Pulis on Wenger - "He cannot comment on my players. He doesn't know what my players are about or made of. There's no way in a million years he would go out to break someone's leg."

Well actually Pulis if you'd listened to his interview you'd know he didn't comment on your players. But he has every right to comment on them, and on any cretinous manager who sends his players out to deliberately rough up the opposition. Don't give me any of that ‘hard but fair’ bollocks, Stoke don't play football, they're almost totally devoid of football. Wiping a ball with a towel whilst stealing ten yards all game and battering defenders isn't football. And let’s look at the facts when contact was made shall we? The foot of Shawcross was halfway up Ramsey's shin. If Shawcross is worthy of being called up to the England squad, as Capello believes, why is anyone claiming he's a lovely lad who wouldn't deliberately kick anyone? Are they also claiming a potential England international's ability to kick a ball is really so appallingly inaccurate?

This is not a one off: Take Dan Smith's assault on Diaby in May 2006, an end of season match where we thrashed Sunderland and Diaby got his leg needlessly broken near the game. The Sunderland caretaker manager Kevin Ball jumped to his player’s defence, claiming: "Dan Smith is by no means a dirty player. I think he went for the ball. There was no malice. I felt we went about our jobs well." Went for the ball my arse, he wasn't even close and it’s not difficult to imagine the rough gist of the conversation between Ball and Smith as he was sent on as a sub in the 63rd minute. I suspect it was something like: "Go on son get out there and get stuck in to 'em, give 'em some and make a name for yourself. You may never get another chance to hack away at the likes of Thierry Henry, so make the most of it."

Birmingham City defender Martin Taylor was given a straight red card for his challenge on Eduardo in just the third minute of the contest at St Andrews. Lets just try to imagine the pre-match pep talk from that paragon of footballing virtue Alex McLeish as he wound up his players in an attempt to stop Arsenal playing football by whatever means they could. It's not incredibly difficult to picture a ranting Jock in the dressing room is it?

On the day, Kevin Radcliffe, the co-'pundit' on BBC Five Live, spent half time defending Taylor's challenge, claiming “Eduardo's dribbling meant it was understandable that Taylor would go in studs up.” Garth Crooks was saying Eduardo was “a victim of his own pace and skill”. Both he and Gavin Peacock even claimed it shouldn't have been a red for Martin Taylor. What total jerks. But that's how the British press feel that you should play against Arsenal. Richard Keys, the sanctimonious twat and Sky anchorman on the day showed far more concern for Gallas' tantrum than he did about the horror tackle which might easily have ended Eduardo's career, but that's the way it seems to be in England. For this great British tradition of kicking Arsenal off the park we can thank Alex Ferguson and his demented drinking buddies such as the Sam Allardyces or Phil Browns of this world. Ably aided and abetted by every referee who has ever failed to protect a team playing football against cloggers until it is tragically too late.

Tony Pulis, Kevin Ball and Alex McLeish might appear to be well intentioned but they are all simpletons. They might all pretend to be innocent bystanders at a road accident but these are in fact the men who all perpetrated a deliberate crime. Just as is the case whenever we play against Fat Sam all three managers deployed a deliberate pre-meditated tactic which involved roughing up the Arsenal. This in my eyes makes them even more guilty of causing injury than the players they instructed to get about the Arsenal.

Accidents happen, we all accept that, but accidents are no longer accidents if the managers' intent was to instruct their players to deliberately set about their opponents.