By Tony Attwood
There is a piece on the New York Times football feed that says, “All three of Istanbul’s great powers — Galatasaray, Fenerbahce and Besiktas — have long believed they are being actively undermined by shadowy forces intent on helping their rivals. Trabzonspor, the largest team from outside Istanbul, are convinced they are oppressed by the power of those three clubs. Everyone else feels things are rigged in favour of an elite that often includes Trabzonspor.
“In recent years, though, something has changed. The conspiracy theories that always bubbled beneath the surface have reached a boiling point, their toxic fumes engulfing and slowly asphyxiating the league.”
It is a fairly typical argument in terms of football journalists incorporating the view that something is going very wrong in a foreign land, and (often by implication but sometimes said clearly) things are ok in England. In short it’s a case of these silly foreigners getting worked up, while English people can stay calm.
But most of all we almost always find that there is no evidence to support any of the claims made. And so thinking of that, we might ask, “how are things kept so calm in England, in comparison?”
One key point is that the mainstream English media rarely criticise referees. Yes they occasionally do point to the odd mistake, but not too often and not much more.
Now that might seem fair enough, but actually the media go much further than that, and they get away with it, because what they are carefully doing is stifling argument and debate by channelling it along the lines they consider acceptable.
The fact is one only has to look at the four page of referee data tables for the Premier League constantly updated by WhoScored to see that in the Premier League we have some referees who oversee home wins most of the time, and some referees who oversee away wins most of the time.
Study the data further and you will see that among the most used referees the number of fouls given a game on average across the season by an individual referee can range from 25.13 down to 19.35 – a variation of 30%. The number of yellow cards per game ranges from 5.42 to 3.13 – a range of 73%.
And remember these are not just results for one game, but the average across the whole season – and only looking at referees who have overseen 10+ PL games this season.
As for home wins, we have one referee for whom 75% of his games are home wins, and another for whom 11,8% are home wins. That is a difference of over 500%. In short, the referee a club gets has as much influence on the result as the two teams playing.
Now, these figures never appear in the media. Nor come to that, on a different subject, do we ever get any statistics about how many managerial changes actually lead to an improvement in the club’s fortunes.
Because of the failure of the media to take on any of these points and discuss them openly, the debate in England is very much constrained because it is conducted without evidence. Thus, people might say, “we need to get rid of Arteta because Arsenal have ended up without a proper centre forward and indeed hasn’t had a proper centre forward for the last few seasons.”
But no one establishes a causal link between Arteta’s purchasing policy and the club’s failure to win the league, nor mentioned the number of managerial sackings that over the following two years don’t lead to improvement on the pitch.
And this is a bit weird for Arsenal supporters to fall for that, given that between 2019 and today Tottenham has had seven managers and has come 6th, 7th, 4th, 8th, and 5th. This season they are currently 13th, 21 points behind Arsenal
As for why no evidence is used in any of these debates, the answer is simple: the story that Arsenal needs a new manager is run by the media, and the media base their football pages on readership levels. So run the story that Arsenal need a new centre forward and if a lot of people read that, then it will appear again and again. This has nothing to do with the truth – it is all down to readership volume.
The notion that changing managers does not, on most occasions, lead to an improvement in results can be seen by a casual glance at Tottenham or by analysing the results of all the premier league managerial changes in the last five years. The notion that a Premier League club can do well with goals coming from multiple sources can be seen through an analysis of Arsenal’s results in the last two seasons. The notion that a series of injuries can derail any team other than one that has unrestrained abilities to buy both expensive players and brilliant young players from its associated clubs can be seen by looking at the effectiveness of the City Group.
It’s all there, but the media don’t cover it, for one simple reason. As things stand they can print any story they want without any data, and that story will be reflected around all the rest of the media, and so come to look as if it is true. And when you have a situation like that, why change it for something that needs a lot more hard work?
After all, it’s only football. And as I just suggested, why change the current approach to reporting for something that needs a lot more hard work, when no one is asking for it.
Referees and injuries, two topics that dominate the talk around Arsenal here. The referee situation re Arsenal Football Club is nothing new. Edu, Wilshire, to name but two, were routinely scythed without a hint of a whistle. Such is the fate of an Arsenal player with skills. Just ask Bukayo Saka. A young ENGLAND player with mad skills, big smile and humble personality. One would think he’s the type of player to be celebrated and protected at least since he starts for the national team. No, he’s routinely and literally kicked off the pitch by the lesser skilled players at the direction of managers who stay employed despite never winning anything, their only talent seeming to be the demise of the opposition’s better players. English football. Can a home team really only win 11.8% of their matches? Surely must be an aberration. The aberration named PGMOL.
This season Arsenal have had a rash of injuries to key, starting players. Four in fact were out at the same time. Unfortunately, Odegaard couldn’t maintain the blistering form after returning from injury. That was the attack. Finished. At top form Odegaard finds space, creates space and finds the open player and scores. He continued to spread the goals around for two weeks and stopped. I don’t know if the ankle is still bad but he’s not been the same. That can’t be overcome. As a supporter I’m regrouping and while it’s another season without the title it’s not a complete waste. Champions League football again is good news. Is there a silver lining in all the injury gloom and doom? I’ll let Nathan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly answer for us.
Without the injuries to key players I believe Arsenal would have kicked on to 1st this season. Even with bizarre yellow and red cards, a sending off that even the anti-Arsenal media had never seen before in football anywhere, they were only 2 points off the lead! It’s not tactics, it’s not mismanagement it’s not even the referees. IT’S INJURIES!
@ Gooner72
Re injuries , l maybe wrong with my observations but here goes , I’ve watched a few Liverpooh games recently and noticed that Salah receives the ball with a lot of space around himself , no tackle when he is tightly marked ( no strength) goes down easily and no one touches him in the penalty area for the fear of giving away a penalty . Now look at he Saka he receives a lot of balls being tightly marked ( he has strength ) can hold off the tackle or he receives the ball moving away from the defender , in both cases it allows the defender to be more robust in the tackle which he gets no protection in these situations and this is the problem no matter how Arsenal play they are refereed differently .
PGMO shenanigans led to us being 7 points off the pace early in this season then we had 15 games where our form matched Liverpool’s up until the last 2 games . So essentially we’re as good as the top team . But quite honestly no one could have done as well as the Gunners have so far considering PGMO and injuries. Soon we’ll be playing PSV and I’ve got this notion that’s not going to go well . So it seems our season hinges on Champions League qualification and that alone . Frustrating but well, we’ll just have to bite the bullet. Surely if we had someone reliable but willing to play across the front three , then even yet we could be ok . Sterling eh? If only. Sorry to say we need an attacking midfielder and a forward . Otherwise Arsenal will be asking too much of our younger players : Saka , Martinelli , Lewis-Skelly , and Nwaneri .
I’m taking a lesson learnt by the short career of Jack Wilshire
Clerkenwell Gunner
A pretty decent summery.
I did an article a while back suggesting that the away games would be crucial. In that prediction I gave us every chance of winning the League on the basis Liverpool’s away fixtures were pretty tough. I predicted they would, and have dropped points, if not exactly where I predicted, and 1 point less. But they will drop more.
As things are, in that respect we would still be in with a great shot at the title. The problem is my prediction was based on the fact that neither of us would drop a single point at home. Alas, as we are all fully aware, that is where we have faltered.
Dropping 2 points at home to Aston Villa, and worse, 3 points at home to West ham, has been our undoing.
But similar to yourself, I put those defeats squarely at the foot of our injuries. It’s not only the loss of goals with those 4 forwards out, it’s the loss of the ability to change things around. Freshen the side up in the last 20 minutes. Change the threat. Fresh legs. We’ve seen so many times how Artetas changes have worked the oracle. He just hasn’t got that up his sleeve at the moment
I agree, I still think we should get credit for where we are, not criticism. No club on earth could lose those players and not be affected.
Liverpool without Salah alone are much less effective. Without Salah and Van Dyke they would be a shadow of themselves. We have seen that before. Not only that, they get away with murder as well. No letter of the law for Liverpool.
Their manger is a disgrace. Banned from the touchline twice and not a criticism in sight. Their players have a post match pub brawl and it’s just passion. We get uppity because the ref stitches us up…again, and we have a discipline problem.
So yes, I just want to echo your sentiments that “……quite honestly no one could have done as well as the Gunners have so far considering PGMO and injuries.”
Here here to that my friend.