Indigestion

Sunday mornings are usually mixed affairs. The joy of forced labour not being required is tempered by the dull ache that attacks the head and stomach as the previous evenings food and wine begin to produce a chemical reaction in all points south.

Often the mood is lifted by reading reports of the previous days exploits. Today that comfort blanket has been removed. I am fully exposed to the weakly assembled, almost racist, drivel that passes for press comment these days.

Take Rob Hughes in the Times (I wish someone would!). "He created a team of foreigners in our land and persuaded them that they can take on the world." Ah, Wenger and his 'Johnny Foreigners' time again is it?

He continues "His very French view that there is injustice all around fuels Arsenal's purpose". So the damn foreigner dares to have a 'foreign' outlook. I wonder if it is anything to do with the fact that he comes from (whisper it!) France? Something to do with all that cheese and garlic I expect.

I don't bother completing the article. My stomach is starting to turn. I move on to Patrick Collins in the Mail. Here is a respected journo who will surely lift my spirits. Well, I do get to the end of the article, which appears to be about why Chelsea, Liverpool, and Arsenal will not follow Manchester United's lead and appoint a British manager.

Maybe it's me, I am wondering. I am giving up hope of finding an article that doesn't put the nationality of the manager or his players above all else. I find refuge in an unlikely source.

Steve Tongue, in the Independent, has the temerity to write about the players, the defeats, the consolation to come, and the merits of the football played by Wenger's young charges. If there is one article that should be read this morning, this is it.

And safe in the knowledge that the 'fuzzy-wuzzys' are not taking over the footballing world I can now attend to the needs of my digestive system. Until tomorrow people, wherever you are.