By Bulldog Drummond
The BBC is showing itself to be at its worst in its preview of this game saying, “Arsenal kind of reverted to type in their defeat by Crystal Palace on Monday because they didn’t just lose, they got taken apart.”
“Reverted to type,” indeed. And what is exactly is Arsenal’s “type”. Here is the league table for the last 26 games, which is a period long enough to give us the current “type”.
| H | O | M | E | A | W | A | Y | ||||||||||
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |||
| 1 | Manchester City | 26 | 9 | 1 | 2 | 30 | 10 | 11 | 3 | 0 | 29 | 7 | 42 | 64 | |||
| 2 | Liverpool | 26 | 11 | 2 | 0 | 36 | 6 | 8 | 3 | 2 | 32 | 13 | 49 | 62 | |||
| 3 | Arsenal | 26 | 10 | 2 | 2 | 24 | 10 | 7 | 1 | 4 | 20 | 15 | 19 | 54 | |||
| 4 | Chelsea | 26 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 26 | 14 | 9 | 2 | 2 | 26 | 8 | 30 | 52 | |||
| 5 | Wolverhampton Wand | 26 | 7 | 2 | 4 | 18 | 12 | 7 | 2 | 4 | 13 | 10 | 9 | 46 |
Of course, it is not the first time we have had to deal with nonsense like this. We’ve looked at it from different angles in articles such as Nothing is gained by teaching a parrot a new word and Outrageous attack on Arsenal as recent games. Then again we had Are really Arsenal in as bad a state as the Mirror suggests? not to mention Are the media trying to unsettle Saka and force a transfer?
Arsenal’s “type” as the BBC put it, is seen statistically from the fact that across the last 26 games Arsenal are the third best team in the league, two points ahead of the fourth club, eight points ahead of the fifth. Funny the BBC didn’t notice, especially as a little later they say, “Arsenal have suffered two defeats in three league games after a run of one loss in 11 (W9, D1).” And again elsewhere, “The Gunners are undefeated in 14 Premier League home games against teams below them in the table (W10, D4).”
Or yet again, “Arsenal have lost one of their previous 28 top-flight games at 3pm on a Saturday (W23, D4).” That is three examples of “Arsenal’s type” to which the club seems to have “reverted”.
In effect, it is simply a mindless smear and a thoughtless sneer of the type that we see hour by hour, day by day. The most accurate comment would be that the BBC sports unit reverted to type in knocking Arsenal without any reference to the facts.
Still they do manage to admit that, “Brighton have won just three of their last 25 league games.” But I wonder if maybe the piece was written by two co-writers who didn’t quite get round to talking to each other – although more likely it was just a sub-editor who only has four headlines at his command and all four knock Arsenal.
Meanwhile, Swiss Ramble has by chance published its excellent (as always) review of Brighton and Hove’s accounts showing “another substantial loss” of £53m, though this was better than [the] prior year’s £67m. Revenue rose £19m (14%) from £133m to a club record £152m and profit on player sales increased £7m (£1m loss in the previous season), but expenses were £15m (7%) higher.”
So, they’ve got an owner who will pour money in, but even so… These figures were helped by broadcasting money deferred from the previous year, but hindered by a lack of income because of covid. Of course, it is nothing like Arsenal’s or Chelsea’s loss (£156m) (these being the top two loss-makers in the league for the last financial year) but even so, quite a hammering to take.
Especially as, by Swiss Ramble’s reckoning, they have lost almost a quarter of a billion pounds in ten years – something that cannot be sustainable without a Russian oligarch hiding under the bedclothes (or in a yacht, or most likely, both). Swiss Ramble’s conclusion is “gross debt increased by £68m from £306m to £374m, mainly from owner Tony Bloom in the shape of an interest-free, unsecured loan of £337m (up £33m in 2021). It also includes a £37m bank loan against future TV money (up £35m).” “Unsustainable” I think is the word.
So moving on what about a team prediction? Or failing that a score prediction.
The Standard could not muster up a team for Arsenal, but while the BBC goes for 2-0 to the Arsenal, the Standard is more miserly with 1-0.
Ramsdale;
Cedric, White, Gabriel, Tavares;
Xhaka, Lokonga;
Saka, Odegaard, Martinelli;
Lacazette
and they go for a 2-0 win as well.
Pain in the Arsenal have the same team and also go for 2-0. And this is pretty much the team that everyone is opting for, with the thought that Smith Rowe will come on as a sub just as the defence is tiring.
We’re all toddling off to the game from our hideaways in the East Midlands so that’s it from us for the moment. More either later today, or Sunday morning, depending on when we get back.
- Arsenal injuries, the size of the squad, and past matches against Brighton
- How Brighton can put in more tackles than Arsenal without having a foul called
In fairness Tony, irrespective of the BBC’s “slanted perception” of all things Arsenal, the inept ramblings you quote each weekend are those of Mark Lawrenson who was possibly the worst football pundit in MotD history.
As most of you will know, ‘Lawro’ is fondly referred to by the BBC as “the BBC’s football expert”. He is such an expert that in a competition between, commentators pundits etc to predict football results at the last world cup, of about 20 people he was solidly bottom of the table at the end of the competition.
What we have to remember about the “BBC’s football expert” is that his managerial career consisted of seven months at Oxford Utd during which he managed a pathetic four wins in 25 games and just over a year at Peterborough where he was sacked for managing just 25 wins in 64 games. So that’s an amazing management career with a 32.6% career win ratio which, by any standard, is not exactly what I’d call the sign of a “football expert” more that of a “football failure”.
The bloke is a clown masquerading as something everyone (except apparently the BBC) know he absolutely isn’t i.e. a “football expert”. This merely serves to underline the contempt the BBC shows towards football supporters across the country.
Of course to cap things, his absence of expertise is perhaps only better by his clear basis for and against certain teams.
Cue Dan to come and point out that the only reason Lawrenson and the BBC behave in this way is because on this website we call out the media for their biased opinions…….
line-up: i want rob!!
something like:
ramsdale
white-holding-gabriel-saka
lokonga-xhaka
martinelli-odegaard-smithrowe
lacazette
i won’t be watching, though
this is election time in france; i’ve been an activist for jean-luc mélenchon since 2010, and sunday we have a fair chance of kicking the far-right off the second round (and an outside chance of kicking macron off power altogether then)
anyway, important “eve of the great battle” meeting this afternoon; so i’ll be relying on the accurate comments of the “untold” regulars
COYG
@ LE GALL
Your party leader was and no matter what she says still is a Putin supporter.
True Leopards do not change their spots. Fake leopards do.
Charles, as anyone from this site who knows me will attest I am most certainly not a person who would ever vote for anyone in the centre let alone the far right, but simple assertion is always simple assertion, and never takes us forward a step. A minimal requirement would be evidence from a speech and a source.
Good morning Charles,
There is passion in your comment and as an activist AND a football fan, there’s no way I’ll be the one blaming you for that
I’ll do my best not to choke up this football blog with political considerations, but first I think that as an Arsenal fan and an Untold regular, you know how mainstream media can be relentlessly picking on those they have an agenda against, for whatever reason that may be.
Then on the Putin topic, this short video is the best summary I could find of Mélenchon’s past statements about Putin:
https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1497962705860415495/pu/vid/1280×720/W4_AwFXGhRH4n5U_.mp4?tag=12
Moreover, our current contact in Putin’s Russia is Alexey Sakhnin – you should take a look at his twitter account to check out what of relationship to Putin he’s been having (one of his videos introduced Mélenchon’s meeting in Lyon)
Finally, we have a 694-article platform dealing with democracy, institutions, justice, ecology, employment, wealth-sharing, education, equality and yes … geopolitics, our position being based on non-alignment and “a peace-aiming alter-globalization diplomacy” – don’t see what Putin and the likes of him would have to do with that. This platform is the reason why so many French people are about to vote for us.
Thanks for your answer (no irony, believe me, I like people who are passionate about politics, I’m just like Antonio Gramsci, “I hate the indifferent”)
Well off to my meeting now, have a nice game – the boys are going to make us proud
I do not keep copies of every newspaper page that I read.
There are I would think many reports of her visists to Putin and her favourable references to him not just the ones I have read.
I did a quick search. Here is a link to one I didn’t read. https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1592870/marine-le-pen-news-russian-money-france-elections-putin-macron-spt
Here is the link to the search page I took it from:
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=le+pen+borrows+money+from+putin&ia=web
Hope that helps.
A true leopard dosen’t change its spots.A fake one does.
@ LE GALL
Ouch being in a hurry I goffed big time. i owe you a big apology. In my haste I took your ‘jean-luc’ as a reference to Marine Le Pen.
I apologise to you and all for my mistake.
Jean-lui Melenchon is to the left of the French establishment and not on the right. He is male so the term ‘she’ is incorrect as Monsieur Veritie has written in his observation.
Nor is Melenchon a supporter of Putin as far as I have read. However, Marine Le Pen is a female leader of the far right despite what she now professes! She was a strong supporter of Putin. Now however she is a strong stalwart of admitting Ukranian refugees to France yet has stood for French presidency on anti-immigration policies, primarily it seems anti-muslim. I add these observations to help correct the observations of Monsieur Veritie.
Let us all hope that ‘the boys’ will indeed make us all proud today with a good win to retake 4th spot and show the BBC that Arsenal has indeed reverted to type.
Finally at 35min the first Brighton yellow…they have been hacking away.
Weird…VAR taking so much time to see what is obvious to all viewers…onside…goal must count.
How they chalked that goal off is beyond me…it is clearly onside.
Well after about 4 minutes of trying to find a reason to rule the goal out they finally managed to fabricate some lines which according to PGMO proved Martinelli was offside.
Yet another VAR call goes against us.
Disgraceful, PGMO are a bunch of cheats.
Fabricate is correct because at best they could NOT show that he was onside however my understanding is that VAR can only overturn a clear and obvious error…for the life of me I couldn’t see clear evidence of offside.
Referee was David Coote, clearly groomed to take over from Mike Fean when he retires at the end of the season
GGG just saw it WTF how is that offside??!
Mark Halsey – “You can find whatever you want to find in an incident when you take that long.”