I was thinking of running a regular feature which featured people who said things like, “Arsenal are more likely to end up mid-table than challenge for the title this year”, and who then say, “Some have written Wenger’s team off, but their opening performances suggest…”
Trouble is, there are so many such articles that it would fill up Untold’s pages for months, and get rather tedious.
So I’ll put in a selection of just a few such pieces, including a few classic oldies, and then leave it at that, unless anyone spots a real classic double-standard load of gibberish.
Here’s just one from today:
Alan Hansen: “They may have been written off as serious title contenders this summer but Arsenal have started the season in superb form.”
Note the total lack of definition of “they”. Who are “they”? Aliens from the skies? The fairies that jump from Mr Hansen’s pillow and whisper in his ear?
Probably, because just before the season started, “Hansen told the Telegraph: “Fourth place is a genuine target for City, though, because of the situation at Arsenal. “They are the club most at risk of dropping out of the top four.
“They have lost Toure and Adebayor to City, but Wenger is saying that they might not need to strengthen. I disagree because Arsenal can improve every department of their team, but maybe they don’t have the funds to do so. If you are a top team, you can never stand still, but Arsenal have lost important players and they might not replace them.
“They really are under threat from City this season.”
I don’t mind people getting stuff wrong – I get it wrong about 140% of the time – but it is the absolute lack of apology which makes me feel like I am being treated like a total idiot. I want the journalist I read to be treating me with respect – and that it seems is too much to ask.
There’s so many of these examples, I’ll leave it, but just for a laugh here’s a few from my scrap book…
Boris Johnson, classics scholar, unbelievably intelligent man and Mayor of London, says London’s bigger football teams (I guess by that he means Arsenal, QPR, Barnet etc) should take a moral lead and pay backroom staff a London living wage, above the minimum wage: ‘The values these clubs stand for have a huge influence on the social fabric of the city. It would set a superb example.’
And this compares with Boris Johnson, in the Daily Telegraph: ‘The ruinous minimum wage would palpably destroy jobs… It’s inimical to productivity… a damaging socialist delusion…’ (You see you can tell he’s bright, because he says, ‘inimical’.)
And the all time classic of backbiting managers/chairmen…
Sir Alex F Word: “Real Madrid’s record on tapping-up players is ‘obscene’. Their end game was always Ronaldo. What makes it obscene is that Madrid, General Franco’s club, had a history of being able to get whoever and whatever they wanted before democracy came to Spain.”
Daniel Levy, Tiniest of all the Tiny Totts, 2008: “Ferguson’s action over Berbatov is one of the worst offences by any manager in the Premier League ever. It’s disgraceful: a blatant example of sheer arrogance…'”
As for loyalty – well there is always Harry…
11 May 2008: “Portsmouth is my club – it’s where I belong. I feel an immense sense of loyalty and unfulfilled ambition here. I could have left, but it would have felt like a betrayal. So they’re stuck with me now. This will be my last job in football.” Harry.
Anyway, just as a reminder of what is to come – our second league match last season was… you remember… away to Fulham. Boat ride down the Thames, lots of drinking, and then the sky fell in, the world ended, the Gooner went into its Meltdown mode, people wrote blogs saying, “This is exactly what I predicted…”
Our team that day was
Almunia
Sagna, Toure, Gallas, Clichy
Walcott, Eboue, Denilson, Nasri
Van Persie, Abebayor
Four of those are out, and one (Eboue) is unlikely to play from the start.
More on this along with an utterly accurate prediction of the score soon. (And you know how good my predictions are)
(c) Tony Attwood 2009
We could have a cricket score for prediction when Rosicky and Nasri return 🙂
The following are on my punditry watch list for the award of best whanker.
In no particular order (though I’m seriously contemplating using their continued arrogance and offensiveness as a weighting for positioning in the whanker award)
Alan “I know all about champions” Brazil
Mickey Mouse “I scored a hat-trick on my debut but won nothing” Quinn
Phil “I hate anything to do with Arsenal” Thompson
Alan “you can’t win anything with kids” Hanson
Jamie “I used to be a football star” Redknapp
Adrian “ginger boy I know it all” Durham
Alvin “I can’t kiss enough of Alex Ferguson’s buttocks” Martin
Stan “I confess I’m a girlfriend beater who keeps an axe under my bed” Collymore
..And I haven’t even thought of the hacks in the print media yet – though Matt Hughes is likely to win this one hands down.
7-0 to the arsenal… although i will humbly take a 5-0 hee hee
Tony, do you really think it is stupidity? When I watch any financial journalist, I take anything positive they say with a big pinch of salt as they, and their employer, have a direct financial interest in talking up the market. The better the market does, the better all of the “financial experts” do.
Cannot the same principle apply to football pundits and journalists? The more money that goes into football, the more money there is for the people employed in the football industry. Arsenal run counter to this trend. They are financially sound – no quantitative easing at The Emirates. On the other hand, Man City has poured massive money into the game. It must be in the industries financial interest to talk up Man City and talk down Arsenal. What do you think?
There was a quote from yesterdays comments from Fem Dee which I think is worth repeating. it sums up so much in one sentence.
“What is more disappointing than lazy, simplistic jounalists sprewing their stuff is Arsenal fans, seeing beautiful football every year … baying to be like other unimaginative and backward footballing clubs in EPL and in Europe.”
Spot on Fem Dee
I don’t have any clue who Fem Dee is but must say he/she is right.
I’ve got a feeling we might see the likes of Ramsey and Wilshere on the pitch at some stage of the game.
I think Van Persie will be rested as well and be on the bench. You don’t want to risk him being injured just before the MU game. Maybe even Cesc on the bench wouldn’t surprise me.
And if it does fail with the young youngsters then AW can put the old youngsters on to deal with the situation.
Maybe next year Tony would use this for the examples. LOL.
Cape Gooner @ 10:42 am – I concur 100% with you and was going to post something along those lines. The fact is the media and journalists who have been cheer-leading the indebtness by clubs to finance leverage buyouts (Hicks & Gillet, the Glazers etc ) or to finance the purchase of expensive transfers are simply furthering the interest of the big-banks and hedge funds who themselves have a financial or corporate stake in the self-same media. Most “successful” journalists have a finely attuned sense of self-preservation and are keenly aware of their paymasters. They know there is no payoff bashing Man U, Liverpool and Portsmouth for their profligacy; easier to assail Wenger and Arsenal for being frugal and penny-pinching. Frankly it is the heights of irresponsibility that even today, in the midst of a recession caused by the excesses of the financial sector, the majority of the media regard it as acceptable to blithely advocate that clubs “splash-the-cash.” This is at a time when the spectre of insolvency and bankruptcy hover around great clubs such as Portsmouth, West Ham, Newcastle, Livepool and Man Utd.
Given the the great sway that neo-liberal economics and politics now have over the majority of western society I doubt that any time soon there will be any change in the attitude of the media towards Arsenal FC and Arsene Wenger. Hopefully our fans will resist the temptation of going down the same road as the majority of these clubs.
Arsenal started very strong, but I can’t be fooled by the results. To be Everton were caught off guard. If I saw similar performance against Celtic i would start believing they are really in business. Celtic game was more crucial, they game you need lots of goals but wasn’t impressive. All my eyes on Chelsea now. They finish last season very strong and haven’t change the squad.