Wenger’s Ruud taunt: Why can’t he just play football
Van Nistelrooy began the first suspension of his Manchester United career last night after pleading guilty to the FA charge of serious foul play following his crude tackle on Cole during United's 2-0 win at Old Trafford.
Under the FA's new fast-track disciplinary process, the striker will miss Saturday's trip to Portsmouth and the November 7 Manchester derby as a result of the challenge BBC pundit Alan Hansen labelled "a disgrace".
Van Nistelrooy maintains the incident was not premeditated but TV replays looked bad, prompting the apology to Cole which accompanied a vehement defence of his disciplinary record.
"There was no deliberate intent to harm Ashley Cole and I'd like to take this opportunity to apologise to him," said van Nistelrooy.
"Throughout my 10-year career I believe my disciplinary record is very good, not only for Manchester United but at all my previous clubs. I accept the charge made by the FA and I take full responsibility for this incident."
However, van Nistelrooy's stance is unlikely to win him too much sympathy at Highbury and Wenger's latest comments will not do much to ease the tension between England's biggest clubs.
The striker was already public enemy number one among the Gunners for his role in getting Patrick Vieira dismissed on Arsenal's previous Premiership visit to Old Trafford 13 months ago.
This season, van Nistelrooy did not miss either Cole or the net after he was offered a chance to redeem himself for his previous spot-kick blunder.
Wenger was seething at the former PSV Eindhoven man's challenge, labelling him a cheat, a statement that could yet land the Frenchman in trouble with the FA, an accusation that prompted the 'soupgate' tunnel scandal which United have been so keen to play down.
It is the latest in a series of misguided challenges by van Nistelrooy, who escaped without censure last week after catching Sparta Prague defender Pavel Pergl in the face with a stray elbow.
The prolific forward is clearly earning himself a bad reputation and Wenger is not in the mood to offer forgiveness.
"Van Nistelrooy is a big enough player just to come and play football," said the Arsenal chief.
"I have no preconceived ideas about him but what is he doing carrying out such silly things? If you look at the video again it wasn't just the challenge on
Ashley Cole, he also steps on Jens Lehmann in the second half and it's clearly on purpose.
"He does it like he is always innocent. Who is he trying to impress by doing that? Why can't he just play football and forget all the rest?"
Meantime, as the repercussions of Sunday's controversies continue, Chelsea's assistant manager Steve Clarke believes his side are the real winners.
"It is good for us that the gap has closed. Whether it closed to two or three points didn't really matter. It was important Arsenal didn't win. But we have to stay close to Arsenal and in front of Manchester United. It was a good weekend for us.
"We made up some ground that we let slip against Manchester City the previous week but we have immediately closed the gap again, so that is good for us.
"There is no real delight at seeing Arsenal get beaten in the league. It was important we beat Blackburn because if we hadn't done so, Arsenal would have had a five point cushion going into that game.
"It is down to us to keep that gap as small as possible. Hopefully, before the end of the season we'll get rid of it completely."
Neither does Clarke agree that standards among player's in the Premiership are dropping after Sunday's titanic battle.
"Football has always been competitive. It's a cut-throat business, everybody wants to win.
"When you get two big teams there is always going to be high intensity. Big decisions have to be made and people have to get on with it.
"It's analysed more now than ever. If you go back 15 years, there wasn't the same coverage, there certainly wasn't eight cameras looking at every angle."
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