By Tony Attwood
There are two types of football supporter Type A and Type B. And two types of manager, Type A and Type B. Oddly there is only one type of football journalist. Type Zzzzz.
Type A people know by looking. You just have to look at Arsenal to know that you they have a woeful defence. Arry Redknapp just has to look at a player to know he’s not contributing enough – who need statistics when the world is visible to all.
Type Bs know that statistics are valuable, that you can’t take everything in just by looking, and that lots of underlying causes are hidden from simple observation without proper analysis.
Mr Wenger is a type B. Most of the writers for Untold are firmly type B. David Moyes is a type A, like Arry.
But football journalists… well, I’ve never come across a Type B journalist who uses statistics. Even when they do they misinterpret. Remember “Arsenal only had two players who scored in double figures”?
Oh, of course some of the classy papers will tell us about possession and shots and target. But that only helps the Type As, the non-statistical “know by looking” bunch as it shows that that you can prove anything with statistics. Rarely do papers put figures together beyond one match, and thus rarely do they mean anything.
Arsenal had 77% of possession of Stoke, more shots, more shots on target, more corners than Stoke, and lost. Shows you. Stats are pointless.
Which is why it is not surprising to read the headline “Familiar failings are proving costly for Tottenham and Mauricio Pochettino” over a piece by
I mention all this because of a new example. The Guardian on 20 July 2016 said English clubs risk an early-season flurry of red and yellow cards if a move to combat “intolerable behaviour” does not yield instant results. This coming after a report which the paper ran which said, “Abuse leads 7,000 refs a year to quit”. The paper went on…
The warning comes after the Football Association, Premier League and Football League announced a joint approach to clamp down on “unacceptable participant conduct”, under which match officials will be told to take a harder line on behaviour of players and managers. The last four seasons, in particular, are viewed as a period in which conduct has crossed the line on too many occasions, with a particular focus on behaviour towards referees and their assistants.
So what’s happened. Maybe the papers have done the analysis but I must have missed it.
In 2015/16 the Premier League had 60 sendings of all season. There are 380 individual games in a season meaning there was a sending off once every 6.33 games – ie you’d expect someone off once in every six or seven.
2016/17 had the same number of games obviously (380 – 20 clubs each playing 38 games, each game involving two clubs)) and there were 41 red cards, so there was a sending off in one game in every 9.27. So you would have a sending off once in every nine or 10 games.
2017/18 has had two rounds of games, that is 20 games and there have been five sendings off. One in every four games. With 380 games a year that will mean by the end of the season 95 players will be sent off. Just the sort of facts and figures you don’t want to read about in your national papers.
Speaking of which Jack Wilshere was sent off after apparently being involved in what the media likes to call “a mass brawl” if Arsenal players are involved or something “fiesty” if it involves Tottenham. (If you think I make all this stuff about journalist bias up, consider this headline from the Daily Mail
Tottenham break record for most yellow cards in a Premier League fixture after nine players were booked during feisty clash.
No one was sent off.
I don’t normally link to that hate filled neo-fascist racist newspaper but in case you don’t believe me you can check for yourself here. It is what commentators on the radio used to call a “big of argy-bargy”.
Anyway back to Jack, during the Arsenal under-23 match against Manchester City at the Emirates Stadium, a match which was part of Jack’s rehabilitation after having his leg smashed by Tottenham in a match for Bournemouth, Jack played with Rob Holding and Ainsley Maitland-Niles.
Arsenal were leading 4-1 in the second half when Matthew Smith thought he would do a Tottenham on Jack, who thankfully did get to his feet after the assault and pushed Smith (who is, I am sure we will be told, not that kind of a player). Tyreke Wilson who is also not that kind of a player rushed over to Jack and grabbed him by the neck. Wilson and Jack were sent off, and Arsenal won 4-3.
As for Jack, in his last pronouncement on the topic Mr Wenger said, “I plan for him to be here for the whole season, after that we will see at the end of the season. He has the talent to be regular but he has to come back to competition in a consistent way.”
Will football journalism ever reform itself. Well as Ken Cheng said, “I’m not a fan of the new pound coin, but then again, I hate all change.”
- The Arsenal first team squad members who are under 21: the updated report
- Changing to Wembley and moving to the Ems hurt Arsenal. So how did Tottenham do?
- Passengers of the beautiful game…
Continuing our commentary on fellow supporters from other clubs, today we have Manchester City. You can read them each day on UntoldArsenalToday or find the whole series on “Watching Supporters”
I saw the Jack incident and by the rules of the game he should have gone, I don’t have a problem with that. But the report I also read said Jack head butted the bloke. What actually happened was the two rested their heads against each other for a second (as they do!). Jack then shoved Smith who immediately threw himself to the ground holding his face. The brawl involved mainly Citeh players trying to get hold of Jack.
What really galls me though was on Radio 5 this morning. Their sports headlines were about Rooney becoming the second player to score 200 in the Prem. They then mentioned that two players had been sent off in the game. They then spent more time on Jack detailing Jack getting sent off in an under 23 game. They never, ever talk about under 23 games normally of course……………and they didn’t mention at all that a Man City player got sent off for the same incident.
And people wonder we feel that the media are against us ffs.
How did Dier escaped a red card for shin high reckless challenge on Luiz is only a mystery to me.
I will have a review of the U23 game later but in brief Jack was by far the best midfielder on the pitch and was running the game. In the first half he was regularly fouled but nothing major or malicious. That changed in the second half as it seemed City were told to up their game. The fouls on Jack became rougher and more frequent. No City player was carded or spoken to by the ref. A few minutes before the sending off incident Jack was flattened again with the ref not producing a card. The challenge that caused Jack to lose it completely loose it was stupid, late and designed to hurt. Jack reacted by pushing the player who reacted as though he had been shot in the face. Another City player ran about 20 metres to join in and grabbed Jack by the throat.
No problem with Jack being sent off but the ref was the cause of the incident by not enforcing the rules earlier in the game.
Tony
Great piece.
Anyone, especially Arsenal fans, who denies there is a media conspiracy, and that’s what it is, against Arsenal, are either deaf, blind, or stupid, or in a lot of cases, all 3.
From the way every incident we are involved in that could in any way be contrived as an error in our favour, is highlighted to the maximum degree.
The rule is that nobody, be it the viewer or a future referee, should be left in any doubt that Arsenal ‘got away with one there’ and are due ‘retribution’, because you must be in no doubt that Arsenal are a bunch of whinging cheats that get away with murder.
To the way that every foul, kick or assault on one of our players is simply interpreted as ‘getting in our faces’ because as we all know, Arsenal don’t like it up ’em. Like we keep getting told, if you don’t do that, Arsenal will pass you to death. So that’s alright then. And there I was thinking all that passing nonsense was a waste of time.
Conversely anything that could possibly of been interpreted as going against us, is dismissed out of hand. Often not even mentioned at the time. And certainly not highlighted on MOTD etc.
The World and his dog should never be given the impression that any decisions ever actually go against Arsenal.
Obviously, the above doesn’t happen 100% of the time, but if people cannot see that that is generally how we are treated and portrayed by the media, than they really have got there heads in the sand.
Just to illustrate Nitram’s point – they played Ozil’s handball again and again in the Leicester game, but barely mentioned the penalty not awarded to Arsenal for their defender’s handball in the box even though his hand was spread wide out in an unnatural position! Sick and tired of the media’s anti Arsenal bias.
Good old Nitram. Never lets you down. For his info an ex Spurs player (now a regular MOTD pundit) said this last Saturday that we were robbed by not getting two penalties & having a good goal ruled out for offside. Wouldn’t do to mention that though would it Nitram?
Got to agree Andrew the ref was far too lenient throughout. It has been proven time and time again that allowing rotational fouling eventually leads to a boiling point. I have no stats to prove that Tony but the experience of my 60 or so years of watching and playing football , I think gives me a fair insight.
For those that haven’t seen it :- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ByaL37k0Go
Andrew
Following on from my comment above, I am in absolutely no doubt what so ever that the way jack is constantly assaulted on the field of play is a direct result of the medias interpretation of incidents he is involved in.
Basically, they are always interpreted as his own fault.
He cant tackle.
He holds on to the ball too long.
He’s got weak bones/joints.
Then of course he’s portrayed as a ‘bad boy’ and as such you shouldn’t be feeling sorry for him as he ‘asks for it’.
Similarly on the back of the medias portrayal the referees are under no pressure at all to protect him, so they don’t. Quite the opposite actually because as they know, it’s all his own fault and he’s only getting what he deserves.
Jack Wilshere is one of the most gifted English talents to emerge for years. He had the potential to be as good as Gazza, Hoddle or La Tiss. He could and should of been the heart of England’s midfield for years.
Yet our media and a lot of our own English players, were, are indeed, complicit in his failure to become so.
I believe if he had come through the ranks at Manchester United, Spur or Liverpool, he would of been treasured and protected in order to give him the best possible chance of achieving his full potential, similar to how Dele Alli is pandered to at Spurs.
Put simply, Jack will not be allowed to reach his potential. He has a target on his back and everyone from the media, the players and the referees know this.
In my opinion, despite his undoubted skills, perhaps even because of them, he will never be allowed to reach that potential.
Jax
Tell me who and show me where and I’ll happily take a look.
But if you think that this one person changes the entire media portrayal of Arsenal you are wrong.
“not that kind of a player”
Another use of lies by the media to pretend that football is made up of non-aggressive people and everything is great, when everyone realises deep down that this is not so. Why? Why indeed!
//
I think most newspapers and media are or are being forced to follow neo-facist values and agendas today.
Remember how politics are used, two (usually) parties appearing to be different but both being controlled by the same entity?
It is the same with the media, one spouting hate the other spouting tolerance.
Signs tell me that England will soon come under attack for “leaving” the agenda(if that is truly what is happening).
This may just be another “backing both sides” agenda. England(as many other countries) has too much debt owed for it to become truly “independent”. We will see if England starts to print it’s own money again or even bring back the “tally stick system” or similiar.
Nitram
Jermaine Jenas on last Saturday’s MOTD giving his review of our game against Stoke agreed with Lineker who had said that Wenger was aggrieved at the referee for some of his decisions said he had every right to be, and went on to give the details of all the three contentious issues. Jenas is one of the best, most honest pundits on British TV.
Around 1757
The Colonies (now known as the USA)
During this time the colonies began to experiment with the issuance of their own currency, called “Colonial Script”. This worked well. It was debt free and did not bear interest.
We know what happened after, England were forced by their loaners(the bankers) to make a law banning the printing of money.
The Colonies (now known as the USA) are now in the same trap that Englands is today.
First half of u23 game was like a glimpse into a portal of how good Jack could be if the game was relatively clean. As well as countless nice passes we got to see him beating players at very close quarters agains through pure skill.
Whether it’s about speed or simply that his dribbling skills are based on waiting till the very last moment I don’t know, but his technique for beating people means they are within grabbing or booting distance the whole time. Dawned on me in that fist half that though they were battling hard, and losing, to try get the ball of Jack, they weren’t booting him. So it was bittersweet for me- look at these skills!…but in the prem he won’t be allowed to do it. much rougher treatment and inadequate protection will see to that.
I actually thought, well at least the disrespect to us and our players doesn’t quite extend so far as to breaking the code of not fouling senior players at this level who are returning from serious injury.
Then the 2nd half and either all those City players who had behaved first half spontaneously decided to start fouling him hard, or a coach told them to. The ref, either with pgmol ambitions, or without a proper understanding of his job and football, allowed them to start crashing into him very late without cards. So inevitably they did it more, culminating in that ridiculously late challenge he reacted to.
I know it’s a poor measure of reality, Daily mail comments, but I looked through them on a story of Jack’s sending off and, of course, it was nothing but abuse. I reckon that, incredibly, nearly all of them believe what they were saying- that he’s useless, untalented, pathetic, that WE ruined a promising talent.
So far from the truth. The assault on the truth of us and our players has been as relentless as the assaults on our players for more than a decade now.
It was a treat to see evidence of Wilshere’s great talent still being there last night, but as i said it was very bittersweet.
Today’s Guardian reports Jack’s red card and states that he will be suspended for 3 matches. Dismissal of Man City player is not mentioned.
Jax
I will have to take your word for it as I did not see MOTD.
The reason is that I have pretty much stopped listening to pre and post match analysis of games entirely. Because we lost I didn’t even watch the match as I expected the usual assassination of Wenger, his tactics, the players and there attitude, and last but not least the colour of the shirts.
If that is not what happened then that is an enormous surprise, but hey, miracles happen.
The truth is:
I rarely listen to pundits.
I often have to turn match commentaries off.
I rarely read the press.
I never listen to talk sport.
I never listen to the Sunday supplement.
I never listen to goals on Sunday.
I never listen to soccer Saturday prior to 3 O’clock, at which time I dip in and out for score updates.
I pay for the privilege of NOT watching or listening to any of those because the constant anti Arsenal agenda was rife within each and every one of those platforms. I mean, what other club warrants a daily teatime assassination as we were treated to on Talksport?
So I have to admit my knowledge of how the media portray us is now limited, but if you are trying to tell me that one Saturday Night analysis that wasn’t an assassination is proof of an entire change in the medias portrayal of us, I find that very hard to believe, because the little I do see and hear is very much the same as it’s been for years.
As for Jenas, from what little I have seen of him he does seem to be one of the more balanced of the pundits.
When I watched the likes of Lawrenson, Shearer, Merson, Hanson, Souness, and indeed Lineker, they never had a good word to say about us.
I hear also that Wright was quite defensive of Arsenal this Saturday. I find that amazing. The guy is a faux Arsenal fan. He insults the players and manager on a regular basis.
The list of ex Arsenal players prepared to criticise anything and everything about Arsenal, especially on the odious Talksport, is endless.
Come to think of it, I don’t recall ever hearing us praised on Talksport.
But all that being said, I still didn’t say every pundit, every day, did I ?
Similarly I have never said a decision never goes our way.
What I am saying is that the medias negativity towards Arsenal is, or at least was, massively disproportionate to what is/was warranted, as opposed to the way the positivity towards others is often massively disproportionate, especially the media darlings of Liverpool and Spurs.
But Jax, if you really believe we don’t get a poor (to say the least) shake from the media, that’s up to you. There’s nothing I’m going to say to change that.
BBC pundit Garth Crooks, ex Spurs i believe, says Arsenal denied two clear penalties and a perfectly good goal. Media conspiracy? Give me a break.
I think the past numerous injury crisis which Jack had gone through in his career has made him a target for hard tackling by the inconsiderate and rough players on the field so as to get him injured as they’ve been educated by the media that he is a Gunner prone to injury at the slightest of a tackle. That last tackle on him by that Man City player in that U23 match at the Ems last night was intended to cause serious harm to Jack so that he can leave the field after several other tackles to get rid of him have earlier failed to materialized having identified him as a top quality that could cause them the Man City the points in the match. But for another Man City player to have ran the distance and grabbed Jack by the throat deserved a fine, serious warning and a ban by the FA. The pushing which Jack did to the Man City player who went down to deceive was not a life threatening push. But the grabbing of his throat can be classified as one. Therefore, the FA must take punitive action on that Man City throat grabbing player in my own opinion.
Nitram
I think that maybe we’re getting a fairer shake from the Media at last.
Sorry for my earlier sarcasm, I don’t visit Untold much these days so don’t know how you all view pundits etc, but just wanted to balance it up a little.
John Cross stated his disbelief with Anthony Taylor’s reluctance to show red cards to Tottenham players on Sunday. He asked about the referees’ consistency.
That’s the last thing he should be worry about when it comes to Tottenham as the referees are very consistent with them – 82 league matches without a red card.
Kyle Walker left Tottenham after spending two years without a red card and got sent off last night in his second official match with Man City.
Victor Wanyama was sent off three times in his last season at Southampton. He joined Tottenham and…well, guess what?
Jax and luscious lisa – I doff my cap to you both. Two sane voices in a swamp of risible paranoia, persecution complex and victimhood.
Of particular amusement being Nitram’s claim that he:
“rarely listens to pundits.
often has to turn match commentaries off.
rarely reads the press.
never listens to talk sport.
never listens to the Sunday supplement.
never listens to goals on Sunday.
never listens to soccer Saturday prior to 3 O’clock, at which time I dip in and out for score updates.”
So he effectively shuns the football media in its entirety. Yet he feels entitled to claim that he knows, as fact, that there is massively more anti Arsenal bias in the media than there is for any other club and that Spurs receive an overwhelmingly unmerited positive press. No amount of reason can convince such people that there is no media conspiracy but that, rather, the media just does whatever sells.
Lisa
Last weekend after Ozil’s infamous handball * we had wall-to-wall coverage of it, and the biggest active referee site on Internet, You-are-The- Ref could barely contain their pain.
Anyway, Their main talking point of the weekend seemed to be we had ‘got away with one’, and they used this to lament the lack of VAR, as it would fix such grave injustices.
Only problem is VAR can’t be used in an incident like that outside the box. No trials include it and there are no proposals to use it in that way. Beyond weird that an organisation headed by the former chief of Pgmol, Hackett, wouldn’t be aware of that fact.
I’d guess that’s no conspiracy, but it shows either a mystifying lack of knowledge or professionalism, or an extreme bias- knowingly saying nonsense just to further God knows what aim, or giving in to whatever dodgy impulse
That’s merely one example of the strange way we are treated. Another was ex ref (and current Pgmol employee) Gallagher doing his little ref review thing for Sky (and Sun and probably Talksport): from our game he focused on the offside call (right decision for him- no debate on whether linesman can possibly have been sure enough to ignore instruction to apply benefit of doubt to attacker); and, of course, no mention of the numerous pen claims, including the one which was a definite pen.
These are the ways, that is the pattern. I didn’t watch Motd, but I’ve read a fair few articles which make mention of us, maybe, being a bit unlucky with the pen, while putting much more emphasis on the offside being right and Wenger’s behaviour being terrible, and featuring lies or a poor grasp of facts, in complaining about pens.
* It was a debatable handball outside the box. Coverage of it was endless. Rashford blocked one on the line at a crucial moment against us two years ago and it barely got a mention. Vidic scooped one away from Van Persie’s head years ago at front post in one of the most blatant handballs you’ll see and, again, barely a mention.
Kyle Walker never got a red card in his Tottenham years and after 2 matches with another team he gets one…. oh well…
But wait a minutes, as a result of been red carded, is Jack going to face a 3 match ban only in three U23 matches or the ban will also cover Arsenal Premier League games should Le Prof decides to play in one of the Arsenal PL matches before the ban expired?
Rich
You wrote:
“I’ve read a fair few articles which make mention of us, maybe, being a bit unlucky with the pen, while putting much more emphasis on the offside being right”
It’s no wonder that you are so paranoid if your source is articles which make such ridiculous claims. I did watch MOTD and I can assure you that the commentators, the pundits and Lineker were all unanimous and unequivocal in stating that Arsenal were very unlucky not to have had at least two penalties. And no, the correct offside call didn’t receive greater attention.
I’ve just watched the footage of the two yellow cards from Walker. No way, never would he even have been booked for that when playing for Tottenham
MOTD is accessible still on BBC iPlayer. Take a look y’all.
This English generation has to admit they are crap when it comes to football.
Failed to qualify in any given tournament
Both individually and collectively as a team.
Reffing ?
Why it should be different.
The best thing to do is hire from outside and relegate all the english ref to officiate the under 18…21…23.
Jax
Thanks for your reasoned reply.
If there truly is a change in the way we are being reported then great. But as they say, one, two, not even three swallows make a summer.
JimB
Learn from Jax, when asked to back up what you say, do just that, rather than simply disappearing.
But yes it is true my opinion of the media is largely formed from what I had to listen to, and to watch, up to about 4 years ago, when even the signing of Ozil, and the winning of the FA Cup didn’t stop the negativity.
Talk sport was an endless tirade of anti Arsenal dross.
If that has changed fine.
The Sunday supplement was full of journalists that never had a good word to say about us.
If that has changed fine.
Goals on Sunday, though not as bad was rarely complimentary and always managed to find a talking head to dismiss our complaints and highlight what they thought we’d got away with.
Soccer Saturday similarly hardly ever had a good word to say about us. By what I’ve heard Merson is still constantly berating us. Is there now a voice in our defence?
If so great.
I’m sorry but I can only say what it felt like to me, up until I gradually gave up listening/reading any of it.
As I say, from the little I do see and hear nothing seems to of changed to me, but if it has I’ll hold my hands up.
There are people on here whom I respect and if I get the feeling from them that there is a definite shift in the way the media are portraying us then fine, I will believe it and maybe then be able to watch and listen to a lot more of what I pay for.
Believe it or not I don’t enjoy paying a fortune for something I hardly ever use.
You will of course excuse me for not taking a blind bit of notice of you though wont you ?
??
A Lady was conducting her anti drinking campaign outside a bar….
A man came out of the Bar exuding alcohol fumes…
The Lady asked him :- “Tell me…!!! If you arrive at the Gates of Heaven with your breath smelling of liquor… Do you think the Lord will let you in…???”
“My good woman” passionately holding her hand, said the man,
“When I go to Heaven I expect to *leave my breath behind”….*
*Moral :* _Drinkers are practical people._ *Kindly Respect n Support them !!!
Advice to morons on here – pledge your bodies and organs to science , it may help young and budding doctors and needy patients.
Your brains ?
Well……one day in the future , it could be transplanted , as it probably was not well used this time around !
Jim B
I don’t really give a shit if Motd were fair in their coverage on this occasion. I’ve seen plenty enough over the years to know that isn’t typical of them.
As for the validity of my ‘sources’? I read a few articles is all, Guardian, Mail, and elsewhere probably. I was even stupid enough to follow a link to see what The Stoke Sentinal had to say. Wow. ‘that waste of space who goes by the name Mesut Ozil’, ‘Wenger and his merry band of capitulating men’, etc
Anyway, it was not a rigorous search, I just happened to read what I did and find most of it talked an egregious amount of shit about us, as usual.
‘It would be much easier to accentuate the positives if Wenger had not grasped for an almost Trumpian conspiracy theory straight after the defeat when suggesting that he was not surprised that fouls on Héctor Bellerín and Danny Welbeck had not resulted in penalties for Arsenal. “We don’t get penalties, we know that. I can get the numbers, you will see. Look at the statistics: we had the highest penalties against us at home by a mile and the lowest for us.”
That is fake news. Arsenal did not have the highest number of penalties awarded against them at home in the Premier League last season: Watford had the same number (five) and Hull City had more (six). Nor did Arsenal have the fewest awarded in their favour: 10 teams got fewer penalties at home than Arsenal last season.
Perhaps Wenger was thinking of the 2015-16 league campaign, when Arsenal were not awarded any penalties at the Emirates Stadium? If so, that will not do much to quell detractors who say the Frenchman is struggling to keep pace with events.’
An unfortunate mistake from Wenger if he was not absolutely precise when pointing to stats, but any honest person would, if they then went and checked the stats as this journey did, have had to conclude that we do pretty wretchedly on them. Instead he cherry-picked to try make Wenger look as ridiculous as possible.
That is their way. It is not paranoia to be aware of it. In fact if there is any psychological issue that might need attending to it is in fans of our club who can’t see it, or are even glad to side with the army of twats who treat us like shit.
Last word for the ever execrable Poll (don’t know if he passes Motd proper person test, but we did have misfortune of him controlling many games in past)
‘Arsene Wenger as usual found reason to blame the match officials for The Gunners defeat at Stoke but he picked the wrong incident to focus on.’
That is typical of Poll, and again of the media in general. On a day we did very poorly again from refs, an attempt to twist it around to focus mainly on Wenger and his character.
If you think fair enough, that’s Wenger that, or that Poll, and the other guy and the Stoke guy are not typical of the coverage we get…fair enough, we see a different world, and that’s the end of it.
I’ll slip away having remembered how some conversations here used to wind me up, you do what you do.
The idiots that work in the media would rather destroy a promising talent like Jack even though that hurts England, no wonder the national team never wins anything of note. They should be calling out these players who go out to hurt other players but they don’t as it suits their agenda. Football in England will stay in the gutter as long as this mindset persists.
And just when you think things couldn’t get any worse you find out Atkinson is the ref against Liverpool at the weekend.
Nitram
A friend of mine who is a Tottenham supporter tells me that A Durham’s Daily Arsenal slot has been reinstated after discontinuing it last season. It would appear that there is no let up in the Arsenal hatred from that quarter at least.
Atkinson for the pool encounter? Some people are truly evil
The most annoying thing after some controversial moments in matches is when I hear pundits vomit nonsensical sentences like: “So and so team were quite UNLUCKY for so and so decision to have gone against them.” I personally consider such a statement as an insult on my intelligence.
For Pete’s sake, fortune has too little to do with the overall ‘certified competence’ of a FIFA referee in doing his PAID JOB than for fortune it to be used as an excuse. So the sooner some pundits with obvious agenda stop excusing crass incompetence, inconsistence and bias, the better the EPL will get.
Mick Hazel
I would love to hear Lisa and JimB’s explanation for that.
When I was stupid enough to listen to Talksport the anti Arsenal agenda was simply ridiculous.
Jax has suggested things have changed, citing some support for us regarding the Stoke game, on MOTD. As much as I don’t doubt what he says, and he may well believe things are changing, I’m sorry I’ll need a little more evidence than getting support over the pathetic performance of officials in one match.
They didn’t even mention, let alone show the Leicester City hand ball. Wher was there ‘balance’ after that match?
As for JimB and Lisa’s utter denial that there as anything wrong with the way we are reported on, and portrayed in the media, beggars belief.
I’ve said it before, and people can believe it or not, I don’t really care, but friends of mine that support United, Liverpool, West Ham and Spurs all agree that Arsenal get a ridiculously unfair battering in the media.
It is so obvious it is beyond denial but still we have our own fans that do.
Are the few morons on this article, really using just one poultry example of pundits being in favour of Arsenal, to dispel the constant negative bombardment that we receive day in, day out? Don’t believe it? Just put “Arsenal” into Google or go on Goonernews and actually try to take in just how many overwhelmingly negative articles, about us, there are. Here’s one example from today on Sky Sports, explaining why Liverpool are better than Arsenal (partly done by an Arsenal “legend” Wright, no less).
What other team has a segment of TalkSport, dedicated solely to bashing literally every aspect of the club?
What other club has so many of its ex-players, do nothing but spout a constant stream of criticisms and abuse at our club? When is the last time you heard the likes of Merson say anything positive about Arsenal?
How often are we reminded that Arsenal haven’t won the PL? Why is the same not done, so regularly, for Spurs and Liverpool?
Just look at the way we were treated after WINNING against Leicester, yet the teams that also let in 3 goals, but failed to win, weren’t treated half as bad.
I can’t remember who it was now, but one of the radio presenters on TalkSport was asked why they always criticise Arsenal and he said that it was because it lights up the switchboard. Here, we literally have someone proving that there is an anti-Arsenal bias.
One of the things that saddens me the most, is that it’s fellow Arsenal supporters, that are accusing us of being “paranoid” and “delusional”. There’s nothing worse, than when someone insults another, solely down to their own ignorance of the situation.