Maybe “tempest in a teapot” would make more sense. In just the kind of doofus-move you’d expect from Kevin Mirallas, he seems to squirt Wilshere as the two teams head down to the lockers at halftime. Wilshere, true to feisty form, went for it hook, line, and sinker and shoved Mirallas enough to cause a bit of a fracas in the tunnel. The FA has already announced that it will take no action in the matter, thank God, because this seems like just the kind of provocation Mirallas was seeking. If the referee or FA had seen fit to take action, we’d lose more than Everton would, as we arguably need Wilshere more than Everton needs Mirallas, and anything that sinks us could help Everton climb into the top four. I’m not giving Mirallas credit for being that strategic, but all Neanderthals are capable of some level of abstract thought. So it goes. Water under the bridge, as they say, or maybe it’s water off a duck’s back. Whichever.

In related news, to those calling it Watergate, please stop. The Watergate scandal earned the name because it happened at the Watergate Hotel. Calling anything scandalous “Watergate” or attaching “-gate” to a scandal is just lazy, if not stupid. Had Nixon’s men been caught breaking into the Hilton, for example, would we be calling Mirallas’s little squirt Water-ton? Thanks for this silliness go in part to former President Bill Clinton’s Whitewater scandal, which revived the “water + gate=scandal” headline. It still doesn’t make sense here, though. Come up with something a little more original, if not accurate.

The bigger issue is that Wilshere has got to be smarter. It’s one thing to go chin-to-jaw with someone like Olsson to prove a point, but to actually initiate a scuffle in front of the referee is foolish. Goons like Mirallas exist to provoke and specialize in that kind of under-the-radar stuff. They get away with it, but the retaliation is what usually gets punished. All the same, it’d’ve been nice to see a few more Gunners trot over to protect Wilshere, as several Toffees did for Mirallas (maybe most of our squad was down the tunnel already; I can’t tell from the video). All for one and all that.

At any rate, it is all water under the bridge at this point. We have to go to Craven Cottage in a few days. More on that to come later.