SEVEN YEARS

Last updated : 23 September 2003 By editor
FA must slam Arsenal
By JOHN SADLER

THEY looked like a bunch of new recruits to the thuggish element who call themselves England fans. Had they been draped in scruffy flags of St George and wearing Burberry caps we would not have been able to tell the difference.
A snarling, shoving, jostling bunch of yobs targeting one of their opposite number in a shameful display of the kind of behaviour the FA are so desperate to keep out of Turkey that they have rejected their ticket allocation for next month’s European qualifier.

But this was Arsenal, once known as THE Arsenal — a proud club of distinguished tradition respected as much for the standards they set as the trophies they won.

Arsenal and their manager have become a menace.

Not through dirty play as much as dirty tactics, diving like Robert Pires and others, bellyaching about poor referees and seeking to justify their pollution of the so-called beautiful game. Rank bad behaviour.

In Wenger’s seven years as manager of Arsenal they have had 52 sendings-off.
Vieira now tops the Premiership’s rogues’ gallery with eight red cards. That is not a coincidence.

Keown has been dismissed six times and that’s no coincidence, either.