- Why are newspapers always so negative about football?
- And so Arsenal march on once again; next up it is Chelsea
By Tony Attwood
My view in answer to that question above, as you may know if you are a regular reader here, is that you keep supporting your club. I support Arsenal because my father and his father before him supported Arsenal, and I lived the first 11 years of my life close to the Arsenal ground. Later, when I bought my first home, I returned to that area.
No matter what has happened since, nor where I have lived since, I am an Arsenal fan. I can’t imagine being anything else in terms of football, although, having now moved out of London, I do quite like my local non-league club, and when I have the chance, I go and watch and support them.
But it seems things are not like that at Tottenham, where throwing the toys out of the pram is more established an occupation than giving undying support. (Maybe that is why they are known as the tiny tots).
So we hear that, having set up some protests against the current players / squad / management / owners, and through that achieved nothing much, they are going to …. well, do it again.
Now, in this regard, we can support them, of course, since the data we’ve recently published shows that most of the time, changing managers actually doesn’t make things better, and even when it does (as in the case of Arteta at Arsenal, for example), it can all take quite a while to turn the club around. (Today I’ve heard several commentators noting Arsenal have not won anything since the FA Cup under Arteta – so you get the idea. Consider the metaphor of turning around the oil tanker at sea, if you need another metaphor).
But ignoring all of this, we are now told that Tottenham’s fans are planning another big demonstration and protest against those who they welcomed in the last time they had a revolution. This presumably is because they are out of the FA cup and seem highly unlikely to be in Europe next year, sitting 14th as they were last time I looked down that far.
Tottenham fans, the Mail tells us, are now planning a mass protest ahead of their home fixture against West Ham, and I am sure we will all enjoy that. Going out of the FA Cup was just another straw that broke another camel’s back, and so there will be another protest. And I guess then another. Actually, I would like to watch the protest (although not the game), but there eis no suitable TV programme scheduled. Where is Football TV Protests channel when you need it?
But I suppose some Tottenham fans have believed all the hype from the media about how getting a new manager was a good idea – whereas if only they had read Untold, they would have realised it was a very bad idea. The media just promote it because it helps fill their columns.
In essence, Tottenham are not very good, and keep having managers who are not clever at seeing which players they actually need to turn them into a challenging team. Hence, they are currently 14th in the league, although to be fair, they are not likely to go down since they are playing in the same league as West Ham, Burnley and Wolverhampton.
So to make it look like they are doing something, the club changes its manager regularly – which never helps, but they keep on doing it.
So Tottenham fans are planning action. And I rather welcome that because generally when we see and hear dissent from within the stands, that tends to make things worse. The fans ought to know that by now, for as the Daily Mail said in its report, “Tottenham fans are planning yet another protest against their leadership…” The key words here are “yet another.” In other words, if it didn’t work last time, just do it again.
There is talk from those in charge of “prioritising trophies” suggesting that until now they have been doing something else – while the fans are revolting, even though just three months ago the controllers of the club promised £100m extra in the funds. I wonder where that went.
In essence, after lots of protests and calls for change, nothing really has changed, except the manager, even when they get one who wins a Euro trophy. Although they do remain pretty good at getting injuries.
Off topic
Academy Manager Per Mertesackerr is leaving Arsenal at the end of the season.
Sad news, I was hoping he would progress to manage Arsenal one day. He is a class act.
Nothing to stop him cutting his teeth elsewhere of course and coming back as the boss in the future.
Anyway best of luck Per in whatever you do next and thanks for all you have done for us over the years.