View From The Sphere

Fabregas in firing line as Arsenal tame Wolves

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Last night saw Arsenal tame Wolves at the Molineux, but all the headlines today have focused on Cesc Fabregas’ ‘dangerous’ tackle rather than the match result.

With the topic of dangerous tackling being the main focal point of this season so far, we saw a dubious one from Fabregas (and I’m not being a bias fan here). The Spaniard had every right to go in for the tackle as the ball was running freely out of play; it was just unfortunate that Fabregas caught Ward after the Wolves player had cleared it. There was certainly no malice within the challenge as some people have suggested today.

So much focus was placed on Fabregas’ challenge today that everyone seems to have forgotten about Karl Henry’s lunge on Andrey Arshavin. Henry committed a dirty tackle on the Russian early on in the game which nobody has taken notice of, seems a bit strange in my view. After the match, Fabregas went into the Wolves locker room to apologise to Stephen Ward and Mick McCarthy for his tackle which was accepted by both player and manager. McCarthy told the media last night:

“Fabregas has gone for the ball. It is one of those when two blokes are running at full tilt and you slide in and he has got a cut on his leg. Fabregas has been in to apologise and Wardy has accepted it like a man and I wish everyone would stop whingeing about tackling and complaining.”

The Wolves manager finished off by saying:

“It wasn’t a bad tackle. I’ve no problem with it at all. It happens. I said to Arsene Wenger I’ve no problem with the tackle and I really appreciate the apology.”

Nevertheless the incident which involved the Arsenal captain seems to have been blown way out of proportion by many news outlets, and overshadowed what was a very big win for the Gunners.

Arsenal travelled to Wolves last night knowing that a loss or dropped points would all but end their title hopes for this season. However, any nerves that Arsenal fans had before the game were very quickly settled after just 37 seconds. Alex Song’s cross was met by Marouane Chamakh’s who rifled in a bullet of a header which put the Gunners in a strong position from the get go.

There were very few chances throughout the 90 minutes. Andrey Arshavin and Cesc Fabregas tested Marcus Hahnemann with one or two efforts, whilst in the other end of the field Lukasz Fabianski made two great saves from Kevin Doyle and Christophe Berra.

The match was pretty much at a stalemate until the last minute, when Arsenal showed, once again, their excellent counter attacking football. Arsenal broke quickly which saw Fabregas pick the ball up from the centre of the park and arch a beautiful long through ball to Chamakh who finished comfortably, evidently ending the game.

It was by no means a great performance from Arsenal, but it certainly was an improvement from last Saturdays result against Newcastle that’s for sure. Arsenal toughed it out and more importantly came away from the game with all 3 points in the bag…next stop Goodison Park.

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2 comments

  • Butters says:

    I totally agree with this, why is Fabregas being scrutinised for a challenge which was accidental challenge. No one’s talking about Karl Henry’s challenge on Arshavin, it’s not right. What about Huddlestones challenges, nobody is talking about that and they were twice as worse. At least Fab’s went for the ball, Huddlestone stamp out at a player.

    Ayway Its typical of the media, its only because he is foriegn, if it was an english player they wouldn’t make a big deal, what about Barton’s punch on Pederson, it was twice as bad and I haven’t heard much on the subject.

  • Teddy says:

    Totally agree with the writer…how is fabregas getting all this hype over one late tackle which in fairness doesn’t look that bad! Karl Henry on Arsharvin was much more dangerous as his studs were up about a foot and connected with Andreys shin. FA have it in for Arsenal for some reason, if it were a Untied man who did it, then there would be no complaints.

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