The Daily Fail: Wenger Is My Beauty Queen, Says Cesc Fabregas
Right up there with Richard Scudamore’s 39th Premier League game, a breakaway European super league and the silver goal (wait, that one actually happened, didn’t it?) is Arsene Wenger’s batty plan to award extra points for goals.
“For example,” hypothesised the Professor, “If you win 6-3, you get three points for the win, plus three more for the goal difference, while the team that loses gets none.”
His initial criticisms of the Premier League – that the high stakes made teams too cautious and the entertainment value was on the slide – were all true, but ultimately, he had resorted to this babble a couple of months ago only because it looked as though his side may even struggle to qualify for the Champions League.
It’s pointless, isn’t it? To reward one facet of the game over another essentially robs it of its purity – just as away goals do in Europe – and Mr. Wenger, as it happens, is wholly against that rule and its diluting of the otherwise untainted intentions of teams from game to game.
And so the Gunners are to go a fourth season without a trophy – a fifth without one of the big two – but Cesc Fabregas, Wenger’s coveted golden boy, has his own ideas about what makes a winner.
He said, “Football owes Wenger a Champions League. The manager has always insisted on the team playing attractive football and he deserves a reward for that.” Seriously? By this same logic, should Otto Rehhagel be stripped of his Euro 2004 title? Should the Netherlands have won Euro 2008 for being the most attacking team? Did Arsenal really deserve their place in Paris for the 2006 Champions League final playing as defensively as they did? Or am I not getting this right yet?
There’s something so very dysfunctional about this whole affair. You’re almost expecting Arsene Wenger to pop out of the tunnel at the Emirates dressed as Little Miss Sunshine and hoping his highest of hopes that the judges all raise their ‘10′ cards and finally accept him for the natural beauty that he is.
Then there’s Cesc, Song, Denilson and the rest clasping their hands on the sidelines in anticipation of an unlikely victory, then making a dash for the nearest exit when they’re laughed off the stage for simply not being quite as hot as they seem to think they are.
It’s about style, substance and the whole package, after all, isn’t it? Arsenal might rank high in the swimsuit competition, but they or Wenger aren’t owed a damn thing other than pity, ‘I told you sos’ and perhaps a little bit of sympathy until they expand their repetoire and excel in other areas of the competition, such as answering the thought-provoking final question, maybe. Such as.
From : goal.com