By Tony Attwood
Apparently, Declan Rice was asked if he found the game frustrating yesterday, and he replied, “Frustrating? Nah, we just got to a semi-final. Positivity all the way, who cares what people think? All that matters is what this group thinks, what this manager thinks. We’re in another semi-final, I’m delighted.”
Which is pretty much where I was as a supporter, even in the midst of all these journos and commentators telling me how Arsenal are in real trouble.
But then, although I no longer write for other publications, I do have a bit of an advantage through having studied the question which football journalists ALWAYS ignore. It is the point that what you know and the prejudices you have always effect on what you see.
What we think we know, and how that affects the way we interpret events, is a key issue for none of us ever approaches any situation with an open mind. We are always influenced by our existing prejudices and past experiences.
In fact, so strong is this effect that any prior knowledge, prior thoughts, prior emotions, and indeed prior bias, influences what we think about situations, and what we perceive to be important.
In short, if you perceive a player to be a person who continually commits fouls and gets away with it, that is what you are likely to see when you watch him play. Not because you are twisting the facts to suit your view, but because this is how the brain works. With everything we see and experience, the brain tries to make that experience fit into what you already know or believe.
Although you won’t read about this in the average football review, the fact is that most of us, most of the time, see what we expect to see. So, football journalists, endlessly writing about how poor Arsenal are, or how prone to cheating and fouling Arsenal are, then perceive this to be the case whenever they watch an Arsenal game, no matter what actually happens.
That doesn’t mean that Arsenal do commit more fouls, in fact the opposite is true, but rather, having read this is the case in someone else’s review of a game, this becomes the perceived view of the club’s players.
To give another example, our previous ground was designated by some as the “Highbury Library” as it was suggested it was the quietest ground in the league. That view was never tested or proven, but it became a widespread belief.
It is the same with perceived mistakes by players. A player might make a couple of mistakes within a short space of time, and then this is either generalised to that player (“utterly useless, get him off, always making mistakes”) or indeed the team as a whole. Supporters read this, and even though they might proclaim that they don’t believe anything they see in the papers or blogs, it still seeps into their consciousness and influences future thought.
I won’t bore you with the detailed research that has gone into this, but if you ask, “Why don’t we hear about this research?” the answer is that most people like to have perceived prejudices confirmed.
The fact is that our brains are overloaded with data coming at us from all angles all the time, and to make sense of it we need to sort out what is relevant and what isn’t. So we take into account expectations. Journalists tell each other that Arsenal are tedious, sinking fast and uncreative, and so journalists don’t even notice that Arsenal have won more games, lost fewer games, conceded fewer goals, and have a bigger goal difference than anyone else. And indeed, if you want a near miss, have scored just one goal fewer than the top-scoring club this season.
But there is worse, because our brains work in a way such that if a piece of information is missing, they will not mention this but instead rely on such information we have, or think we have.
Thus, Arsenal get a reputation for being a dirty team while getting fewer yellows and reds this season than any other club.
Suggesting otherwise is not deliberate lying, for the way our brains work means that if we don’t have the information we want, we tend to use whatever we think we know. Thus the brain “fills in” the missing information, and journalists, bloggers and indeed on occasion, referees, perceiving a burst of fouls, think they know which team is responsible, and we get a flurry of red cards (you might remember that run).
The one fact we can be sure of is that many facts that we (or journalists or referees or anyone else) think they know are actually untrue. But we continue to think we know these “facts” because it makes life simpler. Our decisions are made for us – which makes life easier.
So it would appear we now have a problem. Every referee knows that Brighton, Tottenham and Chelsea get more yellows than anyone else. So in future games they tend to get more yellows. Every ref knows that ManC commit fewer fouls than anyone else, so their players get the benefit of the doubt all the time.
It is not reality that is interpreted; it is expectation, and the clever managers know this and build on it.
And this is a real problem because expectations are generally not built on reality but on the interpretation of the game given in the media. This is not to say that journos deliberately take a dislike to a club and seek to influence the referees’ view of a club, but rather that where journos do take a dislike to a club (as they have done with Arsenal) their writing then can subconsciously affect the way referees see Arsenal players on the pitch.
Arsenal are, on occasion, being refereed through expectation not deed, and rather cleverly are working to use this situation to their advantage.
The press clearly didn’t bother to work out WHY Arsenal played the way they did last night either! Instead of understanding that we didn’t need to win to qualify, that forcing the issue too much would leave us exposed on the break, and that we trust our out of possession tactics, intensity and shape absolutely, we were accused of playing awful football and playing with ‘fear’!!
As opposed to ‘brave’ Liverpool scoring ZERO GOALS against a weaker PSG than last season and playing ultra-defensively in Paris? Or ‘brave’ Barcelona over-attacking at 2-0 at the Metropolitano and conceding on the break as their high line got exposed for Lookman’s goal? Or ‘brave’ Barcelona’s high line resulting in red cards in each leg? Or ‘brave’ Real Madrid scoring 4 goals over 2 legs and losing?!
Oh, and by the way, Arsenal DID play outstanding attacking football against Bayer Leverkusen in the second leg, why? Because the first leg was level, so we HAD to win the second leg to qualify in normal time!!!
‘Horses for Courses FC’ is what we are!
I totally concur. I have read numerous phrases lately akin to “City are turning up the heat” or “piling on the pressure” or “making their traditional late run”. What I haven’t heard mentioned once is that prior to their game against Chelsea, they only managed draws against two teams in the bottom five. Funny that!
Sadly for us though, the PGMO have done their bit to hamper our chances on Sunday. They have upheld their tradition for neutrality…..lmao, by appointing for our game against a team from Manchester, a referee from Manchester……as a believe an Untold reader suggested might happen a few days ago.
Ok, statistically it could possibly be worse than getting Anthony Taylor but why the hell would the PGMO lay themselves wide open to criticism of bias in such a high profile game. It’s completely irrational but they clearly see themselves as being totally above accountability.