In my all encompassing survey of ways of knocking the Arsenal employed by journalists and bloggers I thought I had just about done it all, seen it all, and covered all the ways in which people can knock the Arsenal.
But then comes along the Bleacher Report run by Foxy News (a fanatical right wing emporium that is within the combine that makes the Simpsons).
What they have done is found that someone somewhere asked Diarra what he learned from the Lord Wenger and Diarra said, “nothing”. (That is to say he said the word, not that he said nothing, if you get my drift).
And that was it.
So the Bleacher Report then does this headline (and I kid you not, it really is there)…
Diarra—who was at Arsenal for less than five months—said in an interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais today that his time at the Emirates was a wasted period in his career….”
And so it goes on.
As Ian pointed out in correspondence yesterday on this site, if we get many more defenders out we will have the headline that says “5 of Arsenal’s back four out for the rest of the season”.
The Fox article is untrue in its facts (only one player is out for the majority or all of the remainder of the season) and in the implications. There are no questions to be answered, nothing of interest, just a very good player who thought he could walk straight into our first team no matter what, and then got in a huff when he found he couldn’t, and went to play for Portsmouth, as you do.
Of all the attempts to knock Arsenal is this the silliest (I’ll put the full link at the end so you can read the whole load of tripe if you feel so moved and have nothing better to do). The facts are wrong, the implication is wrong, the story doesn’t exist, and the writers haven’t got a clue.
Could it be, could it just be, that the three clubs around us, KGB, Manchester B and Liverpool I, actually pay journalists to write stuff that knocks the Arsenal?
That seems a bit beyond even George Orwell, and yet… The question is, why bother?
I suppose you could ask the same about my daily meanderings around the world of Arsenal, and my answer would be: I started because I was frustrated that the point of view that Wenger was a brilliant manager building a new brilliant team was being lost among the rubbish spouted by the press. I continue because 60,000 people a month read at least some of these pages.
And I quite enjoy writing it.
But my point is that my ramblings are positive and for some readers occasionally amusing (although I appreciate that many people agree with the correspondent who said, “Dont give up the day job” – which was unfortunate since my day job is the writing of slightly amusing pieces).
But why to Fox journalists bother to write something that is so utterly negative?
I wonder, and I am not quite sure.
Now where the bloody hell is Wigan?
(c) A. Bemused of the East Mindlands.
Never mind Foxy news, just try the Telegraph this morning. Rather than repeat it’s rubbish i shall repost an earlier comment I put on ACLF.
I strongly advise all Arsenal fans to avoid today’s Telegraph Sports.
Starting with a ludicrously sentimental two page puff for the scousers and Stevie Me in particular, all Henry Winter apologists shall in future bring down wrath, it moves on to give a platform for Phil Breakdown’s odious views and tells us that Hiddinck appears to have “fallen in love” with Chelski.
To finish, it’s ‘review’ of the arsenal -Wigan game is actually the diatribe from Diarra reported yesterday with the added viuew that he learnt more from ‘the Special One’. One of my banties is completely Doolalli Tap and therefor ‘special’. I would call her Jose from now on except she is rather harmless and sweet.
I shall be writing to them to tell them where to shove their paper in future.
My apologies for being lazy but Tony’s article seemed to require a further exposure of the medias. agenda with our club. Phil Breakdown even accuses Journalists of being closet Gooners! Laugh? I nearly wept. Mind you I think better of Russell brand now who apparently called him a ninny.
Yes, believe it or not the Telegraph actually allowed Phil Brown to write his own article this morning. Perhaps they were so stunned that he was in point of fact ABLE to write that made this grave error in Judgement.
All things being equal, he and his grotty little football club would have been better served had he spent his time and energy preparing his team for their match rather than his epic dual struggle of using his opposable thumbs and looking up difficult words in the dictionary. Perhaps then he wouldn’t have been spanked 3 – 1 by Middlesbro and facing the ever-growing spectre of relegation.It is woth noting that Middlesbro are usually the spankees rather than the spankers.
I would love to have been a fly on the wall when the sports editor of the Telegraph went to cast his critical eye over Brown’s article only to find that it had been written in crayon.
As for Fox, it is my understanding that they are also owned by Rupert Murdoch, owner of sky, former owner of 10% of Man Utd and former owner of deep ambitions to own Man Utd outright. These ambitions were only laid to rest when he was informed that owning a premier league clubs whilst owning the broadcast rights to the same league represented a ” conflict of interest” and would create a potential “unfair tangible advantage”.
I feel genuine sympathy for the poor individual who had to explain to him exactly what those phrases meant. I’d imagine that finding a common frame of reference would have been something of an issue.
P.S. Happy St, Totteringham’s everybody. 😉
Thanks Terence, that had passed me by, although I did see a point would do it, from last week’s results!
The d&gs foiled again, as Alex Song proved the masses wrong again. Only AW recognised the boy’s talent.
I shall open a good bottle tonight.
I got myself too interested in the better blogs, for the same reason, Tony.
Cbob, great stuff,as usual.
You will like this one too Tony.
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/sport/260841/GLAZERS-FACING-MELTDOWN-OVER-UNITED-DEBT-Old-Trafford-owners-must-re-finance-to-meet-massive-demands.html
Picked up by the NOTW no less. Wonders Wonders.
Tony, maybe you have, but there is another set of headlines making the rounds since yesterday that are of the same misleading, sensationalist mode. To quote the blog Arsenal Action Arsene admits “Ive made some errors which have cost us the title.” The actual quote, whose source I cannot verify, is:
“I did make a mistake in perhaps underestimating the harmful effects of last season, especially the loss of the title. I asked myself a lot of questions during the close season about the influence losing the title in the last two months might cause.”
No doubt, Wenger’s judgement is not perfect. But, given the man’s track record, whose judgement are we to trust? For some, especially in the press, but too often among so-called Arsenal bloggers, the moment there is a wobble, it is open-season on Wenger’s judgement. (Gunnerblog I am looking at you.) Now that Wenger admits that he had some self doubts during that fallow stretch (he is human afterall), does not relieve these bloggers for their lack of faith and failure to support the team during this spell. In fact the vehemence of their negativity and being the vanguard of doom and gloom cannot be separated from the inexcusable booing of our own players at the Emirates.
The real headline here is that “Arsene’s faith in youth has been justified.” According to the ‘original’ quotes from the Wenger interview: “I think I have been tough because I have continued to believe in this team when nobody else did. And I remained faithful to my policy when everyone told me I was heading straight for a brick wall. People reproach me for not having bought Gareth Barry or Xavi Alonso. But I am a prisoner of my own policy. Buying Barry or Alonso is killing Alexandre Song, Abou Diaby and Denilson.”
No amount of spinning of Wenger’s words to suggest that he lost faith, like many faithless bloggers, will change that fact that Wenger believed in this team even when the chips were down.
i occasionally write pro arsenal propaganda on the bleacher report.
heres the latest
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/154873-lassana-diarras-comments-no-cause-for-concern-for-arsenals-wenger
Well done Pig, more people should be actively countering the anti Arsene/Arsenal propaganda out there.
Nice bit of work by you as well Shotta.