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At times, the real lesson from a few weekends’ football can be missed. As we applauded United’s thrashing of Arsenal, sympathised with the unfortunate Eduardo and admired Tottenham’s bravery in coming from behind to beat Chelsea at Wembley — the real point reinforced over the past three weekends’ action, when you look past newspaper headlines and TV highlights, is that you have to possess a real nasty streak to come near to succeeding at the top of the Premier League.

Last weekend, after one of his teammates came as close to having his lower leg amputated on a football pitch as it’s physically possible, William Gallas gave a display of undiluted petulance minutes after his team had conceded a late equaliser against Birmingham.

First of all he let fly at a number of advertising hoardings. Then he sat down and had a cry. When the tears stopped he started to rant and rave like a man possessed by some evil spirit. Think Damien in The Omen and you have some comparison to work from. On Match Of The Day later that evening Alan Hansen shot at the Arsenal captain with both barrels. He was completely right to do so but the shock for me was not Gallas’ behaviour. It was that Hansen and his ilk somehow expected better from the French international.

Seven days before his St. Andrew’s antics Gallas kicked Nani, United’s Portuguese winger, at Old Trafford. Gallas didn’t kick him in the act of going for the ball. No, he kicked Nani in the back of his legs about three seconds after the ball was gone. The act was never likely to hurt or indeed injure the United player but the spiteful intent in Gallas’ action was disturbing. His team were being given the runaround by United and his only response to this was to physically intimidate an opponent. Just like a schoolboy bully would do a classmate cleverer than him in the classroom.

And yet while I was appalled by Gallas on both occasions there was nothing surprising about the whole thing. Back in November 2006 I went to White Hart Lane to watch Tottenham against Chelsea — Gallas’ previous club. That might well have been the day Spurs beat their London rivals for the first time in the League since 1990 but my main recollection from the occasion was the physical intimidation Chelsea attempted on referee Graham Poll.

Whenever he made a decision that didn’t fit into their world view — which was often that particular afternoon — there appeared to be a set plan in place. The first man on the scene screamed loudly at the referee, the next two waved their arms frantically in his face, one possibly producing an imaginary card, while a fourth man was on standby close by just in case Poll wasn’t being bullied enough. Jose Mourinho may be gone but the players still behave despicably when they lose. We saw this at Wembley.

At the conclusion of the Carling Cup final Mark Halsey was surrounded by an arm-waving mob when he blew his final whistle. And it’s not just Chelsea.

Roy Keane and Manchester United teammates nearly forced Andy D’Urso into the advertising hoardings a couple of years back at Old Trafford. But here’s the depressing bit. All the incidents I’ve mentioned — and it’s not exactly an exhaustive list of all their malevolent behaviour — concern just three clubs: Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United. Three clubs who between them have shared the last 12 Premier League titles. And three clubs who, barring a miracle, are going to dominate the title race in the foreseeable future.

All of which makes one thing very clear. To win the Premier League, besides the obvious footballing ability, you need to have the ability to kick opponents who are better than you, corner referees who give a decision against you, assault advertising hoardings if the result goes against you and generally behave with the grace of a 15-year-old after a couple of litres of cider. It’s one of the main reasons why these three dominate English football and why the rest — the likes of Liverpool, Everton, Aston Villa and Tottenham — consistently come up short.

They’re just not nasty enough and something needs to be done to protect the nice guys. My solution? If a baying mob — like Chelsea in the Carling Cup final or United with D’Urso — had approached a member of the public on the street in the same manner with a copper in view they’d be arrested. And rightly so. Therefore there’s no reason why they should get away with it on a football pitch.

Any player caught in such a pose should be given an automatic three-match ban and be damn grateful that they’re not facing a court appearance. The same should apply for any group of players who surround and attempt to intimidate an opponent, like half the Arsenal team did to Ruud van Nistlerooy when he missed a penalty against them at Old Trafford. Or to Emmanuel Adebayor who decided to smack his own teammate Nicolas Bendtner when he couldn’t cope with losing heavily to Tottenham. Hit them were it hurts — ban them from playing and give those teams who behave themselves some chance of catching up with them.

ciarancronin3@eircom.net