Wall of conspiratorial rage must not hide the beauty of Arsenal’s defending

Take away the skill of defending, complain about “the dark arts” and the football spectacle will ultimately lose meaning.

Manchester City's John Stones scores Manchester City's late equaliser against Arsenal. Picture: AP Photo/Dave Thompson

So let’s just get this out there. First up Michael Oliver, who has ties to the United Arab Emirates, is appointed to referee Manchester City’s biggest game of the season just days after a human who looks like Keir Starmer (there is no proof of this either way) is seen in an Arsenal box, while the UK government is furiously back-channelling UAE trade relations. We’re through the looking-glass here people, where even the looking-glass is made of other looking-glasses, possibly in Nyon and probably by satanists.

Meanwhile we’re meant to be surprised that VAR didn’t see anything wrong with Erling Haaland throwing the ball at Gabriel Magalhães’s head (subplot: Brazil recently banned the use of X) as the UK government seeks a Norway-style deal to covertly sneak back into the EU. You do the algebra, sheeple.