Boring boring opposition (and journalists) but Arsenal are not being fooled

 

 

• Arsenal cheating allegations are a way of covering up the failure to deal with ManC
• What else can we say except, “look at the table”?

By Tony Attwood

In a very real sense although the game is still a game of football, there is another game going on at the same time in a lot of PL matches.  It is played by clubs that are not doing as well as they might, and clubs that expect to lose games.   And its essence is explaining away a forthcoming defeat before the games has even kicked off.   In short it is about saying that the other lot cheat, and so we will lose.  The hope is the referee will pick up on this and thus give any 50/50 incidents in the opposition’s favour.

Now I will admit that for many years Untold been critical of referees, noting particularly that  not all referees are equal.   Some see the same team over and over again and so have an undue influence on that club’s results.   Some tend to see mostly home wins, some see lots of away wins…. there is obviously a bias going on in the referee fraternity.   

And some do the Brighton thing (which from now on I guess will be known as “Doing a Brighton”) of excusing a possible forthcoming defeat by talking about the way the opposition cheat in every game they play.  It gives an excuse, and gets one’s own supporters onside (if they are silly enough to swallow such twaddle).

Quite what the nature of that cheating is, varies from club to club and they can be used for all sorts of reasons.   As for example I sought to point out in the last piece “Arsenal cheating allegations are a way of covering up the failure to deal with ManC”

For some years the attacks on the opposition have been restricted to fans writing in blogs, but now the Brighton and Hove manager has taken this to another level by telling the Brighton fans that Arsenal were cheating at every corner Arsenal by taking more time.  In effect he was, as others before him, inviting the referee to take a particular view of how Arsenal were playing, although fortunately several journalists realised they were being fed a pup, and didn’t take up the story.

But there is more than that, because once such an onslaught on a club’s tactics is launched it can become the dominant discourse and refs start to see every move as a variation on the club’s tactics.   The result is more fouls against, and more cards. and more commentaries in the media, always happy to take up a new viewpoint and claim it as their own.

The idea is to portray Arsenal as the great time wasters, working with the connivance of weak referees who then perceived time wasting and start waving more yellows.  

Fortunately there is a way to deflect this nonsense, and get an advantage.   It is to look slightly discomforted by these sorts of shenanigans and then do something quite different.  In the case of the Brighton complaints, a quickly taken free kick put them in a tailspin and disrupted their little game.

The point about Arteta and his team is they know these games.  Arsenal have won more games, lost fewer games, scored more goals*, conceded fewer goals and have a better goal difference than everyone else.   And that * indicates that yes I recognize that in terms of goals scored we are actually equal with ManC, but still above everyone else.

Now the fact is that Arsenal have a method of playing that works, and so they use it regularly, and others are trying it.  But you need certain types of players to pull it all off.  And in fact recent years have not been about boring Arsenal just coming second because as one reader here put it Arsenal’s manager “doesn’t have a winning mindset” and he should be dismissed.   It has been about honing a tactic.   Or in fact several.

Of course this doesn’t happen in Europe because most Champions League teams don’t have the negative “stop them at all costs” mindset.   They are adventurous.   And entertaining.

In fact the problem is with the teams in mid to low table positions who will happily go through games trying to bore Arsenal into submission and get a breakaway goal.   Which is actually not a very good way of counteracting free flowing games so the opposition set out to make games against Arsenal boring, and then to cover their tracks if Arsenal win they come out with this counter argument about set pieces.

Arsenal’s problem is that time and again they are not playing a team that really wants to attack and is willing to have any sort of open game.   They are afraid of Arsenal and afraid of having a free flowing game against Arsenal.   So they do everything possible to block and close down, and then just to rub salt into the wound they blame Arsenal in the vague hope that maybe that will taunt Arteta, and those who blamed him for not having a winning mentality suddenly to throw all the ideas of the past away and go for a totally different type of play that will suit their opponents.