“Go to church” – that’s Mikel Arteta’s message for anyone who has a problem with the way Arsenal’s players and staff greeted Reiss Nelson’s winner against Bournemouth last weekend.
Bouncing back from two-nil down, the Gunners secured all three points with what was effectively the last kick of the game and the celebrations that followed saw some of a red-and-white persuasion technically break pitch encroachment rules.
While referee Chris Kavanagh highlighted the situation in his post-match report, the FA ultimately decided not to charge the club with any wrongdoing.
Understandably, Arteta feels vindicated and when asked if he harbours any concerns about his players’ behaviour sent a shot across the bows of the naysayers.
“None. If you win in football, you celebrate,” he said ahead of Sunday’s trip to Fulham.
“You want passion and emotion. There is nothing better than scoring goals and winning football matches. So if not, you go to church.
“For sure, I will not be telling the players not to celebrate on Sunday.”
Hopefully, Arsenal will have something to celebrate. Craven Cottage has not been an easy place to visit this season and with Manchester City closing the gap at the top of the table to two points, the pressure is on to get a result.
After a midweek trip to Portugal and illness taking a toll on some players, there are added complications. On the plus side, it sounds as though the injury crisis affecting the attacking department may not be as bad as Arteta would have people believe.
Gabriel Jesus in contention to feature at Fulham – Trossard as well.
Full story 👇https://t.co/LuEWbluAM7
— Charles Watts (@charles_watts) March 11, 2023
According to Charles Watts of Goal.com, Leandro Trossard, who picked up a groin injury last weekend, and Gabriel Jesus, who hasn’t kicked a ball in anger since December, will both be part of the squad for the trip to West London.
Even if they aren’t fit to start the match, the fact they could offer something off the bench is a huge bonus with matches coming thick and fast.
Martin Odegaard and Kieran Tierney, who both suffered from illness this week, also trained on Saturday.
10 fingers up!
Not sure if anyone is following this, but, fuck yeah to both Gary lineaker and especially wrighty! Good on you wrighty! Gary calling a spade a fucking space and wrighty backing the right thing. Fuck nationalistism, and racism and xenophobia! So good to see these people with influence saying enough is enough.
and fuck the BBC! Pieces of shite government stooges! Be better not just England, but the world!
thttps://www.football.london/premier-league/match-of-the-day-lineker-26445142
Daveo I 100% appreciate the sentiment and stand with you but I would urge people to be aware that this isn’t a case of “fuck the BBC”, it’s “fuck the Tory government for what it’s doing to the BBC”. The BBC at its best is an invaluable resource and something we should as a nation be proud of, and the reason this whole thing is such a tragedy is because it’s symptomatic of how the fairness and objectivity that makes the BBC great is being eroded.
wish I’d remembered to change my name away from “guy who eats hands” before I posted that
Fuck the BBC, the racist pro Muslim supporting cunts
I am not proud of the BBC.
There is a culture of covering up reprehensible behaviour within the BBC – the case of Jimmy Saville the most well-known. I never watch it but have to pay for it.
I would be delighted to see it disappear.
Yeah and trust me I also agree the covering up of Savile was a disgrace, but with respect that didn’t have anything to do with the stated purpose of the BBC as an institution, which is to provide objective and impartial news stories and analysis – and having a news outlet that does that is massively important in our society. For a counterpoint look at how Fox News has been ripping the U.S. apart for years with misinformation and polarising bias – and for a far more dramatic counterpoint, look at Russia or China. I would never claim the BBC… Read more »
Guys we’re intelligent enough to know the BBC has not been a mouthpiece for the Tory government, far from it, they have been pretty left wing for decades, that’s why the Tories did what they did with the license fee. Completely disagree with this potential new policy from the government but there were no ex footballers in mansions with an a btec in history criticising decades of left wing policies by Blair & co. Adore Blogs but the piece yesterday (whilst I agreed with most of it) was very one sided and forgot to mention the damage and collision the… Read more »
Left/Right is a lie. There is freedom and control and the biggest part of this scam is to make us fight about left and right. They dont love you, they dont care. Love yourself and eachother. No one is going to save you but you and us.
Wake up, people. It’s been too obvious for too long. Stay safe
Well said, it’s been heartening to see many people rally around the sentiment that Lineker has brought up. Not bad for an ex-Spud!
BBC is already far down the left. If the lefties want to leave in protest, show them the door. I go onto BBC every day for general sports results and it’s getting worse every week – it needs to return to neutrality and stick to sport.
Bollocks!
Give yourself a challenge: open BBC Sport every day and count the articles that are purely about sport, and the ones that are political in nature. You’ll be surprised … it’s generally 20 to 30% political. I know that football is historically left, so the sentiment here generally is towards the left and in favour of Linekar because he’s taken an anti-Tory position, but when you’re from the conservative side, you’ll realise how woke the BBC has become. Just don’t do it. Report the sport, stop pushing agendas. BBC Sport *has to be* neutral, otherwise the UK is no different… Read more »
He wrote a tweet in support of migrants from his personal Twitter account.
Surely the man is allowed to express his support for the worlds most vulnerable.
True about the BBC’s website. Also the same BBC who facilitated a pedophile for how many decades
‘nothing to see here, just a few kids kicking a pigskin around on the street’ … Neutrality is a bullsh*t word for cowardice and selfishness.
The majority of the world believes that gay marriage is wrong – if Linekar tweeted against gay marriage, what would the reaction here be? See, we only want the voices that we approve of. We have to discipline ourselves to be neutral.
Sport is a great unifier, a common love. If we make it political, we ruin that.
Most of the world is against gay marriage for religious reasons. They are entitled to their beliefs but this is a secular country and most people here don’t share them.
Gay people have historically had to suffer a lot of persecution, which is why we have legislation against discrimination. It’s a difficult one to navigate without upsetting somebody but in the end the people who have really suffered are the gay people.
If you say something a lot of people find offensive you have to accept that you’re not going to like the reaction.
We’d tell him he’s full of cr@p, because anything that undermines vulnerable people’s rights can f#ck off! Simples! Nobody is 100% right or wrong, that’s some Hollywood hero nonsense.
Linekar didn’t say anything anti-Tory, he was critical of a particular policy of this government. He has been critical of Labour in the past.
I think you need to take a deep breath and look around you, at who agrees with you and who agrees with Linekar, and think about it.
Why does Gary Lineker have to be neutral? If he worked for Sky he could say what he wanted. Kaveh Solhekol had a right go at the BBC and the government on air. Alan Sugar can say what he wants, provided he is telling people not to vote for Jeremy Corbyn or slagging off Mick Lynch. The top jobs at the BBC are now all occupied by Tory supporters. How is that supposed to be impartial? If the government don’t want people reacting this way to their policies they should come up with nicer policies that aren’t going to offend… Read more »
You realise that Lineker is a liberal the exact opposite of fascist. That he was expressing his personal opinion away from work and lost his job – does that sound fair or free? That the guy who runs the BBC is a Tory so not impartial.
Regarding the BBC ‘agenda’. What the BBC does is support sport for all. Does inclusiveness sounds like fascism to you?
Final point – fascism is rightwing.
Right wing.
Left wing.
Fascism.
Socialism.
All amounts to someone being ostracised and killed.
As Ferris Bueller one wisely said “a person should never believe in an ism – he should believe in himself”
That’s Individualism
Purely out of good manners, I’d say welcome to Arseblog to you Jacob Rees-Mog, but I’m not entirely sure if it’s really you or Nadine Dorries, so hard to tell.
Can’t be be Suella Braverman because you left out “tofu eating Guardian readers”.
Getting taken off air from the national broadcaster for not toeing the party line is pretty much as fascist as you get at this point
The English lefty is the most odious type of human. They politicise everything and really shove it down your throat, then they look down upon all who disagree with their media-driven midwittery as though they are plebian imbeciles utterly devoid of common sense or basic decency.
FA realised that they were in danger of joining PGMOL as comedy double act of the season.
Joining?
We have the referee from the first Everton game so will need all the help we can get
Yeah saw that too. Have to say that nowadays feels like every ref is after us and just looking to fuck us over and make sure we don’t win the PL. then few weeks ago I had to force myself to watch some other matches and I must say, it’s not just us, this entire league is suffering from terminally inept and clueless refereeing, just blatant idiocy and retardation seems to be the scream of fashion in the hallways at PGMOL.
The standard of the refereeing really needs to improve in general but this guy seemed like a total newbie. Lost control and the game really got disrupted.
Trossard and Jesus being fit enough to be in the squad, makes me want to celebrate
One finger (the middle one) would have sent a clearer message to those uptight clowns.
It’s a cultural thing, “two fingers” on the island means the same as “one finger” on the continent.
3 fingers then.
What do they want? 10 minutes silence?
The players should so do that as a celebration after a goal. Or even better the fans unfurl a banner after any win reading “Sorry for your loss” followed by a mi Ute or twos silence..
now that would be hilarious. I simply would love it
We’ll probably be charged for that too ffs.
Definitely do a one minute silence, that should cover VAR related shenanigans, then celebrate like we “won the league”
Off topic, but screw Oliseh for gifting citeh and rubbishing all the great work Sambi and company did yesterday 😡.
Gundogan really bought a penalty there
Considering he was once of Hale End…..I’m sure Paddy let him know.
Bit OT, but why do journos with good connections to the club (like Charles Watts) report info the club (likely) don’t want reported? I mean, you report what you find out, but it’s not like they’d be covering up for a corrupt government if they didn’t. Surely they’re interested in managing the relationship with the club – „Ok, I’ll let this piece of info slide but you let me in on some potential transfer news”. Same question resonated with me when Ornstein disclosed late at the end of last summer’s window that Elneny’s injury is serious, which made our late… Read more »
I suspect mostly it is sanctioned by the club
Re Elneny’s situation, I have zero idea how that would benefit the club.
All CM’s rumoured to be in Arsenal’s interested were suddenly +10m more expensive in an instant.
Re Jesus + Trossard, if Arteta would like to screw with Fulham’s heads, he could just mention they might feature – same result.
It’s their job to report news.
I would hope it’s clear from my comment I’m aware of that and am trying to dig a bit deeper: I can imagine if this piece of info was something the club wouldn’t have liked to be leaked, they would make sure this journalist gets nothing in the future.
If he got the info directly from the club, then I just don’t understand why Arteta wouldn’t mention it to the press himself before.
I’m just trying to learn a bit, that’s all.
Kanye: Find God
Arteta: Go to church
I comment lol but they don’t get posted or await approval – not sure why, never said anything outlandish
Go to church and worship Jesus. Arteta’s on to something there.
This is my church
This is where I heal my hurt.