By Tony Attwood
OK, let’s set the context. Arsenal have just won nine in a row. If you don’t want to count the FL Trophy, eight in a row. If you don’t want to count the League Cup or the Trophy, seven in a row. If you don’t want… well, that’s getting ridiculous. Seven in a row is the minimum I will allow.
| Date | Game | Res | Score | Competition |
| 25 Aug 2018 | Arsenal v West Ham United | W | 3-1 | Premier League |
| 02 Sep 2018 | Cardiff City v Arsenal | W | 2-3 | Premier League |
| 12 Sep 2018 | Coventry City v Arsenal | W | 0-3 | Football League Trophy |
| 15 Sep 2018 | Newcastle United v Arsenal | W | 1-2 | Premier League |
| 20 Sep 2018 | Arsenal v Vorskla Poltava | W | 4-2 | UEFA Europa League |
| 23 Sep 2018 | Arsenal v Everton | W | 2-0 | Premier League |
| 26 Sep 2018 | Arsenal v Brentford | W | 3-1 | League Cup |
| 29 Sep 2018 | Arsenal v Watford | W | 2-0 | Premier League |
| 04 Oct 2018 | FK Qarabağ Agdam v Arsenal | W | 0-3 | UEFA Europa League |
FK Qarabağ Agdam to give them their proper name were obviously not world class, not even European class, but they still had to be beaten, it was a fearsome atmosphere, and a bloody long journey. No, not the toughest of course, but still it was there and it had to be won, and the right team had to be picked. Avoid too heavy a reliance on some who might play on Sunday, give some of the players who have not been getting games a chance to get moving.
And we had just won either six, seven or eight in a row depending on how you take it.
So what headlines do we get the next morning?
‘Our most useless player of all time’: Some Arsenal fans are annihilating £7m Wenger signing
And then just when I thought maybe that was one turnip in a field of cornflakes we get
Arsenal news: ‘He really was a weakness’ – Martin Keown criticises star vs Qarabag
This time it was Kolasinac, playing his first game back after a long injury layoff. Players need games to get back into the swing of things. And even if the manager feels he is not up to it, the player has to be given a chance. Not to do so is a total waste of a resource.
‘Needs to go’, ‘Doesn’t wanna play’, Selfish- Some of Twitter crucifies Arsenal player after win
So put it together and those three players should all be out the door now. But you know what… in the next game it will be another three and another three, because all these blogettas ever do is hit out at Arsenal players and they will never stop. Follow their advice and in a matter of a month or so we will have no one.
And let us not forget that players can change. Look at this headline…
Arsenal fans can’t get enough of Alex Iwobi’s dazzling skill v two Qarabag defenders
And think back to last season and the season before when Iwobi was hammered from every corner. Remember the headlines like
- “Alex Iwobi not good enough, again” – Pain in the Arsenal 2 January 2018.
- ‘He’s just not good enough’, ‘Somehow he got worse’ Football Fan Cast 4 April 2018
- ‘There is a list of them not good enough’ Daily Mirror 22 February 2018
- ‘Arsenal Fans Blast Iwobi – You Are Not Good Enough To Play For Arsenal.’ OG Nigeria 16 Feb 2017
I could fill page after page with these. The point is clear – many young Arsenal players burst through and become great players despite playing for Arsenal. “Despite” because they have to live with a daily barrage of mindless and pointless abuse whose only reason for being there is to bring Arsenal down.
What we actually saw last night was the first goal for Arsenal from a player born in the 21st century. OK not as important as winning the game, but still something to remember and celebrate instead of finding more and more players to destroy.
Of course the media pick up on it too…
Late night radio in England had a fulsome summary of Chelsea’s “fine” win and some mumbled thing about their “in a row” record that I couldn’t relate to reality. The report concluded that “Arsenal also won in Europe” and that was that.
Mind you even the Telegraph could not bring itself to report the wild excessive abuse that poured forth after last night, restricting itself to,
“As with each of their previous seven victories though, this was not an entirely convincing display”
At least that was mild compared with the gibberish from some quarters.
I am sometimes criticised for going on and on about these negative morons and their rants, but outing their gross stupidity is the only way I can think of exposing their crassness and raging anti-Arsenal attitudes.
This is the Anti-Arsenal-Arsenal – back in full force. They got rid of Wenger, now they are gathering their strength again.
- FK Qarabag vs AFC: the trivia no one else offers, so you don’t have to listen to BT Sprout
- Tottenham complain about fixtures, but Arsenal have it worse. And Barce have no cash.
Very true, Tony. Leno for example – after he had played one match, doubts were cast. Yesterday he proved his quality again.
This makes me remember how the last few years of Arsene Wenger’s time as manager were constantly blighted with negative coverage. It must have an effect on team morale and finally I believe it did just that. It didn’t matter how long we battled and qualified for the Champions League, or how many FA Cups we won, the comments were the same.
Our current run of battling victories is great, but then unjustifiable contrasts are drawn with Arsene Wenger’s managership as if it were one long run of failure. Every positive comment about the current manager is taken as an excuse for some rude remark about the last one.
Morale is so important, and from what we read that is what is currently making our team able to overcome some of their mistakes and still win. It reminds me of what Arsene Wenger wrote many times about how winning breeds more winning. I also remember him describing how he hauled the players to the finishing line of that mighty achievement, the unbeaten season.
When are they going to put up the statue?
I thought they were a good side….some really skilful players and gave us a good match. They could have scored but for Leno. we still have a long way to go, we loose possession, the opponent is straight through us. we still have work to do, but looks promising.
Well said Tony
Well said Pat
I suspect that ur Stan will want any erection to be cost neutral. So probably waiting for Arsene to sign it off as part of his settlement.
Supporting the Team, Supporting the Manager. Ur Stan, there’s a line in the sand. He needs to show some passion for our club first. The erection is not entirely compulsory, but it would be a step in the right direction…sorry
Football now. Promise
Elneny. Given a difficult role last night I thought. New system, new personnel ,this season at least, roaming role, press ,then push. He grafts constantly. Both he and Guendouzi suffered in first half, could get control of middle…. not sure who, hard to tell on TV!
When Ozil came on, his zip was a bit slow to show tbf, but still class when it mattered, Mo went across to protect Leech. Did a brilliant job. Blogettas talk shite. Sadly you are preaching to the converted in the main.
You should run a sister site yourself . Shit Arsenal , or something ,suck em in ,and then deliver some truths.
Change the name regularly to keep the hits up. Just a rambling thought.
Pat
“Our current run of battling victories is great, but then unjustifiable contrasts are drawn with Arsene Wenger’s managership as if it were one long run of failure. Every positive comment about the current manager is taken as an excuse for some rude remark about the last one”.
Well said.
It seems, finally hounding Wenger out is not enough for many. Sadly it looks as if some will not be happy until they have completely destroyed his lagacy.
I know that our last season under Wenger wasn’t great, but it was also nowhere near the contrastrophe that some would have us believe. As has been documented many times by Tony, our home form was actually very good. Unfortuneatly our away form was terrible.
Why was that? It seems to me there is a massive question to be asked there.
How come the same team, the same players, can be so utterly different away from home, as they are at home?
And nobody can tell me this is about Wenger, how we set up away, the players having no bottle, because lets not forget Wenger actually guided Arsenal, not once, but twice, through a season unbeaten away from home.
History shows Wenger knew how to get results away from home. Ok the players he was working with over the last few seasons were not as good as those teams, but they were good enough to win 3 Fa cups and come 2nd 3rd and 4th in the league, so also not that bad either.
Certainly better than Liverpool and Spurs, though you would never believe it if you only had the media to go by, who over that same period won NOTHING.
Yet all of a sudden the same Manager, and by and large the same players, could only manage 3 wins away from home all season.
That to me suggests something very strange was going on, above and beyond just a simple loss of form.
I think you are on the right lines Pat when you talk about morale, and the habit of winning.
I think other similar things such as confidence and belief are vital, and the ‘squad’ as an entity, had both of those bashed out of them very early on in the season, through a combination poor performances, bad luck, and the enevitable intervensions of the odious PiGmob.
For some reason they just never recovered any belief that they could get a result away from home, and like winning, losing can become a habit.
But apart from last season, especially the away form, the preceding 5 years were succesful. Only in Arsenals, or more accurately Wengers case, can 3 FA Cup trophies (at least they used to be trophies), 3 community shields, a 2nd, 3rd and 4th place finish, be seen as a ‘failure’.
But the haters will always hate, and it seems they will not stop until they have completely destroyed the legacy of one of, if not the greatest manager we have ever had.
As for a statue, can I suggest knocking down the ‘hater’ Wrights statue that is currently stinking out the place, a replacing it with somebody worthy of the honour?
It’s very noticable that when other keepers are called upon to make a couple of excellent saves the team is applauded for having an excellent keeper. By contrast, as yesterday, when our keeper makes a couple of outstanding saves it is construed as a sign of a weak defence and that Arsenal were lucky not to have conceded. How does that work then?
You live and die by the results. Surely this is how it should be? emery’s result so far has been outstanding, despite defensive lapses. Wengers results had been extremely poor, compared,and remained consistently poor when his side could not put away clubs that were no where near as good as arsenal: bournemouth and brighton last season comes to mind. I do not believe your reporting is objective. if a player (or even a manager) does poorly it has to be stated. And if they do well, it also has to be stated, but at the same time we need to give players their chance to prove themselves and not simply say they are not good enough.
Talking about negative comments of Arsenal in the media, okay, I assumed the Gunners who went to Baku to play against FK Qarabag Agdam yesterday night and won the match convincingly, or not convincing in the eyes of the media must by now be sleeping to rest having returned to London from Baku in the early hours of this morning. And they will resume training tomorrow Saturday to prepare for the Fulham match at Craven Cottage on Sunday in the PL.
I also assumed at least 14 – 15 of the 18 match squad Gunners who started the match or made appearance to play in it against Qarabag are fatigued and will need sufficient number of days to recover from their fatigues, say at least 6 days. But they won’t get that number of 6 days to recover but just 2 days before they play against Fulham. And yet, Arsenal have to beat Fulham to keep their current winning run in all games running to 9 unhindered. And if this is to happen which of course MUST happen. And for this to happen, even if Arsenal play ugly in the game to beat Fulham undeservingly in the looks of the anti-Arsenal media, I don’t care, I’ll take the win result by Arsenal. All I do care about is for Arsenal to win the match.
Joe 71 I don’t think you understand the essence of this site, nor indeed of what happened with Wenger in his last year at Arsenal.
Untold Arsenal does not set out to be objective. My view as publisher is that no site is objective, and indeed most are incredibly anti-Arsenal. What we try to do is reflect the thinking and viewpoint of Arsenal supporters who love the club, but who have to exist in this world of endless endless anti-Arsenal propaganda.
In terms of Mr Wenger, last season he had an excellent home record with Arsenal, but a very poor away record. Your comments suggest a consistency of failure, but that is not at all true: the home record was second only to Man City who had an exceptional season. All Arsenal have to do is to get the away form back to the average standard that we had year after year until the last two seasons, and we will be a top three club. from there we can go on and build further.
joe71
These 2 statements of yours take events totally out of context.
1 – Wengers results had been extremely poor,
Nobody denies that last seasons away form was poor, for what ever reason, but as I pointed out in my previous post, the 4 seasons prior to that saw us win 3 FA Cups, 3 Community shields as well as a 2nd 3rd and 4th placed finish. How is that ‘extremely poor’?
2 – consistently poor when his side could not put away clubs that were no where near as good as arsenal.
Yes of course that is true. But the inference of what you say is that Arsenal were the only team it happens to, which is plainly untrue. EVERY team, at times gets ‘turned over’ by lesser opposition.
You are just like the media. Unless Arsenal win every game playing like Barcelona. Never have a bad day at the office. You’re not happy. Yet nobody else does that, least of all media darlings, Liverpool Spurs and Man Utd. The only team that gets close to the ‘perfection’ you seem to be looking for was put together at a cost of A BILLION pounds net over the last 5 years.
I can imagine if the tiny totts were the ones who achieved what arsenal achieved under wenger (3 pl titles, 7 FA, unbeaten record, qualifying in the champions league 19 times), the media would be still publishing articles of praises for the totts including all those achievements
I don’t know what they expect. All players have to play the perfect game, never lose the ball and never give up a chance?
That isn’t reality. Every game we are going to give up chances and players are going to give the ball away. Every player is going to go through bad spells. This is inevitable.
We are winning right now because the chances we are giving up are not as good as the ones we used to give up and the mistakes we are making are not as bad as the ones we used to make. All mistakes and all chances are not created equal.
Also nowadays there are people covering and reacting to mistakes better, and we are not giving the other team as much time to shoot or put away their chances, not as much time to cross the ball so the crosses are not as perfect. All incremental improvements.
Luck is too great a part of football. Any string of bad luck can be mostly (or even just significantly) due to random factors. There need be no fault.
In basketball, a better team might be expected to score 100 points and a lesser team to score 80 points. How many times will the lesser team win a game played by the two? In football, the better team might be expected to score twice, while the lesser team only once. The lesser team is expected to win a larger fraction of games, simply because both expectations are so close to 0.
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Congratulations to Santi Cazorla for scoring from the pot, to give Villarreal a point against Spartak Moscow.
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Marca is reporting that the spuds (may) have injured several of the Barcelona players. Or, the pitch was in bad shape from some other event which happened some days before? (Anthony Joshua title fight.)
http://www.marca.com/en/football/barcelona/2018/10/05/5bb7556f22601d07628b45ba.html
Who was running that show, PGMO?
Unfortunately hyperbole draws your eye to a website.
At this stage in the team’s evolution, we are neither as good as we would wish nor as poor as we feared we could be (or our enemies would wish) but we are improving and we are winning. I would want our media coverage to reflect this.
I totally understand what Unai Emery is going through right now. As a High School coach, every year I have to choose players, evaluate what system I want to use (or that the players can use) all the while continually evaluating the players’ progress. Sometimes, I am tempted to change systems mid-game but then realise that I haven’t had enough time to properly train them on how to use the system (even if some have used it in previous years).
It is so easy to just put all your hope on results. Coasting through life on results while enjoying the glory of life itself ensures chances of better results.
Every football team has the potential to be superb. The physical attributes, skills & team ethic coached by experience helps in providing a unit that can succeed. There is always a question of luck & of fair officiating and primarily a reasonable opponent. Players endeavor to be their best for themselves & for the team. To us, the supporter, many aspects may appear different but on the field of play the player has his own focus.
The Arsenal have changed some part of the ethic to suit the new coach. Maintaining possession from the back while passing the ball gradually forwards (not my favoured method as it risks immediate danger if possession is lost). The attributes & skills are still very visible, and the luck occasionally glows for some more than others. The nicest aspect in my view is the togetherness & the variety of goalscorer without detracting from Wenger’s philosophy of possession being the best defence.
The recent performances of the Arsenal have been quite telling in that the scores have been positive with more than the one nil. Our squad has been exactly that & Unai Emery has used it well. I love his shameless positive use of English in his interviews. His improvement will over time match that of the team.
Really pleased to see this as one of the top posts on a well-known online article aggregator. Thanks for exposing this to more people. Ironic that it took a negative title, the likes of which you are trying to expose, to gain so many readers. Alas.
Remember Chelsea end of season 3 years ago. When the going gets tough, Spuds studs come up. Very nice Mr Poch thinks it’s smart football. But everyone knows it’s just cheating. Except the media and refs sadly.
That was supposed to reply to Gords comment . Tony!
I would love to get Martin Keown’s opinion of this little bit of skill by Kolasinac, from around the 10.00 minute onwards.
Could any member of those famous defensive five replicate that move?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU_-ZqwKGuo
A lovely piece of literally literal prose.
Unknow source , but ta anyway.
Oh my English me!
Minute and minute shouldn’t be spelled the same.
I am not content with this content.
I object to that object.
I need to read what I read again.
Excuse me but there’s no excuse for this.
Someone should wind this post up and throw it to the wind.
Please don’t project this project as unworthy.
The debate is too close to close.
We should subject this subject to further argument.
As long as we conduct it in good conduct.
I refuse to believe this refuse.
The invalid believes this post is invalid.
If it helps to console you from this console.
There’s no ill to contract from this non contract.
Relax with some incense if we incense you.
Allow me to present this present.
Only if you record this as a
record run of puns.