In the fourth round of the FA Cup Arsenal’s Theo Walcott went down a little easily under a challenge in the area from Leeds United’s Alex Bruce. The referee did not see fit to award a penalty nor did he issue a yellow card which would have been the appropriate course of action had he felt that the Arsenal winger had dived.

Things got off to a slightly unsavoury note when an under par Nicholas Bendtner chose to taunt the travelling fans after a wayward strike was deflected for a fortuitous own goal. As one journalist suggested on Twitter ‘A tennis player would’ve apologised, it was so lucky’. The Danish striker,Australia ugg boots, whose legendary self confidence is starting to look increasingly missplaced,Uggs, did not seem to be particularly troubled by embarassment as he embarked upon a celebration which was clearly intended to incense the away supporters.

Huddersfield played the role of the plucky underdogs to perfection and were on the verge of securing a lucrative replay thanks to a thunderous header from Alan Lee when Bendtner tumbled theatrically in the penalty area after the most minimal of contact from Jamie McCombe. Referee Mark Clattenburg pointed straight to the spot and substitute Cesc Fabregas cooly slotted home the penalty to save his side from an unwanted additional fixture in their increasingly congested calendar.

Insult was added to injury when Fabregas accosted the referee to demand that he issue McCombe a red card. For some players the opportunity to take a potentially decisive lead against lower league opposition with less than five minutes remaining would have been sufficient,http://www.leet.it/coppermine/displayimage.php?pos=-368, not the Arsenal captain who harangued Clattenburg in the hope of getting a fellow professional sent off.

“I want to apologise to the managers because I actually dived. I was trying to win the penalty. I am not the sort of player to do it but I own up to it and apologise. It is something I don’t want to see in my game.”

The trouble with adjudicating on the issue of simulation is that it involves a certain level of supposition as to what is going through a player’s mind. I have seen the Walcott incident several times and it looks to me like he loses his balance after treading on the defender’s foot,Ugg boots online, I would never have known that it was a dive if he hadn’t come out and told me. I have seen the ‘foul’ on Bendtner a couple of times and my immediate impression is that it was a cynical attempt to win a spot kick.

Fabregas’ card waving antics did much more damage to the club’s reputation than any over exaggerated tumble ever could yet no apology appears to be forthcoming. Allowing Walcott to speak out about a dive which had no impact on the outcome of the game was the type of contrived gesture more commonly seen in the political arena and, as any good politican could have told Arsenal,http://soph.jp/MT/archives/2010/11/27154138.php#comments, when embarking on a moral crusade it is prudent to first ensure you can practise what you preach.

It is difficult to see exactly what Arsenal were hoping to achieve by publishing this unprecedented apology. The incident in question was unremarkable and would have been long since forgotten had Walcott not elected to draw attention to it. The club presumably wanted to make stance against diving in the hope that players from rival teams would also be deterred from going to ground a little too easily.

Increased scrutiny can help to develop a climate in which players are more reluctant to dive but Arsenal are not exactly setting the benchmark when it comes to respecting the moral guidelines by which the game is unofficialy governed,http://www.clanworld.net/members/home,Ugg outlet,http://www.17tv.tv/home/space.php?uid=18628&do=blog&id=714387, a point which was proven by the FA Cup fifth round fixture against Huddersfield.

Tagged in: Arsenal, FA Cup, Fabregas,Ugg boots cheap, huddersfield, Theo Walcott
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The incident was not particularly remarkable and would have been long since forgotten had Arsenal not taken the extraordinary step of having Walcott issue the following statement on the club’s website: