This summer marks 100 years since the arrival of Herbert Chapman at Arsenal and to celebrate we are running a history of Chapman’s life in football. You can find an index to all the articles published so far, and the latest piece on the Arsenal History Society website.at
- By Tony Attwood
It is curious how much slippage there has been of late by some of the supposedly bigger clubs in the Premier League of late, but slippage there certainly has been. As for example, in a league table made up of the last six games for all the PL clubs, we find Aston Villa, Newcastle United, Chelsea, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United in the positions 11 to 16.
And while Arsenal and Liverpool are equal top of the tree without a defeat in the last six, none of those teams listed above have won more than two. (And yes I know West Ham are not a top team, but they ought to be with their massive stadium gifted to them by the state after the London Olympics).
Quite what has caused this massive drop off among some of the supposedly bigger clubs I am not sure but it is interesting to notice how attention has been removed from this decline in form, by a constant focus on Arsenal’s supposed lack of preparedness for the injuries to every single one of their first choice forwards.
Which makes it all the more surprising that during this time of utter disaster in terms of attacking strength, Arsenal have been the fourth-highest-scoring club in the league in the last six games.
Obviously this is not something you can read about in the media, but there has been an Arsenal story in the last couple of days and it turned up in the supposedly serious Telegraph.
That story tell us, “The reason why Chido Obi left Arsenal for Man Utd” and it is one of those tales about a player who only got a few minutes on the pitch for Arsenal and so left in disgust at his lack of progress and went north.
Now from that headline, you may be forgiven for thinking that he has been playing for Manchester United who are currently 15th in the League, but no the whole article is built around the fact that he has made one substitute appearance and that in the crunch just-above-relegation match between Man United and Tottenham Hots (who are one point above ManU.
And not just one sub appearance, but an appearance of three minutes, during which he didn’t actually touch the ball at all, and was on the losing side to the mighty Tottenham.
“A Premier League debut, at the age of just 17,” is how the newspaper (and I use the word lightly) highlights the event.
Now you might remember the fuss the media made in a most negative way when Ethan Nwaneri became the youngest player in the Premier League ever when he came on against Brentford in September 2022 at the age of 15 years and 181 days. The media were hyper critical of that event calling it a publicity stunt. (Alough if you are really into these sorts of statistics you might recall that this season Jack Porter became the youngest player actually to start a first-team game when he played in a League Cup match earlier this season at the age of 16 years and 72 days.
And yet at the same time, you might just ponder whether an early start for the club is actually news. After all Bukayo Saka was really quite an old man when at the age of 17 years and two months he made his first-team debut. But that was back on 29 November 29, 2018 so a bit far back for journalists to remember.
So yes they like to snap up young players with promises for the future, simply because those are the cheapest players on the market. Young players really do need protection from these predatory clubs with huge debts.
As I said on Monday, beware the Quiet week.
As we are not playing and therefore cannot be criticised for turning up late, in the wrong kit or at the wrong ground, it was obvious to me the media would either rake up old crap with which to beat us with, regurgitate yesterdays negativity just in case we missed it first time around, or just make stuff up, or a combination of all three.
At that’s exactly what is happening.
I mean, lets be honest, Merino scoring those two late goals was always going to rub the naysayers up the wrong way.
I mean 4 forwards out. No one brought in, in the transfer window. A defeat at woeful Leicester was their dream waiting to happen. Except it didn’t.
Not only that, but Artetas ‘vanity project’ puts in a MOTM performance, whilst a makeshift number nine scores 2 goals a seasoned 20 goal plus a season striker would of been proud of. Oh dear, not quit what the scribblers had in mind was it.
Que a week of bitter recriminations.
Now every player we ever sold is being questioned. Despite not asking for any, we are told there is no sympathy for us losing three quarters of our forwards.
Well, as we are sitting comfortably second in the table. As we skipped the Champions League play offs by finishing 3rd in the initial table. I’m not sure we need any.
In fact, Neville raising the point suggests that he actually thinks we should have some sympathy, otherwise why would he mention it? Arteta certainly hasn’t asked for any. In fact in the piece I read, he said he was ‘looking forward to the challenge’. ‘Looking forward to solving the puzzle, and finding solutions’.
The usual band of negative Arsenal fans haven’t asked for it. They’re too busy jumping on the Arteta out bandwagon. Or going on marches.
Sympathy!! As if anyone involved with Arsenal would expect any sympathy for Arsenal, EVER.
We even have the PGMOLs apologist at SKY still telling us that MLS’s challenge was still a red card despite almost total condemnation of the decision at the time, at it’s subsequent overturning.
Despite all that, SKY are still trying to tell the World, and the referees, that despite all that Arsenal actually got away with one.
And it’s still only Wednesday. Mark my words there’s more to come.
I recently came across a quote from Noam Chomsky which I think sums up the public discussions on football that take place in England.
Here is the quote:
”The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.
That gives people the sense, that there is free thinking going on, while all the prepositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”
Noam Chomsky.
Nitram, Indeed, I had noticed the sudden interest in the numerous strikers who Arsenal had stupidly allowed to leave, who are now scoring freely for their current clubs.
It turns out that they are players who most of us have never heard of, who were released from our academy / junior teams for very good reasons, usually in their own and the club’s mutual interests. Also, their scoring exploits have been, typically, in the lower divisions of various leagues across the world, so hardly a justification for the misleading media headlines.
Jus more of the customary rubbish from media and pundits, like Neville, Owen, Carragher, Ferdinand, Deeney et al, who are ferquently quoted as telling Arteta what he needs to do / has done wrong. The sadness is that there are gullible people who are inclined to believe the sh.te which is poured out in abuandance.
John L
It’s bad enough when media hacks spout this eternal bullshite. It’s bad enough that failed managers and bang average players try to tell Arteta what to do. But the two saddest things are when our own ex players cant wait to stick the knife in, and even worse than that, when our own fans buy into it.
What gets me, is that we have people moaning about the size and depth of the squad, yet despite the devastating injuries to many key players, back front and centre, here we are sat 2nd in the table, and qualified in the CL.
That suggests to me a remarkable squad. There is absolutely nothing wrong with our recruitment, squad size, or quality. Look what’s happened to other teams hit by injuries.
As for Liverpool, if they had had similar injuries to us they would be struggling. We have seen it before. Even with just one of their 2 main stars, Salah and Van Dijk out, they struggle.
They’ve been lucky with fixtures. They are now hitting a testing run: Villa, Man City, Fulham, Chelsea and Brighton away, all still to come. If they come through all those unscathed then fine. But for me, apart from the odd great performance, they have not been that impressive. I’m not saying they don’t deserve to be where they are, I’m just saying their form hasn’t looked so good that those fixtures wont be tricky.
They have also been lucky with injuries. Fine, it happens. They’ve had bad runs with injuries, and when they have they have suffered, and I don’t remember them getting the abuse we get.
But that’s always the way isn’t it.
We should be used to it.
Nitram,
Yes, but we haven’t had to cope with the devastating loss of Rodri, which is the media explanation of Man City’s decline.
Talking of injuries and lack of sympathy, here’s a run down of matches missed according to Transfermarkt, with a little help from 3Addedminutes.
20. Nottingham Forest – 43 matches missed
19. West Ham United – 46
18. Fulham – 54
17. Liverpool – 63
16. Crystal Palace – 66
5. Wolverhampton Wanderers – 106 Sit 17th
4. Arsenal – 116 – Sit 2nd
3. Tottenham Hotspur – 128 – Sit 12th
2. Brighton & Hove Albion – 145 – Sit 10th
1. Brentford – 164 – Sit 11th
The point is, even if we had 2 more strikers it would not change the fact we have had 85% more injuries than Liverpool have had, yet we sit just 7 points behind them. I think that is remarkable, and to suggest we should have a squad big enough as to not be affected at all by such a casualty list is ridiculous.
Tottenham on the other hand have had just 10 % more injuries than Arsenal but sit a colossal 23 points behind us.
Now surly if any club needs stick it is Tottenham.
With all those injuries we are just 2 points behind last years total at the same stage. Which may be why our manger is NOt moaning or looking for sympathy. We don’t need it.
On the other hand two teams with managers that are actually moaning about their injuries, namely Tottenham and Man Utd, sit 17 and 15 points respectively, behind where they were at this stage last season.
Those two are beyond sympathy. Pity would be more appropriate.
John L
Very good point.
Man City’s spectacular over reliance on one player is actually laughable. The fact it wasn’t addressed by the best manager in the World with more resources than anyone else is actually shameful.
Yet he is virtually untouched by it.
The only time we hear about Man city is when the media are telling us about their latest victory over the Premier League.
It says something when out there in Blog Land there are non Arsenal fans (for example The Football Terrace), that are constantly exposing the anti Arsenal media and refereeing bias. It is that obvious.
They are not averse to being critical of Arsenal, or accepting that certain criticisms are just, but they, like us, see a massive discrepancy in the way many pundits, singling out Neville and Carragher for special mention, make excuses for the failures of the likes of Liverpool, Spurs and Man City, whilst proclaiming Arsenal have no excuses.
The Football Terrace in particular has also noted on many occasions, how differently we are refereed. How we are held to higher account.
It comes to something when these biases are so obvious even other (non partisan) clubs fans, not only notice them but are prepared to talk about them.
TFT is particularly good at exposing hypocrisy and inconsistency within the PGMOL and the media, across the board.