Tucker’s luck

I’ve never booed an Arsenal player. Not in nearly 30 years of watching games. I may occasionally voice disapproval, comment to someone stood beside me that a player’s having a ‘mare’, or even call for Wenger to get someone off. But I would never boo them. Because any player wearing the shirt is representing Arsenal, and booing them isn’t going to do anything to make them play better – only worse.

I’m also one of the more tolerant fans – giving players a second chance, forgiving their shortcomings, realising that football is a game of confidence and that players have dips in form or make ill-judged decisions.

What I saw on Sunday, however, was nothing short of unacceptable. What Emmanuelle Eboue did when he pushed a player – who was running away from goal – to the ground wasn’t just a bad decision, miss-timed, the result of being beaten by a better player or due to a dip in form. It was completely unprofessional. And it cost us any hope we had of winning the league.

This isn’t some personal vendetta against Eboue. At a time when Eboue was, to paraphrase Malcolm Tucker from ‘The Thick of It’: “As popular as the man who fucked the monkey that gave us all AIDS”, I defended him. I stood up for him and thought the treatment he received was too harsh. On occasion when he’s been out of the team I’ve even said we’ve lacked his marauding runs forward and his willingness to run on the overlap. I’ve called for him to play above others. But to play at the top level requires at least a basic level of intelligence, which he clearly doesn’t have – and in my opinion he is not fit to wear the shirt again.

Of course, the collapse of our season and the death of our title hopes – anyone who thinks last night’s result will re-open the title door is deluded – aren’t solely down to Emmanuelle Eboue. In Malcolm Tucker’s words, it was a case of ‘Tucker’s Law’: “If some c*nt can fuck something up, that c*nt’s going to pick the worst possible time to fucking fuck it up because that c*nt’s a c*nt.” But there are plenty of other players who have failed to step up to the plate in recent weeks, including plenty who should be leading but aren’t.

What’s more, the fact we look more nervous than Graeme Rix at a playground every time a ball goes into the box and look about as likely to score at home as Fernando Torres when we go forward, means we have drawn four of our last five (and five of our last nine) league games.

That’s what’s really killed our title, and what we need now is a clearout of the players that just aren’t good enough anymore (Sagna, Clichy, Diaby, Squillaci, Almunia, Fabianski, Rosicky, Chamakh, Vela), the players who are always injured (although not RVP), and the players who don’t want to be there (Fabregas?). It is, as Malcolm Tucker once said, “Time to wake up and smell the cock”.

Only once we have done so will we again begin to show the kind of commitment, ability, desire, passion and, crucially, basic responsibility to win at Man U again, win at Tottenham again, win at Chelsea again and win the league again.

If not, next season is going to be, to paraphrase Malcolm Tucker, obviously: “Like the Shawshank Redemption… except more crawling through shit and no fucking redemption.”

Win the league...?