(Ed’s note. I was going to run this piece last weekend before the Stoke game, but due to server problems, the website was down. Anyhow, as I don’t want to waste it, I’m running it today.)

There has been an awful lot of thuggery supplied by Bolton and handed out to Arsenal over the years, mainly thanks to a despicable Walrus-headed thugmeister called Big Fat Sam. Bolton teams have for years relied upon the crash-bang-wallop approach against Arsenal. This normally includes battering keepers or standing on their toes at set plays whilst maintaining an unsophisticated bombardment based on up-and-unders but accompanied by the aerial power of elbows to the face or forearm smashes to the back of the neck. Kevin Davies didn’t alter this ploy much last Wednesday night except to either nudge or blatantly shove in the back even more than usual. The fact that a man with a white stick called Alan Wiley didn’t spot it more than once is of no account. Having the keeper fouled just the once by Bolton merely shows how rarely they made it into our box.

Diaby played the match with a stiff calf because of a kick he received in the first game against Bolton, but had to come off eventually because of that and of course the repetition of further kicks. Merida of course couldn’t play at all because he was crocked by Bolton in the few minutes he was on the field at the Reebok. Cesc Fabregas was kicked up in the air by a vast variety of Bolton players for well over 180 minutes. Cesc might also have had three penalties over the course of the two matches if the two referees in question had not been solely reliant on their guide dogs. How McCann remained on the field, even for the short period of time he was on it, is beyond me. His ‘how to demolish an unwanted garden wall’ demonstration using the back of Andrey’s legs was a red card no brainer. At the point of time when Gallas and Mark Davies went in for a 50/50 I’d say that the team in blue were lucky to have eleven players on the field.

From my view in the East Stand it looked to me like a tough tackle from two players when Gallas and Davies collided. If anything I thought Davies’ intent was to do Gallas. The long and short of it is that Davies came out worse. He went down in a heap and stayed there. So what? Just because a crap commentary team says it was nasty doesn’t make it so. Just because Fergusmoan or Ancelotti got on the blower to Sky and instructed the incident to be played over and over again on their news programme means even less. Although it does perhaps mean that others consider us a real threat.

Owen and his newly acquired band of thugs may well be upset with the fact that Arsenal played on following Davies’ injury, but so what, we broke no rules. Just because a player is down doesn’t mean you have to stop midway in an effective attack, or even under any other circumstances. Especially so when you haven’t a clue what the injury was, other than that it clearly wasn’t a head injury. When Denilson collapsed against Everton he was clearly in stress but play wasn’t stopped, if the referee chose not to do so then why would Everton? Fair enough, it may be tough luck but it’s just part of the game. However I thought harassing a referee or his assistants was an offence, so why were none of the Wanderers motormouth gang punished for that?

Bolton are the last club in the world who should even consider complaining about tough tactics from Arsenal players. We gave them a two goal start, what the hell more did they expect? As for Taylor and his OTT celebrations deliberately made and extended almost indefinitely in front of the Arsenal fans, well **** him. He got what he was due. Zero points.

Patch ‘em up and roll ‘em out for the next one Wenger.