- The alternative model of football finance: just gobble up everone else.
- Arsenal’s unexpected defeat: what does the Brighton match indicate?
By Tony Attwood
Perhaps the worst thing about Arsenal’s first defeat of the season was that it happened just before the longest international break in the history of international breaks, so as the media is still trying to find some new angle on it, they have now got to, “Have Arsenal been figured out? Three big questions after Brighton’s upset” and they can spend their time ruminating on that issue. Well that, and the number of players injured during this three week period.
And that second point is needed by journalists because no, the media hasn’t figured Arsenal out, because quite simply Arsenal bought a sufficient variety of players in recent windows that means that if any other club did “figure Arsenal out” Arsenal would probably make a substitution and start to play in a different way.
But it gives the journos an angle so we now have the subtext that “this week, we dive into the big questions surrounding the most surprising result of the Premier League weekend.”
The essence of the stories is that other clubs have highly knowledgeable managers who are perfectly able to change their clubs’ approach at the drop of a whistle, while Arsenal have only one way of playing and that is that. So Arsenal will return after the berak (with whatever players remain uninjured) playing the same old Arsenal way, while everyone else will have adjusted be them. Arsenal will then sink down to their proper position midway down the league, leavine Liverpool and ManC their chance to take up their rightful positions at the top.
Indeed the problems have been everywhere, as the Telegraph has “Arsenal save skin with 95th-minute equaliser but alarm bells ringing – that is a headline about Arsenal women, but it takes the same approach, as of course it must do. It’s the way the media report on Arsenal.
But of course, this is the longest men’s international break in the history of international breaks so we do have the totally ludicrous and unnecessary injuries, as the Mail reports with “Arsenal suffer injury blow as Kai Havertz is forced off in first half of Germany’s clash with the Netherlands” (which comes amidst the “frosty relationships” and “growing tension” in other football “camps”.)
(Why are they called “camps”?)
Although of course with this being the longest international break in the history of international breaks, the Mail does have a tale which isn’t Arsenal centred, under the headline How Premier League clubs are exploiting their most loyal fans
Now for once this is not an Arsenal story as the rest of the headline tells us of “the season ticket tricks used by Chelsea and Man United, the subtle ways ‘old-school’ supporters are being swapped out for tourists, ‘hospitality’ rip-offs and why the worst is yet to come.”
But as I say that is not an Arsenal story so there is no need to read that fantasy. But Arsenal do feature multiple times in headlines in the Mail and there is even one that is very, very old and leads to the story of the “The ‘miracle doctor’ and the Covid jab fraud.” It involves questions “raised over Granit Xhaka’s second vaccination as he faces a grilling and up to FIVE YEARS in jail.” But it’s in the Mail, so might not be true.
The Independent also has the story that, “Arsenal dealt injury blow as Kai Havertz limps off in Germany clash” story which suggests there is not much news this week. It appears that the player will “undergo a scan after he limped off during Germany’s clash with the Netherlands.”
Now the problem we have here was that “Havertz was chosen to start by Jurgen Klopp for the former Liverpool manager’s first outing in the Germany dugout.” Ah well, trust Klopp to find a way to do it for an Arsenal man.
At least they didn’t try and get Havertz back on the pitch, and the newspapers have avoided the obvious headline so I can write, “Havertz Klopped”. (Well you try writing blogs through three weeks of nothing but international matches and negative Arsenal reports in the media!)
Klopp they didn’t try to play Kai any further and Kai has a couple of weeks before the next proper game so he might recover. The newspaper says, “After receiving treatment on his hamstring, which was heavily taped up, the forward was replaced by Younes Ebnoutalib on the half-hour mark.” (Incidentally there is no half hour mark – nothing happens on the half hour except the clock keeps ticking on, so if there is anything at all it is a “half hour tick”, which given we are talking about friendly internationals, is probably about right.)
But we do know how this event happened as the paper tells us, “It came minutes after Havertz was caught by a heavy challenge by Crystal Palace summer signing Quinten Timber on the knee, a foul the midfielder saw yellow for but could have realistically warranted a red.” So the same old story. Players of other clubs are told “He plays for Arsenal – get him”. And they do.
As we know Kait Havertz missed a lot of last season due to a knee injury, so he was bound to be a target, and if only the player had had some sense he could have stayed in London claiming he was not yet “fit enough” to go to an international match.
Mind you that is not quite as bad as the case of Jamal Musiala of Bayern Munich, who actually managed to get injured in the warm up having been named in the opening XI for a match. Will these players ever learn? No, it seems not.
“Both will undergo scans tonight,” Klopp said after the game. “They’re probably out for us, but I hope they’ll be back soon,” (because these players never seem to learn). In fact there were even more injuries as the Sunderland striker Brian Brobbey came off with a hamstring issue. Which raises the question, why don’t all the managers in the English leagues get together and just say a universal “no”? It would make their jobs much easier.
