Who should tell managers they’ve got it wrong, plus Port Vale on TV

 

By Tony Attwood

• Football is standing on the edge of the cliff and looks ready to jump
• “Doing what’s best for the club.” But what is best for the club?

“What gives you the right to comment?”

In a country like the UK we all, fortunately, have the right to comment within the bounds of the laws on libel and slander.  The commentary can be as insightful and well-informed or idiotic and ranting as one likes,   And, having spent a year of my life in a country which such freedom does not exist, I am obviously very happy to live in a country that allows such commentary.   

So when I read a journalist such as Jonathan Wilson writing “Arteta should have heeded a lesson from Hürzeler and seized the moment,” I don’t in any way deny his right to write such stuff. 

But what does frustrate me a bit is that he and other journalists use their positions as journalists on well-read newspapers and the like to put forward their point of view as if it is a definitive analysis, with the implication that (in this case) Arteta is foolish and hardly fit to be a manager, as he is not able to see what the journalist can see.

And we should recognise that this journalist is not, and as far as I know, has never been, a football manager, nor a professional or semi-professional footballer.   

Now, of course, we can all have opinions, but I think it is helpful if, in giving these opinions, we can also express how we got to that opinion.   For example, I have a view on the issue of immigrants coming from France to England in small boats, which I have on occasion expressed in discussions with friends.   But my comments usually begin, “What I don’t understand is why the government ….” followed by what it hasn’t done, which I think it should.

But with football, perhaps because of the lead that Jonathan Wilson and other prominent journalists take, we now get opinion followed by more opinion, without either much reference to facts or admission that the writer actually hasn’t got any experience in working for a football club at a senior level.  

As a result, we are subjected to the opinions of people who quite likely have no more insight into football than you or I, yet we are invited to take these opinions as more vital, more important and more informed than the views of you or I.

Now it is true that Jonathan Wilson works full-time writing about, and presumably watching and studying, football, whereas I only do that as a hobby.  So I am not suggesting he doesn’t know more than me about football.  I am sure he does.   But I am suggesting that he doesn’t know more about Arsenal than Mikel Arteta, and therefore, his criticisms of the Arsenal manager are unreasonable.

Of course, Mr Wilson does know a lot about football in that he writes for World Soccer as well as the Guardian and runs a football history podcast.  I don’t do that, but I do run the Arsenal history blog, which at the moment is tracing the 100 consecutive seasons Arsenal have spent in the top division.  Latest article

• 100 seasons in the top division: Chapman’s first season

in case you are interested.

So I do have some background in football…. but my point is that Mr Wilson studied English at university and got a master’s degree, but interestingly did not do a research degree.   So maybe that is why he is one for stating opinion as fact.  (When I did my research degree, the first thing that I was reminded of by the professor overseeing my work was “differentiate opinion from fact”.)  Fortunately, I learned how to do that.

And this is really the problem with Mr Wilson’s writing.   His article under the headline Tuchel’s World Cup-winning plan? Throws into the area and more long balls (and let’s be fair, he almost certainly didn’t write the headline) is an opinion piece.  But it reads like it is stating facts.

Anyway, moving on, we have had the confirmation that every Carabao Cup tie in the third round is live on Sky Sports+ this season, and the third round takes place spread out across two weeks in September because, well, we might forget about it otherwise.  Arsenal are away at Port Vale