"I was shocked when it was a red card, I thought at best it maybe should have been a yellow for him," he says, clearly trying to redeem himself somewhat in the eyes of football fans up and down the country, before screwing it up with "...and nothing for me."

If that's what he really thinks, after all these years of top-flight football, in which he's picked up a modicum of experience of what kind of things get you booked, then he's even more of an idiot than we all think he is.

Savage's initial foul may have been worth a yellow card, his follow-up after the whistle had gone and while Gilberto was trying to retrieve the ball for the Arsenal free-kick definitely was (it's just a question of whether it'd be for the foul or for delaying us taking the free kick). And he knows it. "I suppose he was right if you're sticking to the rules of the game," he goes on to say. Which would seem to undermine the truth of his "shock".

When it comes to his play-acting, however, Savage speaks the truth. "He definitely made contact and if people think I went down easily, they should watch it again on TV." (and we all can, on youtube). I don't think anyone's suggesting that that kind of tumble is easy to perform. It's not like whatever actual contact was made by Gilberto could have caused him to jump both feet off the ground like that. Well done Robbie.

"I can't believe some of them said I should have been sent off. Why should I have been sent off?" Gilberto, presumably, also knows that he had to go once he'd aimed that little toe-poke at Savage in retaliation. Arsene Wenger certainly knows. On the official site he's quoted as saying ""Usually appeals don't work when the referee has seen it so we could even get one game more! We don't want to take that chance." (note that Charlton's appeal over Osei Sankofa's red card during our 4-0 win a couple of weeks ago led to just such a ban-extension), although typically he defended his own player as much as he possibly could in the circumstances. Gilberto, apparently, says he didn't touch Savage. But as Wenger admits, that's not the point.

Mark Hughes also defends his own man, and I have to admit I can't fault Sparky for that. It's what you want from a manager. But his "[Savage] was making a genuine attempt to try and get the ball" kind of misses the point about the whistle having already gone for a foul which Savage had committed.

Gilberto will miss 3 matches for his "violent conduct": the visit of Manchester United in the league this Sunday, and the cup games against Tottenham and Bolton the following week. We should cope. Mathieu Flamini will presumably partner Cesc Fabregas in midfield on Sunday (Cesc says that he should have recovered from being upended by Tugay by then), and we expect Abou Diaby to get his first start since his nasty injury last spring in one of the cup games. Personally, if Lauren is still with us at that point and ready to play, I'd like to see him used in midfield in the Tottenham game. If he is leaving, that'd be a nice way for the Arsenal stalwart to get a send-off (the other kind of send-off). Maybe he could score another penalty against them.

Thanks to Soccer AM for providing a bit of light relief for us haters of Savagery (via youtube), a video compilation of all the memorable times that someone's done what everyone thinks about and whacked him in the face. From elbows to team-mates to referees, and most memorably for us Arsenal fans, the time that Robert Pires drew blood after getting him in the nose with the ball from short-range back in December 2004.