By Tony Attwood
England has a population of 53 million. Croatia has a population of 4 million. England have a country co-efficient calculated by Uefa that puts them second in European standings. Croatia is 16th.
Croatia has the problem of all their best players playing overseas. England was the only country in this WC that had all its squad playing for clubs in their home country.
England indeed is perhaps the only (at least certainly one of the few countries) that has an artificial rule that limits the number of players who are not “home grown” who can play in Premier League clubs to 17.
Croatia has twice had teams that have got to the semi-finals of the Champions League. England have had teams that have won the Champions League and its predecessor 12 times.
By all these measures England had not just an advantage but a massive advantage. A staggering advantage. An overwhelming advantage. Croatia were the total underdogs. It is a bit like Arsenal playing Walsall or Chester.
And the result in the press? The Guardian has “this young team deserves our applause.” The Mail has “you made us smile, made us proud, made us believe, everyone of you a hero.” It is pretty much like that everywhere although maybe the media ought to look at “we were motivated by English pundits lack of respect” apparently said by Modric.
But now consider for a moment how Arsenal get treated by the media. If you go looking you will find, by way of example,
- Watch: Arsene Wenger’s Five Most Humiliating Defeats As Arsenal … punditarena
- Arsene Wenger’s most humiliating defeats as Arsenal manager … Daily Telegraph
- The 9 most HUMILIATING stats for Arsenal fans as Gunners are … Mirror
- 5 humiliating Arsenal defeats in the Premier League era | 32Red
- 10 of Arsene Wenger’s most humiliating defeats at Arsenal Sportskeeda|
- Arsenal Suffer Humiliating Defeat i Am Gunner Talk
- 5 Top Humiliating Arsenal Defeats Frek Berntzen
- How Arsenal winning the FA Cup will lead to humiliations galore … SportsKeeda
- Arsenal fans DEMAND Arsene Wenger is SACKED after humiliating defeat… express
In fact we have been so humiliated so many times it is a wonder there are any season tickets sold each year.
Over the years I have posed a number of questions on Untold concerning these issues, questions that are far from being rhetorical and quite a few of them have eventually been answered.
And indeed I’ve been interested in why England’s newspapers bathe themselves in nationalistic fervor is not to hard to understand (such pieces don’t require a GCSE in English, are easy to write, require no research and gets sales), but why at the same time is there is a constant ceaseless endless knocking of Arsenal?
Why an eternal love affair with a team that has only won the world cup once (when all the games were played at Wembley) and been third in the Uefa Championship once?
The other point that follows on from this is the fact that England does manipulate the rules by introducing the “17” rule and I am not sure that other countries do that. Why do that when it has not resulted in a single trophy since it was introduced?
What is also interesting is that there is another explanation as to why England do so poorly (given its size and the level of interest in the game within the country), which is the lack of coaches qualified at the top level. The statistics show quite clearly that success internationally is related primarily to the level of highly qualified coaches per thousand.
As we have quoted over and over, that is where England falls down and where other countries (Iceland for example) do far better than might be expected. I’ve quoted our research so many times, and now even a few of the national papers use it but not the FA. Absolutely not.
Why do the press love the FA and forgive it all its failures? I guess a sort of blind nationalistic fervor and unwillingness to get involved in any sort of statistics because only wimps and foreigners know anything about maths and anyway you can prove anything with statistics, and we’ll win with good old English bulldog passion and guts and determination.
Why do the smaller countries do better than England? Because they are more realistic and plan in a more rational and less emotional way.
And why does the media hate Arsenal so much? Because that’s what they do. In the past we’ve traced it right back to the 1930s in articles on the Arsenal History Society website, and there are signs of a deeper dislike of the club going back even further than that emerging.
But for now we have the same old same old. England were beaten by a country that has 7% of the population of England and we were valiant, brave, and the future looks bright.
Arsenal with a tiny fraction of the income of clubs like Barcelona, Real Madrid, etc, qualified for the Champions League 19 times in a row. Only Real Madrid beat that (they did 20). And Arsenal were painted as abject failures. If Arsenal were failures so are England. If England has been a success in this world cup, so were Arsenal in last season’s league cup.
Wonder if press will talk about how England team tried their best Panama impression https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8ESO5ttraU&feature=youtu.be
And there’s another thing Tony, how many shots on target did England master against tiny Croatia last night? Yeah, you got it right, a single shot, a free kick that went in. Against how many from Croatia? 17! And the media does not talk about it either.
I also wish someone could look at England’s run to the semis, against teams that are beatable. You could say, Croatia was the first tough team of note, and they failed. In other words, England had the easiest task this year to at least reach the final or even perhaps win it but they failed. In two or four years time, they will not be as lucky
Many will point to Germany who failed to get out of the group, but I would forgive them, they won the thing last time out, have been so consistent in tournament football that for them to err once is not a calamity. As for England, this was one chance in 50 years to win it and they failed.
Lastly, Harry Kane, disappearing when he’s needed most, just like at club level the past two seasons, scoring lots of goals against minor teams but when the going gets really touch, he disappears. The Golden boot at the World Cup will be the reward but, I think he can gleefully exchange it for another which he did not do enough to get.
I like this analysis, the problem with English people and their media is that they hate what they fear. Arsenal was playing good tricky football with tiny budget and average players that no other club could do that, this made them to be jealous of the club and eventually hate Arsenal and every one associated with the club.
It does make me wonder sometimes if this biast against Arsenal is due to the fact that when we were successful in the invincibles era we weren’t very English in how we did things. Ofcourse we did Have players Like Campbell and cole but our DNA was more french at the time. Just imagining what would happen if Tottenham achieved half of that with Kane,Ali,Dier,Trippier. Reaching the semis in a world cup is always a good result but haven’t seen alot of people pointing out how no team will ever get an easier path to make a world cup final. I guess it all comes down to what the media’s agenda is.
The Arsenal negative press will not change and
the attitude and lack of respect shown by the
media towards Arsene Wenger during his tenure
was a classic example. Wenger never ducked and
interview and was press friendly and still was the
focus of “nasty gutter”press and media attention.
Contrast that to Ferguson who banned journalists
who criticised him and ducked out of interviews when
it suited him.
So it won’t change so learn to live with it, develop
a siege mentality (Millwall style!) win matches and
don’t give one.
Looking forward to the new season and positive
about how Emery is going about his business
Michael, yes a siege mentality in the ground, I agree, but also I like to understand how and why things work – hence the discussion here. Indeed a very suitable discussion for Untold since it does not appear anywhere else.
What can you expect when you have one Arsenal player on the bench and you pick two spuds players to come on at the end and in extra time and leave a striker that could win you the match on the bench.
Alex, that video…. Oh My God….. 🙂 :-p That is school boys playing football in the playground stuff….
Once again Tony using fake stats/premises to prove a fake point. Just like using passing stats to rate mustafi as a defender.
1. When did population become a yardstick for measuring football prowess? If that were the case China, India, Indonesia, USA would sweep the world cups
2. Country coefficient in international football? Is someone trying to be disingenuous? The only ranking of national teams known worldwide is the FIFA rankings, where the latest shows England in 12th place and Croatia 20th. That’s not like arsenal playing chester. More like(based on last seasons table) Watford playing westbrom.
I could gobon and on, but its totally unnecessary. I’m not even English, but its obvious your hatred for the English national team is making you desperate to cook up dirt against it
If I was an English I won’t cry out loud in applause like most of them do, to make it clear I’m a Nigerian that don’t celebrate the only victory we had at the World Cup, cos it won’t count and don’t and I’m justified by our long time nemesis.
England had it cheap not by virtues of their hard work nor mentality but with luck that doesn’t always come, the lost to their only bigger opponents like the case with Nigeria.
They’ve both got the resources to pull through at least to the semis of the World Cup year in year out but will fail constantly in their mediocrity, and who better applaud mediocre and rush to condemn those that are outstanding but met with hard luck that these two?
Belgium will stroll past those ‘heavy legs’ on Saturday.
someone said it before me, but i just can’t resist:
“you pick tottenham, you get tottenham”
as for alex’s link to youtube; the french commentators alluded to the scene yesterday, but i thought they were having a (very bad) joke …
thanks, alex, for the evidence; captain “it was my goal-it’s my armband” harry must have inspired the whole moronic stuff.
what a shame …
I wonder how the media generally and the press in particular would have responded if the Arsenal had gone 52 years without a trophy.
Sorry Tony, one of the differences between international football and club football is that the term ‘minnow’ isn’t used the same, except by hacks.
Croatia have a strong squad and an excellent midfield, so although the country is small, the team isn’t considered a minnow by anyone worth listening to.
Despite the England team playing at a decent workman like level, they haven’t been particularly good and have had a very luck draw, but equally they haven’t been the embarrassment that previous squads have usually been in at least one game.
That’s not so surprising when you look at the squad, which like it’s championship level manager, is a workman like team that’s lacking any real creativity.
It has a few players that can make things happen due to their speed or unpredictability but no one on same level as Wilshere (or others) and that’s why they couldn’t beat one of the better teams like Croatia (or Belgium).
Of course I might have got this wrong, and I haven’t gone back and checked but I think the argument about passing stats was to do with Xhaka, my argument being that he a defensive midfielder who can pass, having got the ball, had a double value.
And I am not sure that the argument that England was 12th in Fifa rankings is reasonable; my point implies that because of the population, the fact that all the players play in England, and the huge level of interest in football in the country, England should do better. That means that they should be higher up the Fifa rankings, as well as doing better in the world cup. You seem to be saying that they don’t do better in the world cup because they don’t do better.
It seems a curious argument to me. But in case I was not clear, my argument is that with the population, interest, and arrangements made to restrict foreigner input into the league England should be higher up the rankings, and doing better against a team like Croatia. Population is part of the yardstick, not the only yardstick. It is relevant alongside other factors.
Croatia might be a small country but they have some genuine world class talent especially in their midfield. England do not. They also have a more experienced team.That ultimately was the difference.
How Arsenal are reported on the press isn’t going to change. Just look at the difference between how the press reacted to Wenger leaving and a Manager being announced to replace him versus what is happening at Chelsea now. England are getting a positive press because they’re coming from a low base of expectations after the European Championships
Great article and some great comments, especially:
Max Mudoba
“I like this analysis, the problem with English people and their media is that they hate what they fear. Arsenal was playing good tricky football with tiny budget and average players that no other club could do that, this made them to be jealous of the club and eventually hate Arsenal and every one associated with the club.”
theow
“It does make me wonder sometimes if this bias against Arsenal is due to the fact that when we were successful in the invincibles era we weren’t very English in how we did things……Just imagining what would happen if Tottenham achieved half of that with Kane, Ali, Dier, Trippier…..I guess it all comes down to what the media’s agenda is.”
Michael Walsh
“The Arsenal negative press will not change and the attitude and lack of respect shown by the media towards Arsene Wenger during his tenure was a classic example. Wenger never ducked and interview and was press friendly and still was the focus of “nasty gutter” press and media attention. Contrast that to Ferguson who banned journalists who criticised him and ducked out of interviews when it suited him.”
LE GALL
“someone said it before me, but I just can’t resist: “you pick Tottenham, you get Tottenham” ”
Great stuff lads.
The fawning over this failure, because that’s what England did, they failed, is quite sickening, and is in fact utterly indicative of:
Exactly how hypercritical and two faced our media are.
Exactly how gullible the general public can be in so much as they actually fell for the media hype.
Exactly quite how low our expectations have fallen.
And one more thing. Isn’t it funny how:
Xhaka was blamed for Switzerlands exit.
Ozil for Germanys exit.
And Ospina for Colombias.
Arsenal being the Common denominator of course. Quite how Welbecks got away with it I’m not sure.
Thank God Wilshere didn’t go because I’m certain if he had he would of copped it.
Last night England needed a player who could help keep possession in midfield, drop a shoulder beat a player pick a pass to a forward runner. We do have a light version of Modric in English football. No not Dier! He signed for West Ham on a free transfer a few days ago.
Jack must be biting his tongue big time.
@Tony, indeed you got it wrong. The article was not about Xhaka,if it was, those stats would have been relevant. They were entirely about Mustafi having the 2nd best passing stats of centre half’s, behind Otamendi, which only a spin doctor extraordinaire can make into meaning 2nd best defender. So England are in 12th position in the FIFA rankings, and you’re disappointed? They should be better than who? Brazil? Germany? Argentina? Belgium? Why? Because you say so? Isn’t it you that likes to remind non akbs that arsenal have no birth right to win stuff? But according to you England does?
So England made it to be among the best 4teams in the world, but its not good enough for you, but arsenal can’t even make it to be among the top 4teams in England, much less Europe, even much less the world, yet its England who are the underachievers.
Classic AKB logic
I would say classic commentator misunderstanding, but I leave you to your views.
Great article, sums up the feeling I have always had. The media have always been that way and, in my opinion, always will. They must be so disappointed they can’t blame the England defeat on us, thank God Welbeck stayed on the bench!!
Your point about coaching is also a valid one. For instance Gareth Southgate is being lauded as the greatest England manager since Alf Ramsey for beating Tunisia, Columbia on penalties, Sweden and losing to Croatia. Have they checked his record with the Under 21’s?
How many goals did England actually score from open play in this entire tournament? The fact that the pundits are saying that they overachieved is an absolutely joke. We played against two non-shit teams and lost to both of them. And where is this idea coming from that suddenly England are an excellent ball playing team? England’s tactics were centred around set-pieces and hoofing the ball up the pitch. England haven’t improved at all, they just had one of the easiest runs to a WC final in recent memory.
I remember during the Croatia match there was a single pass between England’s centre-backs and the commentators actually praised this, it’s insane. The pure arrogance and hypocritical nature of the pundits and British media made this loss quite enjoyable. It’s just a bit ridiculous that even now these guys are still considered “national treasures/heroes” and “over-achievers”.
Unfortunately we will never have that siege mentality, as the endless streams of negative press directed towards Arsenal rubs off on our own fans, who also seem to revel in attacking and criticizing every single aspect of our club. They seem to enjoy it when we lose just as much as the press does.
Q:
How many blaggers/commentators/plundits will make the simple easy observation (that is not an opinion!) that England still play:
Kick & Rush.
?
A: Watch this space! Not. Many.
Ata – When you talk about Mustafi and his passing stats I know exactly what you are referring to, because it was me that questioned the commenter when he said Mustafi was the top rated CB in England. It wasn’t an article posted on here about it, nor was it Tony that made that statement, it was a completely different commenter that made that assertion on an unrelated article.
You are the one that has got it completely wrong.
Tony,
Remember when I wrote to you after the 2010 World Cup?
England have been held back by this adherence to a style that past it’s sell by date around about 1975.
The best teams in England don’t play this style (sorry lads but “putting the pressure on” and not winning any cups since 1906 doesn’t count!), therefore why do the sweet FA and the risible pgMOB hold the national game back?
Why all the negativity towards England??We did quite well considering our world ranking..
I can only summise its because most who frequent the messageboard are foreign.
Jammy
Another great post.
I especially liked:
“How many goals did England actually score from open play in this entire tournament? The fact that the pundits are saying that they overachieved is an absolutely joke”.
Exactly.
The thing is I’m not really being critical of England Per say. They did no more, no less, than I expected.
-I know that Kane, Alli, Sterling, Walker Lingard etc. etc. are over rated.
-I know many of these players are rated so highly simply because of who they play for in the Premier league.
-I expected them to limp past the likes of Tunisia Sweden and Colombia because they are ranked in the top 50. I know, dont laugh.
I expected them to stuff Panama. I mean, not being rude to Jamaica, but they are even ranked bellow them.
But as has been said elswhere, as soon as we play a team not in the ‘crap’ catagory we lose.
All so so predictable and nothing more or less than we’ve been doing nigh on since 1966.
The truth is, all we did was avoid utter embarrassment.
So why the euphria over this particular failure?
Simple.
After months and months of being told by the media how wonderful these ‘boys’ were, how could they now possibly admit they got it completely and utterly wrong?
Here are just a couple of examples of the things being said about some of these players.
HARRY KANE
Gary Lineker: “Why Harry Kane is worth over £100m”
WTF ? £100+ Million
DELE ALLI
“One year ago today Jamie Redknapp was making the headlines for comments regarding Dele Alli.
The Tottenham Hotspur star had just scored a brace v Southampton to continue a fine start to the season and Redknapp, himself a former Spurs midfielder, was quoted by The Mirror as telling Sky Sports:
How much did they pay for him? £5million? You can put another zero on that now. He’s a £50 million-plus player. He can score goals, he makes goals – he has that devilment that good midfield players have always possessed.
Nobody would have argued with that assessment. However, 12 months down the line, is Alli worth double, maybe triple, that amount?”
? £100/£150 Million
RAHEEM STIRLING
“Manchester City winger Raheem Sterling is now worth over double the £49m paid to Liverpool back in 2015, according to CIES Football Observatory figures.”
WTF? £100+ Million
KYLE WALKER
“It can safely be said that the £50 million acquisition of Kyle Walker from Tottenham has been the most successful signing for the full-back positions so far”
Thats just 4 players and we are already up to UK valuations of £350 to £400 Million.
Then I heard one of the talking heads say in defence of England that “They did have Modric”
Yes, but we had Kane, Alli, Sterling, Walker etc. etc.
These players are over rated, but more than that, massively over valued.
If anyone honestly believes the headlines all over the media this morning then I really must be living in some kind of parrallel Universe.
http://untold-arsenal.com/archives/68789
@Jammy, I totally remember the article and it was definitely written by Tony. I guessed he smoked the same stuff our management were smoking when they offered 40m+£1. And Tony, no need for refresher, the article wasn’t about xhaka,it was 100℅ about Mustafi.
For a very long time, the media has been saying of Arsenal that top 4 finish is not a trophy. Why should England’s top 4 finish in the WC be celebrated? They have more resources than Croatia, have better FIFA coefficients than Croatia, have the self anointed best league in the world, so England should in fact be mourning that they missed an opportunity yesterday.
The other issue I want clarified, why do the English press go on and on about England being a young team? In fact that’s the best age in modern football to win trophies. A part from the goalkeeper and Leicester defender, all the others have been playing in the CL and gained experience. So when one touts how young England are with view of the fact that Pele won the WC at 17, I don’t buy it.
My impression of England at a World cup is that a quarter-final is reasonable, a semi-final very good and a final quite beyond expectations. It’s where England are in terms of most metrics.
As for the England squad. I think they did quite well given their talent at this moment. Others have mentioned,correctly, that England was unable to control possession in the midfield…true. And, it really showed in the last 10 minutes when they were chasing the game. On the other hand Gareth Southgate has them playing the ball out from the back which is something to build on for the future.
England had chances to win yesterday, but Croatia were a better team. They will be in tough against France who can have just as strong a midfield but have more attacking options than the Croats.
As for how England are cheered and Arsenal are jeered…we should live up to our motto victoria concordia crescit and add “nil carborundum illegitimi”…
Building a unified and successful team will be Mr. Emery’s job. Building a unified and successful fan base will be the job of the club and its supporters.
Yes indeed we published two articles, one considering the attacks on Xhaka and one considering the attacks on Mustafi. When I replied earlier I’d forgotten. And in both cases there were interesting statistics about the players revealing them to have quite high rankings on sites that cover that sort of thing.
The notion however that when one has a lapse of memory the most likely explanation might be that one has taken drugs is an interesting conclusion to reach. Hopefully the writer is not engaged in law enforcement or law creation.
@ Wal – Thank you for clearly that up, apologies for getting it wrong. I completely missed that article, I guess the commenter that I replied to was just regurgitating what they had read on that article.
@ Nitram – Many thanks! As an Englishman this was the first world cup that I couldn’t bring myself to support the national team. In fact, the pure arrogance and endless hypercritical comments from the pundits and British media made me actively want England to lose. Not to mention their tactics, their manager, their players; I just couldn’t see anything to warrant supporting them. Plus my next door neighbour is one of the most horrible people on the planet and repeatedly screams “C’mon England, lets go to fucking war!!!” over and over again, so I also wanted them to lose for every dickhead like that.
I agree with you, the prices of these players are absolutely ridiculous. I believe it was Redknapp that actually branded Ali as the best young player on the entire planet (just less than a year ago IIRC). Outside of the English players, Son Heung-min was being touted as a player worth £62million, which is an absolute joke in my eyes. No doubt the medias endless love affair with Spurs and the way that they hype their players has an impact on how much they are worth; I guess public image is almost more important than actual talent these days. For a team with three players supposedly worth over £300million, what have they won again?
Maybe if being English didn’t slap on an extra 40% or so to the asking price then these players would get a better chance to play more football. All the homegrown rule does it increase their price exponentially, making it harder for English players to get game time.