Rightly, wrongly or clumsily, Salut! Sunderland allowed a splendid piece of whimsy from Pete Sixsmith, which also offered serious discussion of the steady progress of Stoke City as a well-run Premier League club, to degenerate into another ugly spat over Ryan Shawcross’s 2011 challenge on Aaron Ramsey.
But, as a new study reminds us, the history of Arsenal grievance and victimhood goes back a long way …
Monsieur Salut writes: Salut! Sunderland often asks ‘Who are You?’ interviewees to share their views on the best and worst referees in the Premier League. Mark Clattenburg is the one most commonly named as the best and, for all that he’s a Mag, I agree. Experience has also taught me to be as understanding as most of the pressures on match officials. I criticise bad decisions and inconsistency but am the first the recognise that players make many more bad decisions, and show much greater inconsistency.
In one of the occasional guest pieces we receive from a football academic, Tom Webb, we learn that pundits generally are also more restrained in their assessments of refs than is supposed. It is worth noting that many ex-referees – Graham Poll, Howard Webb and Dermot Gallagher spring to mind – now provide their services to the media as expert assessors …