Phew! We're loving a bit of Arsenal talk at the moment.. I'll reply to everything I have seen and get you all straight
"He is a professional - he is meant to take the abuse, that's one of the reasons he's paid so much." - What a bizarre view. A professional footballer is not paid to take the abuse, nor does paying money entitle a supporter to hurl any form of abuse or object that takes his/her fancy.
View - sorry to disappoint you but I am not alone in thinking the VP tackle was worth a red card and that a ban for the celebration is over the top. Perhaps we need Arsenal tinted glasses? You are correct that it is the FA's view that counts - weather conditions could play as much a part as reason. On a similar charge, Gary Neville got a GBP 5,000 fine.
Cheers,
OW
Pfft. Red card for that van Persie tackle - it is briefly mentioned in papers that it was a bad tackle, but I think even just having a vote of people here, most would say it was a yellow, not a red. Personally I would call it a strikers tackle. Like I said - if you red carded every challenge like that, you wouldn't end many games without a player off. As we are so often reminded by stupid microphone wearing gum chewing imbecile Alladyce (I don't care how it's spelt) it's a physical game.
Adebayor's challenge is completely different, surely you can see. At least van Persie is somewhat trying to play the ball, feet on the ground, albeit rashly.. Adebayor rakes his face totally off the ball and intentionally, and rightfully, is being punished.
The professional: what I mean, is they are paid a lot of money to play football, often in front of hostile crowds. That is a part of football, and I'm sure it used to be a lot more hostile than it was now. They are the role models, they are the professionals - they are the ones carrying out their jobs, with the eyes of the world on them - the onus is on them to behave. Whilst what the fans did was unacceptable, Adebayor shouldn't have provoked them - he is a professional, and should be able to deal with fans. Again, the result is going to be the people who employ him are not going to be impressed - as as a result of his childish unprofessional behaviour, he will miss matches for them.
While I don't agree with what Adebayor did, although certain levels of abuse are tolerated, I don't believe he's paid extra £££ to take it. Just as I don't agree that throwing a chair and hospitalising a steward (or anyone for that matter) is an acceptable reaction to what Adebayor did. Let's hope everyone gets what's coming to them.
He's not paid extra to take it.. all professional footballers get abuse, really. Usually it's just in the form of fans taking the piss, but Sol Campbell from Spurs? Is an example. He didn't react to it. Because he was being professional, realised that as a professional footballer he is a role model and must rise above it and not react to it.
I don't know how to make my point really, it's not clear reading through really.
I believe Arsenal argued the fact that Eduardo went to ground, not to win a penalty, but to avoid contact with Boruc, worried by the horrific injury he sustained previously. The fact that he didn't appeal for a penalty was also used to substantiate this claim.
This. Arsene said - it wasn't a penalty, but you are accusing him of deliberately cheating. We believe he wasn't deliberately cheating, but he went down anticipating contact/to avoid contact. It's almost impossible to prove the intent to deceive the referee, so the charge was dropped. That's how I see it. That and UEFA realised that it wasn't a great can of worms to open.
Finally a couple of brilliant quotes from Arsene about Adebayor:
"Adebayor's challenge on Van Persie looks very bad. You ask 100 people, 99 will say it's very bad and the 100th will be Mark Hughes."
and about van Persie's critical statement towards Adebayor:
"If somebody stamps on your head in that way, you wouldn't say, 'thank you very much' and turn the other cheek. Only Jesus Christ did that."
