The Week That Was

This week’s biggest story barely involved football (in the sporting sense) as the media whipped itself into a frenzy following the unacceptable, and depressing, scenes at West Ham on Tuesday. We’ve been in demand from the media and the basics of what we think can be found in Wednesday’s news story.

But we don’t want to dwell on it too much, football is safer to go to now than it has been for generations and the vast, vast majority of fans condemn these rare incidents. Let’s hope we don’t see anything like it again.

There have also been positive moves from Hammers and Lions fans and we’re pleased to see that followers of both clubs are meeting tomorrow (Saturday, August 29th, FlandersPlaying Fields, E6 2RU – 10.30am kick off) for a friendly match arranged to show solidarity and build bridges between supporters. Hats off to all involved, click here for more info on the game arranged by the Internet Football Association.

Onto lighter matters and it’s not every week that we find ourselves defending a diving footballer but today’s news that Arsenal’s Eduardo is to be charged by Uefa for ‘deceiving the referee’ leaves us in a bit of a quandary. For those who missed it the Croatian striker rounded Celtic’s Artur Boric before a slight gust of wind sent him flying – and the ref pointed to the spot. Let’s be straight, Eduardo cheated, and it was 100% out of order. To add insult to injury he tucked away the resulting penalty which opened the scoring for the Gooners in their 3-1 win.

But Uefa’s decision to use video evidence to retrospectively punish Eduardo leaves a funny taste for a number of reasons. Firstly, why video evidence for this now? We’ve seen countless examples ignored in the past, after all. And just what will the punishment be? The maximum you normally see a player get for diving is a yellow – so can they really justify a ban?

Lastly, and this is purely hypothetical, but if Kaka dives in the future against FC Euro Minnow do you think he’ll be banned? Anyway, think we’ll stop writing now as we’re sure there’s plenty of FSF members who disagree, and to atone for our sins we promise to make Eduardo ‘Wally of the Week’ in tomorrow’s FSF Daily Mirror column.

In other news Burnley’s title challenge continued with a cracking win over a Lescott-less Everton. Wade Elliot put in an impressive display topped with a (slightly) deflected winner. He’s now scored in all four divisions – well done that man. Liverpool meanwhile slumped to a second defeat in three league games, troubling times on Merseyside. We’re sure if they get Torres and Gerrard playing together they’ll storm it. You what? They did play together? Oh.

Midweek Carling Cup fixtures went pretty much to form, congratulations to all teams who progressed. The most notable wins probably being Blackpool’s 4-1 demolishing of Wigan and Leeds’ 2-1 win at home to Watford. We mention the latter primarily because it gives us the chance to mention that United’s splendidly named Robert Snodgrass grabbed a brace.

Enjoy the weekend folks.