Just because a journalist says AFC has a poor disciplinary record, that doesn’t make it true

“If Mikel Arteta needs solace regarding his team’s poor disciplinary record this season…”

Thus the “poor disciplinary record” is taken as a given. yet as we have seen Arsenal have 18 yellow cards … which is exactly the same as Liverpool this season, and no one is talking about their disciplinary record.   

OK the author (Ed Aarons) is a specialist in negative articles, as his recent pieces show, including, “Arsenal’s red mist threatens to derail title tilt before crunch Liverpool clash”, and “José Mourinho aims sarcastic barbs at ref after red card against Manchester United,” and “Manchester United restricted to a draw by Fenerbahce as Mourinho sent off,” and “Oliver Glasner facing make-or-break four games to save Crystal Palace job” and on and on.  And this in fact this raises an issue.

Is there no positive news in football?

In fact I’ve just gone through all the current headlines in the Guardian and no, I can’t find a single one that is positive.   “Slot urges side to improve record at title rivals”  “Arteta warns players not to ‘feel sorry for ourselves’”  Maresca ‘expected more’ leadership from injured James, “Wiegman’s Wembley selections backfire as she fails to pick on form”, “Gwinn double stuns leaky Lionesses,” 

Nowhere is there positivity, except when we hit ManC where the headline is “Guardiola: team will not be ‘dragged down’ after I leave”.  But immediately after that we are back to “Mancini departs job richer but with team no better off” and “Howe tells Isak to ‘focus on football’ not new deal” and “Slot urges Reds to improve away record at rivals” and on and on and on.  Football reporting is negativity all the way.

In terms of talking about the Premier League, the only vaguely positive headline is about Manchester City.

Now of course I know that many people say that they don’t read the papers.   And yet quite often they then reflect the views that are stated in the media.  It’s a bit like the fact that if you ask people if they are influenced by advertising they mostly say no.   Yet as a writer I spent much of my career writing advertisements (you may hate me for that but everyone has to earn money somehow and I thought it was better than being involved in arms manufacturing) and I know (because my salary depended on it) that how I wrote the advert affected sales directly.  Strangely, virtually all of my company’s clients claimed they personally never read advertising, but they advertised because the right advert would bring them in money.

So it is with football coverage in the media.   We know it is all going to be negative but we read.

But by reading it, we encourage it, and the negativity spread by the media then influences the fans that read the media, and they start to believe their club is far worse off than it is.  Except for ManC fans who are emboldened by the fact that much of the media is laying off ManC (maybe because their owners are afraid of being sued – who can say?)

But let’s move on.  Just how badly off are Arsenal just now?   Here is the charge over the last five seasons of where the club was after eight games, with the last row showing the situation for the unbeaten season by way of comparison.  

So yes, this season, we are three points and one goal off the position of the invincibles, which really isn’t too bad, considering they were our greatest-ever side.