This Arsenal hypocrisy is breathtaking | OneFootball

The odious Jose Mourinho, whom I would never want anywhere near Newcastle United, got it wrong a few years back when he said Arsene Wenger was a specialist in failure.

The specious one, a term used by the late, great Hugh McIlvanney to describe the Portuguese man of war, should have called Wenger and Arsenal specialists in hypocrisy.

Wenger turned a blind eye to his team’s indiscretions more often than Horatio Nelson ignored the opposition’s ships.

The Frenchman’s normally immaculate spoken English would mysteriously fail when he wanted to avoid answering a tricky question. As Sir Bobby pointed out a generation ago, Wenger was not a good loser.

His latest successor at the Emirates is always claiming the moral high ground, always accusing rivals of adopting the dark arts, always accusing referees of favouring opponents. Always whining and whinging whenever he is not winning.

Mikel Arteta is just the latest in a long line of less than pleasant purveyors of Arsenal’s persistently pathetic clap-trap. His outrageous utterances should come as no surprise, though he still finds ever yet more ridiculous ways to speak with forked tongue.

One of his smoke-and-mirrors ploys is the “they [insert team name here] have a very physical approach. I hope we have strong officials…”

Hang on a minute. Which team have had the most red cards in the Premier League this season?

Which team have abandoned the free-flowing football of the early Wenger years and replaced it with a massive focus on scoring from corners and free-kicks?

Which team channel their inner Fat Sam Allardyce with long throws (often illegally), blocking of keepers and defenders at set-piece attacks, blatant time-wasting?

This Arsenal hypocrisy is breathtaking.

Well, it would be if they hadn’t been getting away with cheating for more than 100 years, ever since their owner in 1919 bribed other clubs to secure Arsenal’s promotion to the top tier. Take a bow, Sir Henry Norris.

To say Arsenal are worthy of occupying the moral high ground is a claim as fatuous as Declan Rice deliberately delaying a Brighton free kick. “Oh, but he didn’t kick the ball very far . . . ” their fans moaned when he was rightly given a second yellow card and a red. Leandro Trossard clearly didn’t pay attention, doing the same against Manchester City.

Some habits are difficult to break, of course. Since Arteta became manager in December 2019, Arsenal have seen red 17 times. Of their so-called Big Six rivals, Chelsea are next in the hall of shame with 11.

The November international break at least gave us a few days of rest from the Spaniard’s one-eyed utterances. Not as much of a break as enjoyed by two of their most important players, though. Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard were excused their respective international commitments because they were “unfit”.

Surprise, surprise, both started against Nottingham Forest when the Premier League resumed. They not only played, Odegaard made and Saka scored the first goal. They each played for more than 80 minutes. No doubt Arsenal will claim neither was capable of lasting the full game because they were not yet fully fit. The poor dears. If they’re not fully fit, I must be at death’s door…

Meanwhile, Newcastle United’s all stars travelled near and far to aid their nations. Anthony Gordon, Lewis Hall and Tino Livramento for England; Alexander Isak for Sweden; Miguel Almiron for Paraguay; Bruno Guimaraes for Brazil, Sandro Tonali for Italy; Martin Dubravka for Slovakia; Odysseas Vlachodimos for Greece. Not forgetting Lewis Miley for England under-21s.

While I dread the injury risk our players incur whenever they step across the white line, I accept they should answer the wishes of their country. It comes with the territory.

Eddie Howe strikes me as a decent person who encourages rather than discourages his men at times of national service. Just as Arsenal need to “learn how to lose”, they could do worse than follow the example of our glorious leader when duty calls.