By Dr Billy “the Dog” McGraw
There is something odd about the way the bloggettas work. The march not exactly to one beat, but with an emphasis that they all seem to understand. Then almost without a clear sign the beat changes and positivity moves to negativity.
So it has been in the last few days. We’ve had the long running saga of the four transfers which by and large seem to many people to be a decent way of improving the defence while allowing the new manager to see exactly who he can work with in training and who might be difficult.
That has kept the story going, but now, with that mostly done and dusted things have changed. Maybe it is the realisation that thus far the French league has spent more (£524m) than the Premier League (£474m) and they feel that somehow stories have to be created. Or maybe they have just run out of positive things to say, what with FootLond producing over 200 stories a day.
Or maybe they just love knocking Arsenal.
So now we have headlines like
1: Following £35m reports, are Arsenal on the verge of a very expensive mistake?
2: There’s the twisted nastiness also
In this case telling the club to get rid of a certain player deemed useless as with “Sign this £22.5m-rated Spain international and Arsenal can get rid of Alex Iwobi”
3: Then we have players getting uppity and not getting on
Alexandre Lacazette makes fun of Arsenal star as he reports for pre-season in positive spirits
That is one of 40 odd “stories” today from
4: But above all there are these writers who clearly know more than the dumb, stupid managers
“Arsenal will be taking risk with how they are reportedly trying to fund £30m swoop – verdict.” That is from Gomes from Barcelona. The argument is that he only made 16 first-team appearances last season and most were less than 45 minutes in duration, showing he doesn’t make an impact.
5: Then there is the plain perverse.
“If football is a ‘man’s sport’ then men are doing it wrong .” That from the
6: And quickly it is time to turn on Sokratis.
“Yes, Sokratis Papastathapoulos age is concerning” says t is not usual for Arsenal to sign players the wrong side of that dreaded 30 mark, and now, just a month into the post-Arsene Wenger era, they have already signed two. That is not a coincidence. Add to the additions of Sokratis and Stephan Lichtsteiner, who is 34, the now 29-year-old Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang who were signed in January, and there is a very clear age profile that the Gunners have targeted.”
So the point is, these signings are at the end of their career, as the writer adds, “How many of Sokratis’ best years will Arsenal actually get? Three? Even that might be ambitious. Laurent Koscielny’s powers certainly started to diminish last season when he was 32; Per Mertesacker was before that at 31 two years ago. That would mean Sokratis would only be able to give a year or two of his best.”
Of course there is another side to this, as we’ve been trying to explain. The issue of allowing youngsters to come through, the need to buy on a limited budget in which Man City can afford anything and any one, and the desire to get the defence away from home sorted.
But that’s another story.
7: How come we’ve stopped knocking Granit?
That’s what must have been said because at one and as one the bloggettas are on the attack, following the lead of those masters of balance, the Daily Star. They have writ, “Arsenal news: ‘Disgraceful’ Granit Xhaka slammed by Phil Neville.” The Mail, of course, joined in with “Phil Neville brands Granit Xhaka ‘disgraceful’ and ‘fake’ as he blames midfielder for Sweden…”
The Independent didn’t want to know however, although it still wanted to knock Arsenal. “Why Xhaka plays so much better for Switzerland than with Arsenal”
8: Loggerheads, loggerheads, it’s Arsenal, give me loggerheads.
Of course if this is Arsenal there must be dispute and fallings out. The Star (again) has “Andre Gomes: Unai Emery and Arsenal recruitment team at loggerheads over Barcelona deal.”
9: Now it is time for a sacrifice
A sacrifice means the fans are expected to complain later about the player who has gone. This is futbol has this notion, “Emery will to sacrifice Arsenal players to afford £30m-rated playmaker.
Their point is that “Arsenal are up against the budget this season, and would have to sell in order to raise funds to afford Barca’s £30million valuation.
10: And of course the essence of the whole thing is that our players are crap, or at least they play for crap countries so they are pretty much, crap.
“Why so few Arsenal players at the World Cup???” questions questions questions
11: We’re unbalanced.
“Arsenal’s Attack Could Look More Balanced If They Manage To Sign This €70m Tottenham Attacker”
‘Now sell that clown’ … Arsenal fans think time is up for 20-cap international
That is
Does anyone think any of this is helpful to Arsenal and the psyche of the players, or indeed the positivity of the supporters? No, of course not. It is there, en masse as a way of knocking and undermining the club.
- Squad news plus Emile Smith Rowe – another name to add to our Cup team
- Untold’s predictions for England results and scores: five out of six right.
- So the defence is sorted. Now what about Arsenal’s attack and midfield?
sadly this is right. Man Utd with all the money spent and last season’s failure is not being batched. Chelsea with so much problem on the administrative side and also enduring their second most terrible season in the the last three season are not receiving so much negativity.
But with all of these, the question still is; are these guys paid to cos problems for the club and its supporters, or is there a sponsored campaign against the club? only naive arsenal fans will fall for these stories and react based biased stories from blogs and tabloids.
So what’s new!! Mind you, if England don’t win the World Cup they can’t blame us can they?
Daily Mail has some blurb out, about PEA setting an Arsenal record for some kind of jump. Just looking at the article, it appears that this jump is a variation on the long jump (aka broad jump). A big and important difference, is that the Olympic long jump is done into a sand pit, whereas this jump is on some kind of rubberised (sticky, limited compliance) surface.
The number given by itself is meaningless to me, but comparing it to world record long jump data, it is about 1m short of the world record. A big chunk of that 1m difference, could be due to the difference between landing on a sticky surface, and landing in sand.
I’ve no idea if there is more data on this jump.
To me, the story is about as interesting as saying that PEA as said the word supercalifragilisticespiealadocious 13 times in one sentence.
But elsewhere in the news:
– The Telegraph is battling with the BBC to come up with the dumbest Arsenal story.
– The Times is battling with the Independent to come up with the stupidist Arsenal story.
Ozil and Xhaka have got to be the top two most criticized and needlessly attacked players in the whole of England. I’ve honestly never seen anything like it; the barrage of insults and endless columns dedicated to scapegoating these two players is absolutely disgusting. I guess it’s just a coincidence that they both play for Arsenal?
All very amusing, but Wenger is gone, it was all his fault. And the team was too younf before, too French, too tall, too short, too weak, too mentally fragile. Sokratis is an excellent signing, 2-3 years is all we need from him. By then Callum, Rob and Kostas will ne ready and vry capable. With Hector at a very young age, and seeminlgy to London to up sticks to his place of origin, Stephan will prove to be one of the seasons best signings.
In midfield with Torreira finally unable to galvanise his team with some dedicated efforts in midfield, it appears that the final parts of that deal can be put together, hopefully before the player goes for a well earned break.
With these three problem areas addressed and a long term GK replacement for the uncharacteristically error prone Cech, balance and squad depth have been addressed in the most critical areas. Much of which will have likely been put in place by the departing Wenger.
We have 2 right backs and a couple more in the latter stages of youth development who show promise, plus a very versatile Ainsley, waitmg in the wings to put everyone under presure, Pierre, you better watch your starting spot in the side.
At left back, we have to look at the lack of pace in defence, with both Kolasinac and Monreal finding par for the course a little troublesome, when paired with some of the EPL fastest. But with the flexibility afforded by these early acquisitions, an upgrade, addition or replacement is still possible. Central defence could likely see the same considerations occur, however if anything is to materialise, some personnel will surely have to depart?
The Arsenal attack remains awash with talent, but finding the righr way to combine those talents and the best system to employ them is something that must be addressed by the new man in the dugout, but with still no recognised defensive midfielder on the books and only 3 central midfielders available for selection with the imminent departure of Jack Wilshere, even the Uraguayan addition would leave the squad thin in terms of wing forwards and central midfielders.
With CF and GK covered along with RB, 10, AM and 1 CB position. only 5 more spots to nail down for starters and sure up in terms of quality in depth.
It’s no wonder they hae gotten back to knocking the shop, they wished to destroy the legacy of an Emporer, byt as with an y wise ruler, he built the citidel on firm foundations, and legislated for at least the next term of office. Left a couple of post its on his desk next to some tears shed umbeknown to else, and some contrcts to potentially be signed.
I miss the Gaffer, I was ready, but not like that. It has to succeed, we jae to do well.
Tony gets the scores near perfect, proving money can be made fairly easily, he also gets his wish, with the main body of the squad returning for training. Just over 4 weeks………….
Can Arsenal produce a defence as mean as Burnley’s, who I can’t wait to see in Europa, and an they thus creat a better foundation to attack from, having been acceptable, if not prolific in this department last term.