Some spite and street wisdom needed

Street wisdom or Wenger-ball?

Here's Charlie Adam's stamp on Giroud:

After over thirty years of playing competitive football, I can recognise and accident, and I can tell when someone's altered their stride pattern to time an arrival. This was no accident.

I can forgive the officials. From the first thirty seconds it was clear we were getting nothing, yet no-one was designated berrater-in-chief to get on the ref's back until told to lay off, when the mantle would pass onto the next-best non-stop moaner. That's a failure of the club, the management and the players. Wenger-ball is a beautiful game where the better team always comes out on top.

In the real world you need management.

You need to manage team mates, you need to manage officials, and you need to manage the opposition.

You manage officials in various ways. Some respond to the line that: “unless you look after us, we'll start looking after ourselves”. The threat of a bit of on-pitch civil disobedience often does the trick. Some need a gentle nudge, some cave in under sheer weight of pressure or time and persistence. It's a job and it needs doing.

One way to manage players like Adam is to get your 6'3” monster to realise he's a man-mountain and not be bullied, but rather be a bully. Giroud could be a Drogba. Instead he lies down clutching himself and waves his arms at the ref. Try it once, maybe. Don't persist with a strategy that has brought zero success after twenty minutes.

Another way is pre-taliation. We know who the opponent's hit-men are. Many are easily put off their programme by getting a bit back before they've even dished any out. Brief one of two of your more spiteful players to get him before he even thinks of getting us. Get on his case in the tunnel. Ask him how he'd like his leg broke. Get under his skin so he's looking over his shoulder the first time he receives the ball. Then don't let him down. Introduce him, aerially, to the people up in row Z.

There's too much expectation of level playing fields at the Arsenal, despite all evidence from history that they don't exist; and insufficient will and determination to ensure we adjust the slope, preferably so the bubble in the spirit level tilts in our favour. We need players who bear grudges. More recently Roy Keane, and before him Jackie Charlton have admitted keeping a hit-list of opponents who, given the right circumstances, were getting some back. We need less Wenger-ball and more vengeance, less Arsene-about and more anger and aggression, more spite and venom. We need our players to get up and say “was that your best shot, you Muppet?” when on the receiving end “you'll not be enjoying your turn”, and instead of shaking hands and making up after fouling an opponent, quietly inform them “there's plenty more where that came from...”