- How journalists invented and exploited the “Arsenal are cheats” fantasy
- If the Tots are going in the right direction where are Arsenal going?
By Tony Attwood
In the last 24 games, Arsenal have lost one, drawn four and won 19. So not surprising that in playing a club that is currently 16th in League One, the management did a bit of experimenting, in order to see how some younger players would react to the situation.
As a result, Arsenal made nine changes from their last Premier League game, and in response, some have decided to attack one of the youngsters who plays for Arsenal and is deemed to have had a bad game. What will be the result of that? At the very least, some highly talented young players will opt, if they have the choice, not to go to Arsenal. Why would you with supporters like that who jeer their own players? Not everyone is going to be like Dowman – whom on this occasion Sky Sports named as the best Arsenal player on the pitch.
So, Arsenal are through to the quarter finals, which are due to be played around the 4th and 5th of April. Meanwhiloe the next game, to be played this coming week, is away against Bayer 04 Leverkusen, and a quick preliminary look at their recent results shows them having had three draws, two wins and one defeat in their last six matches.
But what I am not sure they have, is other managers in their country currently hurling anger at the club for allegedly (but not in fact when the stats are looked at) wasting time, or their own fans hurling abuse at a youngster who was given a run out in the team.
And that seems to sum up Arsenal’s situation. They have to take on the opposition, obviously, but then also have to fight the media and then indeed, some of their own “fans” too, who have turned on a young player. It is quite amazing that any youngster (or indeed any youngster’s parents) will go near Arsenal, seeing the sort of “fans” the club now has.
Yet this is what it has turned into. The media run a constant assault on Arsenal, while very notably leaving Manchester City (remember 110 misdemeanours still pending) are given a free rein. Arsenal are of course, under constant attack from other managers such as the turnip at Brighton with his ludicrous claims about time wasting, and the media’s response is to give support to those claims without actually bothering to investigate how much time was wasted in that match, or in all the Arsenal matches in the season.
Other clubs don’t suffer in this way from the media, or indeed from their own fans (when it comes to turning on one of the youngsters). And so Untold Arsenal exists at least in part to try and counter the endless misreporting of matters relating to Arsenal that we see in the media every day. Last week we had to point out how factually incorrect the Brighton manager was in his tirade against Arsenal players. This week we find there are “fans” whose prime purpose seems to be to turn on a young player who has difficulty with a game when he has just stepped up to the top level.
So why are all these attacks happening? We know with journalists it is just sheer habit – if there is an anti-Arsenal story, they run it. But with supposed Arsenal fans railing against a young Arsenal player, why does that happen?
My guess is that it makes such fans feel big. They might (like me) not have any skill or ability at playing football, and so think iti s a great idea to hurl abuse at a young Arsenal player for doing what they have never had the chance to do.
And the reason? Presumably, to try to make themselves look like journalists. And I think that needs to be contemplated for a moment. Surely we all know what journalists do when it comes to writing about Arsenal, so why should anyone want to imitate one of those clowns? It beggars belief.
Anyway, just in case you have been distracted by the FA Cup, here’s the league table….
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arsenal | 30 | 20 | 7 | 3 | 59 | 22 | 37 | 67 |
| 2 | Manchester City | 29 | 18 | 6 | 5 | 59 | 27 | 32 | 60 |
| 3 | Manchester United | 29 | 14 | 9 | 6 | 51 | 40 | 11 | 51 |
| 16 | Tottenham Hotspur | 29 | 7 | 8 | 14 | 39 | 46 | -7 | 29 |
| 17 | Nottingham Forest | 29 | 7 | 7 | 15 | 28 | 43 | -15 | 28 |
| 18 | West Ham United | 29 | 7 | 7 | 15 | 35 | 54 | -19 | 28 |
I’m a little late with this comment….for a good reason though.
Despite all the moaning we hear about Arteta from the media and opposition fans, I noted this morning that Guardiola is about to pick up a two match ban for having received his sixth yellow card of the season. So I wondered how Mikel compared to that and went in search of some facts/stats. Sadly, I couldn’t find a list of cards for managers relating to this season (please let me know where to look if you know) but I did find a list for last season.
Who, I wondered, would be top of this list for moaning/ranting at refs. And there at the top of the list with four yellows and one red was the very same manager who just a few days ago was slagging off Arsenal. Yes it was none other than one Fabian Hurzeler. So it seems it’s not just us he shoots his mouth off at but virtually everything and anyone. I guess he’s just one of these people in life we refer to as a bad loser!
Btw, last season Mikel was way down the bottom of the league for cards with just one yellow whilst about two thirds of managers got the same or worse. Funny how everybody moans about Arteta. It’s almost like theirs an agenda……….
Mikey
Good research as usual.
For my part I think the abuse aimed at Arteta is literally mad.
He gives the most honest and polite pre and post match interviews. Always takes responsibility for bellow average performances. Always acknowledges the opposition, team, players and coach.
Never rises to baiting.
On the touch line, yes he can get animated, but 99% of the time with relation to his players, the team and the match situation.
Yes occasionally he questions the 4th official when he feels a bad call has been made by the referee, or one of our players isn’t being afforded any protection. Saka anyone??
I just cannot see for the life of my why people have a problem with him.
Couldn’t by any chance be because he’s Arsenals manager could it????
Tony. am I correct in assuming the young player was Marli Salmon, after Mansfield’s goal.
My thoughts on that incident are that Mosquera and Kepa could both have done better, so Marli was not solely to blame.
More important point, however, is that all players are human and make errors and that “fans” have no right to abuse them when this occurs – especially considering that the abusers themselves are unlikely to have even a tiny fraction of the ability of the players concerned.
It was good to see team-mates offering reassurance to Marli and to hear Mikel Arteta voice his pride in him, as well as Max Dowman.
(I recall previous criticisms of our players from some so-called supporters, with targets including Jon Sammels,Gus Caeser, Manuel Almunia, Lukasz Fabianski and even Aron Ramsey and Oliver Giroud)
Also Havertz and Odegaard have been targetted on occasions. It is counter-productive as well as unjustified)
Sorry I am also a bit late and I may have missed the discussion about the Arsenal youngsters for which we should be proud of their tremendous step up at such a young age. Job done and a good learning curve for them as they can only get better and better. Remember, don’t judge for any mistakes as even the best midfielder in the world can make them(Hey Declan-my favourite Arsenal player for this season).
I have already had my say the other day about the incorrect facts about Arsenals time wasting and Brightons poor management and ranting, so I agree with all the great comments from Tony, Micky and Nitram as we all seem to have the same view of the bias media and their hate campaign.
At the end of the day it’s all just Envy portrayed and highlighted for all to see, by the medias questionable poor reporting and lack of equal judgement and bad facts.
Keep up the good work guys, love reading Tony’s facts, reports and all your comments.
I was always led to believe that commentators should be neutral. Yesterday the commentator couldn’t hide his desire for Mansfield, at the least, to equalise and go to extra time.
The same today when he got his wish with Port Vale winning. So sorry to disappoint you yesterday.
Open season on Arsenal, but apparently the banter aimed at Tottenham has ‘gone too far’, just because they ‘might’ get relegated for the first time in almost 50 years?! On the contrary – allow me to explain why.
With each passing day, I want Spurs to go down more and more; I would even sacrifice all the trophies we are in contention for, just to see this happen. After all, no credit will be given for winning any of the trophies: if we win the League cup, it ‘won’t count’, same for the FA Cup, we are already looking to be branded ‘the worst Premier League champions ever’ who play boring, garbage, cheating football, and I am sure a Champions League win would be met with ‘what took you so long?’ and ‘you aren’t really champions of Europe as you didn’t win the domestic league to qualify for a cup competition!’ Not to mention the Alan Pardew ‘asterisk’ and Martin Keown being told to ‘get a sense of humour’ by the same hypocritical snowflakes who have tried to suppress any criticism aimed at their beloved Spurs (Sam Matterface for example).
I want them to go down, not just for local bragging rights, the memes and the jokes, but also: so that the media will actually talk negatively about our neighbours, for fewer London derbies (as long as Millwall don’t go up) which make League titles much harder for the capital’s clubs to win, and to serve as the ultimate vindication of how we managed our move to the Emirates Stadium compared to their transition to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Of all the factors being discussed over the decline of the N17 club, the stadium move is constantly overlooked.
For instance, compare their 7* seasons in the new ground to our first 7 seasons at Ashburton Grove.
Arsenal League finishes: 4th (2007), 3rd (2008), 4th (2009), 3rd (2010), 4th (2011), 3rd (2012), 4th (2013)
Tottenham League finishes: 6th (2020), 7th (2021), 4th (2022), 8th (2023), 5th (2024), 17th (2025), TBC (2026) – * since 2025/2026 is not yet complete
Then let us look at the financial approaches of the 2 clubs over the same period.
Arsenal’s approach – sell big earners and ‘key’ players to make a profit on transfers, spend some of that on regenerating the squad to qualify for the Champions League every season, while the rest of the player sales, Champions League qualification and League prize money were used to pay the debt repayment instalments for the stadium, doing this so well that by 2013, we could start buying ‘marquee’ players for the first time in years (Ozil, Sanchez, Aubameyang, Cech, etc), stay in the top 4 and win 3 trophies in 5 years (FA Cups of 2014, 2015 and 2017). The reaction from the media, the press, fans of other clubs (including Spurs) and, sadly, some of our so-called ‘supporters’? ‘Fourth is not a trophy’, ‘you parade your balance sheets along the streets of Islington’, ‘spend some f***ing money!’, ‘Wenger is a ditherer’, ‘Arsenal try and score the perfect goal’, ‘Arsenal are soft and lack leaders’, ‘why the lack of ambition?’, ‘Arsenal are standing still and are therefore being left behind’! Oh, and who could forget Adrian Durham’s ‘The Daily Arsenal’!! In that time, Daniel Levy was being lauded as a financial genius for selling Bale and Modric for hundreds of millions of pounds and investing the money in a new squad which finished 5th more times than 4th, and when they DID finish 4th in 2012, they were denied Champions League qualification because Chelsea won the competition following a 6th placed Premier League finish! Levy was also seen as a hard taskmaster for NOT selling his ‘prized assets’ (Kane, Alli, Son, etc), the media rubbed their hands with glee at a ‘North London power shift’, and how great Mauricio Pochettino was for getting the most penalties over several seasons and nearly 3 years without a Premier League red card and STILL failing to win the title; don’t forget all that ‘Mind The Gap’ stuff as well!
Tottenham’s approach – keep Kane and Son so long that you couldn’t get any proper transfer money for them, spend Man City money on transfers (and more than Arsenal btw) for inferior players, have £30million annual debt repayments on a stadium that cost 3 times that of the Emirates nominally and twice the cost in real terms, with initial relative League stability below the Champions League places until last season’s finish, which has been ‘justified’ by winning a competition against a bunch of nobodies and a horrendous Manchester United side with ‘Champions of Europe, you’ll never sing that’ jibes aimed at us! Add to that a succession of managers with different track records, playing styles and training methods due to an impatient and fickle fan base (even more so than ours) and the supposed obsession with ‘external business’ over matters on the pitch! Yet the main responses were ‘look how the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is miles better than the Emirates’, ‘Spurs keep hold of their stars by giving them new contracts’, ‘Ange Postecoglu is a great bloke and so clever for sacrificing Premier League points to win a trophy’, ‘Micky van de Ven is good enough to play for Real Madrid and is better than Gabriel’! They also wasted 2 golden opportunities to secure long term success – not kicking on from their Europa League ‘success’ and the riches of Champions League qualification, while Manchester United are currently 3rd in the League, and losing (on purpose?) to Manchester City in May 2024 just to stop Arsenal winning the League that season. If they had won, they would have finished 4th, qualified for the Champions League, possibly attracted some of the players that have signed for us, Man City and Liverpool in that time, and perhaps even ended up in our position at the top of the Premier League today!!
Conclusions? First of all, Arsene Wenger got the management of the stadium move ABSOLUTELY SPOT ON but got no credit for overachieving in the ‘austerity years’ whatsoever. Secondly, the Kroenkes and Mikel Arteta deserve much more praise for turning Arsenal from possible mid table obscurity into being the bookies’ favourites for all 4 competitions for the first time in the club’s history; and finally, Spurs built a new stadium ‘to get one over on the Gooners’ by claiming a higher capacity and better facilities, while we did so to secure the long term future of our club and to hell with anyone else! Therefore, Tottenham Hotspur getting relegated to the Championship not only deserves endless banter, memes and jokes; the media is not going anywhere near far enough with the criticism, negativity and abuse in comparison to what Arsenal has had to put up with since our last League title (most of it totally unjustified and inaccurate)!!!