- The ultimate truth on why refereeing in the Premier League is not all it should be
- Is Arsenal really the most hated club in football?
By Tony Attwood
So now we have a new way of insulting and attacking Arsenal. “most gruelling of title pursuits…”, and “another night of football as pain, sport as trauma…” We’ve moved on to yet another way of attacking Arsenal. Arsenal may win the league, but with terrible football. Bring back ManC s league winners, they know how to do football properly – who cares about the money?
So here we have it. No mention of the billions of pounds spent on making the “project” work, no mention of over 110 contraventions of the rules all now quietly put away and forgotten, no – it is now all about the fact that Arsenal were not entertaining enough. Not like that Manc team.
Of course, no one knows where the Manc manager is going, but we can only hope it is somewhere a very long way away, involving a competition Arsenal does not compete in.
And so will Manc ever have to answer for the 100+ breakages of the rules? It looks like … well what does it look like? Like the League has been waiting for the Manc manager to leave before they punish him with a ban from management that cannot reach him… Or they dish out a punishment which won’t be imposed on the new manager, as that would be unfair, so Manc get away with it all, once more.
Or maybe they do have the guts to punish ManC, but only once the Arabian influence has gone. Which suggests that the manager leaves, his staff leave, and then the current owners sell the club and retreat from English football, leaving it scarred, battered and bruised, with players demanding to leave and a dreadful sinking feeling surrounding the entire entity that was once the best league in the world. And Arsenal’s winning of the league tarred forever by the thought that this was when there was all that cheating going on…
And as for those 100+ charges – well, that was all to do with the old regime, and they have all gone now, so it would hardly be fair to punish the new people who are valiantly trying to keep the club solvent without Arabian money.
As I say, who knows, but I rather suspect that just like the way ManC have run rings around football for the last ten years or so, it will be wholly unedifying, and rules won’t mean a thing.
And what of the media? As suggested in comments here, they will pretend that they were pushing for a proper investigation of Manc finances all the time but the league were so slow it was a scandal. Nothing to do with the media, oh no. They just report football…
But increasingly, football is politics. The politics that allow ludicrously rich men to buy a club, break the rules, win everything and then vanish without punishment. The simple fact is that the League’s management committee is not fit to run the League, but because they are self-electing, they will carry on. Another ManC will appear and get away with it for ten years and then take the finance somewhere else.
Arsenal are five points clear of ManC with one game to play. Manc have two games to play. The goal difference of the two clubs is identical at +43, but ManC have scored morer goals.
Arsenal have a possible total points of 85 and a lowest obviously of 82, which is what they have at the moment.
And given the way ManC have conducted themselves in the past, leading to the oft noted 100+ breakages of the rules, they could be trying anything under the sun. After all that is what they have been doing in the past – and getting away with it, or so it seems. But of course I just write what I feel – I have no evidence, I leave all that up to the League.
But just in case you think I am making too much of the ManC crimes against the rules of the League, imagine that a few years ago I had written a piec about how in the coming years ManC will be found guilty of over 100 breaches of league rules, will tell the League that if they take the matter further that ManC will then tie the league up in so many legal knots it will itself go into liquidation, and their manager who was in charge during all this period will be lauded as one of the all time greats. Even I wouldn’t have believed such a scenario could have been on the horizon a few years ago. But here we are.
Of course I want Arsenal to win the League with a fine win in the last game of the season. I just wish that this title – if we get it – would not forever be accompanied by an asterisk explaining just how many tricks the Mancs had pulled to try and stop Arsenal winning the title, and just how much criticism of Arsenal’s style of play the media had thrown at the club – at least until it became apparent that indeed Arsenal might actually win the league.
And what about that asterisk after Arsenal’s name in the league table? I want it to refer to a footnote saying that Arsenal won despite the second-placed team being found guilty of over 100 breaches of the league’s financial rules during the seasons leading up to 2025/6, while persuading all the media to run stories about how negative the Arsenal style of football was. Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Arsenal style didn’t become known as “anti-football” while the ManC approach this season became known as the “golden age” of the Premier League.
Although we have always had a ‘bad’ press, the latest assaults regarding our ‘style’ of football, can actually be traced back to our heroic 2-2 draw at the Etihad on the 23rd of September 2024
As you will remember, it is actually Arsenal that should of been feeling aggrieved. This from the BBC at the time:
“The most contentious incident came seconds before the break when Arsenal’s Trossard was given a second yellow card for kicking the ball away, leaving the visitors nursing a sense of injustice after City’s Jeremy Doku had escaped punishment for a similar offence…………Arteta and his players could rightly point, as they did when Declan Rice was sent off recently for a second yellow card after kicking the ball away against Brighton, that there was inconsistency in Oliver’s failure to punish Doku for doing the same thing earlier in the first half”
So, as described by the BBC, there was a serious sense of injustice which led to us having a play the entire 2nd half against the current champions and ‘best’ team the World had ever seen, with 10 men, yet it was Guardiola and his players, who post match, spat their collective dummy out with some off the most ridiculous, nasty and bitter accusations you will ever hear, obviously given full credit by the fawning media.
It was during the post match interviews we had this from Silva:
“There was only one team that came to play football,” Silva told TNT Sports Brazil. “The other came to play to the limits of what was possible to do and allowed by the referee, unfortunately”
“”I’m glad we always enter the pitch to try to win every match.”
Do you Silva? Only this season following a 1 – 1 draw at the Emirates we had:
The BBC again: Pep Guardiola’s attempt at parking the bus in London to help Manchester City pinch three vital points almost paid off.
Not a peep from big baby Silva this time.
This from Stones, again after the 2 – 2 draw ant the Etihad:
“They slow the game down,” he said. “They get the keeper on the floor so they can get some information on to the pitch. We had to control our emotions during those tough times.
“I wouldn’t say they have mastered it but they have done it for a few years now so we knew to expect that. You can call it clever or dirty, whichever way you want to put it, but they break up the game which upsets the rhythm.”
So, despite ARSENAL having a player yellow carded and subsequently sent off for the exact same offence a Manc player got nothing for, and then having to defend with 10 men for 55 minutes, it was Manc where were hard done by.
It was following this game that all the ‘Dark Arts’ crap started and it hasn’t stopped. And all this despite us being the most disciplined team in the country right now.
you couldn’t make this shit up…..but they do.
Although we have always had a ‘bad’ press, the latest assaults regarding our ‘style’ of football, can actually be traced back to our heroic 2-2 draw at the Etihad on the 23rd of September 2024
As you will remember, it is actually Arsenal that should of been feeling aggrieved. This from the BBC at the time:
“The most contentious incident came seconds before the break when Arsenal’s Trossard was given a second yellow card for kicking the ball away, leaving the visitors nursing a sense of injustice after City’s Jeremy Doku had escaped punishment for a similar offence…………Arteta and his players could rightly point, as they did when Declan Rice was sent off recently for a second yellow card after kicking the ball away against Brighton, that there was inconsistency in Oliver’s failure to punish Doku for doing the same thing earlier in the first half”
So, as described by the BBC, there was a serious sense of injustice which led to us having a play the entire 2nd half against the current champions and ‘best’ team the World had ever seen, with 10 men, yet it was Guardiola and his players, who post match, spat their collective dummy out with some off the most ridiculous, nasty and bitter accusations you will ever hear, obviously given full credit by the fawning media.
It was during the post match interviews we had this from Silva:
“There was only one team that came to play football,” Silva told TNT Sports Brazil. “The other came to play to the limits of what was possible to do and allowed by the referee, unfortunately”
“”I’m glad we always enter the pitch to try to win every match.”
Do you Silva? Only this season following a 1 – 1 draw at the Emirates we had:
The BBC again: Pep Guardiola’s attempt at parking the bus in London to help Manchester City pinch three vital points almost paid off.
Not a peep from big baby Silva this time.
This from Stones, again after the 2 – 2 draw ant the Etihad:
“They slow the game down,” he said. “They get the keeper on the floor so they can get some information on to the pitch. We had to control our emotions during those tough times.
“I wouldn’t say they have mastered it but they have done it for a few years now so we knew to expect that. You can call it clever or dirty, whichever way you want to put it, but they break up the game which upsets the rhythm.”
So, despite ARSENAL having a player yellow carded and subsequently sent off for the exact same offence a Manc player got nothing for, and then having to defend with 10 men for 55 minutes, it was Manc where were hard done by.
It was following this game that all the ‘Dark Arts’ crap started and it hasn’t stopped. And all this despite us being the most disciplined team in the country right now.
you couldn’t make this shit up…..but they do.
Sorry about the double post. Don’t know what happened there.
The Man City saga must surely come to an end as the season concludes. The cynic in me feels that Pep wants to get out before it happens although there will always be a stain on his reputation. I try to ignore the endless fawning over Guardiola, yes he’s a good manager but he has had an inherent advantage over the years being able to buy whom he pleases and pay them the wages they want.
All we need is one win and we’ll be champions and the media can say what they please we’ll still be champions.
What will the media do if we have the temerity to repeat the performance again next year, I can’t wait to find out!
So good I read it twice 😉
I’m glad the results of the 115 charges will come after the end. Imagine it had come during the season ? That would have been when Arsenal would have had the asterisk nets to it’s name with a footnote : ‘City were relegated so no real title competition took place and Srsenal are not worthy winners’.
If Arsenal win (and I damn hoe so), no one can say that it was because of any points deductions etc. People can talk about grinding it out etc etc…talk about set pieces when other clubs had more. I just looked quickly at some stats and it shows that the goals scored by Arsenal this season are from far not the lowest by any winner, and goals taken from far not the highest and yet we are 1) on top 2) City are not that far away with an attacking line worth way more the 1 billion…. so the conclusions could be :
– City are so incompetent that they bought a set of attacking players that were way too expensive for the result compared to the cost per goal Arsenal have…
– City were so tired to play 4 competitions they had to bring in 2 new players at the winter break
– City were so scared of getting relegated that the players lost their way
whatever…. the thing is that Arsenal got the result of years of hard work and were not given anything.
The other thing, but I am no statistician and do not have the time, but I believe that this season was one of the more competitive ones I’ve ever witnessed. Competitive in the fact that there were at least 10 teams that had real competitive power. Maybe somone will bring us some graph showing the compactness of the table compared to other years.
Yes Arsenal have come a long way but nowhere did they take shortcuts or cheat. And from some pieces I’ve read, it sure looks like financially, this is going to be a reference year.
I just hope and wish continuity is in the air and that they add young talent and not some mercenaries. I guess, from all we’ve seen so far this is the Arsenal way.
Graham Day
“What will the media do if we have the temerity to repeat the performance again next year, I can’t wait to find out!”
Indeed. And I believe we will, and with a lot more style.
My honest feeling is that fear has played a massive part in our, what shall we call them?, inconsistent attacking displays.
Yes we are still the 2nd top scorers, but it has to be said our football hasn’t set the World alight, especially in the 2nd half of the season. Pragmatic. Stoic. Resilient. Professional. Are all words that could describe a great many of our performances. And one more such performance should see us over the line. Two may even see us lift our first Champions League, but that is a toughy, to say the least.
It seemed to me, every time the pressure was OFF and we looked a win away from ‘putting it to bed’ we clammed up. We got nervous. Very nervous. It happens in individual matches. It happened last night. A game we were in full control of, I’m sure still had all our collective nerves shredded.
I truly believe with the monkey off our backs of ‘No title for 22 years’ we will fly. Even if we don’t follow it up with CL, or that that would put us on another level completely I believe.
I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say next week at Selhurst Park is one of, if not the biggest game in Arsenals history.
Chris
I think this season’s Premier League has been the TOUGHEST ever, with the spending power of mid table teams, the increasing use of data and analytics, teams defending deep and frustrating the life out of opponents, not to mention the ‘eccentricities’ of PGMOL!
And to those who think standards are low in the Premier League, I ask: why are there English clubs in all 3 European finals for the first time in the history of English football if that is the case?! If we get 3 English winners, surely the Premier League, at long last, is ‘the best league in the world’ as per the broadcasters’ annual propaganda!