How the Daily Telegraph has used the AAA to establish the notion that it is to be believed

Posted on by Tony Attwood
By Tony Attwood
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One of the key messages sent out by the little band that runs the Anti-Arsenal Arsenal movement is that the most important thing to do is state opinion as fact, and never back up the claims with evidence.
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It is an approach with the Daily Telegraph has taken to heart, especially via the work of a Mr Kelso, who is deemed to be the Chief Sports Reporter.  Through a clever use of this opinion as fact ruse, and through its use of the AAA as a mouthpiece, the Telegraph and other papers have re-established a claim to be taken seriously when commenting on football.   Given their status just four years ago, it is a remarkable achievement.

Mr Kelso’s view today seems to be that Theo will re-sign, and this will “mark the moment Arsène Wenger blinked in the face of demands from a senior player, and was forced to go against his own judgment, usually the final word at Arsenal.”

And he knows this because… well, don’t ask.  He just knows it.  Maybe he was told by a fairy.

He also says the deal is worth £90,000 a week, accompanied by signing-on fees, image rights and other benefits.  But again, quite how he knows, we are never told.  Maybe some football agent mentioned it.

OK maybe he has a spy inside Highbury House, but then when he says that Liverpool are “among those thought to be interested were Walcott to run down the clock on his Arsenal career and leave as a free-agent in the summer,” I start to wonder which planet the mole is on.

If we look at Liverpool’s finances and their transfer and salary policy at the moment, yes, we can imagine that they want to buy free transfer players.   But could they match Chelsea or Man City’s wages bill?  Would they bring in a player on £7m a year (and if it is £90k a week now, it would certainly be around £7m a year if he came on a free).   Plus media rights, bonuses etc.

According to the all-knowing but non-attributable Telegraph the limitations of Arsenal’s approach “are more marked when Wenger’s cast-iron views about a player’s value, perceived within the self-imposed restrictions of Arsenal’s self-sustaining model, bump into wider economic realities.”

How many assumptions would you like to put in one sentence?  “cast-iron views”, “self-imposed restrictions”, “wider economic realities”…  what on earth does all this mean?  Do wider economic realities include Financial Fair Play, or does that come within “cast-iron views”?   Does the Telegraph know if FFP is going to be implemented seriously by Uefa?  Or is it certain for some reason that at the last moment it will be as effective as Uefa’s policy on racism?

And what self-imposed restrictions?  The restrictions that mean Arsenal are going to abide by FFP?   How are they more or less self-imposed than any other club’s financial approach?

There are in fact four basic financial models in the Premier League:

1.  The billionaire model of Man City and Chelsea

2.  The world-wide marketing model of Man U

3.  The self-financing model of Arsenal, which Liverpool have recently started to follow although without a new stadium, or long history of profit.

4.  The weaker version of 1, in which a very wealthy man sponsors a club, but doesn’t have anything like the finances of Mr Abramovich or Qatar.   We may think of Fulham and Wigan here.

Each of the clubs that fall into these models have, I supposed “self-imposed” restrictions.  Fulham’s self-imposed restrictions are based on the money the owner puts in.   Liverpool’s US owners don’t want to be spending endless billions, so they impose their own restrictions.  In the end, because there are at present no financial regulations in the Premier League, all clubs have their own “self-imposed” restrictions – which shows how meaningless the phrase actually is.

But to return to Mr Kelso.   In a different part of the same article he talks of the club being “apparently distracted” in the summer by events.   At least this is slightly more honest – but by using “apparently” so far into the article, it almost slips by without notice and the reader can be forgiven for thinking that again the unnamed sources that are deeply holed up inside Highbury House and yet passing out information to the Telegraph on a second by second basis, are in fact real.

Yet the “apparent” part of the distraction quickly vanishes as Mr Kelso bashes on in his next paragraph to say, “It was a remarkable oversight”.

Well it was, if the clubs apparent distraction was actually a real live distraction.  Given that Mr Kelso himself doesn’t know if it were real or not, the “remarkable oversight” doesn’t really exist at all.  An apparent distraction can only have an apparent oversight.  Nothing more.

But still the sources of Mr Kelso bash on.   “When the club did come to negotiate the offer was a take-it-or-leave-it £78,000-a-week.”   Really?  Now how does he know that?   Quite possibly because Theo’s agent phoned Mr Kelso and told him.  And of course all of us believe every word an agent says to a journalist.

Don’t we?

Well… up to a point, as the flunky used to say to Lord Copper.

At the end Mr Kelso shows his real colours.  “The disgruntled denizens of the Emirates want more than to hang on to the squad they pay through the nose to watch. Averting the worst-case scenario of Walcott’s departure needs to be the start, not the endgame.”
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OK, so how many people out of the 58,000 odd Arsenal supporters that go to each home game, are disgruntled and feel they are paying through the nose?   Mr Kelso suggests all of us.  But that’s not true because I know quite a few who aren’t.   I also have witnessed a couple of fights that have broken out between the Telegraph backed AAA supporters and Arsenal supporters.
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But hey, we all know everyone is disgruntled, just like we know that season tickets at Arsenal are the most expensive in the league (but better not print a table of prices adjusted for the number of cup matches included, and the number of seats with “restricted views” because that actually changes the result and suddenly Arsenal are not the most expensive club to watch.  But shhhh – as long as no one prints analyses or gives a clue to their sources, the media can continue to up their profile.)
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A few years ago it seemed to me that no self-respecting football supporter took anything printed in the press seriously.  Now through a clever manipulation of the AAA, papers like the Telegraph are being quoted as accurate sources of information.
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No matter how much one dislikes these papers, it has been a clever, and thus far rather successful ploy.  I’d admire them, if only they hadn’t conned quite so many people.

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65 Replies to “How the Daily Telegraph has used the AAA to establish the notion that it is to be believed”

  1. Tony, I’m a disgruntled season ticket holder and I am sure I am paying through the nose, and the Telegraph didn’t put me up to it. I know 3 others around me in the West Upper are disgruntled too, so the answer to your question is “at least 4”. I’ve got tired of paying the best part of 2 grand to watch the same problems season after season.

  2. I dont read papers for this very reason. They tell ignorant people what to think. I pity the gullible fools.

  3. I think the Telegraph have got it right…if “socialist” Wenger does do the deal with Theo, and i think he will…it will be too much too late. Should have been RVP. You sound like a classic AW apologist….he has lived long past his sell by date peddling “4th place is a trophy” rhetoric for about 5 years too long. Unless he accepts change and changes the decay we are witnessing will only accelerate……and I don’t think he can change….so if the man won’t change then change the man….

  4. Point noted, but would happen if Arsenal announce signing Theo in the next few days, rumored to be 90,000 deal?

    The news is circulating every where, with Goal.com announcing it exclusively. Are they linked to AAA?!

    Linking everyone whose opinion does match Arsenal.com, ooops I mean Untold Arsenal, to the name you’ve convinced yourself as AAA, is a bit paranoid. I have too much respect for Untold & Tony, so I hope I’m wrong and we won’t see this trend…

    Jed: I pay money watching Arsenal on TV, and my time ain’t free either. I am disgruntled, because I know Wenger/players can do better but somehow we manage to regularly shoot ourselves in the foot.

  6. I read that Torygraph article and it is indeed full of shit, throwing in numerous sticks like the cost of tickets and players leaving the club as well as the long arsed Theo-athon saga.

    He is a twat obviously.

    However, the club and manager need to seriously pull their collective fingers out and actually strengthen this squad whioh has been lacking a top striker and DM all season, who would have thought that eh?

    By the way, I go to games, and dont think I pay through the nose, BUT, that isnt to say that the pricing needs looking at, especially IF we fail to win jack shit again.

  7. We can go over, under and around these AAA, AKB, LMFAO arguments until we’re all blue in the assholes, the only way for this nonsense to end is if our Club, that we all love so much, starts playing world-class football and starts winning things again. If Arsene gets us back to the top again, the ‘AKB'(hate using these acronyms) were right to support and stand by Wenger and his projects and if its done under a different manager, the ‘AAA’ are written down as the victors in this little annoying chapter of Arsenal history.

  8. Most of the press seem to be anti-arsenal at the moment but what’s new. I m a season ticket holder and too have become bored with our complete lack of ambition. Also our ridiculous wage structure where are our best players and first team regulars are on very close wages to players who never play for the team or are under performing squad players at best. No other club has a wage structure like this and all it does is reward mediocre performances. Why shouldn’t the best players and most frequent players get more money ? What I really wanted to ask was about the ticket pricing and when other clubs cup games are included how expensive are their tickets? I often use this argument in the pub but am not sure how true it is . I think we are still probably the most expensive .

  9. Tony, seriously. If you want to dissect and ridicule someone’s opinion, try the following classic sentence I read recently:-

    “One of the key messages sent out by the little band that runs the Anti-Arsenal Arsenal movement is that the most important thing to do is state opinion as fact, and never back up the claims with evidence.”

    This implies that there is a ‘movement’ known as the ‘Anti-Arsenal Arsenal’. This is a totally unfounded fiction by the author, and one he knows to be a creation of his own imagination. There is no such thing as an ‘anti-Arsenal Arsenal’. Never was, never will be and more importantly never could be. The concept is an absurdity. Indeed, from reading other posts by the same author, this is actually simply a catch-all soundbite. The kind of cynical rhetorical device used by the very type of journalist that the author seeks to castigate!

    Worse, the crime of this alleged group is that they quite simply are fans of the club supported by the author who do not share the same ideas about the management of the club (not, unbelievably about the club itself, but only its management!!!). The very thought! The horror! Clearly a crime warranting a death penalty. Or at the very least the creation of a most disagreeable and provocative label!!

    But the implication here is not that this is simply a body of opinion that disagrees with the author (because to question the views of Mr. author, Mr. Kroenke, Mr. Wenger and Mr. every-one-else-who-tows-the-party-line just makes you some kind of crazy subversive apparently! And more importantly, precludes you from having the term Mr. affixed in front of your name!!) But here this group is described as a band, implying it is somehow tight-knitted and well organised, probably meeting in darkness to hatch its evil plans. Sort of like an Al-Queda in red and white! There is mention here of the little band that runs the movement, does it, I wonder, reside in the caves of ‘Le Grove’? Lets name names!

    The next clause emphasises that the trait of this evil group is to state something as fact with no evidence to back it up!!!! Er, ahem, an educated man like yourself certainly understands the concept of irony. Any person who does not understand the concept, please re-read Tony’s post in the light of this sentence and that will serve as the best definition you will ever get!

    To be serious, I of course take your point about the press. Dirty nasty untrustworty little things that they are. But they are pretty much universally motivated by greed and money alone. And the point he is making in this is not even that controversial. It basically boils down to the fact that if (which to me is the unproven part), Walcott was given an ultimatum and that the club has backed down on it, and if the ultimatum was set by Wenger, then the manager may be forced into a rethink! Hardly the end of the world and I doubt Le Boss would lose any sleep over the suggestion! Yes the language is dressed up and yes it is sensationist, but thats modern journalism. Its an attempt to brighten up a very very boring long running story. You have taken the concept of defensiveness of the current regime way beyond a George Graham back 4 and made a martial art of it!

    This article is not part of an, er,. AAA conspiracy. Because there is not such thing. By endeavouring to tar supporters who do not belive in your view of the club (your imaginary AAA), with the same brush you tar newspapers with, you do huge harm to your credibility.

    Your blog is very entertaining and very well written. But I am very soon expecting you to connect the Black Death and the Fire of London to Arsenal fans who want Guardiola to replace Wenger in the summer!

  10. I actually have two season tickets and have supported the club for 54 years and I am not happy with the value being offered and I am disappointed to learn that there are supporters who are. Wenger has been a giant among managers and has been cut huge slack accordingly but this is his worst squad,despite his protestations to the contrary and we need a number of new players urgently. Sadly my instincts suggest a lot of prevarication on Wenger’s part as I believe him to be a waning force and incapable of reviving our fortunes.
    Nobody in the world is less anti- Arsenal but I believe it is a supporter’s duty to give honest feedback on how the club is being run and I am not confident that Wenger can even take us into the Champions Zleague next season which is the height of our aspirations.

  11. sleepinggiant, do you seriously not know about the AAA conspiracy? Don’t get paranoid, but the evidence is all around us.

  12. Sleeping Ginat

    That is a great riposte and I agree in the main, although I would suggest that the majority of insane in the membranes whp inhabit le grove couldnt arrange to have their strait jacket buckles polished never mind organise a potent counter AKB espionage black Ops unit! 🙂

  13. sshhhhhhh. Jed – I’m a sleeper agent. Don’t tell anyone…It was me who faked the moon landing.

    Sid – agreed. Although strangely enough, is it just me or have they mellowed a bit? It goes to show there is hope for everyone with the right treatment!!

  14. “There is no such thing as the anti-Arsenal Arsenal. Never was, never will be, never could be”- sleepinggiant is a master at stating his opinion as fact to accuse someone of doing the exact same thing.

  15. Lobster – Are you seriously suggesting that there is such a ‘movement’ with a ‘little band that runs it’? Even for a minute? Get real!

    Anyway, I thought the evidence of the abusurdity was in the makey-upey title. Its a nonsense. Thinnk about it. An anti Arsenal Arsenal. Its an oxymoron (also known as a John Terry!)

  19. Hell, Im getting a split personality. Look what all the conspiracies have done to us. I mean me.

  20. Well isn’t this funny? Sounds like pot calling kettle black. I haven’t seen one source to d myriad of assumptions you’ve made either. And by the way Everyone knows, a great percentage of what is written is opinion, what differentiates quality is the correlation between available data and the opinion the writer eventually conveys I.e the quality of inference.
    Oh and I think UA is hardly qualified to take the moral highground here. I remember articles like the one where you guys fabricated stuff to convince akbs that rvp didn’t have anythng to do with his message to the fans, even trying to infer that the website wasn’t his. Also, the article that tried to convince akbs dat only about 300 persons attended the bsm protest march

  21. Untold and it’s few ‘disciples’ are in Denial.

    Bit like typical cult followers. Hanging in to the death after the leader is fallen from his throne.

    Sorry to inform you but there are many diehard fans & recent Wenger supporters who don’t support him anymore.

    I for one hope he calls it a day after May 19th, then let’s hopefully see Stanley get into a panic.

  22. The Daily Wail is the other AAA mouthpiece. I’ve stopped reading any papers, esp the sports sections, for this reason. And add Sky sports news to that list.

  25. Of course the major news sources have agendas. They print, publish only what their owners/paymasters/flunkeys wish. Political bents, white washing atrocities, political shenanigans all day every day.

    It happens to a degree with football, but its more down to individual preference and loyalties I’d suggest;

    Manc journos supporting manc teams and London hacks loving the Appy Ammers and spuds.

    No big conspiracy, just good old fashioned bias and bribes! 🙂

  26. The world seems to be filled with AAA communists. Just tonight, went to a restaurant with the wife, the server had his thumb in my soup and I have no doubt he was an AAA jihadist who wanted to pressure me to join them. Being a God fearing supporter of the lord Wenger, I did not yield.
    Then a guy passed by the window, took a look at my wife, it’s the AAA it ell ya…

  28. @sid and ai,
    Yea yea, poor lil arsenal. Always getting picked on by d bullies. Reading stuff like these you’d think arsenal were a team made up of assylum seekers. Always crying about every and anythng. Refs, uefa, fifa,fa, man utd, man city, chelsea, yada yada yada

  29. honestly i dont get it. Get a new job that pays more or stop going to matches. Its the same for all of us. Some of us invest in education and aim for a decent payed job. If you wanna work in a factory then do so, but dont xpect to be able to see tire A matches in the PL. Money talks. this it the PL after all. You cannot expect it to cater for the impoverished man. its a money machine. A bit like hollywood.

    Its not like Arsenal is struggeling to sell their ticksts. So why should anyone care if some ppl cannot afford it? Its not a human right to watch arsenal its a Pivilege!

    I really dont understand the fuss. Either you can afford it and go, or you cannot afford it and you do not go. I still dont see why that is Arsenals problem? Aslong as they get to sell out their tickets then why should they care who is attending the match?

    It should not be the clubs job to make sure people have enough money to go to matches. This is classic supply/demand.

  30. Tony, a timely article and a good response to the rubbish written by the likes of Kelso.

    It has been obvious for some time that there is a level of communication between the AAA (those who backstab the team, manager and board and who deny that they do so, similarly they deny that they organise protests or even exist) and certain elements of the press. The nature of all these activities is always to show Arsenal up in the worst possible light, to ridicule and to undermine. No doubt the existence of any link between the AAA and the weaker parts of the press would be vociferously denied by those involved.

  31. Brilliant article Tony. One of your best.

    Kelso also managed to ridicule Arsene Wenger’s efforts to have ‘a narrower band of wages than rivals such as Manchester City’ as he put it, with these words: ‘the reality is when it comes to pay Arsenal is a dictatorship, under the control of Wenger, the best paid and arguably the most powerful manager in the Premier League.’

    Another series of unproven assertions. This theme of Arsene Wenger as dictator is another that is being spread about as part of the negative media agenda.

    Onward and upward, Arsenal and Untold!

  32. Thank you for this well written article Tony. I am sure you find the AAA posting and denying their existance as amusing as I do…oh the irony.

    @AAA people
    Guys (and gals) the ‘cat is out of the bag’, ‘the jig is up’, ‘the fat lady has sung her last note’, and so on and so forth. Anyone capable of rational thinking who has read football news in England over the last few years can see with plain sight what you are denying. Correction, that you are getting paid to deny. Frankly, it is rather boring, but I understand in this economic climate timse are hard, so I do not begrudge you lot your bread and butter. I just wish you would get an honest job like the rest of us.

  33. Maybe it is not a little band of AAA working together with the lowlife rags.
    But maybe the lowlife rags see the blogs and fans that a whinging and then taking their words and repeating them via a so to speak ‘loud speaker’, to all of the normal and football world?
    And the reason for them doing this? They think they can smell a giant about to fall or a Manager about to leave so they can have some new stories for a while, it is like giving a looming catastrophe a push to send it over the edge and they get a story for a while. It doesnt matter how it happens or who helps push it over, but as long as something happens to Arsneal/Wenger then they get their stories.
    And when some Arsenal blogs are leading the charge for gettign Wenger to go, we can call them AAA for they are hurting Arsenal mroe than doing good and for that they are shameful.
    We are half way through a season adn we do not need some of our fans to destroy the club.
    People are angry about RVP leaving us as am I, had he stayed then mayeb UTD would not be on top, maybe we would be much closer to the top or on top, but all we know is ‘what could have been’ had he stayed.
    So why cant these ‘fans’ just get on baord for the season and support all the time, then vent at the end, becuase ‘what could happen’ if we all supported as one all year round…
    All I know is that I will never say anythign bad about my team/club when they are half way through a campaign as it is jsut not productive no matter how cranky you or I get…

  34. NB: not saying we are a looming catastrophe at all, but they think we are cos they just repeat, repeat and repeat what they read on ‘Le Grove’ and/or the ‘Daily Mail’.
    I for one think we have the better manager out there and would not want him to go at all. If we don’t get 4th then he knows what needs to be done, if its not done, then we have a problem but lets leave that till the end of season and see where we end up. All Wenger has to do is build a new team, get them playing and then keep them together, that has been the hardest part of the last 7 years for him and us.
    Remember Madrid’s team of Galacticos? They were not successful as the name suggests, cos they were a team unbelievable talent but no cohesion.
    That what Wenger is trying to do, build a TEAM that knows each other well and we are seeing some signs of it too. bit of work to do, a couple of key re-reinforcements and we will be a great team.. Not a team of stars as some want, look at City and all there troubles..

  35. Is the AAA real? IMO, the AAA is a collective movement, but not one there is as per suggested by this article as “a little band”.
    It is a movement because there are so many individuals who buys into it and spread the rhetoric . They are charaterized by deliberate misinformation especially on financial matters. Take the usual example that you see on the internet “Wenger is not interested in winning, just lining the board’s pockets”.
    A quick look at the financial statements which is open to the public shows otherwise.
    It is so simple, and yet such thoughts are so prevalent. When a guy like Ian Wright can say “where is all the $$ going”, you know this movement is real. Sure Wrighty isn’t an accountant, but it is quite simple really.
    Point is Wright is 1)Clearly an Arsenal Fan 2)Cares for the club 3)Has a different opinion from Wenger 4)Willing to buy into any BS as long as it supports point 3.
    And the last part is basically the AAA movement, and it is a movement because there are hell lot of people like this out there and newspapers will always exploit it to the fullest.

    Finally to be fair, yes Untold at times is paranoid as well. I mean if someone can think that there is a conspiracy to deliberately injure ALL our fullbacks….

  36. This whole BS about socialist model is deliberate rubbish from Wenger to distract the public from some relatively poor results lately.
    Why pay Chamakh 60k a week? Because he is a double Lige 1 winner morons!

  37. @Black Hei: it’s called a gamble that we have seen him to do so successfully over his tenure.
    When u put money oh a horse that loses do u get angry about it all year or do u learn from
    That error and do better next time? Especially since ‘you’ have been so good at it for years!
    Every manager makes bad buys as do we all in our fields of work, so to speak
    No ones infallible.
    Brian lsudrup bought Michu and a great buy it was, but does that make him excellent talent spotter? He might be shit after Xmas then will he be a good buy?
    Arshavin came to us and lit up the league, now he is shit so is it AW fault? Chamack started on fire to but he turned shit, and that ladies and gents is the difference. You can see how good and talented someone is, but you can’t see how their attitude will change (in England) when they lose form/injury and that is the other gamble as well as playing to their best..,
    On my old 3g iPhone (8gb!!!) in 30+ heat (43 other day!) so parden my typos etc..

  38. “So why cant these ‘fans’ just get on baord for the season and support all the time, then vent at the end, becuase ‘what could happen’ if we all supported as one all year round…
    All I know is that I will never say anythign bad about my team/club when they are half way through a campaign as it is jsut not productive no matter how cranky you or I get…”
    elkeino,
    Because some of us have been raised on the idea that blind loyalty is not healthy for either the person who feels and advocates it, nor is it healthy for the group or person in charge to be surrounded with yes men. Speaking and hearing constructive, heartfelt, well-intended truths allows a situation – like in the January transfer window – to be improved mid-course. Not to have to wait until the end of the season – when an opinion or analysis is too late to make a difference. The fact that this is not common sense to you is part of the explanation as to why there is a division amongst those who love Arsenal. It’s not that some love Arsenal and the rest hate Arsenal. You are advocating absolute, eyes wide shut love; and others who love AFC do so with eyes wide open and care enough to think and feel and advocate changes of course that could help AFC flourish and better succeed. Out of love. Try to wrap your head around that, please, before you wonder why or advocate that “true fans” be silent and totally accepting. Some of us spend hard earned money to express that love as well. But it’s the love first and foremost.

  39. @elkieno
    My point is Chamakh isn’t some rubbish. He has a nice CV just like the much maligned Squillaci. Guys like them don’t come on cheap wages. CL experience, league winners, veteran, they tick all the boxes.
    It is the scouts that should get the hammering for this. What is good on paper might not be suitable for Arsenal. For Squillaci, his weakness was exposed in EPL but it is not something you can find out beforehand. But then these are expensive scouts so what the heck.
    For Chamakh, it was blatently obvious the minute he started for Arsenal. Good at attacking the final ball but poor touch, poor shooting and a link up style very unsuitable for Arsenal. ALL these, the scouts should have figured out.
    I think Wenger is a great manager; but scouts like Grimandi should be taken to the task.

  40. @bob: I make my comment (and stand by it) from the many, many thoughtless opinions that are floating around the Internet which we have all come across at some point.
    Maybe you can make a good argument for why this player and that player are not good enough. Maybe you can make a good argument as to why our Manager should go, after all its an opinion.
    But I am not really talking about you (if thats how you feel and thats how you express yourself).
    I am directing my comment to all the ‘impulse opinion givers’, to all those people that wished Rambo to break his leg again or Gervinho to fall over and hurt himself so he cant play and we have to get a replacement. To all those people who just blatantly and obviously repeat what they hear on MOTD or on TalkSprot and do not bother to find out if it is true or not. To all the people that would get my comment and then direct abuse and insults at me for simply nto agreeing with them, not toeing the line.
    Its a bit ironic how they (lack of better word, AAA) say that Bouldy is a yes man and was brought in just to say yes, as that is what some ex-player said so it must be true!
    Then when someone doesnt agree with their opinion and be a Yes Man, they give you all kinds of abuse, that to me is Irony!
    Anyway Bob, I dont for 1 second suggest that everyone shut up and save their words till the end of season, as that would not be productive too. I simply meant that all the anger and poison words can be left out of it, as that will not help anyone or anything regardless of when it is said, if it contains… I bet if the players were to hear some of the vile coming out of the ‘fans’ mouths, then that would defo not help and maybe even help push said player out the door?.
    Who knows, you and I surely don’t and we never will cos ‘fans’ will not stop abusing if we don’t win. I wonder how Eboue felt after the booing he got, professional or not it is still a bad thing when the poeple who should love you, actually hate you…

  42. For the record, I fully respect Wenger and wish he stays successfully in his job.

    I amnot linked to any so called AAA or,,, do not get paid from any one…

    I have written for Untold in the past and really like the discussion here, fully respect what Tony & Co are doing.

    I do not even visit negative blogs as they fill the mind with bullshit, and I don’t want to add another click to their numbers.

    But at the same time, I find it unhealthy to put names on people who don’t share your opinion. I find it paranoid to link the media with them. The press will say any thing that will sell. It’s their bloody job.

    I’ve lived in dictatorship countries, and using god-like names for their leaders while branding the opposition with derogative names I’d their tactics. Just think North Korea. I’m originally Iranian, and the above articles reads exactly like the Iranian state media. Swap Lord Wenger for “supreme leader” and call the AAA “the imperialistic satin”… And i get shivers.

    It’s OK if AW is just a human being. It’s all good if he is held responsible/accountable for his decisions & results. If not, what is the difference between him and Iran’s Supreme Leader, North Korean Dear Leader or the Sheikh of Saudi Arabia/Kuwait/Qatar/etc…

  43. @Sammy the snake, a very good comment. I do find it odd that Untold have this obsession with some fictitious body that has much corporeality as the AKBs. I have never seen any mention of any organization called the AAA except on this site and I do visit other Arsenal blogs. In fact the term AKB is widely used but I don’t think there is a group that campaigns under that umbrella.

    This AAA concept smacks of a desperate attempt by Tony and co. to label anyone who disagrees with how they think Arsenal should be run as some sort of terrorist group that has only one aim, to destroy Arsenal. I think those people are better known as Spurs fans.

    As for the media if you’re naive enough to believe what you read in the papers then you deserve to be hoodwinked. When I ran a record label many years ago my partner and I were interviewed by Melody Maker and what appeared in print was a little awry from what was actually said. So this is a common trait across any sort of media.

  44. Football is like any other sport where a league is the prize, in that clubs have peaks and troughs. Arsenal FC has 13 league titles, the 3rd highest and We have 10 FA Cups, 2nd highest.
    We got this because we are a great club and a successfull club, but if you divide 13 into 125 (years) then you will get a league trophy every 10 years or so, for a fan to know this it is imperative. A bit of perspective is in order I think.
    When a new iPhone/iPad comes out people flock to the doors of apple and camp out for days just to get in and be first to own it even tho a lot of us think it’s ridiculous.
    So nevermind the fact that if they wait a really short while they will get one sent to them even. They won’t have to wait in line in the cold etc. It is impatience that people just can’t wait they want it now, now and NOW!
    Now I feel a lot of us fans (not just AFC) act in almost the exact same way. It’s a selfish world and everyone only cares bout how they feel and what they want.
    “Billy blogs is a UTD fan and he gets to celebrate trophies, why can’t I? It’s cos of this, this, this and that. Sack our manager like other clubs do (they forget how crap the replacement was after honeymoons over) get rid of the ‘deadwood’ and on and on.
    I know that in real life no one wins all the time (unless your SAF and others help you) hell even UTD fans are not happy with their team, the love the Dutch skunk but not much else gives them a hard-on bout the team yet they sit prety on top. The fact is that we have all types of fans some are reasonable, some hardcore, some day trippers etc.
    We will never get away from it now as we are in the modern world and that’s how the modern fans are..

  45. I used to go to many raves whe young and we had a name for all the young teen girls who would go wearing kids cartoon labelled clothes like here on Oz we have ‘bananas in pyjamas’. Anyway we coined a name for them ‘teeny boppers’ now they didn’t call themselves that we did, it’s a quick wat to identify them so we all know who we talking bout. So what’s the differnce between the AAA and teeny boppers? Nothing probably still young whiners.
    Thus siteus called Untold cos it has never been told before, what if Tony is right and rags are in cahoots with them to make trouble? You don’t know and I don’t, but the AA/ are not dumb and if they have an agenda to get AW out and the papers want it to happpeb for the stories they will make , then you know ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ it doesn’t take much to actually think it’s possible, what other reason do they have in destabilizing us?
    Over the years I have noticed that many bloggers write for other sites, so again it’s possible that they are working together for a common goal but for different reasons.
    Don’t just close your eyes to this and say ridiculous, nothing is to far out in our world.

  46. @elkieno, teeny boppers was hardly a creation by your good self. It’s a term that’s been used for years, probably since the fifties. It’s also been use in the media for years. I’ve never seen any mention of the AAA anywhere but on this site.

    Let’s have evidence of this evil AAA empire Tony writes about otherwise he’s no better than the so called bias media he rails against.

    This site is guilty of assuming things just like newspapers. For example that headline by Cameron suggesting that Wenger would have asked for a replay against Mansfield if an Arsenal player had scored a goal with his hand. Pure supposition.

  47. Maybe Tony invented and suggested the financial meltdown and problems at Glasgow Rangers and it is all part of his imagination because there are no problems at GL….oh wait a minute… oops.

    Tony wrote about it (Glasgow Rangers) as one of the only person about this before it happened.

  48. @Walter, so that proves the AAA exists does it? That’s a really superb example of illogical thinking.

    I think Tony knows the AAA doesn’t exist, he just likes a scapegoat for Arsenal’s rather average performances in recent years. Deflect attention from the obvious failings at AFC. It’s an old trick employed by desperate politicians.

  49. Well rupert, I thnk tony’s been called an akb so long he just had to find a retort. Unfortunately aaa doesn’t seem to be catching on fast enough. And like I said, UA shouldn’t be talking about the press being bias liars, UA has proved itself to be quite adept in the bias/lying game too, re: d rvp message denial, the protest numbers denial

  50. Well rupert, I thnk tony’s been called an akb so long he just had to find a retort. Unfortunately aaa doesn’t seem to be catching on fast enough. And like I said, UA shouldn’t be talking about the press being bias liars, UA has proved itself to be quite adept in the bias/lying game too, re: d rvp message denial, the protest numbers denial
    And I’m a lil disappointed you’ve changed your motto. “Supporting the lord wenger in all that he does” was really classic. Please do consider leaving this obsession with the aaa and return to that motto

  51. My oh my…aren’t we all having a field-day calling each other fictitious names and ranting about being paranoid! Here are the basic facts:

    1)AAA is a term coined by Tony and Walter and is,was and will continue to be used to refer to those small number of disgruntled fans who prefer to take a negative,hypercritical view of everything ARSENAL and Arsene-related rather than try and find a rational explanation based on actual facts. Many but not all of its members reside on LeGrove’s site. It is simply a herding of like minded critics, not a secret handshake society seeking the downfall of the Club.These people consider themselves as true supporters, and they are in fact just so.

    2)The media have collectively jumped on various ¨trends¨ among Arsenal fans that are controversial, exaggerated and bad-news oriented in order to try and ¨align¨their reports to the supposed majority feelings among said supporters. Their attempts have nothing to do with the reality of the situation, which changes with every win, tie or loss the Club incur.

    3) Former players and well-known Club celebrities (ex-managers) have contributed to this pessimistic and demeaning trend by a minority of so-called fans, by making outlandish statements about Wenger and the Board, as well as some players. This adds only marginal ¨credibility¨ and is a little narcissistic but swerves the yellow media perfectly. They wouldn’t dare do this if it was SAF and United.

    4) In the current climate of knee-jerk, pessimistic entitlement and hyperbole that seems to permeate every discussion about AFC, the claims and opinions of the adversaries are professed as ¨fact¨ and irrefutable evidence of their chosen positions. The very concept of AKB,AAA,anti-Wengerites and so on serves only to harden the divide between supporters….and subsequently delegitimize their arguments.

    5)While all this transpires, there is an assumption (usually proven wrong) that Wenger and the Board don’t give a damn about what the fans want or think and that Wenger is all powerful, almost infallible and certainly totally responsible for our current ¨plight¨ or success…depending on your point of view. While we can’t be 100% certain that Wenger and the Board truly care about the supporters, evidence so far suggests that they are sensitive to the disgruntled and uneasy comments wafting up, like rancid odours, from we, the unwashed masses. That said, they seem preoccupied with getting on with their business and rarely seem to take anything in the media or from us, seriously. That’s probably a good thing considering how dichotomous it all is.

    6)It is irrational to deny that Arsenal seem to be one of the favourite whipping boys in the media and it could be because Wenger, like Mancini and Benitez are foreigners…or because(more likely explanation) ragging on Wenger and company draws better readership than deriding Redknapp, Rodgers or Allardyce. One figure we won’t see denigrated very often is SAF…..he holds the whip not the other way around!

    A lengthy post but one from a person who will not likely ever get to see his favourite Football team live so the internecine strife currently in vogue at Arsenal, in some way mystifies me. Its like a civil war or family feud that never seems to end. I guess its all ab out the bragging rights the ¨I told you so¨ winners desperately seek.

  52. These discussions are healthy in a family, as long as both sides keep respect for the other side and we all truly support AFC… Not special interests.

  53. On the Arsenal website our goaly points out that we are on a six match streak without a loss.

    This is quite good!

    You wouldn’t think it was the case from the press coverage.

  55. @Domhuail:
    Hats off to you…Credit where credit is due, that was great an opinion which I really wish everyone could read. Sadly though there are some people who would prefer to just argue agaisnt you, just for the sake of arguing. It seems a lot of it goes on with any article, opinion on any site. There is always someone who wants to argue back, why is that?
    @Rupert (way back) re: the teeny bopper comment, you get my drift I hope. Sad, just one more time in my life where you think you invented some cool term, or heard a song that you loved only to find out your Dad laughs and says, ‘ha, I knew that song ages ago”, its a cover!
    City with a thing squad, I hope Giroud is fit, this is Theo real time to say I can do it. Whats the bet if he has a shit game he will sign on. Has a belter of a game, scores a hat-trick, he wont.

  56. @american gooner, that’s the press for you. You learn to read how stories are presented. A sharp mind soon sees through the nonsense. I have no idea how many Arsenal fans want Wenger to go but I have read a lot of Arsenal blogs and there is a genuine feeling of dissatisfaction but that doesn’t mean that the majority want Wenger out.

    @elkieno, are you having a dig at my age? 🙂

  57. you have to look at how the news is presented. the survey was taken among BSM members but the headline mentions majority. so equating majority with a section of fanbase is inappropriate and narrow, and shows it was purely written for sensationalism.

  58. @Rupert
    I’m amazed at your denial on the existence of AAA. Wenger had been quoted extensively these past seasons with quotes to the effect like “Theo is better than Messi”, “Denilson is a world class player”, “I change my thought on transfers every other day…” et al. Which freaking tw*t would utter such tosh so consistently? Then it dawned on me that the press AAA in disguise and made that all up to get readership.

    Was in Beijing last week and had a drink with a Chinese Arsenal fan. He asked about the ‘Lord’ thingy in UA and what it meant. Not to misled him, I explained that the ‘Lord’ referred to God and the like, and trusting and believing in him ensured that he will be saved. He nodded and replied “Yes.. I understand now. Something like Mao”. After which, I had a few free rounds.

  59. Well AAA a lot of you around, Money talks bull shit walks if you can not afford a lollipop suck a dick.Period i pay a lot of money to watch Arsenal on TV if i don’t pay i don’t watch what the heck. Wenger stays if you don’t want him support Bradford, Manure a lots of them around.
    Gives us a break and lets teach city a few lessons today. Lets go GUNNERS.
    IN WENGER WE TRUST

  62. Kampala:

    Perhaps you should give it a rest from posting. Proper fans think you’re a bit silly.

  63. @Doublegooner who a proper fans??Those who wish us to be relegated,those who want us to finish outside the top four or those of us who want our team to be in the best top four clubs of the world as it is today?

  64. Doublegooner,

    I must say you were very diplomatic in your response to Kampala. His rants are terribly dreary and I’m surprised that neither Tony or Walter have admonished him about his obsession with swearing, and / or male body parts.

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