Disgusting, disgraceful, appalling, shameful: I speak of course of the coverage on Sky Sports last night.
There was a moment of amusement before the game when Redknapp-the-Younger started to talk about why UEFA was so biased (in this case against English clubs) and the chairbeing nearly fell off his chair, chuffling like a steam train, grinning like a cat from south west of Liverpool, with the camera unsure where to go…
But from the Sky point of view that was it – you have had your moment of high drama, they clearly thought, we are certainly never going to talk about THAT subject again, because the topic of the evening is…
Arsenal are useless. If someone tried a clever cross-field pass of 30 yards which was intercepted Arsenal “have give the ball away again”. It was like that all the time – until after 15 minutes I turned the commentary off. I did try again with commentary in the second half, and that was even more amazing, bizarre, eccentric and just plain weird.
When the second Arsenal goal went in, the commentators (including once again the incredibly anti-Arsenal ex-Arsenal Alan Smith who these days seems to want to talk more about his past glories rather than today’s team) were so busy chuntering amongst themselves about how terrible Arsenal were, they didn’t even know a goal was scored. They really did keep on chatting until suddenly one of the turnips said, “Oh Arsenal have scored”.
And the goal wasn’t that hard to see. Radio 5 re-ran the commentary by Alan “What do you mean I am a bully” Green and for once he wasn’t talking about the pies or the ref, but was actually there, talking about the game and, like the rest of the world, could see that a goal had been scored.
But not Sky Sports. Oh no – it was as if they had read my piece yesterday evening and taken it to be an indication that one should actually travel to another universe to see this match, rather than understand that it was supposed to be a piece of mild whimsy.
And yet, let us not forget (as if I would let you) that I was not too far off with that score prediction. I gave it 2-5 and we got 2-3 – and with the way the shots were piling in at the end we could have had 2-5.
What’s more, while the rest of the British teams in Europe have struggled to score one – yes a whole “one” – Arsenal gave us a great game and knocked in three. And did it without most of the team.
Wonderful to see Rosicky back, of course, but we should save our thoughts for our fallen comrades…
No Theo, No Arshavin, No Van Persie, No 1st choice keeper, No 2nd choice keeper, No Denilson, No Vela, No Nasri.
And we still won 13-3 on shots.
So once again we get close to predicting the correct score: we’ve played seven and predicted five correct results, often with a score that is not so far off.
By the way – do you remember that time when Song was booed by Arsenal “supporters”, and we were told that he should never ever play for the club again?
(c) Tony Attwood 2009
My sitting room is a bit of a mess after that game what with me throwing the furniture around and all. I’d better go and tidy up. And if anyone happens to find my voice could I have it back please?
The immediate post-match reports were interesting (to me at least). Radio 5 said Arsenal were awful throughout and lucky to get back level, let alone win. ITV said that after the disastrous opening 5 minutes Arsenal completely dominated and well deserved the win.
That’s the first EVER I’ve been pleasantly surprised by ITV’s Arsenal coverage. On the other end, the idiot Pleat wasn’t involved so maybe not so surprising!
I have to admit I thought we were poor last night; too many scruffy passes, too many apparently lazy bodies on the pitch, too obvious that we had so many of our top players out. But then, as the Sky Sports pundits so love to tell us, when the subject is MU, great teams play badly and still win. With that said I heartily concur with the article. The Sky Sports ‘service’ last night was an absolute disgrace. The commentary flagrantly anti-Arsenal, the anchor team flagrantly pro everyone but Arsenal. It seems Sky has one or two tame ex-gunners, who tow the party line, as a sort of lip-service to fair play. Alan Smith aside, they are so obviously anti-Wenger and Arsenal that I despair of independent Sports broadcasting in this country. It seems Sky Sports ideal viewer is something between Shane Warne and Rod Stewart; cheering on MU with a blazing efigy of Wenger in one hand and a can of Fosters in the other.
Well yesterday match was one of those games. Luck was on our side and we won the game enventually.
But, i wasn’t happy seen the way some of our players played yesterday, not happy, and if wenger does not realised by now that he has to buy it means he is a fool,and he can not shine away from that, he is just been ignorant and self centred. How on earth this is happening to us, we has been playing champions league over decade, every year instead of our team to be more stronger, but we have been a falling club. Ok, some of you kept adoring Wenger, well, for some people he did fine job, but can this present team win premier league, or champions league?, i doubt it, our manager is a gambler, and i think is time to make him and the chareholders to understand this, and if they refused to listen, they should all run like a coward pig, so that some one who is capable of runing a club could take over arsenal again, because no good players would like to come to arsenal when their best players are been sold every season. So is time for a change Wenger, we are tired of been in tensions when ever our club is playing, BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY, Mr Wengeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer.
Even My missus told me to turn the volume off and shes a Chavski fan!!! But to be honest guys we were pants in some of play last night, but If Manure or Chavski had played like that and won like we did, they would be touted as champions…. Tony dodn’t you know we are the new Millwall, no one likes us we dont care, we are Arsenal super Arsenal….
Well Tony I think it is like in so many things in our society these days. Everybode wants to run with the mainstream and not many people dare to stick there neck out these days.
So if Arsenal bashing is the main stream, the pundits will follow because it is their way of making money.
Most of the media dont like Arsenal for some reason, all have there different and sometimes personal reasons. For example MOTD is full of ex players who have suffered big defeats against Arsenal during their carreers and they still are not over it.
So people who are invited, and are being payed, just talk them to the mouth because if they do not the chance of having another invitation gets smaller.
But if it is any consolation over here at home we agree that the best invention ever regarding TV would be a button on the remote control where you can mute the reporters and pundits and still get the sound of the stadium.
The trouble is we as a football club are seen to be easy pickings for the media as we never come out fighting and defend our selves, maybe we should take a leaf out of Manchester Utd’s book and ban certain media outlets from the Emirates and Arsene should not talk so freely to the press.
Time for us to loose the media and lawyers on the BBC, ITV, Talkshit and any red top rag that seeks to drag our name down, we should start with Talkshit, yesterdays program from 4:pm was a disgrace, it got me so mad i phoned the station and gave them plenty verbal as that git Adrian Durham is so anti Arsenal we should sue the station and him for defermation.
As for last nights match, to say i was in shock after the first two Standard Liege goals would be an under statement, sorry to say that Clichy has not been the same player since 2007, he’s the week link in the back four and everyone knows it, thats why the favored ball from the oppostion is the one over the top into the space behind him as he can no longer get back into postion, maybe it has something to do with his back problem, maybe nothing at all, i was certainly glad to see us switch to a 4-4-2 system during the second half as this enabled us to bring Eduardo into his favored attacking postion down the middle, a big welcome back to Thomas Rosicky he was the best midfielder on show for us, followed by Song and Diaby, Cesc is has to be said was just not at the races yesterday, ok he played a couple of decent balls but most of the game he was rubbish, now i love cesc to bits, but it has to be said that he looks like a man who’ll be off next season, i have no problem with that as Aaron Ramsey and Merida look to be fine replacements, but if he’s not one his gamme he’s a liability, finaly great link up play for the goal between Diaby and Bentner it was a great finish by the great Dane, Vermalins goal had a bit of luck about it and a great strikers goal by Eduardo sealed a win that should have been routine but was far from it, i think it was the players attitude towards the game that was off, maybe they thought they only had to turn up and win the game, boy were they wrong, still it’s 3 points and all to play for.
Watched this on the international EPSN coverage and had to endure it in 4:3 as I’m living in a building that doesn’t get the HD stations. This usually isn’t a problem, but matches telecast from Belgium assume that I’m watching it on a 16:9 screen so quite often goal kicks and the like were taken off screen.
On a slightly better note, Adrian Healey & Robbie Mustoe don’t seem to have the anti-Arsenal bias which I read about here but for crying out loud you think ESPN could pony up the dosh to send them to the game to call it… telling me exactly what I’m seeing on the screen; well i do that to the frustration of my neighbours/girlfriend/passers-by.
As for the match, every time I watch him play I just can’t believe the improvement in Song. His ability to keep the ball in Liege’s half and break up most counter attacks before they crossed the half way line was superb.
To be honest , we did not do our selves any favours in the first few minutes yesterday. I do not know where DSTV buy thri commentary from but ut was tearing me apart. I actually switched the TV off and folowed it in the peaceful silence of ESPN gamecast. They had som enasty comments too, especially for the equalising goal, but it was better. I dont know why I did not think of just turning the volume off.
if it was manure who won lyk us theyd be ooh thats the mark of a champion . . if it was say 5 then : the opposition was weak
Shola – your piece above is just a set of statements with no logic or argument to back it up.
As soon as I look at any of the assertions you make, then there are obvious reasons why they are untrue. Now I am not saying you are totally wrong, and should not post here, but I am saying that out of respect to the rest of us, you should at least back up your points with argument and debate.
All you do is take a single issue and state is as fact, when it is often not the case, and then say that anyone who can’t “see” what you see is stupid.
Take this one…
“we has been playing champions league over decade, every year instead of our team to be more stronger, but we have been a falling club”.
We have had years in which the club has qualified within 4 games of the group stages by winning them all. In recent years we have been closer and closer to winning the trophy – and the fact is that even those clubs that spend billions can’t guarantee to win a knock out competition.
Last night we had much of our first team missing. So, if we had Arshavin II on our books ready to drop into place when Arshavin is missing what then? First, it costs us maybe £20 million over 3 years in transfer cost and salary. Second, when he goes 15 games and doesn’t play because Arshavin is fit, he demands to play or to go. Third, those youngsters like Song, Ramsey, Denilson, Bendtner who stay at the club and develop into top players would all leave because they would see that finished articles will be brought in above them. And if you snigger about any of them I would ask you to debate the overall performance of Song last night, and the goal of Bendtner.
These are the points of debate. Not blind assertion.
In my view, you could certainly do an excellent job on Sky Sports, the Daily Mirror, the Sun, or the BBC Football department, but your post above is not meeting the higher intellectual demands that come with posting a comment on a blog.
well we won, but i can’t see any word better for describing our performance than terrible.
how many of our team but in a decent game over the 90 minutes? bendtner, vermaelen…. ummm…. bendtner, oh wait i’ve said him… ummm….
we conceded two stup[id goals in 5 minutes from bad mistakes and overly casual play. we made one chance in the entire first half vs a team who were nothing spectacular at all. in the second half it took until late before we created any more chances and our goals? one might have been given as handball/offside quite easily and the other was a terrible lapse in concentration from the opposition as eddie bundled it over.
i’m very happy with the result, but whilst the usual anti arsenal shit on tv is extremely tiresome and usually inaccurate, we WERE awful. the first half was one of our worst performances in a very long time. clichy was just terrible (probably the worst i’ve ever seen him play), gallas kept making mistakes, eboue was eboue, diaby can’t use his left foot to save his life, cesc was uninspiring, song made a lot of mistakes, eddie was terrible up until the final 20 minutes, mannone had a few worrying moments, although i guess he was ok overall. bendtner put in a good shift and worked hard, as well as scoring a nice goal and vermaelen was mostly very good. but seriously other than bendtner’s goal (the only chance we managed to make in the first 60 odd minutes vs a not very good team) we practically did nothing good at all until the final 15 minutes when we looked dnagerous and they looked tired.
thank god we won, because vs a decent premiership team we would much less likely have gotten anything from the game. there is no two ways about it, we were awful yesterday
We win and still the village idiots on here are not happy. I honestly think they would be happier if we lost just so they can come on and say “i told you so” but hey guess what muppets WE WON. I think we are more Jekyll and Hyde than the Doctor himself and I swear a few more of Wenger’s hair strands visibly turned grey before my very eyes in the first five minutes o the game. we had the resolve to pull something out of the bag yesterday. That’s a good sign in my book. Okay we were two-bob for much of the game but we won. Had Manchester United, Chelsea or Liverpool won in similar fashion then we would hear how about the grit shown and how much character they have. Hopefully we hear the same for Arsenal. Hand on heart I believe we can win things but only if we quit making the amateurish mistakes we continually commit. I’d say that we could have cut 90% of the goals conceded if we showed more concentration in our games this season. Clearly this needs to be worked on. How do you improve concentration? Don’t ask me but there has to be an expert in this field somewhere. Preferably a Gooner too.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPS SILLY ME. Part of this is lifted from Wrighty7’s post the previous day. I’ve not deleted it as I normally do because it gave rise to some discussion – mostly from me actually. But sincere apologies to Wrighty7 for copying your work. They do that to us, the people on that IP address.
Have to agree mostly with Ryan. I don’t know about awful, but we were certainly dodgy as hell. Kudos to the team for coming back and winning, but it was more by luck than judgment.
Tony, while I agree with you that Song is confounding his critics, you picked an odd game to sing his praises. He was as uninspired as the rest of the team last night. At least he wasn’t having too many basic competence issues, like Clichy, Diaby and Gallas.
And when a player knocks a 30 yard crossfield pass that goes to no-one when there were better options, that is in fact called “giving the ball away”.
However, on the plus side you’ve got Vermaelen who looks like one of our few real fighers, and Rosicky – also a fighter and the best midfielder on display last night. Points in the bag, etc and so on.
From mine standpoint we were better team, we give goal early and second one was result of shock, but what fallowed was our superiority by all means. If Standard is such “good”, why they didn’t exploit our total offensive and score one more goal and finish things with style.
As far as I understand things, only really really big teams are able to come back from 2 goals deficit.
I just cant understand why when we play our Wengerball, they say if you want win something you have to learn to win ugly, and when we win ugly they say we are rubbish which win by luck. When MU or KGB does it, its not ugly its mastermind of tactical football…
For me this was great game in whcih team show they have wining mentality, which they said we lacking after game vs MU.
This team came from 2 goals down and won 3-2 and so-called supporters can only conclude we were “lucky”, “awful”, “dodgy” etc. This is lunacy of the worst order. No wonder slick Harry of the Spuds felt bold enough call our fans “nutters.” I watched the game twice and shit happened in the 1st five minutes. (1) Eduardo made that little flick cross field around our 18 yard box, the same flick that our players make hundreds of times in the same position, but this time it fails to reach its destination and good shot, goal. (2) Eboue makes a loose pass and the opponent intercepts, runs towards our box, Gallas clips the opponent’s heel in trying to marshall the player away from the goal, penalty. These things happen. But we were superior in every department from there on and earned our victory. Even the jokers on my Setanta feed, including ex-Manc, Lou Macari, in the midst of their moaning and criticisms had to conclude that Liege was knackered after coming under so much pressure. Most of all every player showed mental resolve, continuing to play the Arsenal-way, knowing that another goal by Liege would have killed-off the game. The nutters who call themselves Arsenal supporters are simply paranoid; unable to recognize that without 5 or 6 of our best offensive players we were never going to be as fluent as we can be but we were better and mentally stronger than our opponents. While they may deny it, too many of these fans buy into the b.s. they hear and read in the mainstream press which is convinced that Arsenal cannot succeed the Wenger-way. I am convinced that this particular group has the talent and the experience to win every competition. Unfortunately the nutters will be the ones to boo and jeer, especially at home, whenever there is a slight setback making the job even harder.
Is it me or Clichy gone backwards this season? I have noticed how in the last 3 games his concentration has been abysmal – I dont want to cloud our victory but i think wenger really should be addressing these.
Shotta – I am with you 100%. You have expressed the whole issue perfectly.
Debbie – yes Clichy is not so good – but it happens to everyone who has a creative type of job. Some days you fly and everything you do turns to gold, some days you dig a pit and fall into it.
What some supporters seem to forget is that Henry had bad days – we see all those wonder goals, and forget the 0-0 against Portsmouth where he couldn’t get in the right place, couldn’t pass, couldn’t shoot…
Bergkamp had bad days – indeed bad weeks and months. So if it happens to the ultimate geniuses of the game, it happens to the merely brilliant.
The only way out is to play yourself out. Look what Bendtner did last season – he played his way through a poor patch and came out the other end, and in fact got us out of jail last night.
At an infinitely lower level of life, I earn my money from writing, and in my tiny world I know that there are days when my writing for clients will just about do, while there are times when my writing soars away, and my firm’s clients have delivered to their desks adverts that generate them loads of dosh. I can’t turn on the best days to order.
Sometimes I deliver an average performance because I didn’t sleep well last night, or because I am distracted (usually by the Arsenal), but sometimes because I just can’t deliver and I don’t know why.
One moment summed up Arsenal last night. As the 2nd half was about to start the commentator mentioned that this is now time for Arsenal’s leaders to stand up and they went to a close up of Cesc looking like he didn’t even want to be there I seriously think his move to Barca could be even nearer). They then showed the Liege captain who was animated and pumping up his players. I was left wondering where our leaders are and it was clear there aren’t any. This is not a reaction as I said at the time that Cesc was not the right man to make captain but who is the alternative? As far as I’m concerned the only ones who liked up for it last night were Bendtner (looks so much better playing throught the middle), Rosicky and Vermaelen (potential future captain). The rest were shocking, although i have a lot of sympathy for Mannone who can’t be blamed for either of the goals.
What is happening to Arsenal’s fan base these days? Are we so media inspired and led we are unable to think for ourselves?
Without wishing to appear sycophantic this seems to be a rational and constructive forum for debate. Opinions from all are canvassed and published; sometimes ridiculed and sometimes applauded. I have an issue with the current batch of Arsenal supporters who seem to think it is not worth saying unless it’s rabid and negative, preferably with profanity thrown in.
Instead of creating a siege mentality to rebuff the anti-Arsenal press, and keeping our heads when all around are etc. we seem to want to do News International’s job for them. I’ve just visited one such negative site and found almost 250 responses to a negative article; all of them supporting the negativity; why?
Following the Man City game I wrote to this site and spoke about the need to support rather than cast rabid fanaticism. The need to get behind those who are not at the top of their game, rather than further demoralising them. I also suggested that many of these negative and profane comments were a disgrace to one of the World’s greatest football clubs…. reaction: My comments were moderated out, presumably in favour of an article with more four-lettered words of wisdom; hardly even-handed.
If we are ever to defeat these anti-Arsenal rags we have to show a unified front; not a fanatical whitewash of a poor performance, but constructive and rational criticism and support of a team I hope we all love.
Or then again; maybe the country has become intellectually bankrupt, and Arsenal is just a microcosm of a wider malaise.
Oh Debbie – you are taking the piss aren’t you.
Earlier today you said, “We win and still the village idiots on here are not happy”, and looking at your IP address I thought, blimey, one of the people writing out of that particular IP address is actually writing something positive.
And then no sooner have I allowed your piece through than you are back on the official line which is “Cesc looking like he didn’t even want to be there” and “I seriously think his move to Barca could be even nearer”.
So, like the men in UEFA who can judge what goes on in Eduardo’s mind, you can judge what goes on in Cesc’s mind. Not very likely in my opinion.
So, you are a village idiot – by your own definition.
Tony
MikeB
You said
“Following the Man City game I wrote to this site and spoke about the need to support rather than cast rabid fanaticism… My comments were moderated out, presumably in favour of an article with more four-lettered words of wisdom; hardly even-handed.”
I was worried by this statement and have just spent a spot of time checking. Apart from your two very recent posts, no emails have been received from the email address you used today.
I have checked through the 2000 odd spams received this season, and there is nothing there at all.
I don’t delete items unless
a) they are copied from another site
b) they are straight adverts
c) they come from one of a small number of IP addresses which generate anti-Arsenal material all day long.
So, no, you are wrong. I did not moderate you out. Either there was a tech fault and your message didn’t get to me (not something I have experienced, but possible) or it was sent to the wrong address.
I would say to everyone, if you post, and your post does not appear, and you want to know why, email Tony@hamilton-house.com and I will look into it. I don’t monitor the site 24 hours a day (I work, I dance, I watch football, I go to the theatre, I visit my children and grandchildren) but I do try and provide a reasonable service.
And do remember – it is free – a labour of love. I don’t think I deserve to be accused of removing a post “presumably in favour of an article with more four-lettered words of wisdom”. I doubt that there are many swear words in my posts. Maybe you are confusing UNTOLD ARSENAL with another site.
Sorry Tony; you misunderstood my comments; When I said this site I was referring to the site mentioned previously (Le Grove actually). Perhaps I didn’t explain it properly I didn’t want to mention the name for obvious reasons.
Please don’t you get paranoid on me; you’re my last hope…
I have to agree with Shotta & Tony.
This reminded me of an old fashioned cup tie, away against a lower but decent team, in a very intimidating atmosphere. The sort of game we regularly lost pre-Wenger. It was also reminiscent of European games like Mallorca, Panathinaikos,Rosenburg where we either lost or drew with the likes of PV4 & TH14.
The fact is these games are difficult & too many of the anti support just expect us to stroll through them in brilliant style all the time.
We got caught cold, which can happen to any team. Eds flick was foolish but what would the reaction have been if it had set up a brilliant counter attack to put us ahead? Eboue lost possession & Gallas was clumsy, c’est la vie. 2-0 down task even harder with the opposition sky high on adrenaline.
We looked poor because they played well but also had to use up a lot of energy in closing us down. After that disastrous start we controlled the game, albeit clumsily & they only had 1 further real chance, just after half time.
Yes it was not an easy on the eye performance but our opening goal was an excellent one. Diaby did brilliantly for that.
After that we were always going to reap the benefit in the closing stages, because they had been run ragged.
There are many ways to win football matches, we tried to play our game & it paid off in the end.
It seems to be forgotten that AW was not able to select the side he probably would have wanted for this tie. For me, it was crying out for Walcott or Vela because even though they packed their defence we frequently got behind them.
Not a game to cherish & yes a few bad performances but from reports I have seen not many merit marks for Liverpool or Chelsea either.
Can any of the doomersbrigade tell me how many chances Standard had against us yesterday ? Well I can only remeber 1 (one) at the beginning of the 2 half.
We gave them 2 goals and made life difficult for our selves. Thats what happened.
And yes I was sitting in the stand and watching it and YES IT WAS THE WORST PERFORMANCE THIS SEASON! (sorry for this). But we turned it round, we kept believing in our football an the players knew they didn’t play like they can but they showed carachter and determination. If things dont go well, you just have to trie even harder and that is excactly what the players did.
So why moan about this win ?
Yes we can adress the goals and the way we gave it to them but if you want to see robots playing instead of human beings, you just have to wait another 100 years or so.
And I can tell you that last night after some 5 minutes it looked to me that my worst nightmare ever, loosing to a Belgium club, would be on the boards but I thank the players for there mental power to, lets not forget after twho hard defeats and a horror start, got the strength to fight back and turn things around.
Shola: You are so ignorant about footbal. Please don’t just parrot the myopic opinions that you read on some negative blogs here. BUY? Buy what? To what purpose? Who are the best players who are gone? You obviously adore Adebayor. Well, keep him. We don’t want him.
Debbie: I do see your point. Sometimes, I think, frustratingly, that Arsenal is the most unlucky club in the premiership to have all these never-pleased fans. Nothing the Arsenal does makes those fans happy. They seem to believe too much of their own & other anti-Arsenal hypes. Sad.
Shota & Armin: You both aptly capture the essence of what happened yesterday. Some people are hypo, as well as over, critical of the team no matter what they try to do. Bad things happen, often when you don’t want them to. should we kill our team because of what happened in the first five minutes? Hell No. Should we throw the baby out with the mucky birth water because of the muck? Hell No. The team pulled together, showed gut to attempt a come back and achieved it. I have seen Chavski praised for far less. And damn it, I have even seen ManUre showered with glory for a whole lot less come back. 3 points in the bag. Thankful! Thankful!! Thankful!!!
As for the people who are happing on about the luck of the second goal; What if it is luck? Don’t we deserve any? Have you lot stop to look at it from a different perspective? Standard liege second goal was luck for them; Why? Well because the contact, or lack thereof, for which the penalty was awarded was actually just outside of the box. Take a look in slow motion and you will see. So, the refree & linesman (sorry I can’t call them anything else) must have that at the back of their minds when they allowed Arsenal her own luck for her own second goal. What’s wrong with that? Makes it even, doesn’t it? What’s good for the goose and all that!
So we take the 3 points anywhich way. Thank you very much. ManUre have been accepting them for years. It is about time Arsenal fans learn to accept them as well.
Am I right about the intimidating atmosphere, Walter.
That never really comes across on TV.
Mike B – my sincere apologies – I misunderstood. When you said “this site” I took it to mean Untold… I understand who you mean now, and I would agree with all your comments.
Really sorry – if you take a look at some of my comments above, you’ll see I am having a bit of a tough day with the forces of spam.
further to the observation about Alan Smith and other ex-players, I have a feeling that it’s not so much them trying to keep up with the crowd, but rather more that for Sky/Talk Sport etc, it’s in their contract to slag off the Gunners! Thamkfully they’ve never go to Charlie George!!
Yes Flint it was very intimidating. There is a lot of Italian blood in the Liège area and the fans are very Italian like.
Jumping and dancing and singing.
But what they sing I dont know. Although I speak french as a third language (after dutch and english) and I rather consider myself fluent in it, I cant understand the words.
But have to say I never found it intimitading towards us or the players. The mostly cheered their own players.
Well Eduardo didn’t get any stick of them.
In fact after the game we had to go from the visitors end through the police to the Standard supporters because our car was parked there. Before the game we had our Arsenal shirts wide open to see and no one approached us or said anything. No agression whatever towards us. I saw Arsenal fans sitting in a pub with Standard supporters and all was very peacefull. Like it should be.
We had to cover up our Arsenal things before we could walk towards the Standard side by the police but they saw us coming but again no sign of any agression.
So yes they supported their team during the game with passion but I guess they had settled for a defeat before the game in fact.
I think you need to break down the difference between the match commentators and the pundits. So commentators , on Sky Andy Gray and Martin Tyler are good, Jonathon Peace used to be brilliant when he was at Capital Gold but at the BBC he seems to be a 2nd choice and I don’t hear much of him nowadays. As for pundits I can’t think of one that even gets close to talking sense even occasionally. Jamie Redknapp loves Liverpool and the Spud’s because he played for them, loves Chelsea because his cousin Lampard plays for them and loves ManU because it is compulsory if you work in the media. He hates Arsenal and I can prove it, or rather my Mum can. A good few years ago we were playing the Spud’s in a early lunchtime Saturday kickoff, can’t remember which ground but it was either Spring or early Autumn as I had the doors open. At halftime my Mum appears, I’m laying on the sofa drinking a beer listening to the half time punditry looking bemused, my Mum walks in and listens to Redknapp for a couple of minutes “Tottenham look sharper, quickly to the ball, want it more etc etc” so she asks how many are you losing by? We were winning 2 nil!
I’ve never been able to take anything he says seriously since.
i m from czech rep. and from my perspective there is absolute lack of balance from majority of sport commentators and pundits, when manu/liverpool/chelsea wins while not playing good they use cliches such as that great teams are winning even when playing badly, lucky goals are reward for dedication and so on, but we are alwasy just lucky…. 🙂 unfortunately i think that for foreseeable future we are gonna be in position of punching bag for mainstream media simply because we are very easy target
Nice one shotta-gunner, its amazing how many so called fans condemn these player totally oblivious that in any other jobs mistakes are made but never exposed to the examination of live cameras these players have to endure. As one said earlier, even Henry and Vieira made mistakes. I recall that we were hit 6-1 by Manure once.
But to complain when guys pulled off a recovery like this is criminal.Some of our supporters get things they hear from Chelski and manure to argue on here. Any wonder that we are accused of being silent at our stadium whenever the team is are the cosh?
I was encouraged by Rossicky’s game and enjoying seeing his marvelous runs and passes that were spoilt or lost. I cant wait to see him playing with Ashavin and Wilshere in the same team. That would be amazing to see unusual creativity of our team.
Sorry if I make the same point as someone before but I haven’t read all the comments through (lazy I know but its been a long day!). The anti-Arsenal bias is not going to change anytime soon, simply because there is nothing currently at the Arsenal for the xenophobic media to love. Liverpool – Gerrard, Manure – Rooney, Ferdinand and a British manager, Chelsea – half the England team, even Man City now have a smattering of media friendly darlings. Arsenal have Walcott who so far has been too inconsistent to be a darling and thats about it. It will be interesting to see if when Wilshere, Watt and Emmanuel Thomas come through if the media’s stance softens a bit!
Only interesting thing on the pre/post etc game show yesterday were AW comments.
“Is Arsenal better suited to the CL?”
AW: “Yes it is less violent”
AW also: “The other teams in the CL come to play”
I think there is a much more aggressive media policy in play at the club now. The RvP comments immediately post MCity were clearly drafted by a lawyer. Looks like the club under Gazidis is getting its act together more to counter the negativity.
Oh and the game. The purposeful rotation of players (RvP, Denilson, Sagna, Gibbs) made sense with Wigan on Saturday. The team faced a typical (very committed) Eur team which played with 10 or 11 behind the ball for most of the match. That takes time to break down and one needs to watch the last 15 mins very closely as that is when it usually either happens or doesn’t with a tiring defence. When the energy levels are up you have to expect Std Liege to make a game of it, and they did. Its early season but many have already played a lot of games, twice a week every week (Gallas, TV, Cesc, Bendtner). Arsenal still managed 70% possession and Cesc 2 assists. Crisis! what crisis?
Lovely story Marc.
I can’t agree about Gray and Tyler though. They were better about five years ago.
Thanks for those stats jbh – just goes to show that things are not always what they seem as received wisdom around the internet seems to be that Cesc was rubbish yesterday.
Consolsbob – We were all better five years ago, at keast my waistline was!
There does appear to be a whole host of Gooners who are not happy unless we lose and they can say “look at smart me, I told you all we were doomed, Wenger out, get in anybody as long as they spend loads of money”, anyone who dare put forward a reasoned arguement in support of the manager or players are dismissed as not living in the real world and of being party liners. Opinion is now passes on as FACT, spending money is the cure of all evils, someone tell spuds and the toon that they have been major successes in the last 15 years, they must be they have spent way way more than Arsenal. Liverpool have not won a league title in 20 years yet many gooners tell us that they are doing things the right way, cos the spend big on fullback and strikers who they sell six months later for a loss, but seemingly us party liners are too blinded by love of Wenger to see the truth.
I’ve seen the same people who said after the manU game that playing well means nothing if you lose, and that the result is all that matters, these people after the city game told us to forget the bad luck as you make your own luck, and the result is all that matters, but then yesterday and today these people have the cheek to tell us winning last night was not enough, we did not play well, and of course they told us that we had all the luck to win, funny how they can not see the how stupid there double standards are. Some of them are unhappy cos they can not say today we lost and I told you we would lose, so I am smart and you know nothing.
On to the SKY issue, anyone else notice that SKY now almost never have Charlie Nicholas on to talk about anything involving Arsenal(he only is on as part of the soccer saturday panel), Kenny Samsom and Nigel Winterburn have also been dropped by them, they will have Merson and Smith on, now consider what Nicholas, Samson and Winterburn have in common, they fight the Arsenal corner with all their might, then consider Merson and Smith, they will go with what the majority are saying, one(mrson) cos he is so unsure of himself that he sees others opinions as having more value than his and the other(smith) is smart enough to know that when he spoke in favour of Arsenal he got less work from sky so he now says what he thinks they want him to say.
I like your analysis, eduardo.