ref’s throughout the division making the same decisions, and it’s a fact that there is a physical element throughout the BPL. Surely that should come into the thinking of ‘le gaffer’ when he assembles the squad.
You say you want physical contact to be left to Rugby?
I say, if you don’t want compettive contact between atheletes then go and watch Basketball. The great thing about the beautiful game is that it is multi-faceted.
Ask Adams and Keown if they want rid of the physical side – they were gods of the game in that respect.
Didn’t Hartson play for you guys aslo?
what other team has to read previews of the other teams manager saying we have to get in their faces and kick them? None. not chelsea, not man u, just Arsenal get that.
its so premeditated and thats what gets arsenal fans goat.
I think the myth that we cant handle a kick has been put round on MOTD by Hansen and Lawrenson and has become a self fulfilling prophecy. now Arsenal end up getting kicked more than other teams.
its also possibly to do with our style of slick on the floor football and dribbling with the ball. it frustrates the other team and if they want to stop us playing they foul us. refs dont really deal with it and the media certainly dont so Arsenal just have to cope with it. A top team in spain does not get the same treatment despite the fact they play the same way as Arsenal. the prem league can be brutal but we have to deal with that.
dun worry hull boss,we gonna stuff u 6 nil,then u can start kicking urself instead of others
ps:bernard mendy said hull can beat us gunners..what’s he smoking..i want some of tht shit
rich, I tell you when we had Vieira, Arsenal got SLATED big time by everyone who couldn’t wait to moan about his style. arsenal dont have a hard man as such but I think its a myth that we cant handle a rough game. I have seen on many many occasions in the last year Arsenal involved in very rough games only to go on and win the game. in the end, quality tells and the kickers end up either on a booking, so have to curb their ways, or sent off. I know what I would rather be watching. my only worry is that we end up with so many top quality players sitting in the treatment room, some of them missing large chunks of an otherwise glittering career. its a shame for football.
We’ve been saying ‘e i their acs’ before every game and it appars to be working.
Kick them? Don’t remember Brown EVER saying that, but that’s what this article is implying he said.
We’ll be in for every 50/50 on Saturday, maybe a few 40/60’s as well.
You will win but forgive us if we don’t roll over and die for you, as you seem to be wanting us (and every other team) to do.
The only time Brown has uttered the word ‘kick’ was in the aftermath of the Newcastle game, when it was us getting kicked because we were humiliating them.
I’d LOVE it if we did the same to you, but reality dictates a 3 or 4 -1 home win.
Mind you, I think you’ll find we are better at the back than W.B.A. and play more football than Bolton and Stoke.
Our lads will be 100% up for this and strange things happen in football.
Just to re-iterate, Brown did NOT say that we’ll KICK you off the park, and after watching Bolton – Arsenal, don’t see that Davies challenge as malicious. He did’t take his eye off the ball and he won it.
A lot of pundits agree that he was unlucky to get a yellow for it, but that was ‘bought’ by the gamesmanship of Arsenal players.
Now if you want to start talking about things that are ruining the game, look an simulation, diving and trying to influence the ref into booking a fellow pro.
Sorry, read “‘e i their acs” as “GET IN THEIR FACES”
Most are pointing to PB’s comments about a certain tackle to indicate that the Tigers will play like that, and it’ll be rough and tough in midfield. They really haven’t got it. Yes, they’ll be hurried and harried, closed down and jostled, but dirty??? Typical of a big club’s supporters attitude when up against a team less technically gifted. I think you all may be well surprised, but we are not going to be dazzled by the bright lights of the Emirates like some, not surrendering and rolling over.
Rich – with all due respect pal, this is the premiership where people pay very good money to watch the best football.
Noone wants you to roll over and be tickled, just to approach the game in the right way. This is what is expected, and if you have an issue with that, I’m sure noone will miss you when you’re back at home, right as rain, next season with the shitkickers in the chamionship.
Also, bringing out the same dull ‘Arsenal don’t like it rough’ – do you know how many ‘5000th Arsenal player to be sent off’ headlines we get? It’s suddenly a problem when we give it back.
Good luck to Hull in the top flight, but throwing criticisms around on this level of football when you’ve no experience of it will only increase the lack of sympathy when you get relegated.
Same goes for you. Don’t assume we’re shitcickers because w’re newly promoted.
Hull passholder, but have been Norh-east based for 15 years now.
As a football fan, I’v followed the local teams live when not travelling to hull.
Fact is mate I have seen plenty of top-end premiership stuff, internatioals and european fixtures-and can remember when the mighty gooners kicked their way to a european title.
Don’t tell me I have no experience of quality football.
Arrogant fool.
Heh, apologies Rich, but just as you assumed the whole ‘they don’t like it up ’em, gamemanship’ I assumed the same in reverse with you being a Hull fan, and not entirely without tongue in cheek.
Not much fun, is it, having aspersions cast on your team without any real experience of the week in, week out goings on?
As for the arrogant fool bit, any call for that? Did I insult you? Where was I being arrogant?
Don’t worry about it chap, I’m sure I’ll get over it.
P.S. I’m not criticising the team or the club per-se, just the article that assumes because Brown saw little wrong technically with the Davies challenge, we’re going to turn up and kick lumps.
Fact is, we haven’t got the sqaud to cope with unnescessary suspensions. That will come into the gameplan as much as the need to stop you playing.
There was a case for the challenge to be deemed ‘dangerous’ by the ref. Some refs wouldn’t though, and quite simply, taking the ball and then making contact with the man isn’t a foul in itself. Nor is going in for one whole heartedly, and quite rightly so.
It’s simply a matter of opinion, because it all hinges on the ref’s perception of ‘intent’. Seeing the lad keep his eyes firmly on the ball, for me should have at least spared him the yellow. With the ref behind play, I believe he was influenced by the Arsenal reaction when making the decision about intent.
“Arrogant fool”
comment made not entirely without tongue in cheek
I think I could muster something slightly more cutting should I have “shown intent”.
Haha “shown intent”, fair play.
I think maybe Brown’s comments have been lumped in with Nolan’s comment about kicking Walcott, which perhaps has unfairly contextualised them. Either way, I think we both agree seeing good football from any team is the main thing, and ugly challenges – and the debate that follows – are an unwelcome element.
Enjoy the game tomorrow – heading down for it, Rich?
What is with the “if you don’t want to get physical, watch basketball” stuff? I’ve seen this a few time now, and I don’t get it. Watch the NBA, it’s large men brawling for a rebound, elbows in the face, large men knocking other large men to the floor, etc. I’m sure there could be a better analogy than that, or am I missing something? It just seems to me, that the physical nature of that sport is very close to football, why not use golf to make the point instead?
Nah, bit too far for me that one. Kid on the way not to mention tickets like gold-dust.
Going to settle down with a few beers and put the telly to good use.
Hoping to hell that we make you play some of your best stuff to beat us, and doubt we’ll play an expansive game in doing it, but I think you’ll be surprised by how hard we work for eachother, and the organisational side of things.
We have the players to mix it, but also have a few footballers too. If we get something it will be down to both of these elements, we’re hard, but not particularly dirty, and I’m pretty sure that whilst we may ‘niggle’ a bit there will be no player on our side going out to injure opponents.
Only problem is that with the pace in your side, a slightly mis-timed challenge can be made to look worse. You’re the quickest side some of our boys will have ever played against. That said, for the majority of the game last week we outpassed and outran Everton, them not living with our tempo. Legs were a problem late on, and the gaffer made a rare error of judgement with subs.
Still, we could crumble, but that’s no more likely than us shocking you.
You’ll probably win, but we’ll be no pushovers is my prediction.
Bastball supposed to be a non-contact sport. If that doesn’t cut out the fouling then we’ll never do it in football, making the rugby compirison void also.
Tell YOU what Rich, why don’t we make football football and not rugby, ok?
Apparently you think it’s perfectly ok to go in with explosive force, two-footed, studs up, with your trailing led deliberately aimed at an opponent’s knee or shin, aimed to injure him.
Such great football, that!
Why not try PLAYING FOOTBALL? Every think of that?
I think Phil Brown was just being a little mischievous in making his comments…..which at the very least could be held open to interpretation and at worst case wholly supportive of what Kevin Davies did to Gael Clichy. Perhaps a pretty low rent attempt to destabilize the opposing side prior to the game?? If so, not very good!
Off course, Wenger and/or Arsenal football club are not in any way trying to turn football into some kind of non-contact sport for their own advantage. Clearly we’ve had our own share of hard tackling members in the team…….and still do in the form of Toure, Djourou, Gallas (on his day) and RVP – all players that can put it about a bit.
Bolton and Arsenal have form. Bolton have enjoyed a modicum of success by roughing it a bit (fair play to em) and Phil Brown was simply seizing upon the opportunity by using an easy weapon at his disposal to add a bit of spice to the affair.
3-0 Arsenal win 🙂
Alex Song also springs to mind and lest we not forget the brute that is Emanu Eboue?!
Let’s think about this. Phil Brown’s qoute was ‘If we can’t TACKLE Arsenal then we may as well not turn up’. Whether attempted hyperbole or not, he wrong!! No one from Arsenal has ever come close to making such a preposterous assertion. In which case the fella should have engaged brain before opening his mouth.
You might be right Don. I made the point, I thought, that he may also have been misquoted. (By our magnificent press! Surely not?)
I have no axe to grind with the clubs that their own supporters describe as ‘little clubs’. I reserve the right to criticise everybody (and it is nearly everybody) who comes to the Grove and plays one up and tries to throttle the life out of the game. As I said if I was in charge of them I would do the same, but it is getting tedious game after game. Come and have a go for goodness’ sake.
And Rich, for your benefit, the Guthrie challenge was diabolical and not acceptable. It doesn’t matter if he did it to a Hull player, a Villa player, or some poor sod walking down the road eating a peach. It was an assault and he should be on the receiving end of a lengthy ban, the same as Davies, Pogatetz, Martin Taylor, and any other tosser who thinks it is ok to go around maiming opponents.
You’ll not hear anybody here calling for any rule changes either. If the referees apply the ones that already exist there isn’t a problem. So take the chip on your shoulder, and think on. I wish Hull the best of luck, if the manager is the intelligent tactician I had enjoyed listening to until these comments were reported.
I say again, if he hasn’t been misquoted, football is in deep shit.
‘Holic – You, in part, have driven me to post a not-quite manifesto in support of the defense. I think they’ll come good.
It’s amazing how people take this argument to such extremes. No Arsenal fans are saying let’s ban tackling, we’re just saying going over the top of the ball with your studs showing a la Davies, Pogatetz and Taylor is not acceptable. But when you raise the argument that violence shouldn’t be accepted, you’re met with, “oh let’s ban tackling and all roll over for Arsenal.’ Why can’t anyone understand the large shade of grey here? Is it deliberate? Do people apply this psyche to every argument they have?
True ‘holic….true! Only a moron would attempt to construct an argument that Arsenal are trying to erase any contact from the great game of football – for our own advantage. *Violent* contact? Most certainly yes!! Contact? Definitely not!!
Too….One cannot overlook the toxic pairing that is Mark Lawrenson and Alan Shearer on MoTD – fronted by the immature giggling schoolboy ‘charm’ of Gary Lineker! Is it only me who cannot abide the whinings of these rabidly partisan (dressed up as neutral) footballing ‘experts’?? Yuck!!!!!
Off course, it is OK for Bolton give it some to the team of ‘southern jessies’ that is Arsenal (a tackle that could just as easily have broke Clichys leg) but yet they and their ilk will waste no time in roundly condemning Pogatetz tackle the other night (a tackle that could just as easily have broke Possebons leg).
Can anyone else smell the foul stench of hypocrisy?? I certainly can!!!
Gallas again….sort it out Le Prof. He keeps spoiling the party 🙁