By Tony Attwood
But life goes on, there’s still hope (although less than there would have been had we won 4-0), and there’s a weekend to look forward to. Man U away. No problem.
I’ve done so many hundreds journeys back to my home along the M1 after matches, through countless lane closures and at times even road closures that one gets used to it, and at least the midnight news on Radio 4 reduces European football to just reading out the result. And so life goes on.
But what strikes me so strongly these days, and it strikes me over and over again, is the inclination of many commentators to reduce incredibly complex situations to something simple. Fix this, and all will be fine. Get a new manager / coach and we’ll at last train the players properly, buy the right players in the transfer windows and the owner will jolly well allow the manager to have as much as he likes, the because the new man is bound to get it right because he’s not Wenger. Ah well. If only life were that simple.
And yet it could be said that is exactly what it is like everywhere. Take politics. Get rid of May, with that buffoon Johnson, that one-thing-at-a-time Gove and the out-of-her-depth Rudd and things will be ok. But even I with my strong left wing convictions don’t think that. Getting rid is just part one; the next bit is the hard bit: having a government to sort out a diabolical reality while taking on such enormously powerful vested interests (the media, the 1% who own 99% of the country, the corporations etc). So great is the challenge that it might not all work out in the end.
With Arsenal the vested interests are also there: the ownership of Arsenal, the secretive PGMO, the incompetent FA, the impact of leaving the EU, the reputation for having a horribly negative support… And that is before we come to the fact that the rest of the world won’t just see our negotiating team appearing on the horizon and welcome them in like the cavalry coming to the rescue.
I thought on all this, meandering at 5 miles and hour along the single lane M1 last night, and was reminded of it this morning with a comment that I saw on Untold to the effect that the reason why we failed to win handsomely last night was simple. And then in looking through the comments that were made during and after the game I noticed a double thread. One saying, in essence, “it is simple we can’t defend” or blaming one player or some other one dimensional failing, and others saying “stop blaming the referee.”
The fact is that if Arsenal don’t get through next week it will be because of multiple reasons, and although some of them are bigger than others, not all of them are going to be under the new manager’s control next season.
Now that fairly obvious, and yet it never seems to be considered. It might be true that there are some brilliant managers out there who could go to any club and make them much better than they already are, but ultimately without vast sums of money, and without the willingness of players to come and play for their club, they are not going to have that success at the highest level.
Or take the refereeing situation: “stop blaming the referee every time something goes wrong” is a foolish comment at many levels not least because no one does blame the ref for each and every goal scored against us. But there are occasions on which the refereeing does look, what shall I say, how about “strange,” and nothing can be investigated about such strangeness because the PGMO acts like no other top level football refereeing organisation in Europe. (Likewise Fifa and the way it acts, and the way the media give them leeway when it comes to the occasional jamboree in the summer. It is not that the wrong questions are asked; mostly it is that no questions are asked.
The issue in the end is not that quite a few people think that some referees may be biased, not that Arsenal are never coached in defending, not that Wenger is the only top level manager who doesn’t know how to reform a team that is failing, nor that we have an owner who won’t put his own money into the club, nor that we have a large number of people who identify themselves as fans and then spend a lot of time attacking the club’s management and players… it is none of those single issues.
It is very complex in itself and the debate is hindered by the fact that football debates are primarily by people who believe in simple, single issues. Like the forlorn lady in a crumbling relationship who says, “If only he’d marry me, everything would be all right,” or the employee who seriously believes that his boss is the most appalling, disgraceful, inept, unfair, bullying, hopeless boss in the kingdom, and if only he could leave and get another job everything would be fine.
Maybe very, very occasionally each can be right, but 99.9999% of the time if such single-issue people do find themselves in another situation that is just as bad. Life is complex. Football is complex. And that is just the stepping stone on which one must tread even before the debate gets underway.
- EL Arsenal – Atletico Madrid : 1-1
- Arsenal vs Atlético Madrid: the team news and a lovely video about Costa
- “No pollution. Until the press conference starts.” A. Wenger.
When you really start to look, its so complex, no human could ever truly write or explain what is actually going on. Because everything that ever was, is also playing out at that moment.When we read a book(for example), it isnt just a book, its all that it ever was in previous forms, wood, sun, rain, snow, pollution, Caxton, system and frustration of all historical thought leading to alphabets, the history of domination and the rise of the subjected and then the playing out of those alphabets and into system of belief, disbelief,we could even go back to the first moment of life, and then before our comprehension, the pre consciousness that was playing out, until we come to what we think is a stagnant moment-reading the book. But the mind tricks us, a) saying the book is other, and b) its only a book. These are psychotic states of mind.
Footballs the same. People even laugh when the pompously say the blue kit doesnt affect anything . How not? You play three games in a kit you hate it and the curse of the blue kit arises and everyone wont touch it, or feels restricted by it. Ok why did we wear the yellow kit in 79? Because we won in 71 and lost in 72 wearing the red kit. Why was the tunnel end at Wembley called the lucky end for years. Because the team whose fans were at that end were the winners for years on end.Until in the end a team whose fans were at the other end won.So much for the abstarct idea of luck.
There is no luck, its either cause and affect (the play of will and split second play of physics), reaction to reaction)or divine intervention?
Mustafi slipped, but what caused that? His bodily adaptation meeting the grass, the realtionship of his studs to the grass compunds and a watery surface, plus is psychological state at that moment( almost certainly fear) plus the weather(and all its massive complexities), plus his response to the growing anxiety of the people in the crowd, and the hopefulness of the Madrid fans.Plus more, and the endless chemical changes in the body to the brain in that split second and his reactions to Kos and Ospina—but its endless…and still going on now. That moment (and its affects)are still being played out, the world over now, and now and now. Do you see that energy(it whatever manifested form) cannot be destroyed it just plays out on and on and on and on and on. No? Then why are we talking about it? And it cant go away, as its now part of history, until all things change forms and then it will still be there, just in another form. It wont ever be nothing, as it cant be.
Gf60 said it best once, a man whose watched AFC since 1947: watching Arsenal is like a rollercoaster.
The delusion that Arsenal were even Unbeatable isnt true and what leads us up the garden path again. They were very much Beatable,(and were so in three cup competitions in that season) even if sadly,the amazing run it was ended in a Mephistophelian way. In the moment rising all are beatable.Where the Unbeatable rises the Beatable rises. Point is to not get involved in this language or system in the first place.
What I hope is that now that AW instilled some virtues and systems that others will add to them by stepping up to the next level, but it will mean the ghosts of Dial Sq, of the 78,80 Cup finals, the losses at York, Oxford, Pizzagate, 2011, the CL final game 50( beyond all Arsenal prior thinking, regardless of GG) and all the “bad” moments before my time will always be with us.You can not wipe the slate clean while living in a dualistic system, and the ego will not allow any other understanding of non dualistic systems in. You have to bugger off to the Lamas to get that one, and they are talking, because they know that very few can go that way without catastrophic on-going actions.
Tom Waits` side look to be in a good position. But who can tell? It doesn’t look good at all to Old Toilet ( 8-2 be an Arsenal fan?) but what will the reaction be then in the second leg? Costa might be there, but so will Mhki, maybe. We missed him last night..(?) but getting thrashed at the ManUre field might be the reaction we need? Or it might be a step too far, you can psychologically only get out of shame by anger( as the Wob know) but after that hope turns up, and then…?
Also why are we so frightened of AM? Most fans were last night, then we saw that the Gunners rose to the occasion, and panicked when coolness was needed.Perhaps the panic was also coming from needing the second/third goal-there was massive pressure and frustration the more we attacked, just before their goal? Do you not see we can go to Madrid and win? Its not out of our thinking anymore, AWs side broke into new pastures years ago. Perhaps a new manager will take things even further, and we will all enjoy that, including AW?
To say the ref is not partly to be blamed is falling a bit short. Of course he is a massive part of every moment in a game. But what isnt a part of things, starting from before our idea of time, coming to that moment? Everyone’s to blame, but only for their ongoing part in a stream of massive misunderstanding. Go try to figure the Ur- point when things started or how things started, then single out blame as a individual force,standing alone. Individual force stands, even if its a psychotic state, but not alone. But the system isnt what the Commies thought either. Where can we find the original point? Certainly there’s no original fan.Some who play systems of seemingly more interest and commitment than others. Wenger can claim to be more involved than they are, which is ironic. As for “real “fans”, that’s bullshit too. Not just on the level that by scientific analysis we find that we aren’t what we think we are. We are real( this is no illusion, as anyone whose been smacked in the face knows) but its not really real.
One thing for sure, “it is as it is” is actually “it isnt as it isnt”?
You cannot create polarities like banners and protests and fly overs without accepting your part of being the problem, some think they are not part of things or that they are part of the problem itself ( this isnt just a symptom of football, but all life). Again a psychotic state. Its a gamble to expect a protest to make a positive claim by the basis of criticism. How do you know that a) its the tonic/elixir b)not going to have an adverse affect. That’s irresponsible, but that is the world we live in. But to create a polarity and not take responsibility for its on-going affect means what? Its an important question?
One thing we we witness is that Wenger will be blamed until they change consciousness(pop heir cloggs), its the law of phenomena rising, and the lie that AW was their start of understanding of AFC.But equally another fan from another time of earlier personal Arsenal conditioning and experiences(psychotically mistaken as being permanent and unchanging) will be of (possibly)equally condemning of those they saw as being in the way of their prize: the elative lie of being a winner. There can be no winner without a loser, both support each other, to create the construct. Your tears of joy will always, eventually become tears of sadness. How can you know one without the other? That’s why we need sportspersonship, not the fascism of the winner? I know this will not register with those who thirst for using AFC as a way of covering the deep lack they feel in themselves. Its something we all do, as we all feel inadequate, one way or another,and use something to lift ourselves. But anything in duality will always cause more pain.And we all feel it.
Arsenal were really good last night, but so were Madrid, they defended well. We attacked well, and defended badly for one moment. They defended well, but in one moment they didnt and attacked well once. Should have , could have—the echo of Superposition plays off for a long while.
As Tony wrote, its complex, more compley than we can ever write or think about but we can see it, and do every day. Compassion is the medicine of all life, its the thing that conects and doesnt add to the false notion of alienation. We are all hyporcites, how can we not be sooner or alter ina a dualistic sytsem, but compassion means undertanding, and a way out of feeling shame, and a way of feeling better with one another. we all have fear of the medicine, and we all need it.
Who knows?
COYG!
The relative low Title wins success by Arsenal FC that has seen the club missed out on major domestic and European Titles win in the last 14 seasons under the watch of the outgoing Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger which has forced him out of his Arsenal manager job untimely through the pressures mounted on him by a large disgruntled Arsenal supporters. But which in perspective bothered mainly on lack of sufficient mega spending to sign world class players by the club for the Gunners adequately to match Arsenal Title rival club sides to be contending favourably for the PL and CL Titles win seasonally. But nonetheless, he has succeeded to guide the club to 7 FA Cup Titles.
Nevertheless, the problem that hunted and forced Arsene Wenger out of Arsenal FC this season could descend on Stan Kroenke, the AFC majority shareholder to hunt him and force him out of Arsenal too if he continues in his close fisted habit of not wanting to inject some of his personal fortune money into Arsenal FC to enabled the club sign more top quality players for the Gunners next summer window by the new Arsenal manager. Say, make available £200m to him for his summer signings out of which he should recoup a sizable chunk of the £200m back to the club through the envisioned clearout of some Gunners in the summer.
Kenneth Widmerpool
Fantastic post.
Did you see the article in the blog football is fixed. It explains how Arsenal have been screwed by Riley and the media well worth the read.
https://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/
The BBC, dear old Aunty Bleeb, they have a headline:
“Draw worst possible result for Arsenal”
It’s pure Partridge! Slapstick. The writer was most likely gurning in front of a full length mirror whilst gyrating in his leather undies.
It’s a direct quote from Arsene’s post match interview on BT Sport.
Yeah we saw the interview. And the context for the sentence ( afootbalk match – most reviews give you the timings of the goals scored).
Doesn’t make the headline any less comical. Perhaps the joke is on you?
Cheers mate.
How some react whenever AFC concede a goal, draw a game of football etc.:
https://youtu.be/eOQIMOcEVc4
I mention no names. But the fans of Alan Partdrige, AFTV etc are easy to spot.
😉
How you guys can’t see that Welbeck made a stupid attempt at diving when faced with 2 Athletics defenders is baffling.
The ref had a descent match, don’t see how he affected the result of the match. Gave them a deserved Red and wasn’t In anyway cajoled into giving an Arsenal player a yellow even when Lacazette dived.
So let’s call a spade a spade, we were at fault at the back for conceding such a horrible goal,not the ref. Griezmann was at fault for our goal as much as Welbeck was at fault for theirs.
We still in it, just need to score over the, which as daunting as it looks, is very possible.
We move
Wednesday, 25 April 2018
A Real Legacy And A Tribute To Arsene Wenger
Plus ça change, plus c’est pas la même chose.
There are few islets of integrity left in the ocean of omerta that is the Premier League and one of these rocky outcrops will disappear beneath the tsunami of corruption at the conclusion of this season when Arsene Wenger leaves Arsenal.
Historically.
Arsenal have not orchestrated any of the wide range of matchfixing matrices utilised by other EPL teams to enhance earnings away from taxing eyes.
Arsenal have avoided overly close ties with the bookmaking industry and have not allowed criminalised football agents to take control of the club.
Arsenal instead employed marginal gains years before the Team Sky cycling team pushed such nudge edge beyond legal boundaries and when other EPL teams were medieval in their strategic sophistication.
As Arsenal were a talented and largely legitimate team and because Wenger refused to allow betting markets to influence match outcomes, the club and the manager were ostracised by the murkier areas of the industry sector.
The mainstream media have systemically slaughtered Wenger at any opportunity.
And not just some mainstream media but all.
We quote an investigative journalist from a UK national broadsheet:
FOOTBALL is FIXED
@footballisfixed
Anonymised MSM journalist:
“UK Football journalists prefer (a) not to rock the boat (b) not to bite the hand that feeds them, and (c) like to make damn sure they are all telling the same story… Like royal reporters, they work as a pack and their aim is to promote the product.”
11:54 AM – Feb 22, 2018
75
60 people are talking about this
Twitter Ads info and privacy
We don’t expect reality from the 4th Estate so this message that football journalists are merely PR merchants is hardly surprising.
But we do expect integrity in the officiating of Premier League matches…
… and Arsenal have suffered immensely from the systemic and particular corruptions against their interests under Wenger.
The issue of Mike Dean has been aired on this blog since 2006:
2005 – banned for supplying info to Arbitros – a tipping firm
2006 – removed from FA Cup Final over concerns of bias towards Liverpool
2006 – extreme bias against Arsenal and Wenger initiated
2008 – officiated most fixed final of recent years with Harry Redknapp victorious
2015 – Arsenal fans try to petition parliament over Dean
2016 – moved house so he could referee Liverpool and Everton games
2017 – suspicious betting patterns on Liverpool and Everton matches under Dean (as both referee and 4th official)
2018 – SE Asian bookmaker links exposed and PGMOB exclude Dean from future matches involving Merseyside teams following revelations by Football is Fixed
But the abuse spreads further.
Firstly, let’s compare Ferguson and Wenger.
Arsenal have been denied silverware by rogue referees while Ferguson was handed trophies by the very same officials – both systemically following the 1-6 reverse to Manchester City and particularly as in the refereeing of Peter Walton (https://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/manchester-united-premier-league.html) and (https://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/peter-walton-is-red-bastard.html).
Secondly, the corruptions against Arsenal spread back to the beginning of this blog in 2006 but let’s just focus on the last five years.
The Football is Fixed network includes several market professionals.
We have developed an array of neural network-based tools over the last decade and a half to analyse and predict corruptions orchestrated by match officials in the EPL (and other leagues).
We now possess high level artificial intelligence (AI) machine learning algorithmic analytics of corrupt infrastructures.
We use these neural networks to predict bias in the Premier League.
The data below is compiled by 5 analysts/brokers/market-makers and measures the ‘real’ bias for/against each Premier League team using 26 different weighted inputs.
A positive reading is indicative of bias in favour of a team over the season while a negative figure suggests otherwise. The higher the figure, the greater the bias.
Over the last five years up to but not including the weekend of April 21st/22nd 2018, this is what we have found for all clubs who have resided in the EPL for at least three of these seasons:
1. Leicester City +38.5 (including +30.0 in title winning season)
2. Tottenham Hotspur +28.0
3. Crystal Palace +22.0 (receiving the most favours this season at +10.5)
4. Manchester United +9.0
5. Liverpool +7.5
6. Chelsea +5.0
7. Everton +3.0
8. Southampton +2.5
9. Bournemouth +2.0
10. Swansea City and Stoke City +0.5
12. Manchester City -1.0
13. Sunderland -7.5
14. Burnley -10.0
15. Watford -11.0
16. Aston Villa -12.5
17. West Bromwich Albion -14.5
18. Arsenal -28.0
19. Newcastle United -28.5
20. West Ham United -32.5 (largely via the targeting of Slaven Bilic)
21. Hull City -39.0
To put this chart into comparative words, for example, Arsenal experiencing -28.0 over the last five seasons while their neighbours Tottenham Hotspur have received a +28.0 rating equates to a 56.0 differential in major match decisions (penalties and red cards, given correctly, given incorrectly, not given correctly and not given incorrectly) for Spurs over the Gunners.
That’s a lot of points per season on average!
And it is not just Arsenal that suffer the Wrath of Riley’s Referees.
If we look at the bias chart for all teams that have competed in both of the last two seasons since the arrival of Pep Guardiola at Manchester City up to (but not including) the weekend of April 21st/22nd 2018, this is what we see:
1. Tottenham Hotspur +21.5
2. Crystal Palace +12.5
3. Leicester City and Everton +12.0
5. Bournemouth +8.5
6. Manchester United +4.5
7. Southampton +1.5
8. Swansea City +1.0
9. Chelsea 0.0
10. West Bromwich Albion -1.0
11. Stoke City -1.5
12. Liverpool -5.0
13. Arsenal and Watford -6.0
15. Burnley -8.5
16. Manchester City -14.0
17. West Ham United -26.0
An interesting comparison to Wenger is the creation of a legacy for that serial failure Roy Hodgson.
When Hodgson succeeds in keeping Crystal Palace in the Premier League this season, there will be a co-ordinated mainstream media campaign about his three successful relegation fights at Fulham, West Bromwich Albion and Palace and how these successes obliterate memories of his less stellar performances at Liverpool and England.
Hodgson only kept Fulham in the Premier League via a matchfixing event at Portsmouth on the last day of the season…
Prior to Hodgson taking over WBA they had benefitted from 0 red cards/penalties while having 7 against. After Hodgson’s appointment, there were 4 red cards/penalties in favour and 1 against…
And Crystal Palace this season have been given the most positive bias from PGMOB officials as well as those suspicions of doping following the November international break…
And yet the mainstream media turn Hodgson The Failure into Hodgson The Fake Hero and Wenger The Hero into an inappropriate Failure.
UK mainstream media football journalists are an inept bunch of acquiescent lackeys refracting truths through the lens of corruption.
_________________________________________________________________________________
The mainstream media were alarmed by the timing of the Arsene Wenger announcement that he is to stand down at the end of the current Premier League season.
Wenger’s statement was delivered less than a week after the Premier League announced that VAR will not be implemented next season.
Furthermore, because of the voting method employed by the Premier League, corrupt entities linked to mafia groups are able to block the future implementation of VAR ad nauseum.
FOOTBALL is FIXED
@footballisfixed
Arsene Wenger: “The referee is the referee, What you want is to help the referee. Unfortunately, the #PremierLeague has decided not to go for VAR. I think that is a very bad decision.”
“I believe, with that decision, we are behind the rest of the world.”
7:43 AM – Apr 16, 2018
30
See FOOTBALL is FIXED’s other Tweets
Twitter Ads info and privacy
The captured mainstream media needed to spin a narrative that didn’t link Wenger’s resignation to referee corruption.
We are currently running a poll on Twitter to see what the fans think about the real reasons for Wenger’s sudden departure after 22 years managing Arsenal.
The mainstream media narratives of fan disgruntlement and forces from above (both pedalled without any evidence) are not gaining traction which, presumably, is why the msm are now burying Wenger as quickly as possible.
FOOTBALL is FIXED
@footballisfixed
First the media tried to say Wenger resigned due to fear of the sack but there was no evidence of that.
Then the media said he left #Arsenal because of some fans but that was made up.
We think he’d had enough of biased media, corrupt refs & the lack of #VAR.
What do you think?
5:32 PM – Apr 23, 2018
44%Corrupt Referees/No VAR
16%Biased Media
20%Threat of the Sack
20%Behaviour of Some Fans
368 votes • Final results
11
20 people are talking about this
Twitter Ads info and privacy
Corrupt entities associated with the PGMOB ensured that VAR failed in the eyes of the public during the trials this season in the FA Cup and Carabao Cup.
But the problem is not the technology but the implementation.
VAR has been used 18 times to date.
Neil Swarbrick and Andre Marriner have been present as referee, 4th official or VAR at 14 of those games, sometimes both officiating on the same event.
Eight of these 18 matches have had ‘VAR controversies’, 7 of them involving either Swarbrick or Marriner.
Bad workmen shouldn’t blame their tools, Kipper Riley!
FOOTBALL is FIXED
@footballisfixed
VAR will not reduce matchfixing without:
1) managerial reviews of decisions (as in tennis & cricket) &
2) referee & VAR on open microphone so we can hear how the decision is reached (as in rugby & cricket).
Otherwise it is a scam – an attempt to validate the corruption.#LIVWBA
9:37 PM – Jan 27, 2018
127
79 people are talking about this
Twitter Ads info and privacy
In other leagues the experience of VAR has been different.
In the Bundesliga, all 18 clubs unanimously voted to keep VAR following first season in Germany.
In Italy, Marcello Nicchi (president of the Italian referees association) stated at mid-season: “The VAR is working well and it will get better in the coming months.”
In Italy’s Serie A, “VAR has reduced result-changing errors from one in every three games to one in every 20 games” – Paddy Agnew (World Soccer Magazine).
Excellent.
But other leagues don’t have small scale criminals scribbling dodgy bent offside lines on our tv screens and other leagues don’t have the likes of Swarbrick and Marriner.
_________________________________________________________________________________
If referees hadn’t been biased against Arsenal in the first place…
If there had been a structure in place for Wenger to complain about corrupted refereeing…
If Arsenal had won cups and titles wrongfully stolen from them by Dean and PGMOB…
If systemic bias hadn’t been shown to Leicester City and Tottenham Hostpur (Gary Lineker is a powerful man!) preventing Arsenal winning a recent EPL title…
If Arsenal TV had never been formed because there was no anti-Wenger corruption…
If the mainstream media wasn’t peopled by drongos umbilically tied to mafia entities undertaking matchfixing…
If the Premier League was a football league as opposed to the world’s biggest matchfixing betting medium…
Then Wenger wouldn’t be going, he would be being lauded for everything he has brought and would have continued to bring to the English game. His legacy would have been as great as Ferguson’s only with more legitimacy.
Instead various mafia are circling around Arsenal trying to get their man in the pivotal managerial hot seat.
Arsenal TV and their ilk should have been careful what they wished for.