By Tony Attwood
Since 2020, Tottenham have had nine head coaches, and as a result, they are one point above relegation. I am quiite getting to like Igor Tudor, the latest interim Tottenham man.
For it seems he has told his players to stop believing that they are being affected by a black magic curse. I am not sure I have ever come across such a thing before, but Goal are carrying it, so I guess it is true.
Of course, we were giving extra attention to the tiny totts before the current run of six defeats in a row started, and I didn’t really think it was going to be this funny, but then I guess you can never tell in this game. And now I’ve found a line in an article from the New York Times that really intrigued me…
“With the Manchester City and Liverpool teams of recent years, their approach didn’t change massively from 0-0 to 1-0 to 2-0. But with this Arsenal team, everything becomes even more compact. It’s incredibly hard if you fall behind against them.”
This of course, is different from the recent (now retracted) rant from the Brighton manager that “That’s not football, what Arsenal did there. “They make their own rules, no matter how they’re playing.”
But opinions abound. Here’s another. “They’re like a python. They squeeze the life out of you. It’s strangulating. They play this very constricting, incredibly effective brand of football. The third-best defence in this league is Everton, and they have conceded 50 per cent more goals than Arsenal have.” (That was on Facebook from an unnamed writer.)
Oh yes, and there is this issue about the corners which other teams now seem to be copying. “Until recently, there was almost a 50/50 split across the league between inswinging and outswinging corners. You had teams like Liverpool scoring a lot from outswingers. Arsenal were an outlier in focusing so much on inswingers. But you look now, and everyone is following what Arsenal do.”
Here’s another example, which notes “how slowly and deliberately their defenders walk up from the halfway line”, which is apparently designed to build tension among their opponents.
So other clubs are starting to copy what Arsenal have been doing, and of course, Arsenal are perfectly aware of this. For having invented ways of playing, the obvious next step is to evolve a new approach using some other tactic.
Thus, once clubs start using the methodology of Arsenal now, Arsenal themselves will move on to the next approach. Indeed, Pep Guardiola commented in a discussion about Arsenal’s tactics, saying, “We are moving in that direction. I pay more attention to set-pieces than when I started my career in Barcelona, for sure. Much more.”
Others praise Arsenal more openly. Brentford’s Keith Andrews has called them “the best team in the country”, citing the “talented individuals”, “the players’ mentality”, and “how they can hurt you in different phases of the game”.
Burnley’s Scott Parker has called them “a team that solves situations”. And everyone praises Raya, Saliba and Gabriel. In fact, for every coach complaining how Arsenal are allowed to “get away with it,” there are two training their teams to “do an Arsenal.”
That is not easy, however, since it centres on finding players who have the skills and knowledge of football. They will, of course, take time to learn a new system, so the manager has to be resilient to calls to drop a new player who isn’t a smash hit straight away. It takes a while, but in the end, good recruiting begets good recruiting.
Yet this is also where so many clubs that keep on changing their managers fall down. One manager comes along and starts buying the players he wants. But unlike Arteta, he is not given the time to come 8th in the league. Instead, a couple of months on he is sacked, and the next manager buys the players he wants… it goes on and on and simply develops an uncoordinated mess – and then lo and behold all the money has gone.
In fact, we can say for sure, the chance of a new manager turning the club around in a matter of months is under 50%. And we can look at the Arsenal board with a huge amount of respect here: 8th, 8th, 5th, 2nd… It has taken six seasons – Tottenham don’t give their managers six weeks.
But the media love to quote false stats about Arsenal, and that’s great because managers elsewhere tend to believe them. Tottenham even believed they could build a new ground and not have the results affected by that financial outlay. ManU felt they could pay off enormous accumulated debts while still trying to win the league.
Meanwhile, the stories circulate about Arsenal cheating – and in a way, I think we should welcome that, because as long as clubs are thinking along those lines, they are not noticing what Arsenal really has been doing, and that reduces their chances of catching Arsenal up.
So yes, let’s encourage the notion that Arsenal are indeed cheating. I don’t think they are, but as long as clubs focus on that idea, they won’t be looking at what Arsenal really has done to rise from 8th, to 5th, to those three runners-up places to where they are now.
Arteta has just become more tactical aware than most managers and just needed the right squad to implement different tactics to win each game.
I know for a fact the 21 of the games played this season by Arsenal have been won by the substitutes that had been made by the tactically aware Arteta.
Arteta has also brought in more physical players with technical abilities to with stand the bullying since he first took over, similar to Wenger’s style in the beginning, where he inherited Adam’s, Bould or Keown and introduced the likes of Viera, petit, Henry and others. Strong physical Athletic types with technical ability for passing and reading the game.
Arteta is not a cheat, just more tactical in his decisions, but let the losers continue to be ignorant without reading the stats and continue to call us cheats as we strive for Trophies.
They were at first calling us boring Arsenal, until a couple of TV pundits announced that Arsenal have scored more goals this season than any other team.
So after their shamful embarrassing wrongful accusations of Arsenal being boring, ‘it made no sense’ in saying Arsenal are “boring yet scoring”.they have now changed this to Arsenal cheating instead of boring Arsenal.
Make your mind up, which is it? FFSake!
Chelsea manager accused Arsenal players of cheating by stepping on to his half of the pitch before kick off.
So he is thinking this is the way to be successful so he has instructed and sent a memo to his Chelsea players to do the same. But I don’t think with their low IQ being double figures at most that they probably misread the memo!
So with their misinterpretation and low IQ, they have decided to take it a step further during pre kick off where half his team are doing what he accused Arsenal of, but getting it wrong by huddling on the centre circle covering both sides of the halfway line!
Yo Chelsea, It’s not the same. Wtf.
But what makes this display worst is that his team are instead huddled on both halves of the pitch in the centre and talking to the ball, like that nut character played in the Tom Hanks island marooned movie where he also talked to a football. Google it!
They said they were not cheating but instead worshipping or respecting the ball or whatever!
Even that doesn’t make sense as they usually change the ball from one of several unworshipped balls posted around the ground during throw ons etc.!
Ha ha. So funny, with their low IQs. They not only misread the memo but they haven’t really thought this one through have they!
Next thing they will say they were worshipping or respecting the ref like some mad childish Lord of the flies movie with Cole Palmer their leader!
All jokes aside. I agree Let them think we are cheating and remain ignorant.
Labelled as cheats is a poor and lazy clutching at straws. It is deflection at the poor performance and standing of their own clubs, nothing to be proud of their own achievements and progression. Boring and unoriginal, shout it out many times and sheep will flock together.