By Tony Attwood
Last week I was doing some research on an Arsenal player from the 19th century – Stanley Briggs. It turned out he was an amateur player who played for Tottenham, then for Woolwich Arsenal in the League, then for Tottenham.
Several Tottenham web sites mention the player and speak of him as one of the leading amateur players in the country, and a man of such dedication to the amateur cause that when the club debated a possible move to professionalism, the player refused even to attend the meeting.
Which is all very well and very believable until one asks why, if he so abhorred professionalism, did he go to Arsenal, just about the most famous professional team in the south of England at the time? And why did he leave again after just four games (two in the league, two friendlies).
The most obvious logical answer is that he liked being an amateur (Arsenal employed amateur players right up until 1947 so we can assume it is likely he was an amateur at Arsenal) but had no objection to playing as an amateur for a professional club. Looking at the record of his games for Arsenal one can easily conclude that actually he wasn’t up to the standard of a League team and so went back to Tottenham, where the club, at that time, was without a league and played only friendlies.
Thus the facts are hard to equate with the notion that this man was of such standards that he wouldn’t even attend a meeting at Tottenham to debate professionalism. And yet this is the position that is taken up.
My point is that a little bit of digging reveals facts that are difficult to explain within a thesis put forward, so another line of argument is needed.
And this is what happens all the time – there is a dominant view which is passed on from writer to writer (particularly via cut and paste) – and it becomes the norm. Everyone copies the headline and few people bother with the detail.
But detail is all important. Because only when you consider the detail do you get an answer that actually makes sense upon investigation.
After much debate with Blacksheep we’ve agreed that this process of analysis is best called “logical deduction” – and it is a fairly commonplace approach among those trying to understand the truth. Instead of just asserting things or doing stuff, you use logical deduction to see what makes sense in understanding the past, and what help us choose the best course of events in the future.
However as you may have noticed, logical deduction is not the everyday meat and drink of football analysis where instant opinion rules the day.
For a start logical deduction is calm and measured, and to a certain degree scientific, rather than emotional. And although logical deduction is applied in analysis after an event it can also be helpful with plans for the future for it forces a person who uses it to answer certain questions such as:
a) If I take this action what is likely to happen?
b) Are there likely to be any untoward or unexpected consequences of this action?
c) How will I follow up this action?
These are cool, calm questions that are out of the reach of many who want to act now. The lynch mob was a perfect example of a group of people acting in a wholly emotional way without even an ounce of logical deduction and planning in their collective brains.
And this takes us to the heart of the problem of logical deduction about what to do regarding the future – it requires thinking – whether we are talking about law and order in mediaeval society or in terms of planning the future of a contemporary football team.
If you are an occasional reader of Untold you will know that I’ve regularly lambasted football journalists and editors for the way that they focus on issues normally with little (if any) evidence considered. They are the contemporary version of the witch hunters, seeing inhuman creatures on every corner, putting a very large number of totally innocent women to death on bonfires. OK we haven’t got to the bonfires yet but emotion has become the response to events and is all that is needed to write a newspaper (or come to that bloggetta) article today.
The press in fact acts like a lynch mob all the time – and it is not surprising that the current round of proposed protests have the lynch mob feel. They are planning events to protest against Arsenal not winning things (two domestic trophies in the last three seasons not being enough for them) without thinking, “what will this protest achieve”?
As with the lynch mob there is always a chance that they might string up the right man, but if the murders or other crimes continue after the poor man’s death, there’s no going back. All you can do is lynch someone else.
Thinking fans of Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool! should surely feel this way. They go on sacking manager after manager, and still end up without reaching their holy grail. Of course Tottenham have had a good run at it this year, and it is still mathematically possible that they could win the league – but the price for Tottenham of using this lynch mob approach to sacking the manager has been year after year after year of Arsenal supporters singing “It’s happened again”. They won’t hear it this year, but they also probably won’t win anything either. It seems a strange approach to want to adopt.
Sacking a manager can work – but no matter which way I look at the evidence (that most uncomfortable thing so rarely if ever seen by lynch mobs) – it only seems to work rarely. You need to find a brilliant manager (a Brian Clough say) who can transform a moderate team into a winning team. A man who will agree to come to the club the lynch mob have been declaring to be an absolute shambles. A man who can turn the disaster (for so it has been declared by the lynch mob) into success, and quickly.
Such men are very hard to find. There are some out there, but often they don’t want to move, or they don’t want to move to a club in turmoil – which is how the lynch mob portray the club they claim to support. Since there are 20 odd top clubs in Europe on the prowl for a new manager at any time, they cast their eyes elsewhere.
In short, just as the lynch mob generally get the wrong guy, because they don’t consider the evidence, they also do something else. They affect the entire environment. They make people feel better – for a while – until the murder and robbery starts up again. The lynch mob then reassembles and runs through the process again only with more vigour. “The problem,” they declare, “is that we didn’t kill the last man fast enough.” In football terms it is like looking at Tottenham Hotspur’s 24 managers from 1984 to 2014 and see it as a blueprint rather than a dire warning, because in 2014 they finally got a good ‘un (even though he hasn’t won anything yet).
Ah, but maybe we could find a brilliant manager who was so strong in his own personality he would do what he wanted to do, and not be pushed around by annoying owners, and win stuff etc. Brian Clough. He won the league with Nottingham Forest (a club whom he had just brought up from the second division) and then the European cup two years running.
And then… he won nothing. The club sank lower and lower until it was relegated. So maybe not a Brian Clough.
The protesters at Arsenal want to win trophies. But nothing in what I have heard or read suggests to me that any of the groups protesting have been explaining what they think the protest will achieve, and why this will be achieved and how it will give them what they want.
(If of course they are thinking that it will achieve nothing, then the question becomes, “why are they doing it?” – but that’s too weird so let’s leave that for a moment.)
In fact reading all their protests I guess the answer might be that they think they can get the club to
a) sack the manager
b) bring in a new brilliant manager
c) bring in lots of new players
d) win stuff.
I often get a bit worked up when people use the phrase “it is not rocket science” to mean “it’s not that hard”. I get worked up because rocket science is not hard – it is about the simplest science there is. You put a load of flammable gas in a fire-proof container with a valve at one end. Then you set fire to the gas, and open the valve and the container goes in the direction opposite to the position of the valve.
By contrast finding a manager who can win things is incredibly difficult – it is more like quantum mechanics. Only about 1 in 40 managerial transfers in the league actually makes the club better. Which is actually worse than the number of high value player transfers that actually make a difference to a team straight away – that is about one in four.
And there’s another problem. Mr Kronke has made it clear that he is not going to pour money into the club like Abramovich, and is not going to sell bits of it to the Chinese like Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Personally I rather like that.
So what is plan? To get Kronke to sell to a multi-billionaire who then acts like Man City and Chelsea act?
Maybe it is, although the little protest groups around have never quite made it clear what they want. But it is a question worth asking. Is that what it is all about? Be like Chelsea, only more so?
If so, it doesn’t really seem to me to be much of an analysis of Arsenal’s situation or much of a proposal for the future. In the last three years Arsenal have won two trophies, and Chelsea have won two trophies. Logical deduction would suggest there might be a better way forwards rather that copying a club that has done much the same as us.
- Why don’t clubs take care of their prize assets?
- Don’t shoot the messenger but we’re in a funk
- The endless assault on Arsenal. Now it is started I doubt it will ever end.
From the Arsenal History Society
The Society is currently developing a series on every Arsenal player who played for the club’s first team in a league match in the 1893/4 season – and it is a series that is certainly re-writing some established versions of what happened.
The latest articles are
- Stanley Briggs; from Tottenham to Arsenal to Tottenham. But is the tale all it seems?
- Joseph Cooper: the most mysterious of all the mysterious Arsenal players
There always has to be a party pooper in the lynch mob, Tony. One asking “silly questions” about the lynch party. Most of the time this is the one they will try to lynch the next time the mob goes out.
Nevertheless an important question that needs to be answered by the lynch mob: what after they have driven Wenger and Kroenke out? What then? What is the plan?
I don’t get really tempted by becoming another Chel$ea or $ity to be honest…
I do wish the media made it clear that it is asmall minority of ‘fans’ wh ohold the lynch mob view. Off course we all want our team to be succesful …. but, your thinkingis correct. Show me a different Manager that could/is doing want Arsene is
Excellent piece Tony
I’d also add a phrase from my youth. “Don’t confuse me with the facts. My mind is made up!!”
It’s like trying to have a rational argument with a drunk in a pub about any serious subject. And then finding out the drunk(s) have Facebook and Twitter accounts.
It can’t be that difficult can it?? Just sack Wenger, sack the board, sell all the current players who are crap….then buy the best manager, and 20 top players with the new TV money and everything’s fixed innit?
But facts and history show that it’s not that simple in sport or in business to achieve a level of continued success and performance.
But don’t confuse me with the facts, as I said earlier
COYG
I’d love to have Chelsea’s record over the last 12 years rather than ours. If you are seriously asking that question then yes, please: more like Chelsea. Actually, more like City. They have more ambition. They’d play attractive football. When things don’t work they change them. They have Patrick. They have Pep. When they needed a striker they’d went and bought one.
Peter
This hits at the heart of modern day sports – or any other type of journalism. Most hacks are inherently lazy, and as a previous piece in Untold pointed out, they are under pressure from social media and the blog world.
Yes they could do some in-depth research and analysis – whether about the size of the protest, or about the Arsenal injury story, or about PIGMOL refereeing – to produce well thought out, researched and argued journalism.
But it is so much easier to trot out the same platitudes and treat them as indelible facts.
Let’s face it if we had won the Prem this year….the articles would have said you only won it because Chelsea were crap, Man City were crap, Manure were crap etc etc.
COYG
Peter, if every prem team had the same cloned arsenal team who would win?
Other managers do as well as Wenger now? poch, ancelotti, touchel, Klopp, pep, Enrique, simeone
Man City can still knockout Real Madrid at Santiago Benerbeu and qualify for this season’s Ucl final that will take place in Milan.
Man City can count on their good away record in their Ucl campaign this season to see them through at Santiago Bernabeu despite the likely presence on the field of play of Madrid’s trio BBC stickers of Ben, Bale & Cris to play in that match. Yes, I want Man City to knockout Madrid to reach the final and win the Cup.
A change of baton from Spain to England will be interesting to see if Man city and Liverpool will lift the 2 most priced Euro trophies of the Ucl and the Europa League Cup which have been residing in Spain for some years now.
The so-called Arsenal’s lynch fans mob are looking to have ran out of patient and have gotten fed up of being kept waiting to be sitting on the fence and be looking-on as others have been collecting the biggest race price of the land in the last 12 years without Arsenal been among them. Hence, their latest feud with the Boss and Stan Kroenke. Because they can’t accept the reasons being alluded for Arsenal not collecting the biggest race price of land in 12 years when the capacity to collect it is not restricted from Arsenal.
Hence, their demands for a change at the Arsenal’s hierarchies.
However, Arsenal can still finish this season on the high if they win their last 3 games of this season which will certainly guaranteed us a 3rd place finish in the table or even 2nd spot finish if and if, the Boss will make an objective starts and not his usual favoritism starts for the 3 games.
Samuel, finishing 3rd is not finishing the season on a high!
Yep we have won the Fa cup twice in the last three seasons, which is quite nice, but I believe the ‘Lynch mob’ as you so ungraciously refer to them are griping and complaining about not winning the Prem in the last 12yrs. They are tired of seeing the same tactics and policies been used over and over again. It is clear to absolutely everyone and their dog that there does need to be a change.
Changing doesn’t always work out, as you rightly pointed out, in the case of Spurs etc, but that’s not a reason to back away from it. We have to take our club higher, win titles, and it might be less risky sticking with the status quo, but then again no one ever achieved greatness by sitting down and doing NOTHING, at least these protesters are doing SOMETHING, they trying to make the club better.
Simon – Is that the same Manchester City who currently lead Arsenal by the enormous margin of… goal difference; and who produced one of the most boring performances I have ever seen from a team in a CL semi-final and can count themselves very fortunate to have escaped their home leg with a 0-0 draw?
And 3rd place would be ahead of where we should be in terms of revenue, wages, transfer spend etc. Just because the teams above us have exceeded expectations by even more does not change this fact.
“Thinking Tottenham and Liverpool fans should surely feel this way” does this mean Tony has been endowed with the mind reading gifts hitherto the exclusive preserve of the press?
Instead of rushing to pen an article guessing the aim of the protest, why not ask them or wait till they make public their grievance? What’s the point of pressing your made up grievance on them other than mischief?
Upp, tell us the almighty infallible plan that will bring the holy grail to Arsenal. We might even be interested you know. But for now we only know the plan as:
drive them all out.
Not really a good enough plan for me.
I may be mistaken Tony but I’m pretty sure Bob Wilson was with the club as an amateur before signing as a pro in 1964. (Wikipedia claims that he was the first amateur to command a transfer fee when we bought him from Wolves in 1963. It also says he was actually still an amateur when he made his debut for the club.)
If rocket science is easy science, I’m surprised a lot of (nations, the UK inclusive I believe) find it extremely difficult to come up with rockets. I’m willing to bet you can’t get an object to move 1km away.
@walter
I don’t know what their plan is, that might just be why I don’t go writing articles about it cooking up stuff
Pete,
Yep that city. What they will think is this is a shit season and do something about it – not console themselves they are finishing ‘on a high’ I suspect they will win the league next year.
Our spend and wage bill is higher than Chelsea. Wakes wakey!
–
DNF Old Turdy it’s just the same old same old turds
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The lynch mob are just the heard that are corralled by their shepherd. And those barking dogs most certainly do want every club to be like Chelsea. Very friendly towards special agents. In fact as they want Specialists in signing players signed up to special agents. Plenty of evidence for that simple and easy understanding.
Unless you are an infantile Sado-masochist?
OFF TOPIC but very important news related to doping/anti-doping.
Sakho could be banned for up to 2 years from football for testing positive for unnamed substance known as ‘fat burners’. Source below.
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/sakho-shock-liverpool-defender-declines-11249168
Arijan Ademi of Dinamo Zagreb was banned for 4 years from football for testing positive for anabolic steroid called ‘stanozolol’ against Arsenal earlier this season. Stanozolol is considered to one of most common and ideal substance for athletes and bodybuilders for better agility, speed, strength, high blood cell count, and is also a very fast fat reducing agent at the same time.
The problem is we have all – me included – swallowed the line that it is only about money. It is patently not as everyone can so painfully see. The revelation that the emperor has no clothes is going to have very large consequences.
@ upp
Tony explained why rocket science is easy. Just because not every country chooses to build one doesn’t mean the science is difficult……..it just means it’s bloody expensive!
@goonermikey
Yeah, we all know how to make them. Just that we can’t find the money. Very insightful
so the black scarf move’nt and the red action also with the AAA and WOB flock want to stage a protests at Norwich match in hoping to get rid of Arsene and the owner.all they succeed in return is embarrassed the Arsenal football club. if you are Arsenal through and thru you will know that Arsenal dont behave in such unprofesional and negative way like sack the manager or terminate players contract. Arsenal is not a football club that humiliate other people, thats the main reason i love Arsenal. no matter what haters and other people says, Arsenal is now seen as a role model of successful football club by some other club around the world and dont rely on owner personal wealth when they built the Emirates stadium. how Arsenal suffer financially after the stadium move and we gooner were hurting when we saw some of our best players being cherry pick by our rival but we still feel proud and joy when Arsenal still manage to finish inside the top 4 every years. all those hardship is now feel more rewarding as Arsenal grew stronger plus financially stable every year, also manage to compete with other big clubs and capable to make a big money signing when the transfer target is available. the future is indeed bright and promising for the Arsenal football club.
Err, there is absolutely no history of space flight going wrong, of rockets failing to launch, exploding and the crew being incinerated. This place is weird.
Yeah rocket science is dead easy.
I’m sure the crew of Challenger would concur if you could ask them.
“Sacking a manager can work – but no matter which way I look at the evidence (that most uncomfortable thing so rarely if ever seen by lynch mobs) – it only seems to work rarely. ”
We know that too well! Neil, Howe, Graham, Rioch.
Before Mee’s appointment Crayston, Swindon, Wright.
Not the best claim that one.
Then we have this:
“And there’s another problem. Mr Kronke has made it clear that he is not going to pour money into the club like Abramovich,”
Not publicly said by Mr Kronke but what he as done is to take at least £6 million out of the club.
Mr Kronke is the only director to take money out of the club.
Not that he needs Arsenl’s money as he recently purchased out right land in Texas for $500 million dollars. If reports are to be believed.
As you have documented there have been directors- owners who have put money into the club.
If Mr Kronke decided to sell his shares to a Russian or Arab or Chinese or dare I say it an English man, could Mr Kronke be stopped from doing this?
I doubt it. After all said and done Arsenal is his money provider and we live in a capitalist society he is therefore free to do what he likes with his plaything.
Simon – Do you really believe our wage bill is higher than Chelsea’s? If so, where is your evidence?
My evidence:
Per Swiss Ramble, the wages in 2014/15 are:
Chelsea £216mm
Man Utd £203mm
Man City £194mm
Arsenal £192mm
Wages plus spend over last 3 years. Swiss Ramble is a mate.
But as I said. You are skewered both ways : tottenhams is less, ditto Leicester. Wenger is naked and we have just noticed!
@jaroda,
It wasn’t the science that went wrong, buying the bits from the cheapest contractor didn’t help. As Tony says the science is relatively straightforward – the engineering to make use of the science is a bitch.
Pete,
I think Simon has heard it say somewhere on the internet by some of the aaa and so it must be true.
Re rocket science – the science is not too hard, it is the engineering that is the tricky bit!
The game is up. We are officially failing. Sooner we get out of denial and move on to acceptance the better!
Simon if it would just be about the largest wage bill then why would we even bother to play the game itself?
A wage bill is one of the (probably) dozen things that has an impact on the outcome of the league.
Simon – you are on a losing wicket here.
Firstly, you have moved the goalposts compared to your original comment.
Secondly, even by your revised criteria, over the last 3 years (according to Swiss Ramble, your mate) Chelsea have spent £69mm more than us on wages while we have spent (net) £47mm more than them on transfers. So I am afraid it looks like you are wrong. Or Swiss Ramble is wrong (which I doubt).
However, this comparison is very tilted as it takes no account of the significant net spend excess by Chelsea in the previous 10 years or so – and many of those expensive Chelsea purchases are still in their squad, theoretically adding value, today.
Exactly… Err, that was my point. We have nowhere to hide. We are among the richest clubs in the world and we are still failing.
Simon re Leicester and Tottenham. I refer you back to my original comment.
If we were in exactly the same position (League placing, points) but it was, say, Chelsea and Man Utd in first and second, would that be OK then?
Full credit to Leicester and Tottentham for significantly outperforming. I could argue that they have been significantly advantaged relative to us by questionable refereeing decisions (to put it mildly) but that has been covered in great depth in other threads here.
Where I diverge from Tony is that Arsenal has had, over the last 6+ years, a significantly worse injury record than our closest rivals. Last time I had checked we had had the 4th worst record this season. Tottenham and, in particular, Leicester have been relatively untouched in comparison.
But we are NOT failing by any objective criteria. We have had a disappointing season in that we will not win a trophy, provided we remain in the Top 4, but it has not been a disaster. Our recent (previous 4 seasons) relative upward trend has certainly tailed off but it is absolutely not “failure”. That would be Chelsea’s season, for example.
Other clubs fans can not believe how spoilt and ungrateful a sub-set of Arsenal followers have become. Frankly I can’t either. I will be at the game on Saturday and I will have complete contempt for those walking out and/or demonstrating. Absolutely pathetic behaviour and no way to support the team when they need us more than ever.
Pete
If you believe Arsenal injuries have held us back, do you not think Arsene should shoulder at least some responsibility for a fair share of them?
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Rainman I agree that “Changing doesn’t always work out, as you rightly pointed out, in the case of Spurs etc, but that’s not a reason to back away from it.”
What I am trying to say, each time in a different way, is that when a protest is set up, it is a good idea to be clear about what is wanted. I certainly agree that no one ever achieved greatness by sitting down and doing nothing.
What I think is needed is for those who feel that something is going seriously wrong to put forward a few more constructive ideas beyond “Wenger out” and “Usmanov in”.
There are historic situations in which refusal to defend the inheritance of a civilization,
however imperfect, against tyranny and aggression may result in consequences even worse than war.
Reinhold Niebuhr.
So if either Leicester or Tottenham win the EPL , without spending obscene amounts of money , couldn’t Arsenal do it too next season ?
I like that thinking !
If last year’s champions could end the season with 30 points lower than this year’s champs , should Leicester be unduly worried about next year ?
What a lynch mob usually wants is a victim and some excitement so much like the burnings and hangings of slaves, where the whole family including children, turns out to watch. I suspect if not for the two FA cups, they would storm Arsenal ground and burn it to the ground.
What most lucid (2:bright or luminous) Arsenal fans want is to see some changes from the same result year after year, having to sit through the same failings, the same mistakes and the same system, a system that is obviously broken.
So we watch and and wait for the changes.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/chelsea-pay-highest-wage-bill-in-the-premier-league-ahead-of-manchester-united-a6802436.html
@ para
I may be wrong but I understand there to be 92 professional clubs in England. 91 of them will not win the premier league every year. Of course we have a better chance than many, if not most but when you talk about, “the same result year after year, having to sit through the same failings, the same mistakes and the same system, a system that is obviously broken,” then by your logic it is broken for all but one each and every year. It also follows that you do not see an FA Cup victory as success…..sigh!
I grew up on the terraces in the sixties when potential success was so much further away for us (and the Tiny Tots were all the rage having done the first domestic double since WW2). I really do think that many people have lost all sense of reality here and blindly absorb the fairy stories dreamt up by the media to destabilise the club as if they are actually true. Fair play to the press though………..it’s working!
Tom,
Re Wenger “shouldering the responsibility”: That’s a weak link at best. There is no evidence of him running around on the pitch kicking players. On the contrary, there is plenty of evidence of our opponents kicking our players to pieces. And if you talk about muscle injuries, last time I checked we are rather in line with the rest of the league, above average but nothing catastrophic.
Nobody has mentioned the 3 million pounds paid to Kroenke’s company and poor Keswick’s response when he was asked about it at AGM.
If Kroenke had given enough financial freedom to Mr Wenger, we would have been more successful in terms of trophies in the last decade. I think it should be clear by now to those who wanted to read between the lines after Mr Wenger had spoken in January 2014 about finding a player on loan on the last day of the transfer window. My theory is that Mr Wenger wanted to sign a striker (hence the reported loan moves for Ba and Klose) and a midfielder (hence Kallstrom’s deal) but he didn’t have enough funds given. He hadn’t signed a new contract at that point and something tells me it wasn’t The Board who were giving the ultimatum to the manager but the other way round: Mr Wenger agreed to sign a new contract but only if he would get funds in the summer 2014 to sign players, especially for the attack where lack of pacy strikers after Walcott’s injury ruined our league campaign. Our net-spending in summer 2014 suggests that my theory is not rubbish as we got not just one but two pacy strikers for the combined fee bigger than the Ozil one.
If football should be an art, then people who see football as a business (as Kroenke sees it) are not friends of football any more than oligarchs who have entered the middle-age crisis with too much money on disposal.
Tony, the weevils are crawling out of the canteen biscuits.
The Swiss Ramble cannot add up, end of the story.
Chelsea Football Club Ltd, a subsidiary of Chelsea Football Club plc, which is turn is, and I quote:
“The Company is reliant on its parent Company, Fordstam Limited, for its continued financial support etc.”
Turnover was £314.287 millions, Operating Expenses were £378.004 millions in 2014/2015.
Turnover was £319.843 millions, Operating Expenses were £349.179 millions in 2013/2014.
Turnover was £255.772 millions, Operating Expenses were £317.053 in 2012/2013.
IF, the Arsenal were trading like Chelsea in recent years, then the rabble have a cause?
You silly little weevil, begone!
Good article, Tony, and thank heavens, good discussion. I thought we were going off the rails a couple of articles ago.
I’ll be at Saturday’s match as well. Loudly supporting the team as a lot of people at the matches do. Also pointing things out to my fellow supporters that they may not have noticed as I’m sure all Untold readers do at the matches.
Last match I was at there was nearly a fight after Crystal Palace equalised and a little boy ended up in tears. So I’m hoping there won’t be a repeat of that. Thanks to the Arsenal stewards for sorting it out. Probably it was caused by a combination of alcohol and over-reaction when our opponents equalised. Another good reason to be objective and keep a cool head and keep supporting the team.
“the game is up”
spot the tottenham supporter above.
Unless we are witnessing an Arsenal fan lie about the amount of Wonga Joe Lewis has been washing through the middlesex club this past decade, sorry i mean the transfer ins and outs up there in the swamps. Love in the time of Cholera. If only Venga had so much wonga to spend on quality like Sandro and Paulinho all these years.
Or perhaps it was just a troll?
http://m.stltoday.com/sports/columns/ben-frederickson/benfred-advice-to-arsenal-fans-find-a-new-club/article_ebc3019c-f45b-5a46-b078-cc16462325e8.html
This was an interesting read on what we are facing from a sports journalist. What you guys think?
Goonermikey
Of course i see the FA wins as good but even winning PL this year would not mask the problems the team has, and they need to be sorted so that Arsenal can progress.
Stephan – I think it is a very ignorant article.
“What I think is needed is for those who feel that something is going seriously wrong to put forward a few more constructive ideas beyond “Wenger out” and “Usmanov in”.
@ Tony, much constructive ideas and discussion is and has been widely taking place far beyond “wenger out” and certainly far beyond the false broadbrush application of “usmanov in”(if you think that’s a widely ascribed to position I think you’re way off the mark). Can you really say you have been open minded to having, listening or seeking said constructive ideas, or is it easier to caricature and label those with a different view?
And by the way, this goes for (the minorities on) both sides – as sects of the wenger out voices are only interested in caricature and labeling of the other side and not interested in constructive discussion, even in disagreement.