Allardyce playing games with Wenger, again

Sam Allardyce has come up to accuse Arsene Wenger of manipulating the media and influencing the referee in order to protect the Arsenal player from getting fouled. In a interview yesterday, he said

'Arsene has most of the media in his pocket now and is almost affecting the officials so that you can't tackle an Arsenal player. That's something he's very clever at working on and it's almost working in his favor.

Read his interview before the Stoke City v Aston Villa match, what he said and how he said it - he's a very, very clever man in terms of influencing referees, officials and everybody in football.

There is a perception that we kick everybody and Arsenal's motivation is that you can't tackle us as you aren't supposed to. In terms of saying people are trying to injure players he's trying to influence, through the media, the referees and that's something they shouldn't get sucked in to.'


He also insisted that these days defenders just don't go in to injure players anymore. Well, tell that to Diaby, Eduardo and Ramsey or even Bobby Zamora. Arsene is not just protecting Arsenal's players but if you look at the league now, there seem to be a general agreement that to stop the better teams from playing, you have to be aggressive and "kick them of the ball".


I am sure any of the Blackburn defenders were to take out Rooney or Gerrard, the British press would have plenty to say about Big Sam's comments. Until that happens, we would just have to show dinosaurs like Allardyce that football is a contact sport yes, but it should be played in a professional manner. Having seen Big Sam's teams over the years, I can safely say that his strategy and philosophy is anything but that.



Elsewhere, some injury updates before the weekend's match at the Stadium of Light. Diaby would probably be out for a while but we should get TV4 back for the game against Sunderland. Although the Squillaci/Koscielny partnership looks ok, having Vermaelen back is definitely a major boost to our defense.
Arsene would be having this usual Friday conference tomorrow so we should have more news on the players then.


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