SOCCER ANGLES:There is an unchecked arrogance about Arsenal at times and the worst part of that is the unchecked bit

THE DESIRE to see increased competition in the Premier League, particularly at the top, provoked a dig here at Arsenal last week for being 16 points behind Manchester United with United having a game in hand. What was not said was that Arsenal have had to maintain some form of challenge without key individuals for chunks of the season: Cesc Fabregas and Theo Walcott for months, Emmanuel Adebayor for the past six weeks. Eduardo da Silva and Tomas Rosicky are not forgotten either.

But everyone sort of knows that: there was and is understanding.

Fabregas, being the captain and heartbeat of the team, was the greatest loss, not just for Arsenal but for the league. Yet just when you were thinking again of how much the brilliant little Spaniard was missed, up he popped on Tuesday night to remind everyone that Fabregas has a streak in him that is unpleasant.

To call it volatility would be generous and it has taken Fabregas to the stage where his next passage of enlightened passing will be accompanied by ‘buts’ and ‘if onlys’. Those comments will not be applied on every occasion – everything good from Steven Gerrard does not come with a remark about his readiness to dive for Liverpool, and even Craig Bellamy is allowed to score goals without his off-field behaviour being mentioned (every time) – but Fabregas now has enough connections to spits and spats to have his reputation tarnished.

Who is to blame for that? Fabregas will be 22 in May. That makes him young in my book and while there is a general argument that says footballers, people in the limelight, should mature faster because of the responsibilities of fame, that seems like not only ignorance of the human condition but also of a society that is increasingly celebrates immaturity and lightweight celebrity.

Fabregas was born in 1987, a year before the launch of Hello Magazine in Britain and Ireland – a spin-off from the Spanish original Hola. Hello was in the vanguard of a dumbing-down that rinsed through domestic football like a virus and which reached its Everest (or Kilimanjaro) with England’s WAG circus at the last World Cup.

There have always been clowns in the game of course, and Sammy Nelson’s dropped shorts are a reminder that they could be found at Arsenal even in the days of Highbury and the marble halls. Tony Adams and Paul Merson later had their moments.

But players in their late 30s now, and those older, rarely tire of saying how privileged teenagers are today, especially those in willowy academies such as Arsenal’s. The elders’ argument is that there is no apprenticeship, no struggle and that an effect of this is cockiness and complacency in very young men, or children, to whom wealth comes too soon and much too easily. It is a persuasive case, not simply a good-old-days theme.

Fabregas, and many of the Arsenal youngsters, are so gifted they would have made it in any generation. Long ago there was little in the way of pastoral care, official pastoral care, and there are clubs today that continue to provide stories of, if not ill-treatment, then of almost no treatment away from pitches and matches. But Arsenal are not one of them, Arsenal have a name for nurturing talent as well as identifying it.

But what has happened to Fabregas? Was he spitting fire when he arrived from his native city of Barcelona aged 16½? Or has his environment, at club level and beyond, played a role?

Exactly what sort of guidance is a boy getting that he can dismiss Mark Hughes as a player, as Fabregas has done? Exactly what sort of signals does Fabregas receive to make him think that he can enter the field of play, regardless of how he is dressed, and abuse opponents and allegedly spit at Hull City’s assistant manager Brian Horton?

This is unchecked arrogance and the worst part of that is the unchecked bit. Some say that in taking the captain’s armband from William Gallas, Fabregas also took his example – moodiness. Others point out that before Gallas was Thierry Henry, who could pout. There is something of a pattern emerging that says Arsenal’s hothouse cultivates a beauty and beast contrast.

The man behind this culture is of course Arsene Wenger. Criticising Wenger comes as naturally as dragging a blunt knife across your knuckles and he has had sackloads of praise down the years. But for a man of such vision he has difficulty seeing particular things, does he not? This is not just about what happened after Hull.

There is previous and with Arsenal at Newcastle this evening it offers a reminder of Bobby Robson’s remark a few seasons ago after Newcastle had won at Highbury – and Henry started acting up on the final whistle – that Arsenal needed to learn how to lose graciously.

That is hardly top of a professional sportsman’s priorities, and in the Premier League the stakes are enormous, but Robson had a point. Arsenal and Cesc Fabregas can say they inhabit a sporting culture that shouts that first is everything and second is nowhere. But that is wrong and Arsenal have the proof of finishing fourth in two of the last three seasons. That keeps them in the cosy Champions League club, where first is not everything. And it does not justify swaggering surliness.

Fans await team news

SO IT is back to Chelsea in the Champions League for Liverpool. Buoyed by arguably the best 10 days of his time at Anfield, Rafael Benitez will not be cowering at the idea of Stamford Bridge. What will be interesting to more than Liverpool fans, though, is the team Benitez sends out in west London four days before the first leg against Chelsea. Liverpool are at Fulham. We know how invigorated Liverpool will be against Chelsea. But against Fulham?

Hard for fans to draw line under if

BEING ASKED to “draw a line under it” must rank the most annoying request any sufferer of injustice hears. But you hear it a lot, and we heard it again this week when West Ham United and Sheffield United finally reached some form of settlement over the Carlos Tevez affair.

In the last 10 games of season 06-07 Tevez scored seven times for West Ham. Those goals – in particular the last-day winner at Manchester United – helped take West Ham from 20th in the table on March 29th to 15th on May 13th. In the meantime Sheffield United slipped agonizingly from 16th place, and safety, to 18th on the final day, and relegation. Given Tevez’s uncertain ownership and registration, West Ham have agreed to pay Sheffield United €26.5 million as compensation.

Having reached this stage, West Ham hoped to “draw a line under it” but have found subsequently that others, such as Sheffield staff and rivals clubs, keep rubbing the line out. There will be further legal actions – successful or not – that is for sure. But whatever the outcome of those, Sheffield United fans will be left for the rest of their lives asking ‘what if?’ Try drawing a line under an if.