Arsenal reserves rise from the graveyard

By Tony Attwood

Arsenal were down the bare bones.  I know this because the “Evening Standard” yesterday told me exactly that before the match.

We were relying (“relying” mark you, not just “playing” or “using” but “relying”) on the “notoriously unreliable defensive midfielder” Flamini.

They called the situation “Flamin’ hell”.

The article below this wild ranting statements read…

“And so it has come to this.  Injury ravaged…” (mark this well – “injury ravaged” ) “Arsenal are down to the bare bones as they face Galatasaray in a Champions League tie they must win to compensate for their opening defeat in the competition.

“It’s a time for a super hero, so step forward, er, Mathieu Flamini….”

And so the wild rant goes on.  It is of course all Wenger’s fault.  We were putting out, now the reserves, but the reserve reserves.  We had not bought enough players.  Stupid Wenger.   And Galatas were no easy pushover.  Oh no, these Turkish clubs can put it about a bit.

So what do they say now on their web site?

Arsenal ignited their Champions League campaign with a 4-1 thrashing of a feeble Galatasaray side on Wednesday with Danny Welbeck grabbing a hat-trick in a largely one-sided Group D clash in north London.

Amazingly not a word about bare bones and how awful Flamini apparently is.  And it was always going to be easy because Galatasaray “feeble.”   Well why didn’t they spare our nerves and tell us how feeble Galatas were last night before the match?  Why didn’t they tell us just how superb our centre forward is?

Could it be, no really, could it be, perhaps, that they just make it up as they go along?

And speaking of Danny, what of Sky Sports?  If you watched their notoriously obscene transfer window day show you will have seen a reporter standing outside the Emirates (where no Arsenal staff were) with a bunch of extras drafted in for the occasion.   They announced that Danny Welbeck was coming to Arsenal and just doing a medical.   The rent-a-crowd behind the dummy reporter jeered and booed.

Then a little later they announced (in the way Sky Sports does)  that Danny wasn’t doing a medical and Sky got their extras to cheer.   Would Sky Sports like to wheel their extras out now?

It really is not shocking (because we are used to it), but the sadness is the lack of apology is not shocking either.  We expect it.  Wild make-believe followed by towing the line.  That’s the contempt in which us supporters are held.

The only thing the Standard gets right is the fact that Ozil was superb.  They missed his interaction with the crowd at the end, but still, the queue at the bar must have been pretty big by then and it takes a while to get your drink and get back to the TV.

What they might have said is that amazingly Mr Wenger has been at the club for 18 years – it was 18 years to the day since the media massed and tried to destroy him on his first day in office. 1 October 1996.   To be fair to some of the other papers they did remember, and one or two even got half way to saying how amazing it is that after 18 years he can not only bring Ozil to Arsenal, but also bring through the likes of Ramsey and Oxlade-Chamberlain, in the face of remorseless criticism, and find a Man U reject who after a quick transfer and one month in the club can be that assured.

Each Danny Welbeck goal was superb, each moment in midfield was perfection. Mesut Özil, Alexis Sánchez, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Santi Cazorla – our “bare bones”.   Stunning.   I can’t wait to see the first team.

And oh we had a new chant.  Well, not a chant, a shout.   Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhspina – every time he kick the ball.  Brilliant.

What else might the journalists have missed?  I’ll come back to the flairs shortly, but for the moment there is an issue with the “technical area”.  I used to think that the technical area could have one person in it – the manager normally – except of course when subs were coming and going or the medical staff were waiting to come on.

Gala Tas had seven people in their area at one time – so many they were bumping into each other.  No one seemed to do anything about it, so I guess it must be ok.

But to end back to my main point.  We did this without Ramsey, Arteta, Walcott, Gnabry Monreal, Sanogo, Debuchy and Giroud.  At this rate some of them are going to have a job to get back in the team.

Now I will calm down a little before talking about flares.

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36 Replies to “Arsenal reserves rise from the graveyard”

  1. Well said. (Diaby missing as well).

    Tony Gale on Sky commentray kept harping on 3 themes;
    Gala were totally crap and made us look good.
    Ozil was totally crap.
    Sczc shows typically bad judgement and immaturity.

    Media coverage is generally disgraceful.

  2. According to Gale not only was Ozil crap he was lazy and disinterested as well. Gale was an absolute disgrace and the commentator whoever he was, was just as bad.

  3. How surprising – Sky starts out with an agenda and bends the facts to meet its chosen narrative…….,,

  4. The commentator our broadcaster had was surprised when crowd applauds Ozil when he was withdrawn.

    All game he was on with the usual For me Ozil has not done enough. He doesn’t look like 42 mil signing… Blah blah blah.

    I don’t understand what Ozil does wrong that these idiots, oh wait…..Ozil is at the level where these people can’t even see. Its a pleasure to watch Ozil play. And I thank Mr Wenger and Ozil and AFC staff for making it happen..

  5. Ozil was fabulous. His trick is to appear to drift so that the defence give up on him, and get dragged into marking the rest, he gets the ball and puts through a superb pass to Welbeck and scores.

    I mentioned after the Villa game that the understanding between Ozil and Welbeck was brillaint. Last night it was too.

    Stupid commentators. They only look at one player at a time.

  6. Okay! Okay!! The Gunners should be having a work rest day today after a successful outings yesterday. They should resume training on Friday for the Sunday’s game with Chelsea. I doubt if the boss will do any Press Conference today, to update us and answer some questions from the media people. We thank God we have successfully putten this Galatasaray game behind us. So, let us continue to enjoy this our latest victory and then later start to make our usual comments and observations after the boss Media Chat.

  7. Ozil is a target in the media, no doubt about it.

    He suffers from the fact that English football still lives in the dark ages. Tony Gale is another ex player that is a dinosaur. The English media and many ex players save their love for players who run around a lot and make crunching tackles. Players like Jordan Henderson and James Milner. This is because that is how they are programmed. These dinosaurs see Ozil with his lanquid style and do not like it. It is usually the same people that hold a grudge against Arsene Wenger for essentially destroying the drinking culture in the English game and the fish and chip diets that were common place. Football has moved on, the sooner these dinosaurs accept that the sooner the better. These idiots are the reason the English football team has been a laughing stock for so many years.

  8. Tony, you are right Ozil had a great game. I think it is easier to appreciate him when you see him live and without the irritating commnentators and pundits trying to persuade you otherwise.As I said earlier, he has been set up as a target which is ridiculous.

    Last night we all decided to mute the sound on SKY, Gale was irritating beyond belief almost from the first kick. Why cant we have Gooners like Charlie George doing the punditry? It almost appears as if the TV companies don’t want someone Arsenal positive on air. Liverpool, Man Utd and Chelsea are well represented by ex players and pundits, in fact its littered with them. Instead, we get that depressive Chelsea fan Merson trotted out as a Gooner.

  9. Was that the former Le Groan pin up and D**M Melo* thatguyWelbz burned/bullied past on his way to score his second? Following a gr*tty challenge for a header by the Arsenal’s towering DM, The Flame 🙂

    The very same Flamini who had showed fantastic temperament during a flawless game at Home against Besiktas, when such a performance was needed or required. Not a bad back for the skipper, is he?

    *the highlight of Melo’s career was when his poor temperament (no wonder that the Groaners loved to groan to his name. Each to their own I suppose…) was exposed after having been wound up and he got sent off as Brazil crashed out of the 2010 tournament.

  10. Awesome game last night.

    To all those saying we should have got Balo instead… Up yours!
    Ozil and Welbeck? Simply amazing, too early to say, but looks like the ‘ol Bergkamp and Thierry. Thank God Wenger got back to the 4-1-4-1, and Ozil was awesome. Best #10 in the world

  11. Yes, now we’re hearing what a poor Galatasaray made it easy for us, how crazy the coach was to play with a back three, etc. It’s never about how good Arsenal was when we win.

    The criticism of Ozil is completely bonkers. Why don’t they ask Galatasaray if they weren’t happy to see him subbed. The poor guy never put a foot wrong last night but still gets slaughtered. This kind of hatred is unhealthy, and borders on the xenophobic. Ozil, Sanchez, Welbeck, The Ox, all had brilliant performances last night, and for anyone to attack any one of them just shows how useless they’re at spotting good play.

    The fans who gave Ozil a standing ovation did so because of what they had seen on the pitch, although I’d think had they been watching/listening to sky half of them might not have thought he was outstanding. The best thing for me nowadays is to watch a stream with foreign commentary(I specifically try all links for this!); you get the atmosphere because the volume is not turned off, and yet you will be spared of the Arsenal bashing nonsense(although I doubt they’d be as bad, if at all, as the English commentary). Sczesney is still being criticised for that challenge, yet if we want to be honest the ref is the one they should be slaughtering for letting one of the most dangerous tackles on the field go with minimum punishment only.

  12. …or hang on!!!! He is spectacular if it wasn’t for our brilliant attacking force.

    Pick the one you like 🙂

  13. Foreign stream for the crowd and not having to hear the idiots, otherwise mute. By definition a media football pundit is someone who can’t cut the grass as a player, coach, manager, someone who is just like the rest of us.

    It would be great to wander in somewhere and see an audio/visual installation – on one screen, a completely silent screen without any audio, the screen filled with football action – next to it, a completely blank screen, empty of anything, just the audio commentary, the voices droning.

    Shame this attack on dinosaurs. I’m a tethered dinosaur, can’t get beyond the idea that football is a very simple game, pass and move and put the ball in the net.

    A great display last night. Electric velvet.

  14. Al,the AAA’s will never give credit because they feel it damages their cause. You will recall that when we won the FA Cup, we did so because it was ‘only Hull’. If you move forward to the rout of Man City 3-0 in the Community Shield at Wembley, delight at breaking the 9 year spell was replaced with ‘City had all their players missing’ and weren’t really trying.( A close analysis of the Man City team sheet disproves this statement, along with the fact Arsenal had their Germans unavailable). I can even recall our victory in the Allianz against Bayern Munich when we went there and won 0-2, losing on away goals. The reason for this victory in the Germans own backyard was not because we played well or deserved to win, but because Bayern were already through (having won 3-1 at the Emirates)and weren’t trying.

    When you sit and and look at these in isolation, you can understand a knee jerk reaction, caused by disappointment that Arsenal had performed above their prediction. However, when you look at them together, you can only reach the conclusion that some people appear far too desperate to disregard good results. I have never heard of a team going to Wembley and not trying or a European Champions league winner playing in front of their home crowd and not trying.They are top teams for a reason.

    It has come to something when a club as great as ours is set up as a target to be shot down at every opportunity. What makes it worse, is that the biggest culprits are a small community claiming to support Arsenal, who scramble for reasons not to be happy when we obtain good results. Why? Because it disproves a lot of the nonsense they come out with.

  15. The simplicity of Ozils play is blinding his critics cos they blv too much in activities, little wonders why most of them thinks England would win the world cup when they were surpose to take the pressure off the boys. They simply don’t knw football

  16. Spot on proudkev. It’s always the other team’s fault when we win. Remember how Everton are supposed to have run out of legs when we came back from 2 nil down.., despite the fact they had not had to travel and were playing at home, had not played in a tough champions league match away from home midweek, etc….

  17. Al, yes there are so many examples it is mind blowing. I remember when stats had shown that we would have finished top when adding our points total for the whole calendar year 2013 and this was ignored. The reason is simple. It is because it disproves the allegations that Wenger is a tactical numpty, we play players out of position, we injure our own players and that our players are not very good.s. It really is bizarre why they try so hard, truly a very strange way to support your club.

  18. Dante
    Cazorla played CM with Rosicky ahead of Ramsey away to Fulham last year. Fulham were not at their best last year but Jol was drooling over that midfield in the press conference afterwards, as was I.
    I’d have hoped that some of the 24/7 Football Expert hacks out there would’ve been able to remember such details (a forlorn hope it seems!).

    I imagine it’ll be harder to play Away against a good team but if he’s opposite the F Word playing in that deeper CM area (depending on the opponents selection on Sunday), then maybe not! We shall see what happens I guess.

  19. Many places in the press are reporting it, but apparently The FA (smartest people in the world) thinks that Danny Welbeck still plays for ManU. Maybe when they find out how to correct their records on that, they can find out how to straighten out officiating in England?

    Yesterday I posted a blurb about cooking eggs, because in the BBC commentary with 3 minutes remaining, some BBC person said that was about the same length of time to cook an egg, and later on their was discussion on this. To cook an egg in 3 minutes (by boiling), you need higher than atmospheric pressure. The Dead Sea is in a depression of 427m below sea level, and this is not enough for the egg boiling problem (1225m). Doing the boiling under water can work. As water is much denser than air, much less depth of water is needed. About 1.93m of water is needed. Going through the Arsenal roster, it seems that corresponds to 1 Giroud of depth.

    http://untold-arsenal.com/archives/38141#comment-811202

    The person from the BBC was going to research this, and report back when the chickens are playing their Turk’s today. Will this BBC person find the correct answer?

  20. Of course too many people do not understand that Flamini has excellent qualities as a defender, and Arteta as a creative player.

    They are selected as needs must. But both offer an incredible amount to the way the team is set up to play.

  21. Turn the sound off, and form your own opinion.

    You know it makes sense.

    ps Ozil is sublime.

  22. It wasn’t just the hacks from the Standard that preach the Neo-Feudalistic model inspired by the owner of the paper no doubt (as in the only way to operate or to compete is to get yourself into leveraged debt peonage at extornatiate rates of interest…we’ve seen that meme elsewhere…)

    One of the broadcasters had Tony Gale gracing the airwaves. This is what the Arseblog review had to say:

    “Jack Wilshere came on to replace Mesut Ozil who left the pitch to a standing ovation because of his performance as the Sky commentators tried to make out that he was poor. Almost as if they had a pre-ordained agenda”

    Because they do!

    But you troll Arsenal fans at your own risk. As the Groaners (the very same small clique) who have attempted to troll all sane AFC blogs (not just this one!) have learnt to their embarrassment. Tony Gale, this flag bearer for the AAA/A currently manages a football team that sits bottom of the Ryan South division. Wherever that is. I think it is in the seventh tier of the game.

    Too funny. You couldn’t make this stuff up!

    I’ve said it before and I’m happy to dismay it again. With Alan Partdrige Steve Coogan was way ahead of his time.

  23. AWs main idea of tactical, is to train his players to be game aware, be able to play in multiple positions(when a player plays in a different position, he gets to understand that position better when he goes back to his normal position), and to think “Arsenal, the team first”. He also sees the position the player should be playing in according to his skills, even though the player may not see it at the time.

    He brings things to the game that only much later are recognised when everyone else does it too. His ideas and the stability it brings are starting to impress others(the non-super rich clubs) and they are now longing/trying to build the same.

    I do hope i get to be able to read his book, that is if he does write one, for it is one book that i would definitely buy.

  24. Has the fact that we didn’t buy the much vaunted DM mid fielder the new we have not won a trophy in so many years for the AAA.
    When you hear them on radio or read them on blogs or in the press it’s now if only we had bought a DM player.
    Knowing the triple A’s will always need something to rant about I suppose they will always find something.

  25. Let’s suppose we had bought the Beast DM and another centre back. What do you think the new moaning topic would be? Because splashing the cash solves all problems, doesn’t it?

  26. Mesut Ozil is not a footballer that the media is ever going to like. Quite simply, he plays for Arsenal AND he doesn’t run around like a lunatic. You see, you can only be forgiven for not being an ‘up and at ’em’ footballer if you play for a favoured team. Mesut Ozil is an intelligent footballer who reads the game. He has pace and uses it WHEN NECESSARY. He often moves slowly around the pitch, but guess what… moving more slowly than others, if done in the right way, also creates space. I rarely see Cesc Fabregas sprinting around the pitch. Apparently he is brilliant now – he’s finally fulfilled his potential. Ozil is never going to be a ball winner, but then neither are many of the great players through the history of the game.

    Ozil has been brilliant for Arsenal since his first minute from last season. He had what can only be described as the best first season by a foreign creative midfielder in the PL history – maybe in the history of English football. The fact the media is relentless in their efforts to destroy him can only mean one thing – they are scared of him. Scared that his arrival signalled the return of their most painful memories – Arsenal winning league titles.

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