Let’s all give an extremely slow and sarcastic clap to the FA today folks, after they decided to charge Arsenal for its players’ conduct after the sending off of Myles Lewis-Skelly last weekend.

So let’s get this straight. The dismissal was ruled to be incorrect, which is why the Arsenal players were furious, the response from the PGMOL was shown to be frivolous PR attempts to double down (I’m talking about their approach, not the abuse – which we all agree has to stop), yet the FA decided to stoke this particular fire just a little more by charging Arsenal. Sounds all fine and dandy to me.

Not.

The problem we have is that this weekend, in at least one Premier League game, there will be players surrounding the referee. So anybody busting out the old ‘consisting’ trope is caught out there, because I bet you by the time Sunday night comes around there will have probably have been a few instances identical to this.

On the ‘surrounding the referee’ stuff, to be fair, this isn’t just an Arsenal thing. Chelsea were fined on 21st January for surrounding the ref on 30th December in their game against Ipswich. Newcastle and Villa were both charged on 9th January for an incident on 26th December. But having looked back at the FA Spokesperson social media account – where all of these announcements are made (mainly the high profile aka Premier League – although they do others too) – I can only see those three incidents going back to 21st December last year.

So you’re telling me that only four sets of players have surrounded the referee during that time? Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.

The reality here is that the FA and PGMOL are trying to salvage what is left of the petrol-doused wreckage that was this instance last weekend, trying to make some kind of small skirmish victory by dropping this fine on Arsenal. It’s farcical. What they should be doing is working out how to avoid this stuff happening again – something Pete at Le Grove has long talked about and addresses again how imperative it is to make changes and how to do it here. It’s not rocket science, it’s going to take a bit of work but not a lot, but there is money and there will be interest to change – so why are we not changing?

A lot of it clearly has to do with keeping an old boys network together, as I’ve bleated on about for years and if you want an example of this closed club crossing sporting entities (PGMOL, FA and Sky Sports), look no further than the circling of the wagons that Sky did in the aftermath of the incident last week. Deleted tweets, changing of focus towards abuse (it should still be highlighted, of course, but it should also be treated as two separate incidents), some journo’s weirdly rounding on Lewis-Skelly (one even used inflammatory words to suggest he was the criminal in this piece), then you get nonsense like The Overlap; a hypocritical charade masquerading as TV entertainment (because it isn’t analysis, that’s for sure) that this week talked about how Michael Oliver won’t hold a grudge now that this incident has happened. And might I say kudos to Terry Flewers for highlighting this, because check out Gary Neville’s response this week versus something just a few months ago (fast forward to about 7:05 minutes in to get the jist):

Nice one Gary – you have helped to prove Arsenal fans’ points here – you are in cahoots with PGMOL as Howard Webb – rather than try to improve the standards of his broken organisation he heads up – looks to cover its tracks with PR so transparent that even a basic Business Studies student who’s just learned what the acronym ‘PR’ and PR spin’ is’.

Rip it all up and start again. And stop idiots like Neville and Carragher sensationalising stuff – tell them to stick to their evening jobs – do analysis on football and bin your stupid ‘hot takes’.

Also – P.S. Gary’s point is rendered completely redundant anyway, because Premier League referees can’t ref the same team two week’s running. It is LITERALLY the rules, Gary.

Right, now I’ve got that off me chest, how about we start looking ahead to what’s in store this weekend? Because it’s a heck of a tough one and I don’t care what state City have been in, our record against them has been crap and to win we are going to have to be at our absolute best. That starts from the back and hopefully it starts with Arteta telling us Raya is fine, because if he isn’t and we have to play Neto after his shaky game in Girona, I don’t think I’ll be the only Gooner chewing their fingernails when the ball goes back to him every time. There’s also some noises about Ben White back in training but I suspect Arteta will just dismiss any talk of that. He’s been out for over three months and it’ll take him a couple of week’s of full training before he’s ready to play any football, so I suspect they’ll be earmarking his return after the stint of warm weather training has finished after this weekend and midweek’s Carabao Cup game against Newcastle.

He’ll probably be asked about Ollie Watkins, but I think that’s already pretty much done as a potential deal after Jhon Duran was making his way to Saudi Arabia for a big money move yesterday. If I was to put a percentage chance on it I’d probably say 1%. There’s no chance Villa are selling both of their strikers this window and so that deal is done and besides, if the rumours are true and Villa value him at £80million, that has to be the point at which Arsenal say “thanks but no thanks”. Sorry Ollie, no Arsenal dream for you, my friend.

That article is behind a paywall so I’ll drop another titbit in there for you – apparently we offered £45million for him and not the £60million, so I suspect that was including some bonuses and add ons. You’d expect Arsenal would have to go to £60million plus a load of achievable add-ons, but even now I think it’s unlikely given the timing and lack of ability for Villa to find a replacement. The only way this deal happens is if Watkins refuses to play and I just don’t see that from the player. He might want the move, it might be a dream come true, but Villa hold the cards and you just have to say “fair enough” sometimes. I just hope we’re exploring other options now.

We won’t have long to find out, because by Monday night the window closes and if we haven’t got a striker in, I don’t think I’ll be the only Arsenal fan disappointed at the lack of movement. But we have to hold our tongues until we know what is shaking out.

Catch you all tomorrow for a post-press conference de-brief.