Deafening silence from 12th man gives misfiring Gunners the blues

I’M LED to believe Arsene Wenger turned the air blue in the bowels of the Stade de France last Wednesday, during a post-match barney with French coach Raymond Domenech that made le Prof and Pardew seem like bosom buddies.

I can appreciate Arsène’s sense of righteous indignation. Domenech’s decision to give Makelele, Saha and Evra a 45 minute run-out in a meaningless friendly against Greece, while Henry and Gallas were deemed necessary for the entire 90, was hardly designed to promote an “entente cordial” with his compatriot.

Hence Arsène’s ever so slightly sarcastic expression of gratitude to the French national team, in his post-match comments on Saturday. However the lack of freshness of these two crucial French cogs was hardly the principle contributing factor in our increasingly frustrating failure to pick up all three points against Newcastle.