FOOTBALL: CHELSEA CONCEDED 1ST GOAL, BAYERN 1ST LOST

Today we have more interesting records broken here and there. Let me highlight the figures.

Luke Moore of Aston Villa became famous to be the first person to score against Chelsea this season. 640 minutes of Premiership matches without conceding a goal. That will be 7.1111... matches. Impressive record if I do say so myself. They are still unbeatable. Somebody should come up with some awards for any teams to beat them just like how it was successful to see the first defeat of Bayern Munich in 15 consecutive victory matches.

Like Moore, Rafael van der Vaart and Piotr Trochowski became famous by ending that record and Hamburg SV themselves extended their unbeaten record to 17 games in all competitions! Their fans will be enjoying so much beer, they will never ever forget how sweet their goals are! :) A German brewery, Bitburger had promised to give away 10,000 litres of beer to fans of the first team to beat Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga this season.

Owen scored again as the Magpies win slimly 1-0 against Manchester City for the first win at home this season (after 8 tries). Souness will be much a relaxed man now. With some players back (Bramble and Parker), it adds more choices to the starting line up. I am hoping more will be back from suspension and injury and may the sky be clearer again at St. James' Park. Liverpool needed a penalty to get a draw away in Birmingham as Birmingham were reduced to ten men at the 84th minute. The most shocking defeat of yesterday was Manchester United to Blackburn Rovers. The Rovers had not won in Old Trafford since 1962!!! That is 43 years of waiting!!! The nightmare of the day must have come from Everton. They had their 6th straight defeat (8th in 9 matches) to a newcomer Wigan. This is Wigan's first ever Premiership campaign!

ARSENAL

Well, enough figures. Let's concentrate on Arsenal. They have been in the headlines for the past few days. By the way, the drew 0-0 last night. First, we heard of Pires accusing Neville of injuring him. Then, I heard Wenger talking about stopping international friendlies. Then, we have Vieira warning Wenger that he needs to sign more top class players to retain Henry. Finally, after the outcome of last night's match, Wenger is suggesting new points scheme?

Let's start with Pires comments on Phil Neville. 'I tackled to get the ball but he didn't. He made the tackle to catch me and he did.'

Neville's team-mate Tim Cahill, meanwhile, has been accused by Arsenal midfielder Freddie Ljungberg of kicking the ball into the Swede's face during the same match.

'I wasn't entirely pleased,' said Ljungberg.

'There were a few pushes and when I fell down the ball was in my face.'

'Then he kicked the ball into my face. That is why I was a little bit angry. There is no injury though. I guess I have a wooden skull.'

How did Neville replied? Well, here it is:

Neville is claiming it is Arsenal who have the disciplinary problem and highlighting the red card shown to Robin van Persie for kicking FC Thun's Alen Orman in the head in a Champions League clash.

'I made one tackle to win the ball but certain players have made a meal of it. The comments don't surprise me one little bit - some clubs have different agendas.'

'And the ref didn't even give a foul, yet all of a sudden I am a thug. Four days before that one of their players nearly took someone's head off and they were all pleading innocence.'

'How many times have we had that from Arsenal? I don't need to say any more. Sometimes when you are playing these type of players, they seem to think you are not allowed to tackle them.'

'My record over the years, apart from one sending off against Fulham, suggests I am not a dirty player. To say I went out to get him is insulting.'

'People said I deliberately went out to target Reyes. I have seen the video and I made two tackles on him. Two tackles on a world-class player. I think they must have it written in their contract that you can't tackle them.'

'Arsene Wenger will defend his players but there also has to be a bit of honesty. Look at Arsenal's disciplinary record - that suggests the problem lies within.'

My comments? Well, I did not see the tackles on Pires, Ljungberg and Orman. Surely, a high kick that can endanger the head should be at least a red card. No matter intentional or unintentional. I heard comments from Wenger and I am not pleased. Regardless whether he is going for the ball, the head of a human being is more valuable than a ball! If that should happen to an Arsenal player, how will Wenger react? With a tackle like that, Wenger still said something like this.

'The sending-off was an unpleasant surprise and the wrong decision'

When asked if he though Van Persie's boot had been raised rather high, the Arsenal manager responded: 'Who was? The referee? He was flying high - he did not watch the game.'

Wenger insisted: 'It was not Robin's fault - there was no purpose. He wanted to play the ball.'

'He got a high ball, and never saw the opponent, never looked somewhere else than at the ball - it was an accident. For me, it is never a red card.'

Thun manager said:

'I said to my player 'that was pretty hard' - but Ljubo does have a black eye and you can see stud marks, so from that point of view, it was a red card. But I would not say Van Persie did it on purpose.'

Right, if this kind of thing happens to expensive players like Ronaldinho or Henry or van Nistelrooy or Lampard, let's see whether a red card is sufficient. There will be millions of people calling for heavy fines and you will have long debates for weeks. This red card is too much for an unknown player called Orman from an unknown club called FC Thun. Who cares? The fact is Van Persie is of a more expensive player in value than Orman, so he does not deserve the red card.

As for stopping international friendlies, well, there has been calls for ages for less international matches. To me, that plea will be ignored forever because FIFA also wants to earn as much money from international matches just like clubs wanting to earn money from club matches. However, it is the clubs who pays for the wages of their players so I think this issue should be discussed further to get a good solution. The debate by Wenger on injuries is definitely a good one.

'Nowadays you get a player back on a stretcher 24 hours before a must-win match.'

'It's impossible for a player to come back in good form and prepare properly when he has played for his country on a Wednesday evening in Turkey.'

'You'd have to be a magician rather than a coach to get them back to their normal selves by Saturday.'

'FIFA must take the lead and make the national federations subscribe to a worldwide insurance system.'

Insurance system? That to me is a good suggestion. At least clubs pay for their players and they should get something if their players cannot play for their matches because of sustaining injuries in their international matches.

As for Henry to remain in Arsenal, that comment by Vieira will test Henry's loyalty to Arsenal. Wenger comments must have pissed off FC Barcelona.

'All the rest is talk about what could happen in nine months. It's good you speak now of Barcelona, you know how many times they have won the European Cup?'

'Plenty of players have gone to Barcelona to win the European Cup and they have won it only once in their history.'

Finally, his comments on the points system to increase goal scoring in the Premiership football. The incentive to award further points for teams with at least a three-goal margin.

'In France, we had a system where you got a bonus point if you scored three goals in a game but it didn't work at all as, even if you lost and scored three goals, it was the same as a draw.'

'But what could happen is that the difference between goals scored and goals conceded gives you more points - for example, if you won 6-3 or 7-2.'

'If you won by three clear goals, you could get another point. That would encourage the team that was leading 2-0 or 3-0 to carry on going forward and the team that was behind not to concede any more.'

'It's important that the team which takes the initiative wins. Your intention at the start has to be to try to win the game. You can still end up with a poor game, but a negative attitude is to say that getting a point would be fantastic.'

I am neutral on this. Accusations have been made that the Premiership is turning so boring as Chelsea is dominating it like how Ferrari did seasons ago. If we recall clearly, FIA changed the rules so many times for so many seasons. Their objectives is to make Ferrari not to dominate the races and finally, after many tries, the tyre issue made Ferrari almost totally absent from the podium this season. Will the FA do such extremes to make the Premiership less predictable?
Awarding point systems will be abit difficult to implement. Imagine they will have to change all the rules just because of Chelsea. All records in the past will be useless anymore because of the new point system. I just take this as a sudden urge to comment by Wenger and let it past for now. It is not surprising that he comes up with all these suggestions at a period of time when everyone forsee that Chelsea is going to dominate the Premiership for a long, long time.