That is what happened? Gervinho grabbed Barton after Barton grabbed him, then he slapped Barton. EDIT: If this was Clattermole, none of you would be being as abusive as you are to Barton.
Gervinho dived in the box, Barton did the gentlemanly thing and helped him to his feet, Gervinho thanked him by slapping him in the face. And that, without a trace of bias, is exactly what happened.
Stevie Taylor didn't see the slap, considering it happened behind his head. He was in between Gervinho and Barton and Gervinho swung his arm round and slapped him. How could he possibly see it?
I think the point is, that cheating scum Taylor was screaming at the ref that Gervinho had elbowed Barton waving and pointing at his elbow just in case the ref was deaf. Hope this helps. .
Why cant you just say Steven Taylor is a cheater in your opinion, why do you need to call him cheating scum? reflects very bad on you
I call a spade a spade, he is cheating scum. Have to disagree, that's a very sweeping statement on the morals of all footballers. So you're saying all footballers would lie and scream like a little whining brat accusing someone of elbowing when they clearly didn't?
Any Arsenal player would have had the exact same reaction that Barton did to the slap in the face. As would pretty much any player playing at that level. If you push your hand into an opponent's face, no matter with what force, you're off. I'm not defending what barton did but there is a difference between grabbing someone and throwing a punch/slap in the rules of football. Everyone's going on like it was ABH or something, seriously, calm down. If this was ice hockey we'd be calling both players absolute pussys!
Yeah, pretty much... It seems to be an ever more common occurence, especially in a high pressure league like the premiership where getting another team down to ten gives you such an advantage. Lets not forget Rivaldo in the world cup against turkey. [video=youtube;UgfRCa71Kmw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgfRCa71Kmw[/video] I'm not saying its right, but its now sadly part of the game. And remember the ref had already missed a pretty clear stamp, that could go some way to explaining the reaction to the slap.
Rivaldo did that his whole career though, just happened that one was in a World Cup. It's not excusable, and 80% of players DON'T cheat.
I dont quite agree with the general assumption that players will go down at the slightest knock. Yes you may take the piss out of Cattermole, but Dean Whitehead took a huge swing kick at him a couple of years ago for Stoke, hit him in the top of his leg, he just turned around and laughed it off, whitehead got a yellow, but it was a lot worse than what most players do, including Gervinho today (even though Gervinho deserved the red as you just cant do what he done).
