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Monday 13 September 2010

Accurate report? - not in The Sun

It never ceases to amaze me how bad some of the reporting is in the national press. How can any journalist worth their salt publish a match report and get statements of fact so badly wrong? You might recall that I outed Charlie Wyett in the Summer for his awful match report on a pre-season game. This time the culprit is Mark Irwin - a serial offender in the error stakes. According to Mr Irwin the foul by Alex Song, seconds before the Bolton red-card, was made by Kieran Gibbs. Given that Alex Song has dyed his hair a funny shade of puke-yellow I have to wonder how such a mistake can be made. It's even more unbelievable when one considers that the foul missed by the referee actually happened right in front of the press box. Irwin can not have been more than forty yards from the incident, with the usual unobstructed view. It's not really acceptable to make such a mistake is it? Interestingly, this particular inaccuracy has now been removed from the report on the The Sun's website - it was there at 3 o'clock this morning. I can only conclude that the reporter was in the bog when all this was happening as, according to him, the foul for which Cahill was sent-off was perpetrated against Andrey Arshavin. If you think that there is little similarity between Song and Gibbs, try and consider how anyone can mix-up Arshavin with Marouane Chamakh. Regardless of the fact that they have skin colours of some difference, Chamakh stands nearly a foot taller than the Russian.

It's not just The Sun. The Murdoch press in general seems to be in need of a trip to Specsavers or, at least, to get over their anti-Arsenal sentiment. Dan King, in the News of the World, mentions that Kieran Gibbs could well have gone off for two bookings on Saturday. Indeed he mentions it on no less than THREE occasions in his match report. Robinson and Davies' numerous assaults on Arsenal players are merely touched upon, but that thug Kieran Gibbs clearly deserves no place in English football does he?


Why do I write this blog? So that I can get this kind of crap out of my system.


Anyone who reads The Gooner fanzine will be familiar with a character who calls himself The Highbury Spy. The Spy's column is always entertaining as the man is a serial rant machine and gives his views on everything from bad real-ale to the politics of Socialism (he likes neither of these!) Very often the Spy induces humour and no little amount of head-shaking from me. Imagine my surprise when reading the new issue as I found there was a rare moment of clarity from him. The Spy talks, as I did yesterday, about the Wolves assault on Joey Barton and he makes the following comment "mark my words, Karl Henry will break someone's leg before long" (or words to that effect). What happened Saturday afternoon? Karl Henry snapped Bobby Zamora's leg in two. Well done Spy, you ventured in to print with what most Arsenal fans were already thinking - Karl Henry is a thug, who belongs nowhere near a football pitch.


Hopefully we'll get some team news for the Braga match tomorrow afternoon. More blogging to come tomorrow evening.

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