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Arsenal 1 Wolverhampton Wanderers 0
Welcome to Zero Football. It wasn’t anti-football, which has something in it – a style, an approach, a way of life – all negative but at least something measurable.
But this was not football at all. Zero football. So far removed from what football is about that it was nothing.
Just nothing.
Arsenal 16 Wolverhampton Wanderers 1 – that was the result in terms of shots. For shots on target it was 8-0. This is not what football is about, although it was advertised and called a game of football.
There was no serious intent by the opposition, other than to try and sneak a point by any means possible, and to jeer and laugh at a club that tries to play football. Rotational fouling and rotational time-wasting – we have seen them before, although not taken so far. Add the cynical jeering, the fouls and the behaviour of the manager, and you have Zero Football.
When a keeper takes 30 seconds to take a goalkick, and when contrary to all the rules he holds onto a ball for 15 seconds – three times the amount of time the rules allow – you know what you are getting. Why the ref colluded with such action is another matter.
As for the foul for which Henry was sent off, it could have been another dreadful career ending affair, and given that, it was right to send off the player.
But what was not right at all was McCarthy then applauding the player off the pitch, putting his arm around him, applauding the player away from the game, and then sarcastically turning to the crowd and applauding them.
If ever there was an incitement to riot by a manager at a major game, this was it. For the sake of safety, with 60,000 in the ground, no one can do anything to whip up anger and disdain in this way – it is just far too dangerous. Indeed it was only the discipline of the crowd – something of which the Wolverhampton manager was singularly lacking – that stopped there being any trouble.
Deliberately provoking people in a crowded situation so that they might well riot is incitement and is a criminal offence, which is why the matter has been brought to the attention of the Met Police.
It is also a matter for the FA and EPL and they should certainly be taking action against the manager for behaving in this way. Should they fail to deal with the manager’s behaviour they will be guilty of bringing the game into disrepute.
On Friday night three Norwich officials were dismissed from the touch line for far lesser offences – and it remains to be seen if the official bodies will now take action.
We were without most of our star players, from those like Van Persie, crippled playing for their countries, to those like Ramsey, crippled playing for their club. Plus of course those given time off in between the two Barca games.
The fact that we can see keep going against Zero Football and such disgraceful managerial activities is a tribute to the club. The joy at the end was great, and those supporters of Wolverhampton who had not been escorted from the ground earlier by the police and stewards could do worse on reflect on the disgraceful behaviour of the club they purport to support.
No one thinks badly of a club where the players come out and make a game of it, even if they are poor players. But this Zero Football is appalling – a cynical and disgraceful way to try to bring football to an end.
Certainly the keeper should not have been on the pitch after half time, and should have been sent off before Henry. However the manager would only have applauded his play and jeered again at the crowd, and maybe in not sending the keeper off the ref was trying to stop a riot.
It was all fairly dispicable, but it does make clear just what Wolverhampton Wanderers are about, just as Shawcross revealed what his club is about, and just as the Birmingham supporters who chant Taylor’s name, reveal the true nature of their club.
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The Untold Index of other articles is here.
We feared another leg break for Rosicky. And when he got treatment at the side line they showed it on TV and you could see the wounds on his calf from the challenge. Well deserved red card and this was the best decision from the ref on the day.
find it amazing that even some arsenal fans are saying it was not a red card offence, jeez just look at rosikcy’s calf, stud marks all over it, a tackle from beind that was reckless deserves a red, this wrong conception that if you touch the ball in a challenge that it is not a bookable or sending off offence is laughable and shows how little many football fans, pundits and journos know about the rules
Just seen MOTD and I really would challenge Hansen and that other c%nt to referee a game themselves. They just don’t know anything about the rules and the instructions NOW.
And how on earth did they manage in MOTD to only show about half of our chances and manage to show so much of Wolves “chances”.
Like I said before : they hate us.
Tony,
Well said! It was a disgrace… My remark for the foul against Rosicky was simple… Just because no bone was sticking out of a sock or no limb was flapping awkwardly or no 02 mask was dangling from a players chin… Is a rareity when we see a RED card these days but it was a RED card offense just the same… My only anger is I wish this team would swarm the offender and just go fn berzerk…
As far as the scoreline and finish ….It couldn’t have happened any better it was just marvelous….
It silenced everyone and even those fake Arsenal supporters!
Our match commentator was at the bottom of the grave he was digging for our title chances and then Nicklas proved him wrong.
This team, even without all those players is really fighting with all they have left in them.
Great stuff. The only thing is … we should have been 3-0 up at half time. But now it was o so sweet at the end.
But my ricky ticker…..
Did anyone see the deliberate stamp on Walcotts’ calf by Henry in the first half. Subtle yes but although he could be forgiven for his foot landing on Walcotts calf he then put his full weight onto that foot in a clearly deliberate way. He should’ve been off for that but the ref missed it. Do the refs get to see replays of their mistakes at half time, anyone know ?
Karl henry aside, I didn’t have much of a problem with how wolves played. The ref should have called them up for time wasting more, absolutely, but the main reason we didnt score, apart from our failure to take chances, was that they just defended well, and, again, karl henry aside, they did so without resorting to “roughing up” tactics.
Didnt see what mccarthy did on the sidelines, but it doesnt sound so bad to me. I have heard his pathetic little rant after the game however. One word to describe that: childish. Why isnt he called a sore loser btw? If wenger said what he did, theyd be up in arms, but I guess that goes without saying on this site.
I didnt think the challenge from henry was reckless btw. He knew he couldnt get the ball and just wanted to inflict pain. He flew in with full force, but in a relatively controlled way. Put his studs in rosicky’s calf. Im glad he was sent off but it wasnt a potential leg-breaker. If it was u know rosicky would have been injured – he’s just looking for an excuse.
He also stood on theo’s calf. Not trying to break his leg, just to “let (theo) know he’s there”.
The commentators. the p(l)undits and the ColUmNisTS all deem the challenge on Rosicky didnt deserve a red card..WTF? There was this ColUmNisT for USA today (i think), who kept on going about how the fans at the Ems influenced the ref to the point that he just had to send the player off, lol! come on now… Do you guys strip the ref naked post game, perform a ritual and boil him up or something like that? No right? and he also had the nerve to ask out aloud as to why Lord Wenger felt that the whole world was against his team? Why do such retarded sons of bitches get to be columnists? they piss me off! but hey 1-0 to the Arsenal and this makes my weekend..
http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11095_6073543,00.html
My word, how they spin things.
How they got the headline “Ramsey clears Shawcross’ name” escapes me.
First of all ramsey was very negative about shawcross in his comments. He didnt let him off the hook, and said he was trying to “to take (him) out and make sure (he) felt the tackle” and stop ramsey attacking, but no one would accuse a player of trying to cause that kind of injury
They created a controversy that some phantom individuals associated with arsenal were claiming shawcross actively sought to break ramsey’s leg when no one really said that. We said shawcross was wrong, that he went into a tackle knowing he couldnt win it and that not intending to cause harm does not excuse you from breaking someones leg with a reckless challenge, but no one said he intended to do what he did exactly.
To end it like this is just enfuriating.
And let my remind you that that innocent Henry in the first half deliberatly put his studs on the calf of Walcott to stop him in his game. When you saw that in replay, he could have been sent off at that stage but this one the pundits didn’t see.
And a little bit of news regarding the Barcelona game : Ibrahimovic got injured (calf) in the warm up before the game against Bilbao and could not play and is doubtful for the CL game.
Davi-Aaron Ramsey also said “he could definitely have changed his mind before making the tackle, realising that he was not going to get there and so not committing.” What we saw with Henry’s tackle on Rosicky is a player who clearly was not going to get to the ball first, deliberately going through the back of an opponent-banking on getting a yellow card. I am with the ref 100%.
The stoical defence of these types of unnecessary violent challenges in the English game by former players belies their own parochial, out of date understanding of motivation, where aggressive lack of self control was revered as a masculine attribute-the hard man myth- so loved by English fans.
Sigh, I come back to this site after bashing a piece of trash journalism on Soccernet… Adamant that the red card was never a red card, and spending inches of writing to trashing Walcott…
Gotta love the breath of fresh air with the articles here on Untold 🙂
The sliding tackle fom the rear or side rear where there is no contact with the all should be banned. That`s what I, and many others would like to see happen. It raises some questions like, when should it be introduced,what are the penalties, are there legal implications, should an injured person be awarded compensation and should the club have a legal compensation rights.
The first stage has to be to write it into the `rule book`, the second is `the player must leave the field of play` and thirdly we must have video evidence analysed before passing sentence.
If we were to introduce it right now not one EPL match would end with a full compliment of players, it`s that bad.
Should read: The sliding tackle from the rear or side rear where there is no contact with the BALL should be banned.
But twenty years of the Premiership and the gravy train of the ‘Champions’ League have created this ‘Zero Football’.
You can surely see that can’t you?
Quite how are a team like Wolves meant to compete against the all-powerful Bore Four and Man. City?
Their collective results against the likes of Wolves on their home grounds this season shows something like a 95% win ratio!!!!!!
Personally, if I was a manager of one of them I’d completely right off those five games, stick out the youth team, and compress my season into the other 33 games.
Did Mcarthy see the cut on Rosickys leg or did he think he did that on the grass?
disgrace, disgrace and more disgrace, but as u said it earlier for such clubs a lot depends on staying in premier league and they will do anything to remain in pl. Unfortunately we have to deal with it.
by the way charity fc needs to drop 4 pts coz we can’t ctch them otherwise not to say arsenal needs to win every game without their 1st team. It will be quite an astonishing achievement.
CL is our best hope.
I did say I was glad henry got sent off, and it was one of those nasty challenges – I just disagree that it was reckless. He knew what he was doing.
Its worthy of a sending off because it was purely there to hurt rosicky, not to play the ball at all, and if you’re not out there to play football, you shouldn’t be out there. But it wasnt the same kind of thing as the ramsey tackle at all.
Ramsey’s comments are extremely well put by the way. Probably the best summation of the events as I’ve seen. Just cant believe the headline Sky Sports gave them.
Thinking about this season’s Premiership and the eventual winners I have to say that I think that whoever it may be will be amongst the worst winners I’ve seen in the past two decades.
I’ve listened to some complete horse shit spoken about the fact that it’s got more to do with the improvement of the clubs outside of the top 4 – what utter nonsense. Really, a Premiership with Birmingham City and Blackburn Rovers in the top half. A Spurs team without a fit centre half competing for the Champions League. An Everton side so bad that for the first half of the season were looking like relegation fodder all of a sudden in the Europa League shake up. Bobby Zamora amongst the leading scorers…….improvement……do me a fucking favour
It’s no coincidence that for the first time in years the CL semis could be without an English team. Can you honestly say that this Man United side with its complete over-reliance on Shrek, a one-paced midfield, a keeper 10 years past his best and Gary Neville is a great team. All of their previous title winning sides would piss all over this current crop
And the Chavs…..an ageing midfield who were virtually anonymous against Inter, Captain Chav struggling to keep up with anything other than teammates ex-girlfriends, Petr the Clown and 32 year old Dogbreath. Mourinho’s teams of 2005 and 2006 would destroy them.
And as for our class of 2010 – all of Wenger’s teams from 1997 to 2006 would have destroyed them too.
There is no doubt in my mind that whoever wins it this year will be up there with the Blackburn side of 1995 (Wilcox, Batty and Sherwood…need I say more) and Leeds of 1992 (how many away games did they win the following season ?) as the worst winners of the past 20 years.
What do you guys think ?
The riot nearly happened in Club deck, folks.
Nowadays, quite a few tickets are used by opposition fans which we don’t oppose as long as they respect that they are in an Arsenal Club area, not the away fans area.
A fairly belligerent Midlander said ‘is that how you want to buy the League?’ when Henry was sent off. Then it was on and on about the 5 minutes added on – 5 substitutions, Rosicky’s injury, timewasting by the keeper. He wouldn’t listen.
Then Bendtner scored and he then claimed a Gooner hit his mate in the face and starting screaming at the Steward who, rightly, said that he had seen nothing so what was he supposed to do. He’s not a policeman, he’s a steward. His mate was clearly unharmed and was less up for a complaint than he was. It was a frustrated supporter not knowing what being a guest means…….
A quite word with the WWFC Board might be in order about etiquette, me thinks??
Barotsage – so if you are using the fact that no English club might make it to the CL Semi-Finals as evidence of a decline in standards then you cannot also go on to say that the Arsenal side of 97-06 would have beaten our current side because this current side makes the latter stages of the CL regularly while for those sides making the CL Quarterfinals was a huge achievement. Or have you forgotten how much those sides struggled in Europe EVERY year? And if you think this year is so bad, then what about 2000-01, when Ipswich finished 5th, 2 points away from the CL (and we finished 2nd, despite getting only 70 points)? Or 1999-00, when we finished 2nd despite 9 losses? Or 1997-98, when Chelsea finished 4th despite 15 losses? You seem to have a pretty selective memory. You should stop drinking the kool-aid the media is selling. This is actually a very good year, a very competitive year. The teams at the top are very good. Are they as good as Chelsea 04-06? No, probably not, because those Chelsea teams had 500million spent on them, had a great manager, and were at their peak. Are they as good as Arsenal 02-04? No, probably not, because that side had 5 players that developed at Arsenal into the best in the world (Henry, Vieira, Bergkamp, Pires, Campbell) at their positions. But then again, that Arsenal side had zero depth, as evidenced by our Championship loss in 2003.
Things change. It was always better “back in the days”. When you begin to learn that saying is complete bull, then you start to see things much clearer. The whole “doom and gloom” brigade are obsessed with the whole “back in the days” notion and it causes them all mass depressions. Cheer up. This is a fantastic season. It is a fantastic Championship race. It is the most competitive race in years and years. There are 5 teams competing for 4th. This is wonderful.
I also really think this is a great season. Despite losing almost all our key (and most experienced) players at the same time ( RVP-Bendtner-Cesc (on different occasions- Gallas- Arshavin (on different occasions) and still we are only 3 points of the top.
Last year the team learned a lot when we lost key players and this year the same but we now are still in it with a chance. I really think next season it will be nothing if we lose important players. The experience our playes have gathered over the last 2 seasons is so huge we will just do it no matter how many injured players we will have.
if a nil all draw earned 0 points in the league, it might make games like this obsolete. zero football at its best
I agree with Walter.Its very competitive. Everton are a very good team, and they are 8th in the league.
Chelsea have been the best team so far, but not by much.
I’m surprised Mcarthy was reported …… he wasn’t really inciting a riot, just being a bit provocative by the sound of it.
I would like the FA to make it an offence for Managers to incite or insinuate to their players to foul or play violently. That is where I believe managers have a genuine responsibility.
I can’t see any player breaking ranks to report a manager, but that law should at least be there.
But I guess for as long as Shawcross and Alladiere are deemed of equal notoriety by the FA’s criminal justice system……its pretty clear they are not serious about marshalling the game.
Giving no points for a 0-0 draw would be a great start to stop the zero football tactics.
Now must say you can have an great game with two attacking teams that end up with 0-0 but bad luck for them I would say in that case. As always the good one will carry the same punishment as the bad ones. It’s just life…
has anyone any idea how many 0-0 draws there have been this season ?
I had been thinking one of another suggestion and that was that for a defeat you get 0 points if you don’t score. But if you do score and you lose you should get 1 point. A goalless draw no points and a draw with goals 2 points each. In this case a win should give you 4 points.
I don’t know what the effect would be in the table but I think it would give managers more pressure to try to score goals and as far as I know, scoring goals is what football is about.
Watching McCarthy’s behaviour, it is quite clear he considers clubs like Us and Man U as almost unbeatable, and effectively in a different league to WW.
His crass remarks about K.Henry’s stud machete attack simple bear out his dog in the manger attitude.
I would say that there needs to be either a financial levelling, or some sort of super league………
but I’m not sure financial levelling is the answer. Sunderland once fielded a team that cost more than our team. Gordon Brown has shown par excellence that throwing money at problems doesn’t make them go away…..
So…….a super league for teams that want to play football?
A sort of Harlem Globetrotters thing, where 5 or 6 top teams just go around playing exhibition matches.
I can’t really hack watching dickheads like Henry launch cowardly attacks any more.
It just makes me sick to watch gratuitous senseless unprovoked violence like that, on a guy whose back is turned, very cowardly.
Barotsage- No cant agree with you. Firstly the CL quarters aren’t sorted yet and although most would not give us much of a chance away to Barca,Manure are well capable of beating Bayern at home- a Bayern with a dodgy defence. The EPL is also ranked first in the UEFA coefficients of leagues based on performances in European competitions over the last five years, ahead of Spain’s La Liga and Italy’s Serie A. The EPL is also the most watched league and the most lucrative (as well as the most debt ridden).
Secondly, any team can have a single bad night as Chelsea did against their old boss- I would not mind a bad night where you only lose 1-0. I would back Chelsea to beat Inter 9 times out of 10- and in fact they outplayed them in the first leg in Italy.
Thirdly, Chelsea are one of the very best 2/3 teams in Europe, as are Man U. We are a bit further down- but right up there with the rest- who is better than us? , Inter?-no other Italians, No French, Barca- yes, Real maybe, no other Spanish though some will give us a game. Bayern? no other Germans. Moscow? Not against our best side. Exactly who in Europe is so great? AC Milan? Roma? Juve? Valencia? Sevilla? Shalke?
On the other hand Walter, I dont think the EPL has ever been really competitive- since 1992, Manure have won it 11 times, the fab four may have another participant (City) poss Spurs but thats all. All of those sides except one have one thing in common-they have all exploited the lack of regulation and poor ownership rules and bought their success- the one exception being us- we have stayed up there because we have the best coach.
Easter Monday……boring ain’t it?
Spend the day in leafy Hertfordshire where the might Arsenal Reserves play.
Cheap, Terrace, Bovril, smell the liniment, hear the tackles, fetch the ball.
Barnet v. Chesterfield.
Warning to Premiership supporters: in Division 4 no one knows the result three months before the game is played.
Go on, you know you want to……and you can slag it off on this website after the game!
Having watched the incident 20-30 times now, I would perhaps suggest that some of the “posters” above do the same. On a technical point it was impossible for Karl Henry to have inflicted the so-called “studmark machete” on “Roll-around Rosicky” – his studs were never in contact with the player during the incident in question. Check it out for yourselves!
Henry went to tackle from the side and Rosicky, being the clever player that he is, positioned himself to try to stop the player getting to the ball – in actual fact Henry did get the ball first.
By the letter of the game he did make the challenge from behind, so whether he got the ball or not, it was a foul.
Henry probably deserved a good talking to – or at most a yellow. If you want to see real calf-raking challenges, check out the ones by West Ham players on Jones and Doyle a couple of weeks back!
As a guest at the game I was disappointed by both sides. One that clearly has little depth, and the other, well, they’re only just hanging onto their Premiership place.
As for Zero football
Neutral, have you seen Henry stepping on Walcotts calf in the first half when he was already brought down ? He stamped on Theo’s calf with intent – to get him out of the game at that point ? – and this was a red card offence. Had nothing to do with trying to play the ball who was a few yards away but all to do with trying to eliminate a player that was posing difficulties for Wolverhampton. It was cynical and should have got him the red card at that moment of the game.
Neutral – if those are your thoughts after watching the incident “20-30 times now” then I would suggest that you book an appointment at the eye clinic and get your vision checked out. And I am completely serious about that. Can you really not see Henry clattering Rosicky? Honestly? I mean, you could just be trying to wind people up but if not, you really should be quite worried about your vision.
And that is a great comment by you about how little depth Arsenal have. On a weekend when we were without Arshavin, Cesc, Van Persie, Gallas, Ramsey, Djourou and Gibbs through injury, and the manager chose to rest Diaby, Bendtner, and Nasri AND WE STILL DOMINATED THE MATCH AND WON. Oh dear. What exactly is your idea of having depth then? That is a pretty good team right there that we had not playing. In fact, that is a Championship calibre side and none of them were starting the match. How would Chelsea do without Drogba, Lampard, Terry, Alex, Malouda, Mikel, Zhirkov, Essien, Anelka, and Cole? Hmmm. They would probably struggle to beat Wolves 1-0 at home just as we did. But of course, they have great depth and Arsenal don’t. Yep. That is obvious isnt it?
Idiot.