You can’t really imagine the Daily Mirror running that headline. It is what editors would call a non-story, and so it gets non-coverage.
Instead the Mirror is today running a piece saying that Wenger should be sacked if Arsenal come in sixth in the league.
Of course there are people who agree with this, but what cheered me this past weekend was the number of emails of support I saw on the Red Action news group and elsewhere in which the stance of the fanzine Highbury High was the centre of attention. In case you missed the article about it on this blog, and the magazine itself, Highbury High carried the banner headline proclaiming Highbury High as a moan free zone.
In taking this stance the magazine is up against the might of Wapping Swamp, or where ever it is they make newspapers these days.
So it is that “Wenger to Real Madrid” (the weekend’s story in some papers) is much more likely to get a print run than “Wenger to Stay”. Indeed Wenger to Stay can only be run if first the paper has run the news that he is going to Real Mad.
Actually, and diverting myself for a moment, it is always interesting to read the way the language changes when papers do reverse their stance and suddenly reveal the opposite of their previous statement to be the truth.
“Wenger will go to Real Madrid” screams to Daily Dollop. Then when it becomes clear that the Lord Wenger will do not such thing, the Dollop will state that “although he had been tipped in some newspapers to leave Arsenal this summer, the Dollop can exclusively reveal that Arsene Wenger will be staying at the Emirates for at least another week…”
That way the papers get a double hit. They get a headline story that makes some people buy the stuff. And then they get a hit by suggesting that it wasn’t them that ran the story in the first place, and you can’t trust these scurrilous newspaper editors.
Of course it doesn’t always work – no one has acknowledged that anyone said that Wenger was going to sign Peter Crouch when it was imagined by the press that Adebayor was going trip trotting along the road to Milan Reserves with Flamini. It still remains one of my favourite headlines.
Anyway, 1-0 to Highbury High in my opinion. The Moan Free Zone – I love it, and I’m so glad that there is an effort going on to show the world that some of us are very happy with the current management. (I just wish half the ladies team weren’t buggering off to teams in the States, but still, we can’t have everything.)
(c) Me. Today.
Al sports pundits are cr*p and all Arsenal pundits are completly cr*p.
I despise the idle parasites who clearly have no real love for the game, integrity or insight. The media in this country is a disgrace.
One of the most annoying pundits out there at the moment is Stan Collymore. Driving home last night I waas listening to TalkSport and he was slaughtering Arsenal and Wenger. Then a Villa fan called in to criticise O’Neill and Stan went on a long furious rant about:
1 how well O’Neill has done with limited resouirces
2 how much O’neill has improved Villa since he arrived etc
If you were to change ONeill and Villa to Wenger and Arsenal this would be even more accurate.
Stan’s message is Wenger is fair game for anyone to have a go at but don’t dare criticise O’Neill
A few Stan facts:
He supported Villa as a kid
He played for them for three years
It would be helpful for Villa if Arsenal implode and sack their manager
Wonder what is motivating his anti-Arsenal agenda?
absolutely spot on Tony.
Positivity all the way. ok things arent perhaps “ideal” (please note use of understatement, to deflect stress and worry!) but a) they could be worse (cliche is always a friend in this kind of situation!) and b) any man who can make Ray Palour look like a sleek and talented professional over his last few seasons at the club deserves more than the shoddy treatment some fans (mostly hyped up by the press I would certainly suggest) are currently offering him!
Also in case these media vultures hadnt noticed, the season isnt over – we’re still very much in europe and the FA cup (and, dare i say, look to have a fairly enticing route to the QF’s) and we havent deliberately allowed ourselves to be knocked out of europe, just so we can qualify for europe next season (stand up spurs and villa, idiots!)
we’ve got walcott, eduardo and fabregas back soon. we’ve got some of the most exciting young talent in the country knocking on the first team door, and in some cases getting first team experience already. the future as they say is bright, the future is arsene…