Rooney and Scholes banned, What an outrage?

Of course all the news today is about Rooney and Scholes having their bans upheld by the FA for violent conduct and serious foul play. How will this affect the start to our season at a time when winning important games is more paramount than ever before? With two of our best players missing, does it highlight the lack of depth to our squad and the ability for us to compete for honours at the highest level?

I think the first thing to deal with is the actual incidents of the players being sent off. If ever there were Oscar awards for best actor in footballing I have no doubt that the Portuguese would take it. Rooney brushed the face of a player, unintentionally in my opinion and down he went as though a bus had hit him at 70 miles per hour. And could somebody explain to me what that rolling around afterwards is all about? No wonder the players feel ill after a challenge when they spin round as fast as a washing machine… That can’t be healthy.

Scholes challenge you can’t condone, but perhaps the Salford lad decided to stick one on one of the ever so theatrical Portuguese players. So all in all Scholes deserved a red and Rooney didn’t. Any self respecting football fan could see that a million miles away.

Now let’s look at the penalties inflicted. Since when do suspensions carry over from different competitions? A lot of people will say the FA cup, Carling cup and Premiership are all linked, but Europe and Domestic aren’t. You don’t see players getting banned in the champion’s league, having to sit out domestic games and why should you?

So in Amsterdam United are playing in a friendly tournament and two players get sent off, surely they should be banned for the rest of the tournament? Or at most banned from 3 further friendly games? It makes no sense to me that you get banned in a friendly game, then you cannot serve your bans in further friendly matches, that is ludicrously in its highest form.

To add insult to injury our nearest and dearest friends living on the Mersey (Liverpool) did exactly the same thing a couple of years ago, where Gerrard and Mellor got sent off in the same tournament. But it was ok for them, the FA overturned the red cards and they were allowed to play in the premiership campaign ban free. How does that work?

It is these inconsistencies in the game that give the FA a bad name. How can you do one thing one minute then do exactly the opposite the next? How do teams know how to behave? How do they know what is acceptable and what is not? I’m sure we all think that the decision is wrong, but the thing that makes it so much worse is the fact that they let our biggest rivals off a number of years ago, how insulting is that?

This decision could affect the outcome of the title. The bans cover a total of nine points for us, the margin we missed out on the premiership last season. Omitting those 2 players from the starting line-up does not highlight our lack of depth for us, after all how many Rooneys and Scholes are there in the world to replace them with? It would be the equivalent of Chelsea having Terry and Lampard suspended, or Aresenal having Henry and Gilberto suspended. These players are irreplaceable.
If we take 9 points from these games, we will be laughing at the end of the season, but with the likes of Tottenham to play, the other boys must fight to the death for the points. I really want to know your thoughts on the bans today. Please feel free to rant on this issue and tell the FA what you really think! Look forward to reading your comments.