Versions are beginning to emerge about the truth behind what happened after West Ham’s late winner. Myles Palmer has teased us by stating Pardew said three words which were inexcusable and that Arsenal News Review could not reproduce, the teaser. (Not sure why but ANR seems to be down at the time of posting – try a new ISP guys!) Blogfc has a story asking what was said, and underneath a youtube video of the incident, one respondent is of the firm opinion that Pardew said ‘You French f**k’ at some point in the exchange, and subsequently Wenger was seen to ask fourth official Andy D’Urso “Did you hear what he said?”

Arsene didn’t take kindly to Pardew’s celebration. And from what I can see may have spoken first, giving Pardew an opportunity to continue the debate by leaving his technical area and approaching the Arsenal boss, who then pushed him away. I suspect at this point, Pardew may have uttered words which, unfortunately, if true (and D’Urso will be able to testify) exposed the xenophobia he tried hard to play down with his utterances about Arsenal’s selection policy last season.

No wonder the soon-to-be former West Ham manager was so contrite after the match, realising he may have exposed his true colours in spite of his attempts to establish some entente cordiale before the game.

With the FA’s supposed stance on racism, if the words attributed to Pardew on blogfc turn out to be the actual ones he used, then the book should be thrown at him. By the time of the hearing, he’ll probably have been dismissed anyway though.

However, the upshot of this is that Wenger was right not to offer him the hand at the conclusion of the match, and also justified in not speaking to an English media that stokes up the xenophobic attitude in their reporting of Arsenal’s squad building policy, one that includes dispensing with unstable English hotheads like Jermaine Pennant, Sol Campbell and Ashley Cole.