By Tony Attwood
I suppose we’ve been a bit naive to expect that the media would be able to celebrate Arsenal’s way of handling ManC, for instead what we have had is a load of whinging, whining and complaining which combined represents a unified attempt to put down Arsenal’s superb display and beef up the image of the 115 times charged club.
Take the headline “‘Call it clever … or dirty’: Stones and Silva take swipe at Arsenal over dark arts.” The fact is you don’t have to call it either, but that story then is that Arsenal have been engaged in the “dark arts” of football “for a few years.”
YSports says “Manchester City players fumed, then laboured, and ultimately ran gleefully across a rain-soaked pitch…” which is not how one normally reports dropping two points at home after having won every match thus far.
The Telegraph claims “Michael Oliver failed to do the basics of refereeing for Arsenal’s first goal at Man City“ which is a rare occasion for mentioning a referee alleged error – but of course it comes out when Arsenal allegedly benefit.
There is an utterly bonkers comment in the Mail in which it is said, “The red card for Trossard played into his [Arteta’s] hands”.
But perhaps the most outrageous assault on Arsenal in the aftermath of the game comes from Telegraph Sport which can be read in full through NY Breaking which in effect tells us that it wasn’t a draw at all because ManC “completed 324 passes in the final third of the pitch in the second half. Arsenal, by contrast, completed just 21 passes in City’s third.”
And if that were not enough, “David Raya had 51 touches in the match, the most of any Arsenal player, while “City had 41 touches in Arsenal’s penalty box in the second half, compared to Arsenal’s three.”
It goes on and on in this vein including, “City took 33 shots over the course of the match, the most of any team in a Premier League match this season,” and surely most reasonable people would then either comment on ManC’s woeful shooting, or else congratulate Arsenal on their defence, but no, the next point is that only once has a team had more shots in one half than ManC had yesterday.
The fact that Arsenal got a draw and almost got a victory when they “had only 22 per cent of possession (and just 12.5 per cent of possession in the second half), the second-lowest figure on record in a Premier League game,” is another remarkable achievement but again you will struggle to find a newspaper celebrating this. Instead, they note that Arsenal under Arteta have had more red cards than any other team… but there is no investigation into the repetitive use of the same referee by the bankrupt referees’ organisation.
The assault on Arsenal goes on and on and ends up with “Myles Lewis-Skelly, Arsenal’s teenaged substitute, was shown a yellow card in the Premier League before making his debut in the competition,” which surely is questionable behaviour by the referee, and “Neither Jurrien Timber nor Kai Havertz completed any of their passes against City,” which ignores the fact that Arsenal were playing with ten men against the top scoring team in the league.
And all the time the key question of, “how, if Arsenal were that bad, did Arsenal come away with a draw?” Was the referee bent – is that what they are saying? Or were ManC utterly and woefully incompetent? Such questions are not asked let alone answered. All we get is anti-Arsenal propaganda. Such as “Ex-Arsenal star Jay Emmanuel-Thomas has been charged with importing drugs after £600,000 worth of cannabis was seized at an airport.”
Now yes it is true that 14 years ago Jay Emmanuel-Thomas did indeed play for Arsenal. He played once. before moving to Ipswich (now of the Premier League) for whom he played 71 times after which he played for a whole raft of other clubs, and yet the headline is “Ex-Arsenal….”
Of course, there is no way we can stop this remorseless assault on Arsenal but at least if we highlight some of the more bonkers ways in which the media treats the club a few more people might stop believing all their gibberish.
And amidst all this nonsense one is left with the media belief that Arsenal used every one of the dark arts to secure their draw. But then you might think it slightly odd that in the face of such an awful Arsenal performance, there is no mention of the vast number of yellow cards Arsenal must have been given, or the record-breaking number of fouls they must have committed.
But in fact the fouls count was seven to ManC and 10 to Arsenal. The yellow card count was three to ManC and four to Arsenal.
Arsenal now have 15 – a third more than ManC, compared with 19% more than last season. Is that really news when there is no mention at all of how referee behaviour changes?
I despair with the standards of officiating in what is supposed to be the best league in the world. Employing former traffic wardens is not acceptable they give cards out like confetti strut around with arrogance,look at me I am the star of the show whilst we are pay high prices to watch our teams. Howard Webb and his incompetent team should go.