It’s been another week and more debates have gone on about customs and culture in football.

I observed with interest the talk of whether Arsenal would give Manchester United a guard of honour at the weekend after they won the Premier League on Monday – there are a few customs that have “crept” into the game from other sports, as a guard of honour has been present in others like rugby league, and I don’t think that it’s a bad thing that the winners of a trophy, if they have a game remaining in the competition or have another game after a Cup Final, receives a guard of honour from their opponents, it’s a nice touch.

Back in our days, we just had a pat on the back and a well done – there can be no doubt that the changes in the game are media related or, at least, public relation related. On the face of it Arsenal players might applaud on Sunday but you can bet they won’t appreciate it, yet that should only serve as further motivation for them. A lot has changed since our day – after we won the FA Cup in 1977, we wished the Liverpool players well for their European Cup Final the week after, and we meant it. Players show respect anyway, to me it’s all about symbolism – yes, it can be nice to see, but how much does it really mean?

Compare that to the handshakes debacle of the last year, with so much focus on the Ferdinand and Terry news and then that of Suarez and Evra. In attempting to promote a facade of good relations, it spectacularly backfired when this custom that could have been removed just as easily as it was put in place. Patrice Evra appeared to have been the “bigger man” last year when he offered his hand to Suarez yet the scenes on Monday night showed that he is still keen to make a joke at Suarez’s expense, so is everything forgiven and forgotten when you see the token handshakes? Again, it can be nice to see, but you wonder how much it actually means.

As I said on Twitter about Suarez’ bite, I just don’t know what the hell the lad was playing at last Sunday. What was he thinking? Players are tested so regularly these days that the bite, thankfully, would never have caused serious harm. Liverpool and Brendan Rodgers might have held a public defence of Suarez but behind closed doors they will have gone ballistic.

In attempting to rationalise what happened, players do impulsive things, players behave in certain ways. Manchester United fans know about that as much as anyone, with Eric Cantona. Even I myself was prone to doing the odd impulsive thing on a pitch. Would I do it again, I say to that, no. But would I do something else impulsive? How can I answer? I just don’t know, and that is where Liverpool and Suarez are at the moment, I’m not sure any amount of counselling can help when players react in the heat of the moment. You have to look at the mentality and the make-up of the player. Suarez clearly wants to win and you wonder, is it is frustration at being stopped on the way to scoring? Stopped on the way to winning?

No matter how much you try and rationalise the incident, though, you just can’t – we’ve all pushed someone away after a bad tackle or jumped up in someone’s face, but I couldn’t believe he actually bit the guy, and neither could Ivanovic! So Suarez now has a ten match ban and the question is, one, ten or fifty, would it solve the problem and stop him doing these things? He has a history of doing these stupid things and doing them wherever he goes. He bit in Holland, and everyone knows what he did in the World Cup.
Will this talk of educating Suarez really work, because this is what was being said after the Evra incident, and surely he knows after the ban he got in Holland that biting isn’t acceptable in the European game. I’ve no doubt that maybe his kind of performance, theatrics and controversy included, is something that is commonplace in his own domestic game, but I seem to recall Diego Forlan hailing from the very same country and not causing not so much as a peep when he was over in the Premier League – oh, he upset Liverpool alright, but for very different reasons!

It comes down to culture – but how much should be about behaviour, and how much should be about the game?