Arsenal – Leeds Highlights; Sagna admits to “hatred;” Theo Dive Fallout

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A couple of other stories going on today, after the jump:

First, Bacary Sagna has admitted to feeling “hatred” for Pablo Zabaleta after the incident last week which saw both men red-carded. Sagna is quoted as saying:

“I have been having to take kicks from opponents for a good many weeks without referees cracking down on them. When Zabaleta swore at me I just blew a fuse. I can speak Spanish, and I understood the insults he aimed at me. I did not want to take them lying down – he pushed me to the limit.

I regret my actions, and I am the first to say that these types of gestures should be banned from the field of play. But I cracked up on Wednesday. I felt hatred for him. But I am not a gangster. The sending-off will serve as a lesson to me for the future, and I won’t make the same mistake again.”

Don’t sell yourself, short, Bacary — I think you’re gangsta as hell. Just remember, as a very, very wise man once said: “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Make sure that suffering is suffered by the other team, not us, okay?

People are reacting to Theo’s admission of a dive. Jack Wilshere weighed in on Twitter: “Fair play to theo for apologising! Takes a Real man to apologise!” There has been some criticism, of course, too, although remember that Theo is English, so any criticism of him is always going to be very limited.

My take on it is mainly that it’s just kind of weird. As I said, it looked to me that his foot got stepped on, and while he may have gone down pretty easily, it didn’t look like anything out of the ordinary to me (maybe that’s a damning indictment of how easily players in the game today go down in the box, I don’t know). It certainly wasn’t a situation where the dive was so blatant that everyone was talking about it. I always try to avoid other blogs and twitter during the matches, so I’m not sure what people thought about it, but I can’t imagine the big talking point was that he had “dived” to try to win the penalty. So I’m just not sure why he felt the need to go public about it, because, as Homey pointed out yesterday, he now has a bit of a reputation that he didn’t have before, one that could result in him being less likely to get penalties in the future.

The FA Cup fourth round draw takes place after today’s matches, so we’ll know who will play if we can get past Leeds in the replay. That will take place at 345 p.m. UK time, and 1045 US Eastern Standard Time. I will update this post with the outcome, so look to this space in a couple of hours if you’re curious. (UPDATE: Very good fourth round draw for us — if we can get past Leeds United, we will be home to League One Huddersfield Town.)

There’s a bunch of transfer rumors floating around, but they are the lazy journalist/made up variety. Cesc has an agreement to join Barcelona at the end of the season, we have an agreement with Hazard to join us at the end of the season, Sol Campbell will return to Arsenal, Almunia to leave for somewhere or other, etc. None of them particularly worth commenting on.

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Category: Arsenal News, Bacary Sagna, FA Cup, Fixtures, Theo Walcott, Video