The unspoken conspiracy against Arsenal

Arséne Wenger says he doesn't believe in coincidence. Three horrifically broken legs in the space of four years would be enough to make most managers suspect something might be a little off. Wenger is right: there is a conspiracy against his team. But it's not overt nor clearly articulated; it comes from a cultural enmity rather than a personal one. Ever since a nationwide TV audience witnessed Wolves beat Honved on a pitch watered into a swamp by Stan Cullis in 1954 – through Charles Hughes ("we have nothing to learn from Brazil"), Terry Butcher with blood on his shirt and England's Brave John Terry – there has been a powerful lobby in English football following the premise that aggression and physical power can overcome superior technique. Wenger's Arsenal play in a way that is unusual even at the top level: no other Premier League team keeps the ball so jealously in midfield areas. All three catastrophic injuries have happened at away grounds – Sunderland, Birmingham and now Stoke – against teams with no recent history of playing in Europe, against, say, the ball-hogs of the Portuguese league. Arsenal are the only team they meet who keep the ball like this. Everyone who visits Premier League grounds will know the biggest cheer of the day is often for a heavy, disruptive tackle after a period of patient possession by the away team. The tackle by Ryan Shawcross wasn't high or carried out with studs showing, but it was excessively forceful, a statement-tackle, intended to assert his own - legitimate - physical power and his team's style of play. This kind of challenge happens to Arsenal far more often than other teams. They suffer more injuries as a result. It's a culture clash. Shawcross is also, in a far more minor way, a victim here, as is Tony Pulis as a coach from the same culture that teaches that the best way to combat superior ball retention is a traditional test of mettle.

It's not easy being a winger



Managers don't like each other: and it's fun

No other outfield player is exposed like a winger in the television age, and at a time where space often only ever appears on the flanks. Perhaps 10 times in a single match a winger will be asked both to beat his man and to "deliver". Failure is greeted with snarling team-mate close-ups and commentary box sighs. It's a very difficult position too: even at the top level wingers will tend to have pace but inferior delivery, or delivery but no pace (the Lennon/Beckham dilemma). No wonder those that have both stand out: Luis Figo, Ryan Giggs, the young John Barnes. This weekend the unspectacular, non-telegenic Antonio Valencia continued to show that having enough pace, and a good enough delivery can be a devastating combination. Four times in four matches Valencia has provided a cross for Wayne Rooney to score with his head. Beware through: it is an unforgiving position: on Saturday Charles Nzogbia was taken off by Roberto Martinez at half time after twice wasting the chance to cross having brilliantly engineering space for himself. Adam Johnson has started very well playing wide for Manchester City. But should his form tail off he is in a uniquely exposed outfield position. We will notice. No hiding out wide. Wingers have it hard.

The spat between Rafa Benítez and Sam Allardyce is childish and faintly embarrassing. Benítez was responding to criticism of his own team's style, but his comments about Blackburn refusing the opportunity to play like the 1970 Brazil World Cup team and instead feeding their aerial strengths seemed undignified in victory. The most interesting point is that suddenly we seem to have a league in which a significant number of managers actually dislike each other. Few weekends pass without some kind of snipey dugout altercation. Maybe it's to do with the second generation of foreign managers taking to the Premier League with fewer niceties, less of a sense of being guests and more freedom to challenge the cosy, boozy, boot-room culture. Put like that, it sounds an appealing development. Maybe Benítez's comments were ungracious. Perhaps there was a sense of breaking code. But he's probably got a point. And it's more fun than the traditional closed-shop backslapping. Hail the new grouchiness.

Alan Hansen: decisively wrong



Bellamy the beautiful gargoyle



A terrible weekend for the BBC's headline pundit. All very well. Communicating in, single. Heavily emphasised. Nouns. Like pace. Power. Penetration. And Countdown. Clark Carlisle. Never should have been on. But when you're off you look a bit silly. First of all Hansen made the ridiculous claim that Carlisle being on a pre-recorded (note: not live) game show on Wednesday and Thursday had something to do with his mistakes against Portsmouth, as though sitting around eating Haribo star mix and playing Call of Duty would have been better preparation than some harmless mental gymnastics. Then came the attempt to "call" the Carling Cup final. Richard Dunne: reliable, solid and dependable. Villa to win. Rooney won't influence the game. Everybody makes mistakes and Hansen is in the firing line every weekend. But for some reason it's always particularly enjoyable when he's wrong.Craig Bellamy: on second thoughts. Previously this column may have given the impression it considered Bellamy a gobby, arrogant, occasionally violent product of the grisly Premier League age. It now appears he is in fact a fiercely honest, searingly incisive, tell-it-like-it-is victim of a culture that... Hang on. Perhaps that's going a bit far. But there is something about Bellamy, a hideously unappealing but still strangely attractive and compelling figure. He is the loudmouth whose opinion you actually want to hear, because it's compellingly honest. "Everybody in football knows what the guy is like," Bellamy said on Saturday and you wanted to hear more. Give me more Bellamy. Let me hear the truth. Bellamy has in the past fallen out with Graeme Souness and Alan Shearer: could he be the voice of the anti-macho and the anti-bland, antithesis to the antiseptic? Then, you remember the other stuff. The golf club, the assorted public order arrests. Bellamy will have to remain an alluring gargoyle, a guilty pleasure, and a stopped clock that tells the right time once a day. But he is definitely fun.