Despite the suggestions not long ago from some disgraced doctor that some Arsenal players had been among his clients for illegal performance enhancing drugs, Arsenal have not to my knowledge ever had a player fail a drug test. Arsene Wenger has also been one of the most vocal and consistent managers to talk about the need for the sport to do more to stop any such cheating from going on.
So it was hardly a surprise that the Frenchman was a bit miffed when it was discovered that one of the Dinamo Zagreb players had tested positive after playing in the Champions League win over us in September. But did the boss get the backing of the British football media? Not exactly.
Mostly what we got were snide comments about him being a bad loser, even though Zagreb escaped any punishment because the rules about there needing to be three or more players testing positive makes it pretty much impossible for a club breaking the rules to be found out.
Imagine my surprise, then, to read in The Guardian this week from one of our ‘unbiased’ football reporters that Liverpool should not be allowed to stay in the Europa League because one of their players Mamadou Sakho tested positive for a banned substance.
The reporter talks about how the rules need to be changed but when Wenger suggested the same he was ridiculed for trying to gain Arsenal an unfair advantage. Have Arsenal fans not got enough to worry about with the media being against us all the time as well?