Read the papers and the blogs and you’ll find it. Arsenal are hated more than ManC with all their financial shenanigans. No matter that ManC are already being acknowledged as the club that cheats more than any other… Arsenal are the one to hate.
The feeling a nausia in the media when Arsenal won the league last season was palpable and there were desperate emails flying around the season before saying Arsenal needed to sack their manager as coming second three times running was a joke. Just like Wenger was a joke for winning the FA Cup more than anyone else had ever done. More than ManU and they took 25 years less to do it.
But then of course at that time in the league Arsenal had no chance of beating ManC and no one seemed to care that ManC had broken any and every rule they could find. Three times runners up in three years and Arsenal were the laughing stock,
So don’t laugh at Tottenham with all their pretense of two league titles, and their eighth and final FA Cup win in 1991, no, sneer at Arsenal with 14 league titles and oh look 14 FA Cups as well.
And besides coming second is now the ultimate in failure, because Arsenal did it three times running. And they are bad because the Telegraph declares Arsenal’s dark arts and ruggedness are everything Liverpool were not
Besides Arsenal don’t play football. They set traps, as Sports Mole announced telling us how “Liverpool fell into every Arsenal trap as Mikel Arteta’s darkarts prevail”. Yes you can see Arsenal cheat, because everyone has picked up on this now. Arsenal set traps. Even honest, pure, clean loveable Liverpool fall into Arsenal’s dirty traps.
So the Guardian now tell us that “Mikel Arteta has mastered the art of making substitutions at Arsenal” as if substitutions are not part of the rules but so evil ploy used by those who don’t understand the spirit of the game. And that said by a bunch of journalists.
And it is all so negative, as the Mail says “Invincibles beware! Mikel Arteta might just be assembling Arsenal’s greatest EVER defence”
Yes and worse, those dirty cheating Arsenal players have recruited referees to help them in their cause. Can you imgine that? Arsenal are employing referees to help Arsenal win. And if you don’t believe that just read this hedline from the Mail: “Virgil van Dijk and Andoni Iraola hit out after Liverpool denied ‘clear penalty’ against Arsenal – as Reds boss reveals he will tell Alexander Isak to ‘dive on floor’ in future.
So can we get this right. The manager of Liverpool is telling Liverpool players to cheat – and that is seen by the Mail as POSITIVE.
So out come a load of negatives, no matter how old. Such as Planet Football running the headline arsenal-biggest7 of Arsenal’s biggest embarrassments after shock EFL Cup …
And it is not just in England. The americans have got on the bandwagon too as a few days back the New York Times ran 10Premier League champions Arsenal suffer shock defeat to …
Yes they could have celebrated Arsenal challenging at the top of the league and taking on Manchester City with a fraction of the budget but no they went beserk on the defeat to Fleetwood, wildly celebrating the Fleetwood victory. Any minute now they are gong to bring up Arsenal;s defeat to Walsall on 14 January 1933. In fact I suspect they are currently lobbying Downing Street and the King to get that day invested as a public holiday (although it probably still is in the Midlands).
And yes that defeat (to Fleetwood) Arsenal have let League Cup final losses derail their season … Except actually as of the moment I am writing this, Arsenal are top of the league, three points ahead of the second club, fivepoints ahead of the thrid club and eight points ahead of the fourth club. And last time I looked they had the best defence in the league as well.
So what do we get? paininthearsenal.com found a way to keep the story running by finding a “primary positive of this defeat”
While the Guardian came out with “Do people actually hate Arsenal? Yes, they do” which was actually a headline they not only used this week, but also ran last season. And then they go on with “Why do people hate Arsenal so much?” and then added ” It is a question worth asking.”
The answer is simple. Because the media ceaselessly make up negative stories and repeat rumours about Arsenal and supporters of other clubs, desperate to find some success somehwere, repeat them.
They even said, “A recent social-media study concluded Arsenal’s fans are the most disliked in the Premier League,” although like most stories and rumours they didn’t give us a source, not examine how reliable was the polling nor the number of people asked.
Here’s another one. “ESPN panel went viral on social media after the host suggested other Champions League coaches might want to literally punch Arteta in the face, while his panellists nodded along, as though this is an entirely reasonable conclusion deserving of a deep-dive around the lighted tactics table.” Whatever happened to criticising people involved in football for encouraging violence.
Meanwhile we see that the Guardian is saying everyone should support ManC in the Champions League because they play the best football.
And perhaps we should ponder this one. ManC are guilty of 115 crimes against football in terms of cheating on their finances, but they should be supported BECAUSE THEY PLAY BETTER FOOTBALL.
Neutrals should want Manchester City to win the title and Paris Saint-Germain the Champions League final, because this would be purer, lovelier, better for football.
But let’s get this right. Arsenal generates its own money. Arsenal does not twist the rules and then deny it. Arsenal is supported financially through its loss making era by an American corporation, but its losses have come down each year and we firmly expect a profit next season. Arsenal’s debts are clear and above board and all being well, because of serious long term planning, they should start being paid off next season – or given a trophy or two, this season.
And Arsenal don’t keep buying up 15 year old boys in the hope they might become superstars and so can be sold on for 20 times as much in a year or two. 90% of the kids don’t get that good fortune and are cast aside, back to where they came from, with nothing much to show for it all.
But somehow the story has become that Arsenal are cheating, rather than by taking the current rules and using them in a perfectly legit way, just as Arsenal have done through the ages, as for example with the change in the offisde rule from three, to two, to one player behind the ball when the pass is made. Any club can do it; Arsenal just do it better and faster.
The rules are the same for everyone and there is not a single team that says, “no we won’t take advantage of the osside rule” (or any other rule) “because that would not be gentlemanly.”
No, this is the media having yet another go at Arsenal. The media should have grown up a long time ago, but they didn’t, and I don’t expect them to now, which is why we keep on pointing out their lunacy and bias, even if no one else will.
I quite agree that the English media has encouraged anti Arsenal sentiment. There is also the click bait phenomenon knowing that Arsenals fanbase is very attuned to the frequent and unbalanced criticism they are subject to. And react to online criticism. The pundits who infest the media tend to be of a certain vintage – most of which had deep seated rivalries with Arsenal- which also coincided with the golden age of Ferguson or Liverpool for example. Journalists seem to rely on narratives and cliches -and usually they are full of hypocrisy -dark arts being one of the classics.