La Liga Weekly

If [Arséne Wenger] doesn’t like English working conditions, whereby players are physical and try to win the ball, then maybe he should disappear to La Liga or Serie A-Stan Collymore.

It is hilarious when a guy like Stan Collymore complains about Spain or Italy in the English media. This is a guy who spent a total of five weeks in Spain, playing parts of 3 games for Real Oviedo in Asturias, where he was criticized by his coach Radomir Antic for his lack of fitness, and was then sued by the club for breech of his 18 month contract. He retired at the age of 30 stating battles with depression. Now, I am not knocking him. It is a very scary business to suffer from what he suffers. I am well aware of it, but it seems a little delusional to criticize Arsenal for their lack English bite, their inability to adapt to the English mentality, of getting stuck in, when he clearly knows so little about the game that is played elsewhere.

Does he remember Real Madrid defender Pepe going nuts on the Getafe defense last year? Has he seen the tackle on Deportivo La Coruna Felipe Luis by Athletic keeper Gorka Iraizoz? What about this tackle by Zlatan Ibrahimovich of supposedly weak-willed Barca on Villareal? The announcer ironically states that the two-footed stamp would be a red-card in any league in the world? You think? I would say it would bring out nothing more than a stern warning from an English ref. You see tackles like that on every Saturday in England. The difference here is that, other than Juande Ramos, a keen admirer of the English game, who defended the red mist that engulfed Portuguese international Pepe, this brand of football is an anomaly. There is institutional control. You foul somebody like that and you get carded. The great players get protected.

In Spain there is an expectation that players need to play good football and even small teams struggle to put on a great product. In England, the flair player is mistrusted, shunted away and valued less; mediocrity is rewarded. The fact is that they may have cleaned up the stadiums, corporatized and homogenized the product in the stands, but on the field not much has changed since the days of Norman Hunter and dirty, dirty Leeds.

It is no wonder that the best players in the world are begging to leave England and are in no hurry to leave for Premier League clubs. Cesc Fabregas wants to leave Arsenal? Obviously. Kaká prefers Real Madrid over Manchester City? Absolutely. Nemanja Vidic, Javier Mascherano, and a dozen more players are looking at other shores to leave their respective clubs.