Gated from criticism

While some bloggers have a uncensored comments policy, some sites like ANR for example allow no comments at all, this means that they are only open to criticism on other people's sites. A recent example of this was a rather over the top piece by Myles Palmer which Arseblog has quite rightly criticised, in my opinion only of course.

When people cross a line by showing no respect with their criticism of the manager and team, then it seems perfectly reasonable to me that this should be pointed out to them. After all as Arseblog comments, it seems that some writers like to be a little sensationalist to draw in readers, many of whom feel compelled to read in a kind of 'car crash' manner. These authors then do not appear very willing to face the consequences of having to listen to the reasonable criticism of their sensationalist words.

Petty insults and offensive abuse have been dished out, merely because some people have dared to question their right to block any polite and reasoned criticism of their knee jerk sensationalism, it appears to me that those who throw the petty insults are the ones who hide in their gated communities. Obviously I am not denying the right of people to remove comments which are rude or offensive, however editing out polite and reasoned debate is taking things a bit far, and I can only assume that their arguments are not robust enough to stand up to polite debate. How on earth can the authors of such reactionary rubbish complain when they are criticised on another person's site because their is no right to polite reply on the original authors' sites? I'd imagine they complain because one becomes deluded living in a gated community that is shut off from the outside world.

Moving on, there has been much criticism of the team and manager of late, but I think the real reason for our failure in the league this season has been our defensive sloppiness, mainly at home. At the Emirates how many times have we conceded sloppy goals, frequently the first goal, it's has happened against Villa and Boro recently and there were notable examples against Fulham, Sunderland and Birmingham earlier in the season. We have also frequently failed to hold onto leads away from home, admittedly sometimes through bad luck, but this has had a significant effect on our points tally.

The reason for this sloppiness isn't simple, I don't think it can be blamed entirely on the defenders, I just wonder if the midfield is giving them enough protection. Saliently I remember a similar defensive crisis in Wenger's early years and it resulted in the midfield acknowledging that it had to do more to help out the back four. Flamini has really been our only regular defensive midfielder and he is not as strong in the air as some. Should this lack of protection be thought of when Wenger moves into the transfer market this summer? I certainly hope so, I would like to see him add a good all round combative midfielder who could score a few goals, but who could also give us an engine room down the right of midfield, a sort of cross between Ray Parlour and Kaka, shouldn't be hard to find, should it?