What are they smoking at Anfield? (And Fleet Street)

By Tony Attwood

You know the world has gone even madder than it was yesterday when you wake up and see the Daily Telegraph (that most sneering, jibing anti-Arsenal of papers) has done a double somersault and turns itsself on its head (if you see what I mean).

Of Arsenal against Olympiakos they said, “little had been learnt from similar nightmares here last season.”  And ran headlines like

Arsene Wenger under attack after Arsenal crash to ‘disastrous’ Champions League defeat to Olympiakos

Arsene Wenger’s 15 most humiliating defeats at Arsenal – ranked

And what do they say today?

Arsenal best placed to challenge Man City

But of course they manage to hide the embarrassment that most decent people would feel at having suggested that the the defeat to Olympiakos was by itself and of itself of overwhelming and defining importance in considering the rest of Arsenal’s season, by focussing on Liverpool instead.
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Just as BBC Five Live did last night.   Two of the top teams play each other in an amazing cracking exciting game and what do we get, opinionated twaddle about Liverpool.  Endless self-serving callers claiming “I’ve been saying this for years,” and there was just one caller on to talk about Arsenal, and that was with ten minutes to go til the end of the programme.  Then it was back to Liverpool.
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In a sense that would have been ok if only there had been a bit of historical balance.  Liverpool has won four trophies including the League Cup – this century of which was the last in 2012 – and that was the league cup.  Before that it was the FA Cup in 2006.  That is better than many of course (Tottenham have won one), but not that wonderful.  In the last six seasons their league position has been second, sixth (twice), seventh (twice) and eighth.  And yet all one get is “one Gerrard slip away from winning the title”).
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Interestingly last night and this morning no one remembered John Henry’s infamous tweet “What do you think they’re smoking over there at Emirates?” on 24 July 2013 nor the fact that the following March he admitted in a speech at a sports conference that he lied and that there was indeed a buy out clause of £40m in the Suarez contract.  Normally the press never forgive a public figure making fun of them, but with Liverpool it seems they make an exception.
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So now it is Liverpool are right to sack their manager (because they are always right because they are Liverpool) and the fact that in May 2012 Henry sacked Dalglish, which cost the club a fortune (what with having to pay compensation to him and all his staff, and having allowed him to spend lots of money) and has now done the same again – that’s neither here nor anywhere else.
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Indeed so arse licking has 5 Live become as a radio station this morning their football correspondent said that a cause of the sacking yesterday was the defeat in the FA Cup final to Aston Villa last season. (No one pointed out that there was an error in that statement somewhere).  Just goes to show.  You shut your eyes for a moment and miss something.
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Meanwhile of course the press have to re-think and hide the suggestion they delivered in the second half of last week that Arsenal were clearly useless because they could not beat Olympiakos and that the manager should go because that was a defining defeat.   The coat-hangers-on all went along with that and ranted and raved and probably dribbled quite a bit (although I can’t verify the last point).
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The Guardian tries this morning to get itself out of a hole by using the affable Barney Ronay to write a column which speaks of Mesut Özil’s “indeterminate drift” in the Premier League.  Today, he would have us believe that Mesut was on a different planet from before.

“Much has been made of the fact Arsène Wenger didn’t sign any outfield player during the summer transfer window. Well, he had one here, with the arrival finally in a key Premier League match of Özil at his most incisive, plus a glimpse perhaps of something new too.”

Well, yes, much was made of the fact that there was no signing.   By the Guardian among others.  Ignoring the whole notion of evidence-based football reporting by missing the fact that we brought through Coquelin and Bellerin.

But perhaps that is a detail.

So the Guardian writes…

“The game’s about to start. No…No we’re 3-0 up already. Özil’s playing like a god. Arsène. Arsène, stop babbling into your pillow.”   Quite what that last bit means I am not sure.  Maybe the author actually wrote “Fleet Street stop babbling” but the editor took it out.

And so we get to the position of the Telegraph’s headline, “if Arsenal can reproduce the aggression and the intense will to win they showed here they have a fair shot this season at beating any team on any ground at any time. Özil is key to this.”

To be fair the article does make up for lost time speaking of Özil as “a lovely, beguiling infuriating sprite of a No10 – well worth waiting for. His first significant touch was a dreamy little flick with the outside of his foot. After which Özil drifted left, dropping into Ashley Young’s space, creating pockets of alarm wherever he went….

“On 35 minutes he did something only semi-possible, pulling a high pass out of the air by backing into Carrick and simultaneously allowing the ball to run down his shin on tot his toe where it briefly stuck dead still, like an orange impaled on a skewer.”  Barney Ronay you are rehabilitated.

But let me help a little more.  In term of assists last season we had Santi Cazorla who with 12 assists was the second highest deliverer in the league, despite the position he moved into alongside Coquelin.  Mesut Özil had five because he too was playing in a different role.

This season Mesut is the third highest in the assist league, just two behind the leader David Silva.  Two behind Mesut are three more Arsenal players, Santi Cazorla, Theo and Monreal.  You see, we tend to share these things around.

The smoke, mirrors and endless patronage of the media that Liverpool and indeed Chelsea use, is not part of the Arsenal way.  If the press used evidence, they might have noted that.

Anniversaries

  • 5 October 1889: First ever FA Cup match played by Arsenal as Royal Arsenal beat Lyndhurst 11-0 although there is some debate over which Lyndhurst it was, but the club in Hampshire which is still playing, claim the honour.   See also here
  • 5 October 2004: The name “The Emirates Stadium” was announced, with naming rights granted for 15 years alongside an eight year shirt sponsorship deal.  The price was about £100m.  Although the name did not leak out in advance, Arsenal did start buying web sites with EmiratesStadium in them – but forgot emiratesstadium.info which Untold Arsenal purchased for £2.00.

37 Replies to “What are they smoking at Anfield? (And Fleet Street)”

  1. Probably because no-one really cares about Arsenal apart from Arsenal and Tottenham fans?

  2. If the press used evidence, it would mean they would have to actually put work into things. Wenger is right, the mainstream media just parrot each other to greater or lesser degrees.
    But Ozil was a bit alien like in this game, a real joy to watch. Great team performance, one player not mentioned so much but is rapidly becoming one of the best in his position is Monreal, he is a player we need to tie down, sharpish.

  3. It will be interesting to read or listen to the media reports on our next game, away to Watford.
    Many will hope for a poor performance to justify their doom and gloom prediction…..but what happens if the lads continue their resurgence?
    oooer….. 😉

  4. John Henry features heavily in Michael Lewis’ book, Moneyball and tried to recruit Billy Beane (GM of the Oakland A’s the team the book is based on) for the Red Sox. Beane based his approach on a very tight budget and a consistency in managerial positions, perhaps Henry needs to read the book again?

  5. Arsenal are now on cloud 9 . They can just easily be brought down to earth with a bang.The gunners must build on this performance.
    You can bet your house opponents will try how to stifle the gunners. LVG said the gunners were given too much time and space. It is true .
    That is why the gunners like Sanchez /Ozil/Walcott etc must be able to deliver even if they have 3/4 defenders marking them.

  6. There does seem to a definately Northern bias on Five 5, and for sure a pro-Liverpool stance…
    Could be due to their sports dept being full of northerners, plastic Scousers (ie Alan Green) & ex-Liverpool players…

  7. Apparently Matthew Syed in the times has written a piece suggesting Mourinho is a ” cultural terrorist” , and saying that players only respond so long to a siege mentality before becoming embarrassed by it all. I would imagine especially when their team doctor becomes a victim of it.
    Unfortunately, I don’t subscribe to the Times, so might have to buy a copy , sounds an interesting article.

  8. Tbh – negativity sells newspapers. Arsenal are a London team with a huge global fanbase so naturally if something bad is occurring with the squad (let’s be honest the result against Olympiakos was poor), everyone will write about it and generate their click income. Now it is Liverpool and their manager search which really is going to dwarf any coverage of the result against ManU yesterday.

  9. Two Scousers walk into a bar. You’d think the second one would duck.

    Ducks don’t have their palms read – they look for it on the web.

    The duck said to the bartender, ” Put it on my bill.”

    A baby seal walks into a bar. ”What can I get you?” asks the bartender. ”Anything but a Canadian Club,” replies the seal.

    Somebody was running a flea circus, but a dog came and stole the show.

    The race dogs got a bad case of the fleas – they had to be scratched.

    At the petting zoo I saw a sheep scratching itself. Turns out it had fleece.

    Alarms: What an octopus is. ( So is Peter Crouch !)

    That joke was so corny, it could feed a chicken for five years.

    You’ve cat to be kitten me right meow…

  10. It was quite nice to see us win, especially when LVG had said just before the match that they had come to London to pick their 3 points!I was looking at our fixture list after the ManUre match, and the next 5 games are winnable if we put conviction into it. It would be interesting to see how the season pans out if say we go top of the league by late November and stay there for sometime.

  11. It is really a bit early in the season to make dramatic predictions – not that that stops our media. But where are Arsenal at this stage: –

    Despite our PGMO marred start to the season we have scored 13 goals (4th in league) and only conceded 7 (equal first in league) – not bad considering we have been denied a number of penalties and have eventually conceded from one or two phantom free kicks wrongly given against us. Second in the league and only two points behind the leader is also not bad. I have not read the papers (gave up on them a long time ago) but I would be surprised if they bother with too many facts.

    Re the Dippers – they have tried very hard to buy success, they have indeed spend a heap of f****** money – but have misjudged the quality (or lack of) of most of the new players. The concept of building building a team seems to have been discarded (like Chelski), in an attempt to but instant success. But, the difference between the Dippers and Chelski and the Man Oilers is that Liverpool do not have the almost unlimited resources of the other two – so as and when they spend badly, they are damaged and cannot easily recover.

    The Liverpool of past generations was indeed a great club – but it is hard to see that club prosper when led by someone who rejoices in dishonesty – even if supported and protected by a loud but brain dead media.

  12. Well said BTG., and Ian Byrne. Liver pools version of sabre ethics seems to pay huge premiums for young, untried players, and Balotelli. But, Guess in fairness to them, they have given some of their youngsters a go, like Ibe, Rossiter and Flannagan.
    But they have been extremely wasteful with other players, some of the Suarez squanderlings really have not worked out. As ourselves, and our neighbours well know, it is very difficult to replace special players quickly. Replacements for such elite players may not find Liverpool FC, Spurs, and maybe even AFC the most attractive options when there are oilers lurking, though being in London may well have its advantages in attracting foreign players…..and having a manager like Wenger.

  13. Needed to take the family out for early dinner as my son’s birthday is midweek. I told my wife that we can go after game, no problem. Like all women, the nagging started and was relentless, just did not stop. Rather than losing my temper in front of the kids and looking like a villain, I decided to record the game. But as luck would have it, my younger daughter slept at about 3 pm and she is an absolute devil if she is woken up. [taken from me really] So my son and me got a chance to watch the game…..boy what a match. Enjoyed every second of it. Funny that…..my wife also enjoyed it and I had to keep point out to her that we would have missed the treat.

    Now when we lost the CL game midweek, I did comment that our strikers were going for glory by trying to score from impossible angles and ignoring team mates in better positions. I got ‘dislike’ for that….yesterday??? Theo was bloody magnificent….why? well, firstly he was a team player, making runs, tormenting Manures defence, make the right passes to the his team mates. The pass to Ozil for the goal, then to Alexis…., leading the defence from the front. I have no words to describe how well he played and you know what, he can do that every week. Oliver will find it difficult to get back in the team. When players play for the team, the team wins and that’s what happened yesterday. Every single one put in a double shift and this is what fans like to watch. If you win, it’s a bonus but the desire was there and that’s been missing sometimes, or we lose the focus / concentration. Another thing, we scored the chances we got and that puts pressure on the opponents to come out and play.
    Manure was there for the taking but we decided to back off after the 2 goal, I think Gary Neville pointed this out and he also make an very interesting tactical flaw in the Manure set up, where Looney toon was marking Francis while Schweinsteiger was marking Santi but Santi moved in our half dragging Schweinsteiger out of position and then moving past him in to space. Now Schweinsteiger, the experience player that he is, should not have fallen for the trap. LVG did not address this till the 2nd half. The manure left back was torn apart by Alexis and I would have preferred the relentless attack for another 10/15 mins where we could make mince of Manure. When Valencia came in, that side was nullified somewhat. Why did we sit back and defence so much is anyone’s guess. Maybe AW thought that we haven’t finished the previous games off and did not want to risk the result, or was it a plan to play against Bryan? Don’t know, but I thought we took unnecessary pressure for the entire 2nd half. Just my opinion though. All in all a fantastic match, which I have recorded and will watch again and again and again. Let’s hope our players come back all fit and we take off from where we left off. Ie play fantastic, play as team and put in the shift. What else can we fans ask for.

  14. Wonder what G Neville is thinking today? Did he not assume Arsenal don’t prepare for big game’s! He said all they do is dream about the perfect pass, back flicks, one two’s, nutmegs, and scoring wonder goals I mean who in their wildest dreams could imagine this happening in such a big game only an idiot would !!!!!!!!

  15. Allezkev.

    The BBC always had a North West bias. But the same is true of most of the bradcasters, including SKY and in particular BT.

    When you look at who the ‘main’ pundits and presenters are, it is pretty scary:

    SKY
    The main two pundits are Jamie Carragher (LIV) and Gary Neville (MAN UTD) with Jamie Rednapp (LIV/Spurs) supporting them. This season Thierry Henry is supporting, a nice change! (I recorded the show yesterday and after the game all Jamie Carragher wanted to do was poor scorn on our win, it was ridiculous).

    BBC
    For years we had the Hansen/Lawrenson Liverpool axis. No we have Alan Shearer (Newc) and Danny Murphy (Liv/Spurs), with Gary Linekar (Leics/Spurs) presenting. Phil Neville (MAN UTD) is no longer on the show but Jermaine Jenas (SPURS) makes the off appearance.

    BT (‘Bollocks Talking’ as I refer to them)
    Michael Owen (LIV/MAN UTD) & Owen Hargreaves (MAN UTD) supported by Glenn Hoddle (Spurs/Chelsea). Also supporting are David James (LIV), McMannaman (LIV), Paul Scholes (MAN UTD) and the odious and contempatable Roy Keane (MUFC). This is the worst group of pundits without exception.

    Talksport
    Lets look at their main programmes and who presents them:

    Alan Brazil (Spurs/Ipswich) Morning Breakfast show
    Danny Murphy (LIV/Spurs) Morning Breakfast show
    Stan Collymore (LIV) Matchday Live and phone in – (when he’s not hanging around car parks)
    Micky Quinn (LIV) Weekend Sports Breakfast
    Ray Houghton (LIV) – Football First
    Colin Murray (LIV) Colin Murray & Friends
    Andy Goldstein (Man Utd) Saturday Sports Bar
    Jason Cundy (Chelsea) Saturday Sports Bar.
    Des Kelly (SPURS)
    Adrian Durham (Peterborough or anyone other than Arsenal)- Drivetime + Daily Arsenal

    PGMOL
    If you then look at PGMOL, you see 15 of the 17 referees are from North of the Watford Gap,25% are from the NORTH WEST and Mike Dean is a self confessed Liverpool fan. You can see why we get such a hard time.

    If you go through the Newspapers, there is again a strong Liverpool line up.

    Its all very strange but does explain why we get some pretty incessant abuse.

  16. http://www.london24.com/sport/football/clubs/arsenal/wenger_reveals_why_he_hasn_t_dealt_with_super_agent_jorge_mendes_1_4257102

    Forgive the tangent but if these quotes are accurate this is a bloomin’ hilarious reference:

    “He (GrandMaster Mendez) goes to different directions, he has SPECIAL clubs.
    “I do what is right for the club and in a LEGAL way, but if I think he has a player that is absolutely essential for the club I would do it. [Mendes] has done nothing SPECIAL to me.”

    Is that a reference to the Specilaist in signing players/mules signed up to the Special Agent?

  17. Considering how much the AAA have lauded the Specialist in singing players signed to the Special Agent the following was interesting:

    “The last time Chelsea sacked Mourinho they had to pay him a reported £18 million in compensation. He’s currently two months into a four-year contract.
    It’s just as well we know the great football men are not motivated by money. Otherwise people might be looking at the curious incentive structure of football management, where the fastest way to make a gigantic fortune is often to lose your job, and draw all the wrong conclusions”

    Ouch. That was much more gracful and elegant then anything that I have ever written on pernicious agents in the game. Hooray for the oirish english hacks!
    http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/soccer/ken-early-mourinho-may-already-have-lost-the-chelsea-dressing-room-1.2378239#.VhITrSKOvNM.twitter

  18. however unlike LVG the specialist has insisted that he’s at the Gazprom Fulham Frabchise for a long spell this time.

    Considering the fall out at Madrid, that Utd didn’t want him etc. I’m not sure he’s got many options left! 🙂

    They were made for each other. Gazprom and the Specialist. Fortunately for the rest of football Mourinho spent his first season back when he should’ve won the first title of many in this current spell dismantling a very good and frankly scary young squad replacing them with a bunch of overpriced Mendezian Mules. Replace a the then promising prospect Lukaku with Costa or Remy neither of who can now run? Replace Mata with the F Word who can no longer run. Let Luiz go in favour of CBs who can no longer run…De Bruyne & Schurle in favour of Willian the crap one of the two from Donetsk (not Douglas Costa now at Munchen) it’s almost cruel. I hope that people who have been observing what happened to that young well built squad can understand why we call him the Specialist in signing players signed to the special agant. It’s quite a record!

  19. I was in Germany early last month and everyone there was pretty certain that Klopp will replace Pep when his contract ends next summer as he’ll take the $iteh money/job.

    If that’s even a remote possibility for Klopp then why on earth would he ever consider the Mugsmashers?

  20. proudkev, what’s happened to Keown and Dixon?
    I’m sure I’ve seen MK on the box this season but I don’t think he’s been on this season.
    Also Wrighty has been on (although I really wish he wasn’t as he’s a really terrible pundit driven entirely by emotion with little [to zero] tactical understanding) and I’ve definitely heard Smiffys voice this season but couldn’t tell you when.

  21. Tony

    “In a sense that would have been ok if only there had been a bit of historical balance. Liverpool has won four trophies including the League Cup – this century of which was the last in 2012 – and that was the league cup. Before that it was the FA Cup in 2006.”

    Exactly.

    I was driving home from work this morning to the croaky musings of that fool Brazil, and heard this gem:

    “The thing is he (Rogers) was on very dodgy ground because he has been there (Liverpool) for three years and not won anything, and at Liverpool that is Urgh errr, a no no”

    Not word for word but that’s the essence of it.

    So totally overlooking:

    – A 6 year trophy drought between 2006 and 2012

    – One trophy, and that only the CC, in almost 10 years

    – Not one Championship for over 25 years

    And yet Brazil would have us believe that a 3 year trophy drought under Rogers is somehow an unbelievable anomaly, totally in contrast to what they normally do, and therefore utterly unacceptable.

    From what I have heard Rogers average points haul is amongst the best in Liverpools recent history.

    Brazil is just like so many of the Medias Liverpool sycophants, in the way he has somehow constructed his own version of Liverpools recent, and not so recent history, which is in complete contrast to reality.

  22. Andy Mack:
    Dixon was on my stream and i really think that he has been cloned or made to become anti-Arsenal. Instead of rejoicing he was almost apologetic to Manu and suggesting what they should do, that they will come back bla bla bla etc….

    Wonder if pool are after Klopp now? Would not like that at all really. Let them stick with their pseudo managers/coaches.

    Let’s hope our lads are over the last hurdle now and can run to the finish line.

    COYG. A GREAT win.

  23. Thanks Tony for continuing to show the media what hypocrites they really are.

    @Wolfgang,
    Weren’t you the one that said, let’s see what Arsenal does against United?

    And now that they did well, you’re trying to move the goal posts again? Just deal with it, Arsenal are contenders!

  24. finsbury,
    that article in the Irish Times is very good. I found the part about Mourinho´s positional demands and Matic´s substitution particularly insightful, because as the journalist concludes, it implies that keeping your place in the squad simply necessitates being pessimistic on the field. The long-term effects of that approach we can imagine… Another reason why I infinitely prefer Wenger´s method and the autonomy granted to the players.

  25. Jambug.

    Correct.It seems that the only club that can be regularly criticised is Arsenal.

    When I think about the amount of bollocks levelled at Wenger by the undeducated twits and fantasy football fans, it drives me bananas.

    Lets look at some facts here.

    Liverpool have NEVER won the Premier League. Not once. In fact it is a quarter of a century this year, 25 years. That is how easy it is to win the PL, they are a huge club. It aint easy baby.

    Spend some fking money they scream. They have. They did. They spent a hell of a lot more than us and yet it was us always finishing above them – even when we were selling our best players. Liverpool would have given their right and left arms for Wenger.

    This is why the 11 year countdown clock really irks me. Its disengenuous to Wenger. Emphatically so. For many of those years he was fighting the foreign investment of the Russian and Arab – at the same time as breaking even to help fund the Emirates move! He was forced to develope players, which once he had educated were grabbed by the ‘buying’ clubs. Nasri, Cliche, RVP etc. No allowance is afforded Wenger, they just keep repeating the fact he hasn’t won the title in 11 years.

    We can argue all day long about whether or not Wenger had money, those of us with a working brain inside our heads know money has never grown on trees.

    I had to laugh when somebody was listing the so called ‘rubbish’ players we were signing post Invincibles. Yet not one of these Masterminds realised the irony in what they were saying.

    An interesting caption, none of which has been picked up in the media (unless I missed it):

    Team with most PL Wins in 2015: Arsenal = 18
    Club in crisis: Arsenal

    Club spending since Rogers joined Liverpool in 2012:

    MUFC £397m
    MCFC £376m
    CFC £343m
    LFC £292m
    THFC £249m
    AFC £193m

    Yet Arsenal are a disgrace.

    I may not be the most intelligent individual on the planet but I can spot an idiot a mile away. Most of them are Journalists.

  26. Tony,
    The media talk as if Liverpool are, or should be, contenders. They haven’t won for 25 years for f**ks sake! And they won’t. Big money notwithstanding, consistency of philosophy and management yield long term success. The evidence provided by the tenures of AF and AW confirm this. So, I don’t worry what the pundits or critics say. The only thing that worries me is the talent in the City squad. Man for man they are the only side in the PL that have the talent Arsenal have.

  27. proudkev

    As usual, spot on.

    I, like yourself am honest enough to know I’m not the sharpest tool in the box, but I don’t think I’m an idiot either.

    So with that in mind, and applying my simple logic to the thorny issue of money, I see it like this:

    -Over the last 10 years, City and Chelsea have been ‘sponsored’ to the tune of approaching a BILLION quid each in the transfer market.

    -Over the last 10 years Arsenal have been servicing a near £500 Million Mortgage.

    Yet some would have us believe that it’s all just ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ and we are in fact somehow on an equal financial footing to city, Chelsea and United.

    Logic suggest that simply doesn’t add up.

    But hey, since when has ‘Logic’ ever been of any significance when it comes to deriding Wenger?

  28. Jambug.

    Quite right.

    There is £1.2 billion in liabilities sitting in Fordstams (Roma Abramovich holding Company)set of accounts.

    It just goes from the sublime to the rididulous. The Fantasy Football Fans and their cohorts in the media have made talking out of your arse an art form. I am sure they actually understand the realities but prefer to hoodwink the fans for a spot of fun at Wengers expense.

    The fact they put Mourinho onto a pedestal says everything really. If ever there was a more odious and disrespectful person in football, I have never seen one. They prefer evil over good clearly.

  29. Some of the rubbish they speak in the media is simply mind blowing.

    Take this garbage from Henry and Carragher:

    Carragher:

    “I don’t think Arsenal have got better, I think the teams contending for the title have gone back a bit. Looking at Arsenal you can still say they are a bit short, and we are saying that about all the other teams.”

    This is the last five years Net spends, PER SEASON:

    Man city £64 Million Per season

    Man Utd £60 Million Per season

    Chelsea £45 Million Per season

    Liverpool £33 Million Per season

    So all our rivals have spent those astonishing sums of money to go BACKWARDS, and he’s having a pop a Wenger !!!

    You really couldn’t make it up.

    And he was coming out with all this bo11ocks with Henry sat right next to him.

    And this is what we get from TH14

    “Arsenal must win the league this year. They must win it. I don’t know if they will get a better chance than this season. They have to win it this year, they must.”

    WTF ? Never get a better chance.

    City had a net spend of £109 Million last summer alone.

    Utd £34 Million

    Chelsea £20 million

    Yet that numpty Wenger, who he and Carragher reckon failed to address the centre half, Midfield, and attacking shortcomings, has somehow, miraculously found himself in the best position for years to win the title.

    What a crock of double talking twaddle.

    The fact is we have a fantastic looking team/squad that really does look capable of giving the title a shot. The problem is, that doesn’t fit with all the criticism they’ve been constantly hurling at Wenger, so it HAS to be that the others have gone backwards.

    It cant be that Wenger has done a fantastic job, diligently, slowly, building a title challenging squad on a fraction of the money the others have been throwing about?

    Of course not, that simply couldn’t be could it?

    Carraghers simply an idiot. Henry should hang his head in shame.

  30. @Proudkev, you my friend are out of this world! But please don’t be caught in a dark alley with a journo, with that last bit about being able to spot an idiot a mile away. I guess with their mental capacity, they wouldn’t know what they’ll do to you!

    @Jambug, spot on about Carragher. The most bare-faced show of hatred for Arsenal yet. Imagine after a match like Sunday’s he still has the cheek to say a word of derision about us. He is not my focus though; TH14 is. Am almost ashamed he ever wore an Arsenal shirt before, allowing Carragher to get away with having a go at us like that. How much are they paying you, Henry? Must be an awful lot of money, to not even offer a whimper to that excuse for a defender in his playing days. How much does Arsenal mean to you TH? Or is your silence a tacit approval of the fact that sometimes silence is the the best answer for a fool? And what a fool Jamie Carragher is! Why doesn’t he reserve all that attention for his beloved Liverpool FC and leave us alone. They surely have much bigger problems. Shameless moron!

    There. Rant over.

  31. I think Tony picked an apt topic for this article. Whatever they are smoking at Anfield must be very potent stuff. Imagine a character like Carragher still swooning about like that after these years away from the dressing room. Except maybe he goes back for regular doses of the stuff. What else will make one talk like that on live tv about an Arsenal performance like that. Liverpool can only dream about having a performance in a match like that nowadays.

  32. Sometimes the stars do shine on you . A touching story .

    A fifteen-year-old came home with a Porsche and his parents began to yell and scream, “Where did you get that car?”

    He calmly told them, “I bought it today.”

    “With what money!?” demanded his parents. “We know what a Porsche costs.”

    “Well,” said the boy, “this one cost me fifteen dollars.”

    The parents began to yell even louder. “Who would sell a car like that for fifteen dollars!?” they asked.

    “It was the lady up the street,” said the boy. “Don’t know her name — they just moved in. She saw me ride past on my bike and asked me if I wanted to buy a Porsche for fifteen dollars.”

    “Oh my goodness!” moaned the mother, “she must be a child abuser. Who knows what she will do next? John, you go right up there and see what’s going on.”

    So the boy’s father walked up the street to the house where the lady lived and found her out in the yard calmly planting flowers. He introduced himself as the father of the boy to whom she had sold a Porsche to for fifteen dollars and demanded to know why she did it.

    “Well,” she said, “this morning I got a phone call from my husband. I thought he was on a business trip, but I learned from a friend he has run off to Hawaii with his secretary. Then apparently she stole all his money and stranded him there! Well he called me, without a dollar to his name, and asked me to sell his new Porsche and send him the money. So that’s exactly what I did.”

  33. @Brickfields. Hey my friend, what a touching story. Pay-day came rather quickly for him. Time for him to deploy his skills in swimming or flying or maybe he will tunnel his way back home.

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