Did anyone else see this game ? Its beyond me how grown men and ogres (wayne Rooney) can get away with behaving like that. These guys are getting paid thousands of pounds a week to play football to the best of there abilitys and yet, the game ( and many others ) decends into a neandertal display head butting, skirmishing, swearing, spitting, kicking (not just the ball)..... *sigh*

They call it ' The Beautiful Game ', heh, if this display is anything to go by, they better have a re think.. Football is ment to be about grace and finesse as well as good sportmanship, like every sport.

I don't watch Football.

Yeah, some of them did act pretty thuggish. But you have to realize that when you're out on the pitch in front of 40,000 raving fans, it’s gonna effect already-competitive people to get a bit out of control. And that's notwithstanding the fact that Arsenal and Manchester Utd currently have one of the bitterest rivalries in sport.

All you Britlandish people...and your 'football'.. :p

I must say, though -- it makes more sense than ours, doesn't it..lol

Yeah but Rugby players aren't allowed to act like that - certainly not in League anyway (don't know where the RFU stand on such stuff).

Any player not adressing the Ref as 'sir' is penalised, and if persistent, sent form the field - let alone effing and blinding like a petulent little thug.

Oh, and aside from supporting neither team (me lies teh Rugby!), Dennis Bergkamp played a blinder for mine.

It's kind of a shame really, Arsenal and Man U being two of the best English teams, and yet, whenever we meet you don't get to see proper football, just violence. There's just such a history and rivalry there that every game we play means an awful lot to the players and the fans. Todays was even moreso, as it was basically deciding who came second (I have come to terms with the fact that Chelsea aren't going to concede 10 points!), so neither team could afford to lose.

I'd say the first half was reasonably alright (being an Arsenal fan, I would!), though there was obviously alot of tension - 6 fouls in the first 6 minutes?? It was after the break though, with Man U getting worried, and then after we'd conceded twice to go behind, that it started getting really bad.

And the problem is, it puts the fans in a really crappy position when the players act out like that. The infamous incident when half the Arsenal team attacked Van Nistelrooy is a perfect example. The guy was an *** and totally deserved it - or so I felt at the time - but the fact is, it only ends up hurting the team when you act like that. Plus, these guys are meant to be role models. It's actually quite embarassing watching grown men that you look up to as sport stars behaving like that. Vieira's 10 red cards in his Arsenal career are not something to be proud of.

There's also the whole diving issue, which is really problematic in a game like this. The referees know exactly what the history between the clubs is like so they're not going to take any crap, but then they can't just rule in favour of the people being fouled every time. Case in point - the Ashley Cole penalty plea. When I first saw it, I jumped up like everyone else screaming for a penalty, then the replay showed that actually he wasn't touched at all, and so I end up just being ashamed of my players. Suckage.

But, even though Arsenal weren't exactly angels tonight, I'd definitely say that Man U were (once again) the worse side. Rooney and Silvestre were just totally out of order. We always end up with the bad publicity (Nistelrooy attack, pizzagate etc!), but they invoke bad behaviour which actually alters the game, which is totally out of order. Ljunberg being knocked down in the penalty area just had me at a loss for words. Also, Man U's cards for the game just speaks for itself, their 4 yellows and a red to our 2 yellows.

By 'knocked down' don't you mean 'headbutted by Silvestre'?

I was under the impression the headbutt bit was after he got up again, there was a little scuffle. But I dunno, I need more replays, I was kinda caught up in the heat of it all when I saw it the first time.

Is the diving issue just when players take a fall?

Having played numerous sports, including some that could be very painful if collisions occured, I can reasonably say that taking a fall is the single best way to get out of a situation without getting injured. Problems only occur when people say they were fouled when they weren't, the art of taking a fall itself isn't at fault :p

Yeah, diving is trying to get a free kick when there was no foul. You can see when players are falling to avoid a collision - namely, they get back up again without complaining. But there are some really bad ones. Ronaldo in the England v Brazil World Cup Semi (2000?) was a true classic, dunno if you'd have seen that (you may not watch football normally, but it's pretty hard to avoid when England are playing).

*cries quietly in a corner*

Must. GET. CABLE!!!

You and me both Spork. I'm so soccer deprived here, it hurts. I didn't see the game, so I can't really comment on it, but I know soccer well enough that I can imagine it being a pretty heated game. Whenever you have two oppenents with such a rivalry, the gme is going to get chippy.

Trust me Spork, you're better off. At halftime we were 2-1 up and it looked like we'd be fine, then they came on in the second half, scored twice and started beating the crap out of us. Really quite disappointing.

You would have loved Bergkamp's goal though - totally nutmegged Carroll

i was with a girl who liked football last night....

After 2 hours she really irritated me

I support Rangers, she, Celtic

*stab*

Football is ok usually, but some elements of it are stupid and am ashamed to be english

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  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

I'm a Totenham supporter but strangly, I found myself backing Aresnal by the end of the first half ! Very strange indeed....

The Italian Serie A has a problem with cheating, as i'm sure anyone who watches it would agree. I've seen some spectacular diving, on par with anything seen at the olyimpic swimming pools. Other there, its almost common place to see players falling over at the slightest touch.

The highlights of the WBA Palace game showed the exact opposite of the Man U, Arsenal game - great sportsmanship at every point.

Go Dennis! See that almost makes it all worthwhile...

We werent going to catch Chelsea anyways. The only thing that really matters now is a Champions League spot.

ARSENAL! \m/

wow....another Arsenal fan here, this is getting a tad scary!!

I had a look over the review articles on [url]www.arsenal.com[/url] and I have to say, the lack of discussion about the violence is quite scary. I'm one of those people that absolutely hates it when fans of a certain team behave like they can do no wrong and it was all the other team's fault, but even so... Man U were in the wrong alot. I can't believe there's no mention of the incident with Freddie at all, even in the match review.

But anyway, apparently we're going to focus on the Champion's League and just play as well as we can in the Premiership, whilst ignoring Chelsea and Man U.