Martin Keown: Why Fulham can't trust my old enemy Ruud van Nistelrooy 

Post by Oliver Sparrow

An interesting article by Martin Keown in the Daily Mail. In my opinion, it seems that Keown is, and was, bitter that Van Nistelrooy got the better of him on the football field on so many occasions.

There are a couple of points that Keown makes that I disagree with. Firstly, he says about Van Nistelrooy that ‘…you could say that he was playing the rules to the limit or you could say there was an element of cheating going on’. As long as a player is not breaking the rules, then he is not cheating. They are two separate things. A player can be devious, and be accused of gamesmanship, but as long as they are not breaking the rules, they cannot be branded a cheat - infuriating as that may be. No one likes to see a player take a dive, or tumble over all too easily, but unfortunately that is part of the game.

The second point I take issue with is a statement referring to his actions towards Van Nistelrooy as depicted in the image above. He says ‘It’s become one of those iconic moments that the Arsenal fans love and the United fans just hate.’ I really don’t think this is the case. Apart from the hardcore Arsenal fans (hardcore as in the embarrassing Chelsea fans who booed Wayne Bridge even though he was the one cuckolded by their club captain), Keown’s actions that day were almost universally condemned as unacceptable. His actions brought the English game into disrepute, and were embarrassing for Keown as a person, and Arsenal as a club. I think Keown may have confused ‘iconic’ with ‘infamous’.