At Your Beck and Poll

Recently, English referee Graham Poll he has been accused of handing out bookings like they were candy to children and being biased against big clubs, or so Mourinho says. He sent off John Terry in the Chelsea v. Spurs match Sunday and handed out 6 other yellows. Before that, other clubs had been having some issues with his calls. Also, this last summer during the World Cup, committed the ‘blunda of the summa’ when he gave out 3 yellow cards to a Czech player before sending him off. Now to Arsenal supporters, these antics are nothing new and are enjoying a bit of schadenfreude as they call finally go against other clubs. So, with all the controversy around Poll, what does the FA do about all of this? Give him a few weeks off? Meet with him to discuss his refereeing style? Maybe even but him as an Assistant until things cool off? No, they send him straight up to Merseyside to call a Carling Cup match.

Last night the Arsenal traveled to Goodison Park with their reserves and took on a full squad Everton in the Carling Cup 4th round. About midway through the first half, Everton striker Andy Johnson went down a bit easily in the box (which he is prone to do) upon which Poll yelled “Play on.” Of course, if Poll felt it was a dive then he should have booked him for diving, but he didn’t and said there was no foul. Well, James McFadden wasn’t quite so pleased and when he walked by Poll afterwards he had a few choice words, which Poll states were that he called him a f****** cheat. Well, instead of dealing with the tricky issues of how many cards you need before a red, Poll gave McFadden a straight red and the Blues were down to 10 men. Nice move Graham. But Poll seemed to get over his yellow issues pretty quick and went back to handing out bookings for non-fouls but letting continuous dives from Johnson go unpenalized.

At the end of the day, Emmanuel Adebayor nodded in a header (yes a header!!) off a corner (yes, I said a corner!!!) to put Arsenal up 1-0 and secure the win. After the match, you can be sure David Moyes wasn’t too happy with the night’s results and brought the poopy-mouthed McFadden with him to the press conference to explain his side of the story. Jimbo claims he never called Poll a cheat. That would be disrespectful. He claims he walked by and said that the call was f****** sh**e. Ahhhhh, that makes all the difference in the world!

Anyway, the Gunners are on to the quarterfinals so huzzah for the kids. I’m sure we’ll draw Chelsea, but you never know. I’d love to see the kids get to the final and hand Wenger the cup, but I’m not placing any bets at this point.

Today, ladies and gentlemen (and you too Winker), I’d like to share my latest musical find. Beck isn’t really much of a “find” per se, as he’s been around for years, but I did just pick up his latest album “The Information.” It is good stuff amigos and he has yet again made his quirky style hip and fun to listen too. There are blends of booming bass riffs and funky percussion overlapped by crazy lyrics. I highly recommend it, as I would other albums like Guero and Odelay. Go out and get ya some Beck.

Adios.