Arsenal v PSG: the problem of simply buying more and more superstars

 

 

• Football is now effectively run and controlled by gambling companies
• Arsenal in the Champions League: there is always something going on at PSG

The Guardian has an interesting piece on Arteta’s time at PSG and how that period of his life developed his approach to football.   Concerning PSG, Arteta is quoted as saying that at such a club a young player needs someone to believe in him, “someone to give you the chance.”   And that he says is what he got and what made him a good player.

He also adds, “I had to do all the defending because I had Ronaldinho and Okocha in front of me.   Imagine! It was super, almost unreal … a dream for me. I was so blessed and I had so much energy at that time. I couldn’t waste that opportunity.”

Arteta is also very fulsome in his praise of the PSG manager Luis Enrique, saying, “I am a huge admirer of him.  “He has huge charisma, huge energy. He was always very supportive with the young players and what I love about him is that, wherever he has been as a player, as a manager, his fingerprints are all over the place.

“You can see at PSG that it’s his team. They have a clear intention as to how they want to dominate the ball and when they don’t have it they want it straight back. They are really aggressive and they confront you. But that is Luis. Everywhere he plays, against any opponent and in any context, that is how he does it.”

Meanwhile on the injury front Arteta has said that Jurrien Timber “was able to take part in training, that’s good news, so he’ll be available in the squad.”  He also said that he hoped Ben White will be available, although suggesting they know more than Arsenal about these things the Guardian is saying, “Arteta is expected to be without Ben White….

Meanwhile Riccardo Calafiori was “emotional” after the 4-2 home win against Leicester on Saturday when he felt a muscle problem.”

As for PSG, a lot of writers  have been critical of the team, including Goal who say that “the time has come to start developing their own Galacticos.”   

And so a global change is being imagined at PSG after the years of  Qatar Sports Investment setting out the plan that Manchester City have since so slavishly been following – an approach which works until the rest of the league have had enough. 

Thus PSG have had (as many others have pointed out before me) Zlatan Ibrahimovic, David Beckham, Neymar, Lionel Messi…   And this has given them 23 league titles, “FA” cups and league cups.  But no win of the Champions League – although they have been runners’ up once, as indeed have Arsenal.

But on the other hand, they sold a lot of shirts and got some good TV revenue too.  And that seems to have heralded the new style and new approach in which they don’t need to sell any more shirts by bringing in super stars who don’t win the ultimate prize.  The aim is seems is to work “organically” – which suggests they have been importing robots until now, although maybe they didn’t quite mean it that way..

And indeed the failure of PSG to win the Champions League, or indeed to get to the final more than once seems to hurt PSG.   So it seems the club has spent time trying to work out what the cause of year after year of European failure, when in France they have just boringly been champions ten times in twelve seasons, coming second on the other two occasions.

One explanation is that the French League isn’t very strong.  Another is that simply buying a top player for a top fee and then paying him twice as much as anyone else in the team, doesn’t work.  Other players get a bit fed up with that, and if your main man has a bit of a dip in form, or indeed an injury, then the entire strategy goes out the window.

But at the same time everyone expects the club to win and when they don’t, everyone starts making lots of complaining sounds, which then makes matters worse, which then encourages such a club to go out and buy more players who quite probably feel that as they are the best in the world, they don’t need to be coached by someone who never really made it as a big-time player.

But it is strange to reflect that big-name transfers are what so many supporters still crave – not just at PSG but at most top clubs.   It can work for ManC because if one top player fails they can buy another, spending money with impunity.   But for those clubs not backed by an oil-rich country, life tends to work in different ways…

Still just as the UK has now turned away from coal, maybe we can also all turn away from oil.