By Alex Netherton
Liverpool have a history of near-hysterical levels of imagined persecution and self-mythologising. Everybody knows they had the chippiest fans of all the top teams. Now they’re not a top team, so who’s next? Given the actions of the past few years and particularly the last few weeks, it has to be Arsenal. The Islington Set are a churlish bunch.
King Rat, Cesc Fabregas. A player with the swagger of a man but the personality of a lippy kid. Defeat and difficulty are answered not with indomitable rage but with petulance. Pizza at Ferguson. Gobbing at Brian Horton. Traducing Mark Hughes’ career. Not even deigning to recognise Ipswich. Accusing the opposition and officials of bribery. If you don’t speak Cesc’s sacred Catalan, the translation: any of Arsenal’s failures or my own are not my fault.
The Fergie-pizza interface was one thing. Fabregas was a kid, and this was just a moment of immaturity. However, his hollow whinges and justifications become more frequent, not less.