Do Chelsea have a policy of doing anything in order to be successful? It certainly looks that way after Arjen Robben tried to make out he had done nothing wrong for his disgraceful dive on Sunday at Stamford Bridge. Pepe Reina barely touched the odd-looking winger’s face before he dropped down to the ground like he’d been hit with a wrecking ball. Reina had just fouled Gudjohnsen (although he got the ball, it was a tackle from behind) and was being called across to the touchline by the referee to receive a yellow card. The linesman was no help – he’d failed to spot the blatant handball from Gudjohnsen just before the foul – he’d punched the ball away from Reina! Robben had no need to be involved, but reportedly says he said very little to Reina: “Reina was the one who got carried away, not me. He made a crazy challenge on Eidur over by the touchline and I told him so when he ran past on his way back to the goal.”
Robben gets a sudden attack of amnesia, as he now only remembers a little bit of what he said: “I can’t remember the exact words I used, but it was something along the lines of ‘That was a stupid thing to do, wasn’t it?’ The next thing I know, he swings round and reacts with his hands.” Anyone who’s watched Pepe Reina this season will know he’s not going to react to something as trivial as that kind of comment, and so we’re looking forward to Sky getting a lip-reader to have a look at what Robben really did say. In the meantime Robben says he did nothing wrong at all: “I don’t see how I can be blamed for that. I wasn’t the one who lost control. I don’t think people from Liverpool should be talking about me, either. They should be having a look at themselves.”
Robben actually lost control moments before, and was given a warning rather than the mandatory yellow card for dissent. Two wrongs don’t make a right and Reina knows he shouldn’t have raised his hands to the player, but Robben would have been better advised to keep quiet if he wasn’t willing to apologise. Cheats are always found out in the end, and Chelsea will not get away with this for ever.