How to be a football journalist in one easy lesson

 

• 44 players Arsenal trying to sign and 20 who are leaving
• What do Arsenal need to do to win the league (and which teams are going back down next season)

By Sir Hardly Anyone

First things first.  To be a football journalist you need a story.

And the first point is that it doesn’t have to be a real story.  In fact, it can be a completely non-story such as the one the Guardian has just run under the headline “Mikel Arteta not fazed by uncertain Arsenal future.”

Now that headline might have you rushing to click on the link – which of course takes you to the Guardian’s page containing that tale.   But hold on a moment, because that is exactly what the headline is meant to do. Indeed it’s what I did when I saw the headline in the on-line version of the Guardian.

(It is also incidentally, why I don’t give money to the publisher, as they ask me to do each day – as I will explain).

“Mikel Arteta not fazed by uncertain Arsenal future” is a headline that has a clear implication – that a) there is an uncertainty about his Arsenal’s future, and that b) Arteta knows that his future is uncertain, and c) that this uncertainty doesn’t worry him.

The headline is clever because it takes those three stories and puts them together into one quick message, which stops the reader thinking, “hang on, is there an uncertain future?”   Or if one is inclined to think that way, one might think, “blimey, I didn’t know there was an uncertain future – what are the idiots in the boardroom doing now?”

It’s all tripe – as of course we all know in our heads it is – although that didn’t stop me clicking on the link in order to read the piece because the headline was not aimed at my logical brain, but at my emotional soul which has supported Arsenal all these years.

The actual story is this: Arteta’s fixed-term contract was signed in May 2022, and it lasts three years.  That was a reasonable deal for both parties since Arteta had had two and a half seasons managing Arsenal during which time the club had come 8th, 8th and 5th.

That was hardly enough to have the club jumping for joy, especially as the period had involved getting rid of players that had cost a lot, for very little income.  Arteta had wanted Ozil and Aubameyang in particular out of the club no matter what, and the club had backed him.  In return, he’d stopped the club slipping and had offered signs of improvement but at quite a cost.   The following three years turned out to be wonderful, but at the time it was a gamble.

Thus from the off the club has backed Arteta totally both in his buying and selling.  In 2022/23 there was a massive turnaround in players – and this was actually done with the club making a £40m profit on player transactions.

That gave him the credibility to get rid of the highly expensive Nicolas Pepe on a free, with sales of Balogun, Xhaka, Turner, Mari and Trusty bringing in just £50m while the purchase of Rice, Havertz and Timber was…. well pretty much off the scale.

So for the last two seasons, at great expense, Arsenal has an Arteta team, and they have delivered as we have been pointing out over recent weeks.   More points, more goals scored, fewer goals conceded.  Each season better than the last year on year, with only one minor slippage in the numbers along the way – again as we have been pointing out.

Thus there would be no reason for Arteta not to get a new contract, and no reason for him not to sign one.   He has said what he wants to do, and as far as we know, the board has backed him all the way.    Arsenal is now his team, just as it is his club, run in his way.

Not every deal has looked perfect – Hector Bellerin going to Real Betis on loan looked a bit premature to me, and the fact that he played 23 games for them last season, still makes me think that.   But then on the other hand the player had given great service to Arsenal, and allowing him to leave when he wanted to return to Spain would have gone down well in the footballing community.

And there has been some bad luck along the way – most particularly with Jurriën Timber.

So let’s go back a fraction: “Mikel Arteta not fazed by uncertain Arsenal future.” It is nonsense, there is no uncertainty as the article quoted actually agrees.   But it was published in order to grab some readers, and take the hit rate of the page up, something which is then reported to advertisers, and helps with the income.   Just as was “Mikel Arteta insists Arsenal can benefit from his uncertain future.”   It is all nonsense, there is no uncertainty.  He will be Arsenal’s manager next season.   And the one after.