By Tony Attwood
I cancelled my Sky subscription just over a year ago, because of my ever growing frustration at their authoritarian approach of knowing what was right and what was wrong, what I thought and what I didn’t, their patronising of me as a viewer and paying customer, and my frustration at what they were doing to the football fixture list. After years of football on TV it was a bit of a shock at first, but ultimately, I quite got to like following away games I couldn’t go to on Arsenal.com with the two guys chattering and describing.
But I thought, for a change, I’d have a go for this game by using Now TV, an adjunct of Sky which allows one to buy match by match at £8 a time. And what a shock it was to be reminded of such an almighty biased commentary – biased not particularly anti-Arsenal and pro-Cardiff. It was that of course but also biased in terms of what the commentators were not allowed to say. Do they really think we are so moronic we don’t notice?
However if you are thinking of following me I would add a word of warning. I saw nothing to warn me that Now TV could only run through certain computers. Maybe it is there within the instructions, but not in any way that I saw and I was certainly looking. But no, not a word of this until I had paid my money, and tried to download the service.
And then I discovered only some computer types work with Now. Surely there should be a big message up to tell customers this shouldn’t there? Or maybe the government has got rid of Consumer Protection now. and hey, its only football and football consumers are morons – it says so in the selling manual.
So I had to ditch my Chromebook and try and rig the thing up on an old Windows running PC, which worked, but it took a long time to settle down, with sound loops and all sorts.
But I got there and found among other things there was no mention by the commentators for example of the swathes of empty seats we could see (and I don’t mean the block separating home and away fans.) And of course no mention of some referee decisions that should have been the topic of discussion. I am not going so far as to say the referee was against us (although it appeared that way to me – but I’m an Arsenal fan), but no, rather that he made odd decisions which were part of the game and so part of the discussion. And yet they were never discussed.
Indeed there wasn’t even a discussion or commentary about the fact that Arsenal’s four games have seen 16 goals. Now we might not like the fact that eight of them have been against us, but one could still consider this entertaining (since no club has had more goals in its four games). But mention it? I don’t think so. Because that would make Arsenal sound rather worth watching.
Did the TV commentary crew find it fun, exciting, enjoyable? I didn’t find that they did particularly, although to give them credit they did appreciate the quality of the final two goals. But what they really wanted was more jumping around by the Cardiff manager. He is, I am told, what is in the world of media to be called “a character”.
And characters are good. Allegedly.
Personally I was left wondering not for the first second or third time why Lacazette is not starting every game with Aubamayang, either with the two guys bearing down on frightened defenders as twin centre forwards, of with Auba on the wing as we had last season with Mkhitaryan on the other side.
Lacazette hit the post in the first half and scored a stunner in the second; what more do you want – well even the Guardian called the build up to the Auba goal a “lovely passage of play.” (That’s not a phrase you don’t hear that often at a football match unless it is from Liverpool! (It says so in the manual).
However here is a breakthrough. The Guardian’s post match commentary says, “Anthony Taylor’s decision to penalise Lacazette for a foul on Arter was questionable.” Wow.
Mind you they also say, “Incredibly, Morrison could have equalised in injury time but headed over from inside the six-yard box.” Well yes, and incredibly Arsenal could have scored four more. I am not sure where this takes us.
Anyway, with Now, if you have the right sort of computer, or you pay an extra £15 so you can plug it into your TV rather than watch it on what Now calls a device but I call a computer, and having paid my £8 I thought I’d take a peek at what Tottenham Nomads are doing. Seems they are losing. Can we stop that game now?
But it then struck me. Tottenham Nomads fans always call Arsenal a franchise club wandering from ground to ground. And yes it is true Arsenal have played at more grounds than Tottenham. But at least once we were there for a season we stayed there.
And here’s a thought. The journey from Plumstead, where Arsenal played in the Football League from 1893 to 1913, to Highbury, is 12.7 miles and takes these days about 45 minutes. White Hart Lane to MK Dons Stadium is 50 miles and takes 1 hour 10 minutes if the M1 is clear. Since I use the M1 part of that route getting home after Arsenal games, I can tell you that most of the time it takes 1 hour 30 mins or more.
Tottenham Nomads – it seems about right to me.
The latest post from our series on Henry Norris at the Arsenal
Today’s anniversaries
Tottenham lose
Yes, with all the goals scored by Watford.
End of Game Day 4.
Caution League. Ninety minutes minus minute caution issued (same for second yellow). Caution time doubled for (straight) red. If a penalty awarded against a team, that is treated the same as a caution.
Top-6
Liverpool 155
Chel$ea 180
Man$ity 211
Spuds 251
Arsenal 337
ManU 346
Treatment League (Treatments of player on “this” team)
Man$ity 1
Chel$ea 2
ManU 3
Spuds 4
Liverpool 5
Arsenal 9 (1 card award to opposition)
Inverse Treatment League (“This” team caused treatment, maybe)
Chel$ea -1
Liverpool -4
Arsenal -5 (1 self-inflicted)
Spuds -8
ManU -10
Man$ity -10
Referee Treatment League
Paul Tierney has done 3 games, and only overseen 2 treatments. Chris Kavanagh at 3 games only 3 treatments. Of referees with 4 games, Anthony Taylor and Martin Atkinson are lowest at 8. Craig Pawson leading the league having overseen 18 treatments in 3 games.
Most sources of commentary, do not mention if a player requires treatment. If you see a treatment in a game, note it and submit please (game, team and time).
Tony
Lacazette hit the post in the first half and scored a stunner in the second; what more do you want – well even the Guardian called the build up to the Auba goal a “lovely passage of play.” (That’s not a phrase you don’t hear that often at a football match unless it is from Liverpool! (It says so in the manual).
One swallow and all that.
We also have this from John Brewin of the Guardian during his ‘real-time’ commentry:
“”72 mins: Anyway, the secret is out: Arsenal are weak at set pieces. Oh, you knew that already? Well, it’s yet to change under the new boss.””
Considering the goal he was talking about was the FIRST we had conceded from a set piece this season under ‘the new manager’ it seems Mr Brewin should perhaps know what he’s talking about before he opens his mouth.
But that’s the point really isn’t it, they don’t WANT to know the facts, because they just get in the way slagging us off.
Oh and just to show where exactly he was comming from he also had this to say about the one eyed referee Mr Taylor:
“The referee has had a good game.”
I believe two of our yellow cards were for impeding / blocking off a Cardiff player around the half way line. We had two players (Ramsey and Auba) blocked off in the same way by Cardiff players and they were not even called as fouls.
As Nitram says, Taylor was ‘one eyed’. He was a disgrace to be honest, couldn’t wait to get his hand in his pocket for us and incredibly tolerant for them.
And who was the twat of a co-commentator on the Sky coverage.
I didn’t see the whole game but when I saw Taylor book Guendozi for an off the ball incident that looked more contrived by the Cardiff player and quite honestly happens often in football, I decided to stop watching in order to control my temper.
The biased corrupt officiating that is presented to us in the Premier League is truly the ugliest in sport. It is worse that the drug cheats because it is done with bold arrogance and accepted by the media & the public like it were part of the game.
Similar to how they treated the Phantom foul leading to there goal. Hardly a word, and when they did finally mention it they quickly dismissed it as irrelevant, because it was up to us to defend the free kick, which it is of course.
But the point is, that kind of analysis is in stark contrast to when a similar thing goes our way, in which case it often as not is so bad as to cause a shift in the Earths orbit.
The opposition are so badly affected by it, that it’s perfectly possible they wont recover until the end of the season.
As I say, when it goes against us it’s dismissed as utterly irrelevant.
Similar to how they treated the Phantom foul leading to there goal. Hardly a word, and when they did finally mention it they quickly dismissed it as irrelevant, because it was up to us to defend the free kick, which it is of course.
But the point is, that kind of analysis is in stark contrast to when a similar thing goes our way, in which case it often as not is so bad as to cause a shift in the Earths orbit.
The opposition are so badly affected by it, that it’s perfectly possible they wont recover until the end of the season.
As I say, when it goes against us it’s dismissed as utterly irrelevant.
Nitram….its called obstruction.
Taylor was dog shit. Luckily we still had enough to get a result.
A.Taylor:
He’s not fit to wear the shirt.
The performance and structure of the pgMOB is a disgrace to English Football. Not least for the paying punter.
there are people that think that Juve were hard done by when they were demoted.
I’m sure that some earnest soul could attempt to conjure a defence of the pgMOB but if they can construct a coherent reasonable or rational defence of this Carry On I haven’t seen it to date!
Keith Hackett, the former head of the pgMOB, by his own words appears to agree with this understanding. There it is.
–
Well played the Arsenal.
Fortunately the lino making the call as Lacazette lashed home yet another fine finish was not as reliable for the “Game Management” gurus as the gentleman disgracing himself and robbing the punters of some fine football at Stoke last season.
I believe that the rule book states advantage to the attacker – this is simply because the paying punters come to watch the goals and other such weird stuff and luckily for the Arsenal on the third Arsenal goal the Lino apparently understood the rules of Football, unlike his colleague with the predictable (that’s the giveaway isn’t it?) “error” from this Illusionist/Actor masquerading as a referee in the middle that led to the home team’s second.
According the pgMOBs own statistics their officials and reps make so few errors that after such an embaressing gaff as that made by one of the pgMOBs top officials yesterday there can’t be many more errors left for any of the rest of the season for any of the rest of the refs in the rest of the matches!
According to the stats from the WC if and VARs is added to the amazing roster comprising “Riley’s circle of trust” (Keith Hackett is not inside that circle!) then the pgMOB officials of the PL will have a percentage of correct decisions of over 100%!
And if you’re happy to believe that kind of flagrant Gibberish then I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you that I have a bridge in London that i’d like to sell you. Great deal! Special discount 🙂
I don’t normally listen to the commentary on either Spy or Sprout because they’re all so shite.
I do wonder however, how long it’s going to be before a footballer/manager SUES a media outlet for referring to them by their nationality, rather than their name.
Nitram – Yet again, the media regurgitating this myth that we are not good at set-plays. Last season we conceded the third least number of goals from set-pieces, so this is just a beautiful example of how they will outright make up lies about us. I’ve seen numerous people (many of them Arsenal “fans”) say that we can’t defend set-pieces, so clearly when you repeat a lie enough it soon becomes “FACT!”. Makes you wonder why so many of these “expert” pundits and journalists feel it is necessary to keep spewing and repeating these lies, when the actual evidence and statistics prove the complete opposite.
I don’t watch Sky myself (well, I don’t pay at least), but I saw someone say that they edited out Arters dive for their goal. There was also an article on TalkSport about how Spurs loss to Watford was an “Arsenal performance”. Yeah, no media agender to speak of here folks…
How anyone can say that a referee who made a huge mistake that directly lead to a goal and one mistake that stopped a one on one “had a good game” is an absolute joke. These people like in a fantasy world, and unfortunately the vast majority of the fans are more than happy to indulge them.
One dipstick actually used the term ‘United are the new Arsenal’ as they lost to the spuds.
These so called pundits don’t know what pundit means.
Menace
Good point.
Im going to look it up
I bet it doesn’t say “talk shit on a subject that I was good at years ago ,but actually haven’t done any research into since”
It appears we are not as alone as I thought.
after Collins, oxford,cambridge dictionaries,
and wiki, that also had a dimmer view,
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/pundit
Beware the pundit, a supposed expert who imparts deep knowledge to us more ignorant folks. Pundits are often blowhards, mere hacks, and you might well want to take what they say with a pinch of salt.
this should be sent to bbc and guardian and ALL the others, to publish as a kind of informed consent to accepting opinion from them!
I wonder if I could text it during final score and get it on the screenscroll. Do they still do that??