- What does Arsenal have to do to win the League?
- Super League: fans are starting to think it might be a good idea after all
By Tony Attwood
These are strange days indeed. Strange because when the media does mention Arsenal it is mostly with glowing positivity the like of which I can’t recall seeing before, not even in the days of the unbeaten season when most of the time the media was quite certain failure would arise at any moment. But now the media is telling us “How Arsenal’s defence became three times better than anyone else’s.”
So with that going on it becomes a bit harder to write Untold Arsenal when our central model has been to seek out figures like that and then blame the media for not reporting them.
However, there are other stories around which are of interest, and which are not being told – or at least not very much in the English media.
Blick for example is running the story that “Madrid prosecutor’s office will demand prison time for [Real Madrid manager] Ancelotti” The case is one of tax fraud and the the prosecution are demanding over four years inside.
Staying in Spain Gerard Piqué has suggested that Barcelona is not telling its supporters the truth about the club’s dire financial situation, and notes that “Barça are around €200 million in excess of their LaLiga-imposed annual spending limit of €204m, which is preventing them from registering any potential new signings or contract renewals with the league.”
Since Barca’s very existence is based on buying top players at top prices, that is a bit of a disaster.
Moving on but staying overseas the Telegraph tells us that Kane left Spurs to win a trophy – but has been badly let down. So as ever with Tottenham it is not his, or their fault.
But indeed, while Untold has only rarely bothered to print a German league table since it is always the same, I will now break that rule because it doesn’t (look the same).
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bayer Leverkusen | 24 | 20 | 4 | 0 | 61 | 16 | 45 | 64 |
| 2 | Bayern Munich | 24 | 17 | 3 | 4 | 65 | 28 | 37 | 54 |
But it is good to know that just as Tottenham’s failure to win a trophy was not the wonderful Mr Kane’s fault, nor is it his fault at Bayern.
So with negative news across Europe, the media, much against their traditions have been forced to return to Arsenal. I think on the factual stories we got their first, but still the Athletic can run Arsenal and the crazy numbers that suggest they can last the pace in the title race,” which is rather nice to know. One of their new facts is that Arsenal are the first Premier League team to score two or more goals in seven consecutive Premier League halves.
Of course, it can never always be good news, and I wouldn’t normally mention that Putin Allies Quietly Gathering Private Armies (News Week) but their report tells us that “Russian oligarchs Arkady and Boris Rotenberg have decided to create a private army, similar to Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group, consisting of soccer hooligans.” I knew football had to get in there somewhere.
We are told that, “Española [a batallion] was created by fans, mostly of Spartak [FC]. Then the Rotenbergs came in with the idea of taking a PMC [private military company] under their own control,” one source told Important Stories, (Важные истории) an independent Russian publication. “A lot of major companies are creating their own private armies right now, and the brothers wanted to create their own private army on the basis of Española.”
So what is the overall message? Chaos in Europe: and there is no change there; that is the normal message of the UK media. But success at Arsenal and not just success, but success by playing exciting football. Wow!
And the feeling now is that it could continue. Of course if it doesn’t the media will be right in there telling us what Arsenal got wrong. But if that happens, it will be worth remembering, that of late, the media’s only discussion of the future is to tell us which strikers the top scoring team in the country Arsenal are going to sign.
Except, Arsenal as a failure – the constant story that has kept the media going for decades (remember that the unbeaten season wasn’t actually unbeaten since Arsenal lost cup matches, so it shouldn’t be called that). Here’s one for today, just in case you like negativity.
Arsenal star who was sold for just £2m has been outperforming Havertz in the last 2 years
But if you do bother to plough through the article to find out who on earth this could be, here’s a hint. The player is “outperforming” by scoring more goals in a league in which the top two clubs have each scored 30 more goals than the club in third, fourth, fifth… And when you are playing in a league as unbalanced as that scoring isn’t that difficult.
Lukas Podolski… one of my favourite players. Was really happy when he joined us. I always said that when he was in to it, he was magic. But alas his form was a bit too much up and down and not steady enough. But he scored some beauties for us….
That Podolski goal was almost identical to the one scored by George Graham i n front of the North Bankafter coming on as sub against Liverpool in the first double season. That made it 1-0, before he set up a second chance, first missed by Ray Kennedy than finished by John Radford