Arsenal cake? Let them eat crumbs, Arsene

“I wonder what Wenger will blame this time?” Those were the words of a clearly delighted Fulham fan to his mate on the bus to Clapham Junction after the late winner denied us at Craven Cottage last night.

After all,it struck me that, despite Djourou’s sending off we were, to use a Wenger word, inefficient in front of goal in the first half and then went to sleep at the death when Zamora hit the winner.

Our squad is clearly not big enough to cope with injuries and suspensions and he should address this now that the window is open. But, of course, he won’t. But I really didn’t expect our manager to come out and blame the referee – even if he was culpable in our collapse.

When will he learn that it just adds fuel to the fire. Matey, the Fulham bloke, I mentioned, wasn’t revelling in the Cottagers’ triumph, he was desperate to hear Wenger’s post-match moan. Sometimes you need to take it on the chin. Publicly acknowledge that we were beaten. Do your seething in private.

In contrast to Wenger, we have Mick McCarthy. Now I am not saying the Wolves manager could teach AW anything about being a football manager. Rather, though, I feel he could teach him something out managing publicity.

Wolves lost 2-1 to Chelsea and the late winner was scored by Frank Lampard, a player who shouldn’t have been on the pitch after a shocking tackle which merited a red card but brought only a yellow from the ref.

Quizzed about this after the game, McCarthy would have been well within his rights to bleat about it and blame the defeat on the official’s weak handling of the incident. But he didn’t. He did say that if it was a red then that is the colour of the card that should have been branded and also commented on Lampard having a decent rep as a pro. In short he skipped over it and the message was, ‘It’s gone we can’t do anything about it now.’

Neil Warnock did the same thing when asked about the Joey Barton red card in QPR’s 2-1 defeat at home toNorwich (which does make a change for him but surely he has policed himself after his delusional comments about RVP in our win over Rangers).

All the media picked up on AW’s anger and now all we are going to get is imbeciles such as Adrian Durham on Talksport picking up on his comments and poking fun at our weaknesses and the chinks in his armour.

However measured your argument, it is never going to get you anywhere and AW must learn to be more of a diplomat and save his anger for the players who failed to take their chances and who switched off their concentration at the end. Granted he has just seen a gutting late goal shove us from the top four. Yes, he is a passionate man and I can’t question his commitment to our beloved club.

But he is also very, very clever and I just can’t get my head round why, when asked about contentious decisions, he doesn’t just accentuate any positives, enforce his agenda and leave the enquiring media with crumbs rather than a cake.

CARL ELDRIDGE – rarely on Twitter @eldomedia