\it is something that the Arsenal fans have become used to over the years and so I was not really surprised to hear the former Man United, Everton and England midfielder Phil Neville come out with his daft comments about Tomas Rosicky on last night’s Match of the Day. Not surprised but a bit saddened and I feel the need to pick him up on it.
Neville has since claimed that his comments were not meant to be taken serious, but he seemed pretty serious at the time as he accused our Czech Republic international of lacking respect for the Brighton players for looking one way and playing a revers pass the other way. Rosicky did it a few times during the game and one of them led to his superb goal which turned out to be the winner, so surely it was clearly not just a mickey-taking thing, but a skill that can actually have a positive effect on the game.
And is football not about entertaining as well as getting results? Would we be happy to see two teams parking the bus every week and not doing any tricks in case it wound the opponents up? Get real Phil, and this from a man who was team mates with the biggest show pony and show-off the football world has ever seen, Cristiano Ronaldo.
If it had been Ronaldo doing what Rosicky did, do we really believe that Neville or anyone else in the media would have criticised them? Of course not, they would have given the credit where it’s due. Another thing that struck me today was the way our defence was labelled as flimsy by The Guardian for conceding two goals away from home to a Championship side. While Chelsea were not similarly slated for conceding four against Bradford from League Two.
It seems to me that Arsenal have been an easy target for so long that the football media cannot let it go, even the week after we proved them all wrong with our performance away to Man City. Do we care? A little bit, yes to be honest.