- Arsenal in the Champions League tomorrow: so far it is looking rather fine
- As for the injured, all we need to do is keep winning without them
By Tony Attwood
Looking yet again at the media, it is interesting today to see talk of the challenges Liverpool are facing (compared with last season when it seems they were not facing challenges at all for some reason). It was after all only 22 September (under one month ago) when the Guardian ran the headline, “Liverpool might be ‘impossible to catch.” OK they were quoting another source then, but the fact that they thought it worth quoting that idea at all, just a month ago, says little for their ability to predict what is happening in football.
For Liverpool, you may have noticed, are currently behind Bournemouth in the league table. And in fact, the negative headlines are everywhere. Even the Telegraph proclaims, “Salah and Van Dijk risk going from Liverpool linchpins to liabilities.” Another piece I rather do like in the same paper, sayus Slot wanted Liverpool to be more like PSG, but this is pure Postecoglou” The article is behind a paywall but the headline is really is all you need. “Like Postecog” is about the worst slur you can give at the moment.
But if you want to turn away from English football for a moment, it is possible that your thoughts might turn to Scotland, which of late has become a one-club league. And yet we are told “Celtic fans continued to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the club’s board by staging a late entry protest at Kilmarnock.”
About half of the away support at Rugby Park took part in the protest for the first 12 minutes of the Scottish Premiership fixture, where it seems “A 2-1 win for Brendan Rodgers’ side was decided by a late penalty from Kelechi Iheanacho, the club’s latest recruit.”
However, apparently a fair number of fans at Celtic are upset by lack of significant summer signings and failure to reach the Champions League. On the other hand, Celtic have won the league in 13 of the last 14 seasons (at least I think that is right, but I may have miscounted) and yet their fans held up their match at the weekend by throwing balls onto the pitch because they are only second in the league. Hearts are in fact, top, five points ahead and with double the goal difference of Celtic.
And this seems to be where we have got to. Arteta, as I have mentioned before, was criticised by writers to this site for coming second three years running, with the argument being placed that he did not have a “winning mentality,” whatever that is. (I’ve never come across a helpful definition).
It seems in short that nothing is acceptable but winning all the time. Back in June this year, Atletico Madrid lost 4-0 away to Paris St Germain, and a typical social media comment was “Atletico de Madrid was handed a humiliating 4-goal defeat by the reigning Champions League champions! ATM seems to need a new manager, given that Diego Simeone’s tactics appear outdated, relying on defensive strategies until 90 minutes are passive philosophy.”
And this is how it goes all the time – if there is a defeat that looks a bit gruesome, then the fans call for a change of manager. The media love this because it is a story without anyone having to do any work. Just quote a few fans, and maybe get your resident “expert” in to add some rambling throughs, and there you have today’s article done.
But what no one ever does is ask, “How often does changing the manager work?” Or rather, I should say not many people ask that. In fact, I asked AI the other day, hoping for a few statistics. I didn’t get any, but I got this: “Changing the manager can work in football for the short term, due to a “new manager bounce’ as players try to impress, but it does not guarantee long-term success and can be counterproductive. Studies show mixed results, with some finding a positive short-term effect while others suggest that, on average, performance doesn’t improve significantly in the long run. A managerial change’s ultimate success depends heavily on whether the new manager is the right fit for the squad and the club’s long-term vision.”
So why do fans ask for it so often? Because journalists run “manager under pressure” stories as they can be written in a trice, without research, and cost nothing to produce. A couple of quotes and maybe a photo of a protest banner at the ground is all you need.
What the media don’t say is that changing the manager generally makes matters worse. Just take a look at Nottingham Forest. Last season, Tottenham averaged one point a game in the League, so Forest gave their manager a job. This season, with the ex-Tots boss in charge, Forest have averaged 0.625 points a game. A little worse, but they are not the manager’s players.
So let’s try Tottenham. Last season, they got 1 point a game. This season, they have so far got 1.75 points a game. Which is within a tenth of a goal back to where they were two seasons ago. although quite a bit below where they were in 2021/2. The concept of chasing their tails round and round in circles comes to mind.
This season, Arsenal are averaging 2.38 points a game. Last season it was 1.95. In the season before that, it was 2.34 points a game. So we have recovered from last season’s dip caused by injuries and are pushing forward again.
Of course, with the dip last season, the club could have sacked the manager for “failing” that season, as some demanded. But no, they carried on, and we can see the reward. A tough set of opening fixtures and an improved points average per league game.
The message is simple. Don’t always believe what the media says.
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