Talking Poll-ocks

The best thing about Graham Poll is that his name rhymes with ‘arsehole’. The second best thing is that he is an arsehole. A terrace songsmith’s dream.

Like many referees, Poll had many weaknesses. His constant desire for the limelight pushed him to make frequent bad decisions and to meddle in minor incidents that were better left alone.

But his main downfall, of course, was more fundamental. He couldn’t count. His decision to book the same player three times and then send him off at the final whistle of the Croatia v Australia match at the 2006 World Cup Finals (below) – the biggest stage of all - prompted his swift demise from the game.

Like a fly to shit, though, Poll still craves the limelight. His autobiography (who would buy that?), the not-so-cleverly titled ‘Seeing Red’, has been followed by work as a pundit for the BBC and as a columnist for the Daily Mail.

This week, Poll’s Daily Mail column took aim at Arsenal, backing up Fat Sam’s claims that Wenger is waging psychological warfare against referees to gain Arsenal an advantage. Luckily, the Daily Mail is a Bastian of English journalism that would only ever print fact.

“A look at the statistics for the season indicate that Arsene Wenger is winning his psychological battle with referees. Arsenal’s opponents have been shown red cards four times in just nine games, resulting in the Gunners facing just 10 men for 215 minutes,” says Poll.

That's right. Four sending off. For: a two-footed lunge by Joe Cole, which he admitted was a red card and apologised for; a professional foul by Blackpool’s Charlie Evatt; a two-footed tackle from behind by Bolton’s Gary Cahill; and the professional foul by Boyata at the weekend which no-one on earth – not even Mancini – has defended.

Oh, and wait, Arsenal themselves have had three sending offs this season - Koscielny, Song and Wilshere. That must be what they call reversed psychology on Wenger’s part.

“They have already been awarded nine penalty kicks. Three teams have had no penalties while 14 teams have had two or fewer. So what has happened, and is it all a coincidence?” continues Poll.

Nine penalties is a lot. But only Redknapp and the idiot from Birmingham questioned the penalties against them – and that despite video evidence showing clear contact. And doesn’t it stand to reason that the more time you spend around opposition penalty areas, the more likely you are to get fouled in the box? Could these penalties be the result of Arsenal playing it around the box far too much and shooting about as often as Pele does these days? And what has it got to do with anything that three teams have had no penalties? I didn’t realise the idea was to spread penalties around evenly.

“Having watched Mark Clattenburg referee Arsenal’s game at the weekend, I was intrigued at the high number of decisions he had to make. Six yellow cards and a penalty kick - highly unusual in a season where referees have tended to try to manage situations rather than issue cards.”

Another excellent point Graham… although do you think you should have mentioned that four of those bookings were Arsenal bookings - and that the penalty was stonewall? Of course not, that wouldn’t get you any attention would it?

Arsehole.