You can take the player out of ARSEnal

Henry Hand Ball!

but you can’t take the ARSEnal out of the player.

The reverential tones and phrases used in the statements of “shock” at Terry Henry’s – I speak English here – “Hand of Frog” last night against Ireland in the World Cup qualifier playoff are the only things of surprise, his actions certainly aren’t.

A media darling player, who plied a trade for a media darling club in England means that all past discretions are overlooked. So we get pundits and ex-team mates telling us what a gent he is and he’ll be gutted about all this and it’s not in his nature to do such.

Bollocks, they just conveniently forget the last World Cup quarter final against Spain when he went down holding his face, screaming his head off, to get a free kick and a fellow player sent off. What a gent. They forget about how he and his team benefited from all the acts of cheating during his time with the Woolwich scum. Well he flashed them a smile and they all went weak at the knees.

Now of course he plays for one of them dirty foreign teams and he’s done over some plucky Brits – even though they aren’t the latter – we can say some nasty things about him.

As for what happened last night, forget calls for replays, forget retrospective punishments (fines, suspensions), forget TV replays being used the only way things will really be sorted out is when a manager/coach takes the most extreme course of action and takes his team of the pitch straight after such an incident.

When a coach is standing in the media area after taking his men off the park – leaving FIFA/UEFA officials standing a round in state of panic – and states there was no point carrying on as his team weren’t going to be allowed to win. Then things might start to handled with a straight bat.

Maybe then when so called big teams are in playoffs and at risk of missing the finals all of a sudden seedings won’t be introduced and then maybe there’ll be a bit more honesty in certain officiating. Decisions made by those in charge that don’t seem to just conform to the wants and wishes of those in real power in the game. But then more people will be seeing adverts for burgers and credit cards in France next summer than would have been in Ireland.

Will certain razor and shaving accoutrement adverts still be shown here and to our west, maybe they’ll just remove the superimposed Henry and leave in Jeter. Is it better to have a reasonably unknown face over here or a dirty cheat representing your product?

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