And so I awoke on a bright, beautiful Monday morning to find that all is good with the world. Arsenal are back to winning ways, Arshavin has begun to show us what he’s made of and Villa have given up their lead and appear intent on imploding.

Of course one thing that will not surprise Arsenal supporting media watchers is the ridiculous and biased reporting of events on the pitch over the weekend. Once again we find the story twisted almost beyond recognition. Tony Gale’s quite ridiculous commentary of the game is a case in point. I used to listen to him commentating on the radio a few years ago and he really seemed like a breath of fresh air. His commentaries were insightful and he wasn’t afraid to go against the perceived wisdom of the media. Unfortunately now he has taken the Sky shilling, he seems to have become tainted with their boorish, low-brow bias.

Oh how we laughed at his assertions that the systematic blocking off of players, premeditated fouls and downright cheating (yes, Pedersen, that’s you) was in some way a bit of a lad’s lark. Even after the Pedersen replays, his comments on the most blatant dive you’re ever likely to see were at best equivocal. Still, it doesn’t matter because as we all know, it’s okay to cheat against Arsenal who are ridden with dirty foreigners with their ghastly intent to make the stout Yeomen of England (er, Diouf, Pedersen?) look ridiculous what with all that close control and neat passing.

Anyway, Sunday morning came and were treated, by Sky again, to the sight of that Fat Walrus Looking Bloke who manages a Northern rugby league side. Allardyce is his name. Now I think we’re all mature enough not to expect a Paxmanesque grilling of the aforementioned Fat Bloke on any show fronted by Chris Kamara but how are we to square away the complete absence of any mention of the two most contentious issues from the match in which the featured studio guest’s side played? Not a dickie bird about Diouf’s assault. No mention of the most stupid attempt to defy gravity since Greg Louganis bashed his head on the diving board at the Barcelona Olympics.

I was struggling for quite a while with what could possibly account for this when it dawned on me that Allardyce was being “clever”, to use a Tony Gale euphemism, in his manipulation of the media. Now Allardyce is a man for whom “Plan B” is just something that happens to other people. His one and only talent is to organise groups of 6’4”, 15 stone men such that they can batter the opposition into submission through his appropriation of a long ball game shunned almost everywhere in the developed (in a footballing sense) world.

It is clearly not in the interests of Sky to get the man on and then show how antediluvian his “style” of play is. At one fell swoop his media campaign would be shown to be all puff and hot air. No, instead of that we get a few nods and winks and all is understood. “I am the Stout Yeoman; Wenger and his effete band of wimps are the interlopers who can’t take a bit of the Agincourt spirit”.

This media campaign continued into Monday morning. By now, Fat Bloke has had sufficient time to examine the game closer on TV. And Lo! Surely the evidence is there for all to behold? Almunia has headbutted The Blessed Diouf, whose canonisation is now surely imminent. This has to be the greatest piece of sleight of hand since Paul Daniels was sawing ladies in half. I challenge any of you to show me how Almunia butted the man. But that’s the point of course. Let’s all get arguing over the whys and the wherefores. That way, the real issue is buried and we move on. The manager takes some heat off his errant player. The media get some pretty vacuous quotes to fill up space and airtime. Mandelson and Campbell would be proud. Job done.

We are right to be appalled by this sly, disingenuous manipulation in which both managers and the media are complicit. Of course we are no strangers to being on the end of it. Witness last year’s near sanctification of Martin Taylor following his premeditated assault on Eduardo . This was followed by the media’s focus on Gallas’ antics rather than the disgusting tackle. Let us not forget that this was backed up by the now customary calls from the manager of “but he’s a lovely lad, wouldn’t hurt a fly, gentle giant“ and so on. Well, certain East End gangsters loved their mum but it didn’t stop them from being psychotic bullies.

A couple of years ago Allardyce was bemoaning the fact that “if my name was Allardici, I’d be praised to the skies for my footballing management skills”. Clearly, this is nonsense for if he had tried to forge a managerial career in any of the major Southern European leagues to which, presumably his ignorant barb is aimed, he would have progressed no further than the local schools leagues. In Spain, France, Italy and Portugal, having control over the football is the basic building block of footballing success from a very young age. Yes, these countries have in the past and continue to produce purveyors of the dark arts to rival some of English football’s least talented hoofers (clearly a classification into which Allardyce fell in his playing days, as those of you old enough to remember his leaden footed lumbering efforts will attest).

Allardyce however is a follower of the Charles Hughes - John Beck - Dave Bassett school where talent on the football is not only distrusted but positively discouraged. When the man who gave us the genius that is Kevin Nolan and the supreme talent that is Kevin Davies is calling the media shots, then I’m afraid we need to take as look at how well these media are serving us.