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Buzzing Gunners have every right to be standing tall.. they don’t need to fall over, but trio get booked
Torreira
ON the second day of Christmas, at least you only get two total dives with your partridge in a pear tree.
Somehow, Arsenal managed to set a record in English football by getting three players booked for simulation in a single match.
In a restless, spiteful Herbert Chapman derby – which they deserved to win – Granit Xhaka, Shkodran Mustafi and Matteo Guendouzi’s issues with gravity tainted the Gunners’ 21-match unbeaten run.
Match of the Day pundits Ian Wright and Martin Keown were so embarrassed by their old club’s unprecedented hattrick of yellow cards they did not venture a single excuse for Arsenal’s fall guys.
After a frustrating spectacle littered with 33 fouls and nine bookings, Gunners manager Unai Emery admitted: “I don’t want simulation for players. I want more rhythm in the match.”
There has been much to admire about Arsenal’s longest unbeaten run since 2007, not least Emery’s happy knack of making bold and matchturning substitutions.
And it was fitting that Lucas Torreira, the best player on the pitch, settled it with a nifty bicycle-kick seven minutes from time.
Even at £26.4million, Torreira is one of the bargains of the season. He makes Arsenal tick like a conductor calls the tune in an orchestra.
But when Huddersfield’s spoilers threatened to abscond from the Emirates with a point, too often the Gunners resorted to dark arts best left in the shadows.
Come on, Arsenal: Think before you blink before you dive.
It is an extraordinary feat to have three players on the same side pulled up for diving in the same game.
Arsenal can have few complaints when opponents Wilf Zaha and Heung Min-Son are awarded contentious penalties after finite contact if they are going to work their own ticket to excess.
Xhaka’s improvement has been a gratifying aspect of the club’s resurgence under Emery, but if he is going to wear the captain’s armband, yellow cards for diving are not a privilege that comes with the officer’s rank.
In Mustafi’s case, at least t h e r e was contact when he went down in the box under Laurent Depoitre’s escort, but was it forceful enough to warrant a penalty?
Only if you think an articulated lorry can get bumped off the road by a moped. Sorry, but Mustafi would have been outraged if he was penalised for a similar challenge at the other end.
And Guendouzi’s abundant promise will soon fade into notoriety if he repeats his unassisted fall without Aaron Mooy’s intervention.
MOTD host Gary Lineker addressed the scourge with a cheap-shot reference to headlines about Arsenal players inhaling ‘hippy crack’ from party balloons, telling Wright and Keown: “I don’t want to burst your Arsenal balloon but it’s no laughing matter.” Very droll, Gary.
But Wright, whose analysis of all things Arsenal is inscrutably fair, admitted: “You don’t want to see people getting suspended for those reasons. There’s a little bit of contact, but it’s not enough for Mustafi to go down the way he did.”
Keown, who spoke glowingly of Emery’s “Arsenalisation” – whatever that is – was unequivocal in his condemnation of Guendouzi’s fall. He scowled: “It’s definitely a dive. He won’t be happy when he sees that back.”
Emery’s side are on a formidable run and there is no shame in grinding out three points when the going is heavy.
This was nowhere near the throbbing intensity of turning over Tottenham in the north London derby, but at home the Gunners have shown they can win pretty or gritty.
Under Emery, the future is bright – but tomorrow never dives.