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
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
Anyway, enough of that. There is the news that all the third round ties in the League Cup will be televised live, so we won’t have to go to Stoke to watch Arsenal away at Port Vale. The game has been set for September 24 (the league cup games seem to be spread over a week or more). We’ve played them 22 times, and they have won four of them. More on that later.
I agree with you and add.
When I start to read an article and it begins ‘Arsenal fans……..’
I don’t read what followers. I think it is impossible to know what all Arsenal fans ……. There is plenty of evidence that Arsenal fans do not at any time all think the same.
The same goes for hearing these words.
My first understanding that believing reports on Arsenal came when at the end of the report of the game which according to the reporter it was the worst game ever played by an Arsenal team, Concluded his report with a note self triumph:
‘Arsenal wont go done this season, but what about next season?
Next season? It was 1971 – Arsenal did the double,
The 1971 FA Cup final was the first time I had ever seen a colour TV. Our neighbours had just bought one, and I was invited to their house to watch. They were Chelsea fans, so had to watch their team win in Black and White a year earlier.
Good article and I’m totally in agreement.
Nowadays, I rarely read newspaper articles for this very reason but occasionally I weaken and have a look. I remember not too long ago reading a piece by someone who was given the title of “football expert” or “senior football writer” or some such nonsense. If I recall, the article was on the BBC or in one of the national daily papers, certainly a highly prominent outlet.
The article was devoid of evidence and full of holes but with a clear anti-Arsenal theme running through it so I decided to google the author. He turned out to be a twenty something graduate in English from a very mediocre University who’d basically worked on a local rag for a year and spent two years writing for a Chelsea blog.
Yet here he was, spouting his “football expert” stuff to a national audience, a percentage of whom no doubt regurgitated it on the terraces at the Emirates and would consequently be stirring up ‘Arteta Out’ sentiment…..and not a shred of evidence to back up any of it! The irony, of course, is that had these Arsenal “supporters” met the writer in the pub and he was wearing his Chelsea top at the time they would have most probably argued vociferously against him but because he’s a “football expert” working in the media, they fall for it hook line and sinker.
I’m old and naturally a lot of has changed in my lifetime and obviously being old I think much of it has changed for the worst. Yet nowadays many people seemingly believe a politician who shouts “fake news” or “hoax” at everything that he doesn’t like despite the evidence that proves it to be true. Meanwhile they spend their lives regurgitating unsubstantiated opinion as fact despite the total absence of evidence. Indeed, if writing it themselves, they will state that it is “FACT” at the end of the sentence just to ‘prove’ that it is lol. Rant over!