It's All gone Quiet

It's been a reasonably pleasant day in Manchester, most people would have gone about their normal daily business and Greater Manchester Police have another reported crime on their casebooks.

Whilst the print media, the bookmakers and most other people not connected with Manchester City have been holding a kangaroo court to try Emmanual Adebayour in his absence, the local constabulary are dealing with a complaint about Robin Van Persie's post goal celebration. The eyes of the footballing world are on Adebayour for running past 16,000 of his own fans, arms aloft before sinking to his knees in front of a collection of London based racists. A smile had spread across his face the moment the ball hit the net and it was still there 20 seconds and 100 yards later as the Arsenal fans pelted him with bottles and seats. The smile was sadly missing from Gary Neville's face a couple of years earlier when he confronted the Liverpool fans with a display of badge kissing and air punching to celebrate somebody else's goal.

Van Persie 'celebrated' in a somewhat different way. After scoring an important equaliser, he ran towards the City fans and delivered an assortment of gestures and profanities so obvious and foul that most media clips have had to be edited. Despite the fact the goal was scored at the South Stand where the Arsenal fans were contained, he chose to confront City supporters in a section of the stadium often reserved for families. The FA have said nothing, the referee has not reported the incident and the 4th official was a matter of yards from the outrage. It's a sad state of affairs when a fan has to report the matter to the police before any action is taken.

It's now dark in both Manchester and London and the FA still remain tight-lipped. Maybe there is a procession of grey suited men, marching slowly from Soho Square with burning crosses aloft ready to announce the fate of Adebayour at an hour designed not to inconvenience the headline writers of tomorrow mornings papers. It was them after all that have acted as judge, jury and executioner is the whole one-sided affair.