By Tony Attwood
Really good writing in all its forms (poetry, novels, biographies, songs and yes, even journalism) makes the reader think, ponder, reflect and end up feeling moved. Moved perhaps by a new insight into the world in which we live. Moved perhaps by a perspective in terms of past events.
But oh how rare good journalism is, when judged by such standards, for having retreated from the broad perspective, it is and now seduced by the desire to compete with radio and TV’s “breaking news” into reflecting not on the last year, month, week, or day, but on the last few minutes.
Much of the time such “news” reports are just tedious as each outlet falls over the others to find a new angle on the latest twist of the news of the last five minutes. Today in England it is the weather “and actually I did mean to do Untold’s own weather report yesterday speculating on how Manchester United fans would get back home after the match, what with Cornwall being cut off from the rest of the Kingdom, but I got rather interested in some research that showed that Edward Snowden used a cheap and cheerful web crawler to hack the American secret files, and before I knew it, the wind had blown, the day had gone, but both thoughts lead to interesting perspectives).
But back to my drift: everything now in the news is a reflection on the last five seconds. Reflection on where we actually stand now is a thing of the past.
Thus it is that this morning the Guardian’s David Hynter writes as his opening line, “Arsenal’s season has been played out to a single soundtrack and the words have begun to grate. Can Arsène Wenger’s team respond?”
What piffle.
When something goes wrong the traditional Wengerian response is a slow reform, stabilising the defence and then building again. When there have been bad moments this season Mr Wenger has taken us back a step or two and rebuilt.
When we lost 6-3 to Man City, that was followed up by a 0-0 v Chelsea. Same again last night against Man U following Liverpool. When we lost on the opening day to Villa, we responded with a 3-1 against a poor Fulham side, and a trudging 1-0 against Tottenham.
Those were the responses. But “a single sound track”? No, if you want a single sound track try this
- 3-1
- 1-0
- 3-1
- 2-1
- 1-1
- 4-1
- 2-0
Those are the results between the Villa defeat and the Man U defeat. It would be boring to do so, but I could lay out a similar sound track after each of the defeats this season.
Now Mr Hynter is clearly a guy with a GCSE or two, but he really should not let the imagination of his, undoubtedly fired by a good result in English Literature in his youth, interfere with some historical awareness. His Arsenal sound track is of “soul-searching and questions about the collective mentality before the rallying cry” is a reflection of the media’s interpretation not of reality.
- 1-0
- 9-2
- 1-2
- 0-0
- 3-0
- 2-3
- 2-3
That is actually the sequence of results between December 17 and January 7 in the league during the 1932/3 season – when Arsenal won the league.
Of course if the “history as the last couple of minutes” approach to journalism were just Mr Hynter’s province one might think the Guardian was indulging a promising young pup and letting him loose on the British reading classes to help him tone his style.
But also today we have Amy Lawrence, who does indeed know a thing or three. She also talks about Arsenal in the aftermath, and she like her fellow writer, talks about the Chelsea game after the Man C game. Actually the duplication of commentaries reads somewhat like the, “I’m doing this bit, no I’m doing this bit” cries my grandchildren say when being encouraged to play nicely together, but then after the intro from Ms Lawrence (whose writing I must admit I do normally enjoy) we get the jolly stuff.
“It is easy to lament that Olivier Giroud is no Robin van Persie, the man he replaced at Arsenal,” she says, and well yes, we can all agree, because Giroud is actually fit and plays. RVP only had one complete season with us where he scored lots of goals. He played 50 games in his first two seasons and scored 10. I would say Giroud is far more than an RVP on that basis.
Other than that one final fling, RVP’s top appearance level was with 28 games, and the numbers drop down and down, along with the goals. His last season with Arsenal and first with Man U were atypical. His absences this season, and his misses last night are much more to the RVP standard.
And this really is my point – we had to wait year on year on year even to see RVP play regularly, let alone score regularly. But without him we have scored 48 goals this season, and of course we would all like more, but in fact that is the same number as Chelsea who are top, and in fact third best in the league.
Yes we have not run away with the league this season; we are second at the moment. We have also not headed for relegation as the AAA expected after the first game.
So a little perspective might be nice – and that I suppose is where I started with the mention of Edward Snowden. If you think of him as a guy who stole lots of secrets from the NSA you might be filled with shock and horror, or just shrug. But when you know that he used a web crawler – one of the simplest and cheapest bits of software that runs around the internet – and that the NSA could have its secrets stolen via such a simple piece of kit, and that they recently admitted they still dont have a mechanism to stop web crawlers once inside their system, then the perspective builds. It makes one think not so much of Snowden, but rather of the NSA and the American security systems.
Just as this rampant disregard for even a season long perspective (let alone a perspective concerning RVPs long and injury prone, and in the early stages anger fuelled career) really changes one’s view somewhat of what the newspaper is trying to say.
Nice article Tony. Unfortunately asking the mass of people to employ perspective and critical thinking is like asking a fish to solve differential equations. Or journalists to write anything other than superficial tendentious nonsense.
Ah finally Tony is back 😉
Hear Hear!!!!!
All the usual nonsense is being sprouted this morning from Brazil on Talkcrap to the blogs to the newspapers. Every popular boring cliche is being trotted out from the ever popular ‘Wheels coming off’ to ‘crumbling title challenge’. All this is largely Wenger’s fault for not going out and buying that (mystery unnamed) world class striker in January.
Lets hope the team uses this mass media glee at the prospect of an Arsenal ‘meltdown’ to galvanise their collective willpower and ram the critics smug opinions straight back up their anal passages.
Lol, some of the AAA are now wishing /expecting us out of the top four!
As you say, perspective is everything
Some perspective is needed. I think you should take your own advice. Exactly who believed we’d be relegated, even Spurs fans didn’t believe that nonsense.
Come on Rupert, deep down inside…
@Mick, of course it’s virtually impossible to get a top striker in January. We all know this. But Berbatov was going begging and he’s a better finisher than Giroud who desperately needs a little help. It seems plainly obvious that Podolski isn’t trusted as a cf so who is there? Why is the team short of options upfront when it was plainly obvious that Wenger wanted a striker in the summer?
Much as I think Ozil is a great player I’d swap him for Suarez who rarely disappears in games and is the sort of player who can elevate a team beyond its limits rather like RVP did for us two seasons ago.
@Walter, do you know anyone who really thinks Arsenal would be relegated? Seriously this is just tosh. I’ve supported Arsenal for years and watched football for years and I can tell you that I’ve never contemplated us going down since about 1976.
Rupert,
even this week when reading some comments I thought we were relegated and the season was over.
Luckily having a look at the league table saved me from jumping off the bridge 😉
Rupert,
did you know that in September 1996 just before Wenger officially started his career at Arsenal we were 10th in the league?
Good article Tony.
The rupert (who admitted he is anti Wenger) continues to post here and continues to whine. However, he is becoming more abusive in addition to his normal style – snide and twisted. Is there a new script writer at the nest?
On a side note.
I just looked at Manchester United. They are out of the FA cup and league cup so no way to get in to Europe that way.
They are currently 7th. They are 8 points behind Spurs who are 5th.
Only the 5th placed team gets in to the Europa League
And the winners of the FA cup and league cup. In the event that Sunderland wins the league cup this would mean that MU need one of the top 6 teams to win the FA cup in order to get even in the Europa league. And it is not certain that a top 6 team will win the FA cup as after the next round there will be at best only 3 of the top 6 teams still in it. And remember Wigan last season who won it against all odds.
So things really looking grim for United who might even not qualify for anything at all in Europe next season….
Tony,
I’ll be upfront by saying that I am no Snowden fan. He was perfectly happy with all of Bush’s snooping under the guise of national security. He used to hate whistleblowers and recommended that they be “shot in the balls” (his exact quote). He is no different from the “Tea-Partiers” who only noticed America’s deficits once a black Democrat became president.
Having said that, Snowden did not acquire the data by hacking in the real sense of it, although I admit that it sounds cool for him to be called a ‘hacker’. He got the data by using borrowed login passes of his co-workers with higher security clearance under one false pretense or the other to steal the data. All of those co-workers have now been sacked.
The outrage that followed the revelations made many to care very little about the character and history of the ‘whistleblower’. Or the victims of his ‘heroism’ – well, they work for NSA anyway, who cares if they lose their jobs?
Snowden is no hero. He is a tantrum throwing vindictive person who would ruin the careers of others to punish an administration that he hates. He, also, is no hacker but a common thief who took advantage of his former colleagues’ trust and betrayed them.
There, I said it.
Now, the blowback in 3, 2, ….
Perspective is all very well, Tony, but if you were at the game last night then you would be or should be a lot less sanguine about things. Our defence was excellent which was good to see after the blood bath at the weekend but I have rarely seen an Arsenal team so lacking in pace and dynamism which are the hallmarks of our game. When commentators and journalists say that that the team looks tired and leggy it’s hard to disagree.
From my perspective, unless we get Ramsey back at the beginning of March and he hits the ground running ( not easy when you have been out for three months) we will be in a dogfight with Spurs and Everton for fourth spot.
@Rupert
I would imagine that Wenger considered Berbatov but probably decided his languid, laid back style wouldn’t fit in with Arsenals style of play. Could you see him dashing round to pressurize defenders and tracking back like Giroud does. Given the amount of stick Ozil gets for being ‘lazy’ I can only guess how much flack would have been aimed in Berbatov’s direction.
Q… What game do the media pundits and football journalists play at their Christmas party.
A… Pass the braincell.
When we can’t laugh again at the same joke, then why do we cry again and again for the one and the same pain.
Out of curiosity why did you support arsenal Rupert? Where did the love come from?
I always thought that it was kissing under the mistletoe that hangs tantalising on SAF’s midriff ?
What’s that ? That’s below the belt ?
Of course it is !!
Where exactly ? I ‘ll leave that to your imagination !
There are two ways to live your life:
-One is as though nothing is a miracle.
-The other is as though everything is a miracle.
Life never turns the way we want.
But we live it in the best way we can.
There’s no perfect life,but we can fill it with perfect moments.
Life is better when you are happy, but
life is best when other people are happy because of you!
Be an inspiration, share your smile.
( Not applicable for the AAAA – your grimaces make me smile !And LOL ! And LMAO while ROTFl !)
Berbatov may have been ok if we could have got him on loan, but he is not completely what we need, in the twilight of his career…and not worth a punt for what he would be demanding – two to three years at what £80gpw? …he is now at Moncao and presumably earning a tax free packet.
We need to have an alternative striker Wenger trusts, he clearly does not rate Poldi as a striker…think we will soon see NB. Giroud looks to me like he is entering that tired zone whereby injuries are more likely to occur. And yes, a tired Giroud does not bring out the best in Ozil, not does having theo and Ramsey missing
A striking solution is clearly planned and on the way, but we will have to wait until the summer when Wengers true target will be revealed.
Until then, the season if far from over, lets just back who we have, for most of the season, they have done rather well.
As for yesterday, wenger had to go against his natural instincts, a loss would have caused huge confidence problems in upcoming…vital.. games.
Some of you guys are pointing out that we’re still only a point off the top. Yes, on the face of it, that’s not the worst place to be in Feb. The worry comes when you look at the table just over a couple of months ago. We were 4 points clear of Chelski, 6 clear of City and 7 clear of Liverpool. When you take all of that into account and add the small matter that the only one of those teams we’ve managed to beat was Liverpool, who have since improved immensely (and showed it at the weekend), suddenly being “only” a point off the top doesn’t sound so great. Wenger missed a massive opportunity to try and consolidate our position by bringing in some fresh blood in Jan. All our early-season goalscorers are either injured or drastically off form and yet Wenger clearly has no faith in the very few alternatives he’s given himself. Ox, as is so often the case, was our biggest threat last night but, as is also so often the case, was only given 20 minutes to show it. Pod didn’t even get a look in. Sanogo spent most of the second half warming up and that was it, while Bendtner is clearly there just to make the bench look full. How does a manager, with money in the bank and 18 years to get his team right, allow it to get like this? How does a manager, famed for his attacking play and love of a good goalscorer, allow it to get to a point where, when his no.1 striker is struggling with form, he has so little faith in the rest of his squad that he has no choice but to persist with his non-scoring first option?
Inspirational quotes –
Knowing others is intelligence,
Knowing yourself is true wisdom,
Mastering others is strength,
Mastering yourself is true power.
Never take some one for granted,
Hold every person close to your Heart
Because you might wake up one day and realize
That you have lost a diamond
While you were too busy collecting stones
Last nights game was awful, we lack pace and movement and the one two’s in around the box are far too predictable. The amount of times we break and the whole move breaks down due to no runners off the ball and lack of movement from Giroud. Basically we lack the three Ss Skill, Speed and Speed. At the moment we just have Skill, we are too predictable and are overloaded with small technical players. We need PROPER wingers in the three that can hug the touchline, are quick, beat their man, can cross or come inside. Liverpool have it in Sterling & Sturridge/Suarez, Chelsea have it with Hazard & Willian, Tottenham have it in Townsend & Lennon and City have it in Nevas. We also lack steel in terms of midfielders who will physically dominate the midfield through their strength/ahtleticism and energy(Flamini is not the full package). Toure/Fernandinho, Henderdon/Gererad & Matic/Luiz. For me Wenger could do worse then to look at his sides of old for inspiration. For me Lars Bender and a Striker are the minimum we need.
@ Rob, Well, go ahead. Whats keeping you away. You need Lars Bender. Go have him….
Whatever about the result or performance, did Arsene have to face the media and tell them we were nervous, exposing us as weak, which is exactly what the media thrive on. Now they can discuss how mentally weak we are for the next few days with the managers compliance. How can a man of his age and experience give this type of ammunition to the media?
This is quite long , so those who have no patience go on to the AAAAs comments ! From…..
https://www.facebook.com/FunnyJokesStories
Abbas, a fresh computer graduate from a world class university goes for an interview in a Software company.
The interviewer is Waleed, a grubby old man. And the first question he asks Abbas, is are you good at logic?.
“Of course.” replies Abbas.
“Let me test you.” replies Waleed.
“Two men come down a chimney. One comes with a clean face and the other comes out with a dirty face. Which one washes his face?
Abbas stares at Waleed. “Is that a test in Logic?”
Waleed nods.
“The one with the dirty face washes his face,” He answers wearily.
“Wrong. The one with the clean face washes his face. Examine the simple logic. The one with the dirty face looks at the one with the clean face and thinks his face is clean. The one with the clean face looks at the one with the dirty face and thinks his face is dirty. So; the one with the clean face washes his face.”
“Hmm. I never thought of that” says Abbas. “Give me another test”
Waleed again holds up two fingers “Two men come down a chimney. One comes out with a clean face and the other comes out with a dirty face. Which one washes his face?
“We have already established that. The one with the clean face washes his face”
“Wrong. Each one washes his face. Examine the simple logic. The one with the dirty face looks at the one with the clean face and thinks his face is clean. The one with the clean face looks at the one with the dirty face and thinks his face is dirty. So; the one with the clean face washes his face. When the one with the dirty face sees the one with the clean face washing his face, he also washes his face. So each one washes his face”
“I didn’t think of that!” says Abbas. ” It’s shocking to me that I could make an error in logic. Test me again!.”
Waleed holds up two fingers “Two men come down a chimney. One comes out with a clean face and the other comes out with a dirty face. Which one washes his face?
“Each one washes his face”
“Wrong. Neither one washes his face. Examine the simple logic. The one with the dirty face looks at the one with the clean face and thinks his face is clean. The one with the clean face looks at the one with the dirty face and thinks his face is dirty. But when the one with clean face sees that the one with the dirty face doesn’t wash his face, he also doesn’t wash his face So neither one washes his face”.
Abbas is desperate. “I am qualified for this job. Please give me one more test”
He groans when Waleed lifts his two fingers, ”Two men come down a chimney. One comes out with a clean face and the other comes out with a dirty face. Which one washes his face?
“Neither one washes his face”
“Wrong. Do you now see, Abbas, why programming knowledge is an insufficient for this job? Tell me, how is it possible for two men to come down the same chimney, and for one to come out with a clean face and the other with a dirty face? Don’t you see?
Moral: For our Readers to Decide
Photo: Abbas, a fresh computer graduate from a world class university goes for an interview in a Software company. The interviewer is Waleed, a grubby old man. And the first question he asks Abbas, is are you good at logic?. “Ofcourse” replies Abbas. “Let me test you” replies Waleed. “Two men come down a chimney. One comes with a clean face and the other comes out with a dirty face. Which one washes his face? Abbas stares at Waleed. “Is that a test in Logic?” Waleed nods. “The one with the dirty face washes his face,” He answers wearily. “Wrong. The one with the clean face washes his face. Examine the simple logic. The one with the dirty face looks at the one with the clean face and thinks his face is clean. The one with the clean face looks at the one with the dirty face and thinks his face is dirty. So; the one with the clean face washes his face.” “Hmm. I never thought of that” says Abbas. “Give me another test” Waleed again holds up two fingers “Two men come down a chimney. One comes out with a clean face and the other comes out with a dirty face. Which one washes his face? “We have already established that. The one with the clean face washes his face” “Wrong. Each one washes his face. Examine the simple logic. The one with the dirty face looks at the one with the clean face and thinks his face is clean. The one with the clean face looks at the one with the dirty face and thinks his face is dirty. So; the one with the clean face washes his face. When the one with the dirty face sees the one with the clean face washing his face, he also washes his face. So each one washes his face” “I didn’t think of that!” says Abbas. ” It’s shocking to me that I could make an error in logic. Test me again!.” Waleed holds up two fingers “Two men come down a chimney. One comes out with a clean face and the other comes out with a dirty face. Which one washes his face? “Each one washes his face” “Wrong. Neither one washes his face. Examine the simple logic. The one with the dirty face looks at the one with the clean face and thinks his face is clean. The one with the clean face looks at the one with the dirty face and thinks his face is dirty. But when the one with clean face sees that the one with the dirty face doesn’t wash his face, he also doesn’t wash his face So neither one washes his face”. Abbas is desperate. “I am qualified for this job. Please give me one more test”
He groans when Waleed lifts his two fingers, ”Two men come down a chimney. One comes out with a clean face and the other comes out with a dirty face. Which one washes his face? “Neither one washes his face”
“Wrong. Do you now see, Abbas, why programming knowledge is an insufficient for this job? Tell me, how is it possible for two men to come down the same chimney, and for one to come out with a clean face and the other with a dirty face? Don’t you see?
Moral: For our Readers to Decide.
@Va Cong, Ok, I’ll tell you. There are no football fans in my family being as my dad is a New Zealander and loves rugby so I had no one to persuade me to follow any team. But I loved football and remember watching my first FA Cup Final in 1971. Liverpool vs Arsenal and I chose to support the eventual winners. Living in London also helped decide for me.
That day in glorious sunshine I saw Charlie George score the winner and throw himself backward on the turf arms outstretched. It’s an iconic moment in cup final history.
After that, bar winning the title that year, success was rather thin for some years.
I read a lot about Arsenal when I was younger. The club has a great history. It wouldn’t perhaps have had that history but for our greatest manager ever, Herbert Chapman, who believe me would not have stood for nine years of nothing. No this man was a winner and he wanted to make Arsenal the biggest club in England. And he did. How I wish he was alive today, he would be just want the club needs.
Anyway my interest in football has wavered over the years replaced by a love of music and literature. I’m not as fervent about Arsenal as I was despite the regular posts on here and I rarely go to games as the cost is too high and I don’t believe the money the supporters put in is being used with any efficacy. I’m sure the shareholders are happy though.
I’m also deeply saddened by what Wenger has become and mystified too, mainly because I don’t understand why he swapped a winning formula, the sort of teams he had between 98 and 05 for the team he now seems to favour, endless passing with very little pace and weak players that are easily brushed aside by stronger and more athletic players. It’s yielded nothing and yet he persists with it. Still as nobody at the club seems to mind and everyone seems quite content with a top four finish I guess it doesn’t really matter; I’m well aware that Wenger is unsackable unless we get relegated which despite Walter’s fears will never happen. Good luck to Wenger, he brought a lot of success to the club and maybe it’s his to do with what he wants but he won’t be around forever and I’ll be fascinated to see what will happen when he goes.
Long gone are the days when we played the most exciting football in the league. What we have now is a sleep inducing football of back and sideway passing, a sure cure for all insomniacs. If we had gone anymore sideways the ball boys would have to run out of the ground to retrieve the ball. What exactly is our attacking strategy? We don’t cross the ball often enough for Giroud to get to the end of. We don’t flood the box with attackers to take advantage of loose clearences. All we do is pass from right to left and right again outside the penalty box. Sometimes we even try to one touch pass our way thru a sea of defenders. Sort it out Wenger.
@Rupert, You need a good manager to motivate. Look at the difference between Ferguson and Moyes. Same set of players, totally different results. And as we’ve been saying for years Wenger cannot motivate. In the past he left it to players like Adams, Keown, Vieira and Henry to raise the stakes, but now they are long gone and we have no-one who can do that anymore and Wenger is exposed as the poor man manager he is.
@Mandy Dodd, I take your point about Berbatov but we’re going for the title here, not trying to finish fourth, aren’t we? We could easily afford his wages and if we did win the title the money we make would make up for it. The point you make about Giroud is very valid, he looks jaded and just doesn’t cut it when we need a result. It may not be the title we’ll be losing but fourth place if we don’t start scoring more frequently.
Sorry for that ‘extra ‘ double post!
Does this poem remind you of someone ?
‘If’ by rudyard kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master,
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
Not the end of the world but the signs are showing a big big performance is needed vs pool or our season is over cause truthfully we wont beat bayern. Does wenger have any desire ??? Everyone has said for the past 3 transfer windows he did absolutely nothing we need a striker an the proof was there last night an why are ticket prices going up ? And why is wenger being offered 8 million
@bg are you insan
AESOP’S FABLES –
The spendthrift and the swallow (one swallow does not make a summer)
A man who had wasted his fortune had nothing left but the clothes he wore. On seeing a swallow one Spring morning he decided the weather would be warmer, so he sold his coat.
The weather however turned colder the next day and killed the swallow. When the shivering man saw the dead swallow he moaned, “Thanks to you I am freezing.”
One swallow does not make a summer , but it keeps the stork away !
( Take your time !)
Rupert Cook.
He’s always there, lurking in the background, just waiting to rear his ugly, unwelcome head and invade the whole room with his nasty, irritating, poisonous presence.
Other than that I like the guy !!
AESOP , again…..
The miller, his son and the ass (if you try to please everyone you will achieve nothing)
A miller and his son were taking their ass to sell at market, when they passed a group of girls, who laughed at how foolish the miller was to have an ass and yet be walking.
So the miller put his son on the ass. Further down the road they passed some old people who scolded the miller for allowing his young son to ride, when he should be riding himself.
So the miller removed his son and mounted the ass himself. Further along the road, they passed some travellers who said that if he wanted to sell the ass the two of them should carry him or he’d be exhausted and worthless.
So the miller and his son bound the ass’s legs to a pole and carried him. When they approached the town the people laughed at the sight of them, so loud that the noise frightened the ass, who kicked out and fell off a bridge into the river and drowned.
The embarrassed miller and son went home with nothing, save the lesson that you will achieve nothing by trying to please everyone.
Rupert, have a feeling Giroud will be rested against Liverpool, and maybe after the Bayern game, and come back a bit more refreshed towards the very end of the season. Along with, hopefully Ramsey. not sure we will get the goals to ultimately win the title but I still believe this can be a successful season with progress made, we have to remember what and who we are up against
Yes, agreed,we could easily afford Berbatov, but after this season, he would quickly be assigned to the deadwood pile when our summer target/s, whoever he/they are…come in.
You mention not finishing 4th – this really is the nuclear scenario, cannot see that happening, but if it does, and in that event, unless we do something like win the CL, I cannot see Wenger renewing anyway, so the clubs problems as some view them will be over, others may view they have just begun, especially if Mr Barclay is correct about post Wenger implosion
He Shoots He Scores
A panda walks into a bar, sits down and orders a sandwich. He eats the sandwich, pulls out a gun and shoots the bartender in the foot. As the panda stands up to go, the manager shouts, “Hey! You just shot my bartender and you didn’t pay for your sandwich! Who do you think you are?!?”
The panda yells back at the manager, “Hey man, I’m a PANDA! Look it up!” The manager rushes to his dictionary…
“pan*da n. (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) A rare, mountain dwelling mammal of China and Tibet, characterized by distinct black and white coloring. Eats shoots and leaves.”
Some individuals are truly depressing; just glad I don’t know such people personally in my life.
Enjoyable article and a timely reminder about perspective. The media implore us to use their lens when viewing the world, events, people etc. but in my opinion we do so at our detriment.
Mark when you said ‘We’ve been saying it for years’ who is this we? What factual evidence do you have that Arsene left motivating the team to others?
From your reading your words Mark it’s clear that reality played no part in your comment.
@Al
It is not by accident that some individuals are always depressing or negative when they post on this site. Because we (the site and most contributors) support AW we are deliberately targeted by those who wish to undermine AW and denigrate all support for him. We are consequently the target of a sometimes subtle and sometimes more blatant, but always dishonest, propaganda campaign.
This campaign has developed over the past few months – we now at times have posts from apologists for certain depressives.
@Bootoomee This is probably not the best place for debating what Snowden did. So I limit it to just this. Don’t be too hasty in judging people without having to face the choices they had to make.
Agent Smith: Tell me, Mr. Anderson what good is a phone call if you’re unable to speak?
We are so predictable.Why?because our clueless manager only knows one way of playing.When was the last time we beat either of Utd Chelsea and City?The worst United team in 25 years who everyone has beaten this season have taken 4 points off us this season.Kev when are you going to write what every sensible Gooner is thinking enough is enough 9 years without a trophy does not earn a £24m contract.Everyone in football except one person knew Arsenal needed a striker last summer.But our stubborn manager went into the season with Giroud who patently is not good enough and back up Billy Bender.That is a sacking offence on its own.We will not win anything ever again while Wenger is manager its as simple as that.Wenger has to go.Groundhog day part 8.
@Rob
‘Kev when are you going to write what every sensible Gooner is thinking enough is enough 9 years without a trophy does not earn a £24m contract.’
Sorry to nit pick but who is Kev?
@ AAA Cook
“… but he won’t be around forever and I’ll be fascinated to see what will happen when he goes.”
Funny enough, that’s exactly how Untold feels about you.
Come on Untold, we have to stop focusing on the media and the AAA’s, wasting all that energy on them, energy that is better used on the brilliant ref articles and on the Arsenal team. I for one refuse to listen to the UK commentaries of matches, the MOTD(what an awful program) and what the others(papers and media) say.
I have noticed a trend here now, where your brilliant writers are starting to repeat the articles about the AAA, the press and all things anti-Arsenal.
Don’t let the quality of this site slip, for in effect, this is then a victory for them.
Arsenal has now 56 pts
Points in last 4 seasons in similar fixtures:
58 12/13
46 11/12
50 10/11
52 09/10
this season so far is quite good, but I can’t stop wondering in which direction it will go in 30 days.
Andrei,
I am VERY familiar with The Matrix and it’s many themes but I don’t get your Mr Smith reference.
On my comment on Snowden, please I’ll appreciate a factual rebuttal. Everything I wrote is fact based. Snowden is no hero and he was not facing dire choices. Rather, he selfishly jeopardised the career of trusting colleagues. He only started hating snooping after Obama became president. He lied several times about believing in Obama earlier on but he supported Ron Paul in GOP primaries and voted for John McCain the general elections.
His decision to leak the data was made out of spite for the administration that he hates, going by his virulent hatred for whistleblowers and acceptance of the same practices he railed against during the Bush administration.
He is also no hacker. He was a low level tech support guy. He got the data by downloading from the computers of colleagues with clearance. The guy is full of shit and if one is willing to look beyond the outrage following his leaks, his true personality is anything but heroic.
As I said earlier, if you have factual rebuttal, please bring it on.
I had to copy and paste this from an article on The Telegraph titled ‘Arsenal supporters need to cheer up, they are not doing enough to help their team in title race’ by Paul Hayward, the paper’s chief sports writer.
“Am I really just saying: get behind the team? Well, yes, because logically the opposite is damaging, self-defeating. Nobody is withdrawing the right to object to the way the club is run or to Wenger’s caution in the transfer market.
The point is: why protest so forcibly now, when the team are one point off the top of the Premier League with 12 games left, are at home in the FA Cup fifth-round and are still in the Champions League?”
This is exactly what we have been at pains trying to explain to some here, and been called deluded and all sorts of other unpalatable things. At least someone that doesn’t belong to the deluded Wenger followers sees things through the same lens.
@Bootoome My point was not to counter any of your ‘facts’ as I believe this forum is not the right place. My remark was regarding you passing the judgement about Snowden character and personal motives without having to face Agent Smith and perhaps having any idea about the terrible power that he wields. Without knowing Snowden personally or the hard choices he had to make. What you trying to do is to universally project your personal values on the situation you didn’t experience yourself.
Apologies for more copying and pasting, but a quick scan of the comments section of the article mentioned above threw up this comment, which I felt belonged here. Shame this wasn’t on twitter I’dhave retweeted this a 1000 times.
“From a neutral point of view (if being a Liverpool fan can be neutral) i think some Arsenal fans are crazy. Their criticism of Wenger and the board would be justified if they were NOT competing at the top of the Prem and playing against the best teams in the Champions League. You would think they were in the relegation zone, the way some fans are behaving.
There seems to be a sense of entitlement, where some fans think it’s their right to win something every year. The fans wanted Wenger to spend big money on a player, he spent £42 million on a single quality player and their still not happy.
I don’t like saying it, but you’ve got to give the Old Trafford crowd some credit, they are having the worst season in over 20 years and they are being supportive of their new manager, even though he may not be the right man for the job. They are willing to give him time.
Who would replace Wenger? and would who ever takes over do a better job?
I doubt it. Arsenal fans should be thankful that Wenger is their manager and he has guaranteed their club has been competitive and had stability for the last 18 years. Note, in that time, Liverpool fans would have been happy to have had that sort of record.”
Makes me feel slightly embarrassed, the behaviour by some of our fans
Andrei,
If we only have to experience anything personally before we can comment on them then we will hardly ever have anything to say about happenings in the world as we never personally experience most of them. We base our opinions and comments on the facts on public domain. My opinion on Snowden is not a projection. It is based on facts in the public domain.
This is indeed a football site but Tony made a reference to Snowden using a point that is contrary to available facts. Snowden has been repeatedly referred to as a hacker when all he did was use the login passes of colleagues with high clearance to download data, ruining those colleagues careers in the process.
As I have said before, counter me with facts if you think I’m wrong. I am no fan of Snowden as I said originally and it rubs me the wrong way when he gets credit that he does not deserve.
@Bootoome Your judgement of Snowden character and personal motives is not ‘facts’ and it is not based on any ‘facts’. Your belief that a mere dislike of Obama administration is enough motivation to stand against the establishment betrays a naiveté about it is true power. Your reference to so called ‘facts in the public domain’ is a testament that probably have no idea what you are dealing with.
@Wengerson. oh what insight. You’re a funny guy. Thick as shit but funny.
@Mandy Dodd, I feel sorry for Giroud, he really tries hard but he looks exhausted. I’m not sure what the point of Podolski is, we really needed to win last night and surely Pod would have been a better option than Ox. I think Pod will be sold in the summer, Wenger just doesn’t seem to rate him.
@Al, given time? sorry Wenger’s had nine years to win something. It’s not as if Arsenal fans are impatient. I wonder if the Manu fans would be so patient if they’d won nothing in nine years especially when we apparently have one of the best managers in the world.
Very few fans expect to win something every year but Arsenal fans expect the odd trophy every now and then. It’s not as if Wenger doesn’t know how to win things.
it’s about trawfies I tell ye
I will visit our trophy Saturday 22 February, will look at it and feel the proudest football supporter in the whole world. As that trophy is ours (if we keep on paying the loans of course 😉 )
Rupert
That comment was from a Liverpool fan, that touched on a number of issues which included the utd fans willing to give Moyes time. I don’t think the writer is imploring Arsenal fans to give him time as such, but he is acknowledging what a wonderful job Wenger has achieved in this madness on the tight budget he has. As well as question the spend brigade who still are unhappy after getting a quality player for £42m (the point being accusing Wenger of being tight fisted simply isn’t true, but rather he pays the right money for the right quality).
I really shouldn’t be explaining this to you, sure you got the writer’s main message, but just felt the need to respond to you as you latched onto the 9years only (which is actually 8, this year’s not over yet ) for whatever reason and I felt some might be swayed by that angle you introduced. The key words Rupert are ‘competetive, stability, and no suitable replacement’. Not 9 years. I don’t know where I read it but someone commented that Wenger leaving Arsenal would have a more detrimental effect than Ferguson leaving united, and I don’t have any reason to disbelieve that.
And Rupert, how about commenting on Haywards comment in my 9pm post asking the logic in protesting so forcibly right now when the team is only a point behind with the finishing line in sight? Know Hayward is accused of being a utd fan, so you can’t quite argue that he’s another Wenger apologist.
@Walter,the stadium is not a trophy but if you’re happy with looking at some ugly edifice rather than witnessing your team win some medals I’ll leave you to your weird world.
@Al, for stability read stagnation unless we can improve on fourth from last year. That was looking very likely a month ago, now maybe not. As for Wenger being niggardly, I think that’s a matter of opinion. The club is cash rich and we’ll see how much is invested in summer. Wenger’s bought some pretty average players in recent years possibly because they were the cheap option. And funnily enough Wenger himself said that if he wanted to spend 40 million he would and that was two years ago so just how tight was this budget?
As for Wenger’s leaving, well it’ll happen sooner or later, and if we’re the well run club we think we are then it won’t be a big deal.
We’re going to have agree to disagree on some issues but let’s not take it personally.
When I travelled home on the tube last night, feeling a little frustrated, there were a few doomers – who were old enough to know better – rehashing the various unverifiable anti-Wenger fallacies. I thought about engaging but couldn’t be bothered.
Most fans of other clubs who know anything about football – i.e. not lightweight, short-termist trophy-obsessed – share the Liverpool fan’s view.
The KEY point is that, over the infamous nine years, Wenger has been competing against clubs with vastly greater resources. Yes, we have paid decent wages (about 4th or 5th highest) but have spent net NO money whatsoever until this summer – behind just about everybody. To keep us in the Top 4 all this time HAS been a triumph – and a few finals to boot.
Of course Wenger is flawed, of course mistakes have been made, but to have such a great manager sacrifice such a long period of his career to keep us going during this period is astonishing.
This is clear as day to me – I genuinely do not understand people who don’t rate him or want him out! Total bafflement.
I am so excited as to what the next few years will bring as the playing field becomes a little leveller.
One final thing, Rupert, you made a comment earlier saying that our record against the big sides is awful. Don’t you think it should given how the refs shaft us each time. I know you deny that the refs don’t treat us fairly, so I’ll point to a few incidents that’ll show you they don’t. In all our matches against the top clubs where we lost this year the refs made some key decisions against us;
1. Two denied goals plus a potential penalty, and two incorrect offside calls against City
2. Two potentially leg breaking challenges from Obi Mikel and Ramires on Arteta plus a denied penalty against Chelsea
3. A blatant shove by Vidic on Giroud in the box not given a penalty, plus several elbows in Giroud’s back by same player, and numerous kicks on Jack.
These 3 matches alone would have had different outcomes had the refs chosen to blow correctly. They still shaft us against smaller sides, but we usually overcome this as we prove too strong for the smaller sides. Against the bigger sides the task is hard as.it is without any bias…
Even when you look at last year’s and other losses in big matches in recent years you’ll still find the refs penalised us on key moments in each of the big games. The ones that spring to mind; v Chelsea Atkinson didn’t blow for a foul on Coquelin leading to their first goal, and gave them a blatant penalty for a Ramires dive. Against City Dean sent Kos off in the 9th minute and awarded City a penalty. Against Liverpool Frimpong was sent off and pool won for the first time at the ems, at OT we conceded a penalty every year for the last 4 or 5 seasons, except this year (where we only lost because half our team were struck by a bug on match day). How are we expected to do well against the big sides, when in all the games we play against them the ref makes a key decision against us like this? Don’t you think we have a deficit to make up even before the ball is kicked against these big sides. I don’t expect you to agree with me, you have shown you’re not willing to accept all this evidence and you just dismiss it as coincidence where you’ve felt there may be an anomaly, but I just felt your comments cannot go unchallenged, coz they’ll appear correct.
@Al, why do Arsenal fans protest despite being only second in the league? Perhaps because they have a huge streak of cynicism threading through their souls wrought by a lot of empty words that have flowed like cheap wine from the millionaires at AFC. It’s deja vu, here we are getting nearer to the end of the season and we’re looking fragile again. And there was no need for it.
After eight years of the same thing, that is the team always coming up short, nobody really expects any different. Watch us crash out to Bayern and lose ground in the title race. We could beat Pool on sunday but who knows?
I don’t have a problem with us being beaten by Bayern, they’re probably the best team in the world.
What I have a problem with is a manager who found a winning formula with strong pacey players who moved the ball forward quickly and decided to ditch that for a slow passing game with less athletic players, shorter and weaker, which has brought no reward whatsoever and yet he persists with it whilst other teams who play similar to the way we used to play reap rewards. This is what baffles me especially as I regard Wenger as very intelligent man.
But anyway we are what we are. It’ll be fascinating to see if we can break our modern record of 18 years without a trophy. Go for it Wenger, you can do it. And if we do there’ll still be people on here who believe Wenger is irreplaceable.
yes we can agree to disagree, but perhaps if you could just try and respond to my question about being vociferous with your criticism when the finish line.is in sight, what is that meant to achieve? Any kind of response will do,then we will retreat back into our opposite corners.
Ok, my 11:09 was before I saw your last post. You still don’t answer what that’s meant to achieve. But I’ll let it rest.
@Al, do you really think the City game where we were totally overwhelmed would have turned out any different? There are rose tinted glasses and there are those who need glasses. We couldn’t live with City that day. 6-3, we were owned, just accept it.
I’m no fan of the Chelsea way of football and there should be much harsher treatment of them by refs. Maybe we should have had a penalty, still you’ve no idea if we’d have won as Chelsea might have equalized anyway.
The Vidic shove could have gone either way. I’ve seen many similar incidents where penalties have been denied and plenty where penalties were given. I’d have given a penalty if I was refereeing. But then we’d have to defend for the rest of the game to ensure Manu didn’t score. We couldn’t do that against Everton with only ten minutes left and Manu have better strikers than them. Luckily RVP was as wasteful as Giroud last night.
As for Kos being sent off in the City game I saw nothing wrong with that decision. Kos made a stupid error and he paid for it.
Great article Tony.
I fully agree with you Pete.
Brickfields, the joke about the clean and dirty faces is one of your best. Many useful messages are contained therein.
@Al, we could debate ref decisions all night but I really need a little sleep. It was a pleasure to cross swords without drawing blood.
Let’s hope we can put five past Pool on sunday.
Andrei,
So you’ve got nothing other than you are unhappy with my assessment of Snowden? That’s disappointing as I was hoping that you would counter my position with what you know. Everything that I said is based on facts. Facts don’t stop being facts just because you are oblivious of or are uncomfortable with them.
Snowden is no hero. He is a vindictive piece of shit who ruined the careers of his colleagues to get at an administration that he hates while calling for people who did what he did to be “shot in the balls” during the administration that he likes. http://www.businessinsider.com/snowden-leakers-should-be-shot-in-the-balls-2013-6
As I have said many times already, counter me with facts if you have any against my comment but don’t shut me up on the account of your own ignorance.
And finally, thanks AL for going over all the referee decisions against us in the ‘big’ matches. Very good point that this referee bias has a bigger effect against the strongest teams.
It is interesting that Arsene Wenger said we could have won the match yesterday one nil. Did he perhaps mean the penalty we weren’t given?
Rupert, with refs the way we are with us, if we played the way the invincibles did, we would have hardly anyone left on the pitch.
It would be nice to have a Ramirez or a Yaya toure, a mikel or even a Gerard ….on what we have this season, do you think if we had such players , they would be given similar latitude as ther aforementioned?
Do you really think flamini could aim a kick at someone, be missed by the ref and cleared by the FA?
@Bootoomee
Surely the more important thing, rather than Snowden’s personality or motivation, is the fact that he has exposed that we are all under a very high degree of constant surveillance and that this is somewhat undemocratic? Also, this article revealing what Snowden is said once to have said came out after his revelations, and therefore may have been published to discredit him.
Boof, baff, wham, wallop, argh, owww, you ba###rd, you shot me, argh.
No thing is really ever as it appears.
Strange reasoning again from Rupert. Thinks the denied penalties wouldn’t have made any difference as the other teams would have gone and scored at the opposite end straight after. That argument suggests the other teams didn’t want the 3 points in the first place. How about looking at it from a different angle; that a goal for Arsenal would have opened an opportunity for a second or even more, as the other team would throw more bodies forward as they chase the game, leaving acres of space at the back for us to exploit. According to Rupert the refs did us a favour by denying us those decisions. Weird.
And he couldn’t resist having a dig at the team for conceding 5 at Liverpool. Well, I’m sure if we are allowed to score from an offside position with only 35 seconds on the clock then putting 5 past them on Saturday is also a possibility.
@ AAA Cook
“I don’t have a problem with us being beaten by Bayern, they’re probably the best team in the world.”
That’s funny, because you had a problem with us beating them. As I can recall, you came up with excuses why they were not at their best, and the game was a dead rubber, and some other bullshit, etc…
“What I have a problem with is a manager who found a winning formula with strong pacey players who moved the ball forward quickly and decided to ditch that for a slow passing game with less athletic players, shorter and weaker…”
Are you perhaps referring to the same players that outplayed barcelona at the emirates, when they were virtually unbeatable? Bayern? Dortmund? Milan? Please clarify. Or not
Brickfield,
I loved your Panda joke, but what about the koala joke?
“A male koala goes into a bar, and waits patiently. Eventually, a young female picks him up and takes him to her apartment. She offers him a drink and starts flirting with him. The koala undresses her and performs an amazing feat of a cunnilingus on her. She is about to return the favor, but he has already jumped off the couch and is taking the direction of the exit door. She yells “wait, don’t you want me to go down on you?” but he says “young lady, look up your dictionary!” which she does:
“Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus): Arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia; eats bushes and leaves”
A Canadian tale….
It is a slow day in the small Saskatchewan town of Pumphandle and streets
are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody is living on credit.
A tourist visiting the area drives through town, stops at the motel, and
lays a $100 bill on the desk
saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs to pick one for the night.
As soon as he walks upstairs, the motel owner grabs the bill and runs next
door to pay his debt to the butcher.
The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to
the pig farmer.
The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill to his
supplier, the Co-op.
The guy at the Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local
prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her “services” on credit.
The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel
owner.
The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the traveler will not suspect anything.
At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, states that the rooms
are not satisfactory, picks up the $100 bill and leaves.
No one produced anything.
No one earned anything…
However, the whole town is now out of debt and now looks to the future
with a lot more optimism.
And that, my dear friends, is how a ” stimulus package ” works.
The more you read that Rupert Cook the more you realise what a nasty little man he is.
Just an observation.
jambug,
The way you try to police his opinions and bully him off the site, and they way he keeps coming back at you without stooping to your level is highly amusing. I do think though making nasty little personal comments about him at every opportunity shows who the nasty little one here is.
Would you go to the pub tonight and call someone a prat because they had the temerity to declare they thought Arsene could be doing a better job?
@Bootoome I’m sorry to say this but you sound a lot like somebody stating:
“Arsenal lost to Liverpool 1-5. This means Wenger completely lost it. Everything that I said is based on facts. Facts don’t stop being facts just because you are uncomfortable with them. Counter me with the facts or accept the fact that Wenger lost it”.
@Wengerson, yes we put Barca out didn’t we…er no hold on. Don’t talk rot, every now and then the underdog bites the hardest, do you remember the mighty Blackburn beating us in the cup and the awesome Bradford? And they are better teams than us are they?
Yes you idiot, mentally Bayern Munich thought they were through because you see they were 3-1 up at half time and we needed to win by 3-0 at their place. If we were 3-1 up and hosting say someone inferior like Galatasaray we’d be a little complacent too. Bloody hell it’s like talking to a wombat.
We were qualified when the ref decided to put our best striker out with a double yellow card Rupert after allowing the Barca players in the first half grabbing several of our players by their throat without blinking an eye.
Then Barcelona could score the needed goal to qualify against 10 man.
A bit like they won the CL final when the ref made a fool of himself by ruling out a Barcelona goal in order to be able to send off Lehman and forcing Arsenal to play again with 10 men for most of the match
@Al, with all due respect you must be the most paranoid person in the world. Fuck me I’d like us to put five past Liverpool and you read it as me having a dig at us conceding five. Ok then, I hope we win 2-0. Is that better?
As for the penalty thing I agree with you that the other team would throw men forward and spaces can open up. All I’m saying that just because a team gets a penalty in the 70th minute and go 1-0 up it doesn’t mean they’ll win the game. The game doesn’t end on the 70 minute. Have you never seen a game where a team gets a penalty and then the other team scores a few minutes later?
Really I thought you’d understand that I considered your point or do I have to spell out every possible scenario? (Shall I have a go: we score a penalty then what follows is a) we get complacent and concede three minutes later b) the other team pours forward and we score again c) nobody scores d) Wenger makes a substitution on the 70th minute and the player comes on and scores an own goal e) a balloon drifts onto the field and Giroud heads it into the opponents net f) Wenger does a jig with a water bottle g) Ozil falls asleep in the centre circle h) Sanogo comes on and scores a hat trick).
No scratch that last one, that’s just too absurd.
@Walter, one day I fear you may go on a ref killing spree. It’s plainly obvious we would have won everything plus the World Cup, the Atlantic Cup, the bobsleigh and the World Sumo wrestling championships if it wasn’t for those pesky refs.
No because it wasn’t in the last minute of the game of course….
@jambug, mate you can come round my house if you like and my wife will treat you to a nice homemade meal. I might even cook it myself though you might be worried I’d poisoned it.
Then you can judge whether I’m a nasty person.
@Walter, give it a rest me old china. I’ve already explained why you can’t predict results on one or two misjudgements but you either don’t understand or refuse to because it doesn’t suit your agenda. I suspect it maybe the latter.
I don’t know why it bothers you. Just write in Arsenal as CL winners whenever you feel we should have won it. The same applies for the league. I mean you think it’s all fixed anyway so why not judge the league/cups by your rules then you can claim we’ve won lots of trophies.
I do wonder what’ll happen if Pool wins the league. I mean they won’t have done it on merit because nobody but us wins anything on merit. So who will have helped them, the refs, but I thought they were on the Oilers side or have they switched to Chelsea? I’m sure you’ll dream up some reason to diminish their achievement.
And anyway why does it matter, you’re not bothered about winning trophies.
@Mandy Dodd, I’m not one of these people that buy into this ref conspiracy against us. Oh I think the standard of officiating is dire and technology should be introduced as it would be interesting to see if we were several points better off each season.
When we had those pacy stronger players did we get kicked around? I don’t think so, and didn’t we do a bit of kicking ourselves? I’d just love to see our old style of football that Wenger seemed to cherish ten years ago, it was far more exciting than this ponderous passing game.
“When we had those pacy stronger players did we get kicked around? I don’t think so”
What happened during the Invincibles 50, when his highness Riley was ref?
More selective crap from the rupert cook show!
I do feel for Tony, Walter and the gang sometimes. If some idiots pissed me off by their comments in this blog, I wonder how those guys feel then. Freeking legends you guys are!
Interesting debate – much admire your patience Rupert in light of the distorted and at times abusive responses you get here from the disciples .
@ AAA Cook, 10:21pm
You’ve yet to point out the “less athletic players, shorter and weaker…”
I’ll wait…
“… do you remember the mighty Blackburn beating us in the cup and the awesome Bradford? And they are better teams than us are they?”
Yes, on the day! Or was it due to shorter and weaker players…
“… mentally Bayern Munich thought they were through…”
Now you can assess teams mentally, wow! Plus you talk to wombats…
“… because you see they were 3-1 up at half time and we needed to win by 3-0 at their place.”
You mean we needed a result similar to AC Milan?
@ bjtgooner, 11:29pm
Spot on! The problem with AAA Cook, and his kind, is that he will never admit the effect bad refereeing has on Arsenal because (he knows) it will nullify 99% of his bullshit. Why do you think he attacks Walter and tries to rubbish the Ref Reviews?
The other 1% is his pure hatred for Wenger, for which he can join a support group(with wombats?)
Rupert
The more you try to sound clever the more stupid you sound. I just don’t understand your thinking that the other team might have also scored had we got a penalty. Well, where do I start? What about those other games we won 1 nil, 2 nil, 2-1, etc. Why didn’t the other teams go to our end and score back when we scored the winning goal? According to your theory that’s how it works. And why would one team wait for another to score first before trying to score themselves? Are you trying to suggest Chelsea/City/Pool weren’t trying to score all match then, and would only try to score after we scored? At least I can point to a denied penalty as a denied opportunity to score. What about you? Erm…, Chelsea were denied the opportunity to score because the ref refused to award Arsenal a penalty, which would have been the catalyst to Chelsea scoring. What warped thinking. Also the other trash that you came up with, that should Liverpool win the league then it’d have been Wenger that helped them do it by not buying Suarez,is just plain outrageous. Their own player for the past 3 seasons? Ok,if Bayern win the title it’s Wenger’s fault because he didn’t bid for Thiago Alcantara. Or didn’t buy Ribery when he had the opportunity to do so 7 or 8 years ago. What kind of reasoning is that. Do you even live in the real world that we live in?
No wonder you get lots of verbal abuse here, not that I condone that but you do come across as a dishonest individual. You’ll just say stuff that you don’t even believe just to get one over the other guy. Your sheer denial of the 7 or so key incidents I pointed out above that went against us in key games in the last couple of years just demonstrates that you’re not interested in trying to win your argument by looking at facts. But you’re just here seemingly to wind people up, and then you have the cheek to complain when people react to that.kind of behaviour. You’ve a what if to every incident I point out. What if your what if did not happen? You can’t ask the same about the things I point out because I’m not speculating(like you are), the incidents actually happened. There’s a difference in someone stating a different opinion/view to one’s, with someone coming up with some absolute nonsense just to go against the other guy.
@Al I’m sorry but you seem to be being obtuse just for the sake of it. God I’m losing my patience. Did you not read my post explaining the myriad possibilities after a penalty? I didn’t say what you’re saying, can’t you understand English? I think you’re deliberately pretending to be thick to wind me up. My theory does not work like that at all. Read it again and if you still don’t understand ask someone brighter to explain it.
As for the Suarez thing it was an ironic observation that I can take or leave. Ribery and co. have got nothing do with anything. But let me ask you this, if Wenger had not sold RVP to Manu would they have had less chance to win the league? Yes or no. Now let me ask you this, if Wenger had bought Suarez would Liverpool have less chance of winning the league? Yes or no.
@Wengerson, out of curiosity will you be supporting Arsenal when Wenger’s gone with a handle like that?
Do you even know what AAA means? I expect not.
Any team with a strong lead like Bayern’s are going to be confident they’re going through. We’ve all seen games when a team relaxes too much when it’s in a stronger position and failed to kill off games. Psychologically it’s not surprising.
We were at home to Milan and I imagine Milan were quite confident they’d go through as they had a 4 goal advantage. I don’t see why that’s so hard to grasp.
If you can’t see how short some of our players are then you need to visit your optometrist.
Thank god for bad refereeing otherwise Pool would have had a second penalty.
I must admit I’m getting tired of all these whingers forever moaning about refs because one man says they mistreat Arsenal according to a secret panel of refs that he can’t reveal for whatever reason. Numerous bad decisions have impacted on many teams this season but of course that’s not relevant to the argument.
The reason we have not won anything is down to the inferior squads we’ve had for years, most Arsenal fans whether they love Wenger or not admit that, and that’s mainly due to Chelsea, Manu and City buying the most expensive players. We’re now entering a phase were we can match these teams and so a trophy or two should be coming.
So Al, you’ve never seen a match where a team has scored a penalty and then sometime before the game ends the opponents score an equalizer? In the whole history of the game of football that’s never happened?
That’s how simple my point is. Now even a Chelsea fan could understand that.