By Tony Attwood
The media seem to have gone quiet about Arsenal, with barely a mention of January transfers and nothing about tomorrow’s game. It is as if the club doesn’t exist, although of course, there are tucked away one of two stories.
Such as that in the Telegraph under the headline “Midfield monster Declan Rice the ultimate disruptor as Arsenal win ugly”. Yes it is Arsenal so there can’t be anything positive doing the rounds, although moving away from Arsenal I was rather taken by that paper’s headline “Man Utd’s troubled youth are a product of their environment” followed by the lines, “Ruben Amorim has discovered the challenges of dealing with young stars, but he must also look at his own behaviour.”
It’s normally the sort of approach reserved for Arsenal, so it is good to see it spread out elsewhere. Although not so good to see the start of the notion that “Arteta needs to leave, or Arsenal need to sack him” stories. We are only in the prelims of course, but the rest will come soon enough, now that we have, “Mikel Arteta admits long-term future at Arsenal dependent on winning silverware.”
The reality is Arsenal are so much further ahead than they were under previous managers, it would be crazy to “do a Tottenham” as it is now called, and get another manager.
Am I the only person who remembers that between 2005/6 and 2021/22 Arsenal could not finish above third in the League, and we have now just had three second places in a row? Somehow, there seems to be the idea that all Arsenal have to do is get a bit better, when in fact that is what all the clubs have to do, and at least one of those clubs has money that Arsenal can’t even dream of having, to buy in new players.
In fact, I really don’t quite understand how some writers about football don’t quite get what a massive task it is, moving up to being top. It is not just about Arsenal, but about how long the Premier League allow Manchester City to walk free.
For surely it can’t just be me that notices that we still have not had a conclusion to the 115 Manchester City cases. The hearings began on September 16 2024 and concluded in December that year, with as ESPN said at the time, “the reputations of both sides on the line.”
So here we are a year on, and still Manchester City march onward as if they have done nothing wrong, and even if they have, there is nothing anyone can or will do about it. Certainly, the media don’t seem to mention the cases anymore – it’s pretty much Untold and a handful of other bloggers who remain interested in honesty, integrity and those other things that people used to care about but now don’t.
The problem for the rest of the League is that Manchester City have vowed to tie the League up in legal tangles until it goes into financial liquidation, if the ManCs are found guilty of any single one of the 115 charges. So we all sit and wait.
And I should add that, to their eternal disgrace, the media seem to have dropped the issue as well. Is anyone else reporting the anniversary of the hearings being over and done? Not that I know.
No, instead we have “Mikel Arteta admits long-term future at Arsenal dependent on winning silverware” as the headline as if somehow the whole ManC shambles is the fault of Arsenal, rather than it being the fault of Manchester City’s action, and the league’s inability to conduct a case against the club.
From the inside, the whispers are that the League is not going to resolve the issue, having gained an agreement from the media that, in return, they will drop the story. But there are still one or two making a fuss and not accepting the City deal, which says, “just leave the issue, and we’ll bring our spending from now on into line with everyone else. While of course keeping the players and trophies that we have won and spending what we like in the future.
And to be quite clear, of course I can’t prove a thing – I’m just a blogger not a journalist with the resources of a national newspaper behind me. I am just pointing out that as we used to sing “it’s all gone quiet over there” – the tragedy of football being it has all gone quiet everywhere – except here.
As the Manchester Evening News reported (knowing as they do, far more than I, about what is going on): “A final verdict regarding Manchester City’s alleged breach of Premier League financial rules is now unlikely to be delivered before the end of the season.”
But what I can say is that anything that Mancheseer City has won from 2018 onwards should always be reported with an * and a comment that says “Legal case ongoing.” But the fearful, cajoled, battered and beaten media can’t even manage that.
