By Tony Attwood
- Bayern Leverkusen v Arsenal: who is actually laughing now?
- Arsenal and Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League. The seasons so far
It appears from reports in the ever-untrustworthy media that Gabriel, Declan Rice and Martin Zubimendi are all fit and well to play in the Champions League game on Wednesday. It seems that a photographer has got pictures of them training with the rest of the team, so that should make things ok.
In fact the footage in question was posted, it seems as a way of reassuring us all that everything was ok. The video came from a training session yesterday. Which is in fact shows the benefit of having an FA Cup game against a lower league team – it gave plenty of time for the key players to have a rest and recovery week.
Meanwhile, CBS sports has five of its scribblers giving predictions as to the possible result of this match. And because of the major mood swing we have all seen in the way that the media treats Arsenal, all five of them have Arsenal winning the match. Three of them go for 0-2 to the Arsenal and the other two go for 0-3 for Arsenal. It would be awfully embarassing if they were all wrong!
They also publsih a set of Power Rankings which suggests that Arsenal are “still the favourites” although there is some hedging of bets thereafter with the publication taking note of what they call “other big teams” by which they mean the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Manchester City. But as we have all seen, the Champions League finals of recent seasons, such as Borussia Dortmund and Inter Milan have of late, faded fast, so predictions can be even more difficult than those made just about clubs within the Premier League.
But still, as yet no one seems to see Arsenal slipping up – although perhaps they are primarily influenced by Arsenal “dominating the league phase of the Champions League with eight wins in eight games” while at the same time being “top of the Premier League standings with a seven-point margin on Manchester City.” I mean that is rather impressive, but is exactly the sort of thing that the English media tend to ignore when bolstering the complaints from the manager of Brighton and the like.
But the conclusion is that, “The feeling is that they will lift at least one trophy in the coming weeks, but they also have a big chance to at least try to win the Champions League.” And indeed, it is always rather interesting to read the commentaries from overseas, which don’t get tangled up in the prejudices that English newspaper reporters put in front of rational and logical discussions about how clubs are actually doing.
There is also some comment in the media about the fact that if Arsenal win in this round, Arsenal will face the winners of Bodø/Glimt against Sporting in the quarter-final, which again really doesn’t sound too bad.
And the truth of the matter is that with things looking slightly more straightforward for Arsenal than is usually the case, there is a tendency for the media to pay more attention to Tottenham. Indeed, the opening sentence of a piece in the Guardian, “How do you solve a problem such as Tottenham Hotspur?” which goes on to remind us that “They’re the ninth-richest club in the world, who pride themselves on a thrilling style of play – “To dare is to do” ….” and so on. So, for these journalists who for years have been peddling the tale that the glory days for Tottenham are once again just around the corner, it is all a bit of a problem. Words like “Blanchflower”, “Hoddle”, “Ardíles”, “Gascoigne” and the like keep on popping up – and in the end one can only take it that the journalists simply don’t know how to cover their tracks of years of talking up a club that really has not won that much in its history.
But at least some of the media do get around to recognising that hiring manager after manager is a bit dopey. Especially, it seems Igor Tudor, known also as the “Croatian hard man”
So full marks for the Guardian’s man, for reminding us that their current manager was the one who said there are just three things wrong with Tottenham: “They can’t run, they can’t score and they can’t defend.”
Still, it is quite possible that Tottenham will win the record for the most managers in a season, and I am sure they will get a jolly good plaque for that from the League Managers Association. We might mention it occasionally as well.
