"My game is more beautiful than yours."

I may be overstating the situation, but Saturday's match between Arsenal and Manchester United had no redeeming value whatsoever. If you saw it, you know what I mean: none of the slick passing both teams are known for, no rhythm, and not even one goal scored without someone else's help. (I'll always maintain that Ben Foster got a hand to Andrei Arshavin's rocket, and should have kept it out.) This wasn't the Arsenal-United semifinal game of last year's Champions League, this was Chelsea-Barcelona.

You can blame most of that on the referee. As every Arsenal fan has pointed out in the last couple days, Mike Dean did a poor job of holding both teams to the same standards of physicality. The disparity in cards was the clearest indication of that, since Arsenal were shown twice as many yellows, despite being whistled for 6 less fouls. The penalty calls were horribly inconsistent as well, as Wayne Rooney received a borderline whistle, even though Arshavin was denied an automatic one earlier. Players usually seek early indications of the referee's standards on such things, but Dean left them in the dark all day.

Until today, I was simply thankful for the 3 points, and otherwise wrote the game off as a poorly officiated performance, as well as an unfortunate missed opportunity for an entertaining match. That, however, was before Arsene Wenger opened his mouth on Monday morning. In a calm press conference, Wenger made unprovoked comments that show the naivety and delusion of "The Professor".

My main reaction to the press conference: who is Arsene to decide what is "anti-football"? Whether or not the strategy was intentional, teams are certainly allowed to use strength to throw their opponents off their rhythm, as long as they aren't fouling players. The referee is the one to control a game's physicality, not the players, but in this case Mike Dean didn't reign it in. Shouldn't that anger be directed at Dean instead of Sir Alex?

No, I think the problem is deeper than that: Wenger has always been unable to admit that his team, or his players, have flaws. Arsenal hasn't succeeded against more physical squads, so he complains every time an opponent doesn't play "beautiful", rather than recognize that they're just tactically exploiting Arsenal's greatest weakness. Wenger is known to amend his perceptions to support his team, and this is just one more attempt to blame somebody else for the fact that his team has a flaw. The differences over time in his stance on diving supports this also. (See: his defense of Eduardo's ridiculous dive.)

I'm inevitably going to get under people's skin here, but this is why I can't stand when Arsenal fans tell me, "We're the best team to root for, because we play the purest football." Yeah, that's probably true, but games aren't won on style points; in the real world, a degree of practicality is necessary. A club might sometimes have to spend money, big money, on experienced imports, because an XI entirely from the academy is often too single-minded and easy to stop. A team might have to play stifling tactical defense, if strength is their only advantage towards winning 3 points. And the result of mixing this practicality with beauty can still be, well, this. Teams shouldn't abandon academies, or only play 5-4-1: the world needs purist beauty in the game. It's just that such purism alone is too easily ruined.

Arsene Wenger has long cemented his status as a genius, a romantic and an idealist who embodies why many people watch the beautiful game. I will always respect him for those qualities. But until he accepts that it's his team that has flaws, rather than the system it plays in, he'll also be forced to accept that being an idealist doesn't necessarily earn you anything.