Why Arsenal players and fans have a right to react to challenges like Barton's on Diaby

By Darren Lewis

Published 15:18 09/02/11

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It happens so often to Arsenal fans that they have come to accept it.

But there seems to be some kind of unspoken rule that if you foul an Arsenal player then it's a case of the aggressor being the victim rather than vice-versa.

It was Abou Diaby's sending off that, in the eyes of many, sparked the collapse last Saturday that saw Newcastle pull back from 4-0 down to 4-4.

Diaby reacted angrily to a 'challenge' from Joey Barton in the way I am convinced many of the people reading this would have done.

On the lawless playing fields that are parks pitches on a Sunday morning, Barton could certainly have expected more than a hand in his neck had he steamed in with such ferocity.

And yet France midfielder Diaby has been described as 'petulant' and 'brainless'. Some have criticised HIS refusal to accept such treatment and used his anger to rule out his claims on ever captaining his country.

There have even been some Arsenal fans who have caned their own player rather than the challenge. Which has led me to believe that perhaps the will of the majority has worked.

Maybe some Arsenal fans are convinced that resistance is so futile that they may as well roll with the punches and accepting that their players are going to get poleaxed.

Just because Barton got the ball, it does not make his challenge a good one. Think Liam Ridgewell on Theo Walcott last season and you'll get my drift.

And this is not about Barton, lest any Newcastle fans waste time and energy huffing and puffing at me. Nor is it about Newcastle, whose response was simply outstanding in the second half.

This is about Arsenal. You just worry that their fans have almost been browbeaten into accepting that they will get nothing for complaining and that they feel they may as well just move on.

It was in May 2006 that the then-Sunderland player Dan Smith's "tackle" shattered Diaby's ankle. Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger was so incensed he threatened legal action.

The Frenchman said at the time: "I felt, having watched the game, that there were bad intentions there and I will take legal advice to take this game further.

"The player should be banned as long as Abou Diaby does not play. When you see that he gets a yellow card it is just horrendous."

Guess who got mullered for those comments.

Wenger. With critics insisting his views were verging on libellous.

It would be nine months before Diaby would return to first-team action, by the way.

The tackle that snapped Eduardo's leg in February 2008 - and ultimately ended the striker's Arsenal career - is another case in point.

The Gunners' goal machine was never the same again after the challenge from Birmingham's Martin Taylor - however well meaning the defender's intentions.

Wenger expressed his fury with some understandably hard-hitting views: "The tackle was horrendous. This guy should never play football again.

"It goes with the idea that to stop Arsenal you have to kick Arsenal and that kind of thing was waiting to happen.

"Many people have got away with too many bad tackles. We've escaped a few times but it's just not acceptable. If that is football then it's better to stop it.

"The worst thing you hear after is that, "He's not the kind of guy who usually does that', but you only need to kill one person one time. It's enough."

Who got mullered after those comments? Wenger. With critics insisting his angry words had incited death threats against Taylor who was the real victim.

Eduardo's next game was 12 months later by the way, in February 2009.

Aaron Ramsey is yet another example. Arsenal's Welsh midfielder had his season ended in February last year by a challenge from Stoke's Ryan Shawcross.

The promising centre-half was sent off in tears after leaving Ramsey with a compound fracture which left his leg dangling at a sickening angle.

Again, Wenger went ballistic, insisting: "Spare me how nice he is. Did you see where the injury is? To lose a player of quality at 19, like Ramsey, is hard to accept. That is not football for me and I refuse to live with it. The FA have to act."

Guess who got mullered for those comments.

Wenger. Even though ex-referee Graham Poll, in his Daily Mail column two days later, appeared to back the Gunners boss.

Former World Cup ref Poll said: "There are very few genuine accidents in football. I accept Shawcross did not intend any harm but his tackle was no accident.

"Those who argue that football is a 'man's game' and that referees are trying to make it a non-contact sport should look at [this] incident."

And yet here we go again. Wenger, realising the need to keep his counsel, kept his comments on Barton to a minimum.

There would have been no point saying anything. It would have changed nothing. Arsenal would simply have been described yet again as whingeing cry-babies who don't like it up 'em and the pundits would have yet another pound of flesh.

I argued my point on this issue the other day only to receive e-mails from Newcastle fans telling me that I am a southern softie.

Arsenal fans too have been conspicuous by their absence in terms of expressing a view on that tackle.

Or the challenge that Gooner friends of mine tell me a certain player made on Andrey Arshavin which was not shown on TV.

I wasn't at the game and it didn't show up in the highlights, so I am not going to be unfair to the player and name him.

But it really does seem as though the north Londoners have simply shrugged their shoulders and decided it is better to roll with the punches.

Don't get me wrong, the Arsenal players can get a bit tasty when they need to.

I remember William Gallas' lunge on Bolton's Mark Davies last season.

Diaby's challenge on Gretar Steinsson.

Jack Wilshere's awful lunge at Birmingham's Nikola Zigic.

The difference is, however, those players get up and walk away. Arsenal's tend not to.

Perhaps that is what lay behind Diaby's sending off and the collapse which has now become the most infamous in Gunners history.

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