The ten craziest things the media have said about Arsenal in last 48 hours

 

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By Sir Hardly Anyone.

Beware: your mind is being played with.

The aim of many blogs and newspapers is simple: to generate Arsenal stories that cost nothing to research or create, but which get readers.  And the simplest way to achieve this aim is to focus totally on trivia, doing it so often that the impression is given that the trivia is actually news.

When this approach is undertaken by just one or two media “outlets” they look foolish.  But when hundreds of them are doing it, and some are doing it up to 40 times a day, that the mindless trivia becomes the news, simply because it dominates the blogs and newspapers.

The outcome is that casual readers can be convinced this is actually the news, thus allowing journalists to create stories without even getting out of bed – while at the same time they are able to manipulate the agenda to make it ever cheaper to produce.

This process has removed all real news and instead replaced it with increasingly negative and ludicrous reports which now dominate the supposed “news” about Arsenal.  Arsenal is thus made the laughing stock of football, not because it is, but because such a scenario is convenient to journalists.   Here are just a handful of the latest stories…

1:  ‘If this is true every player needs to be sold’ – These Arsenal fans react to damning rumour about Ljungberg

This comes from Read Arsenal and tells us that “A number of Arsenal fans have shared their reaction to the rumours suggesting the players are “refusing” to support Freddie Ljungberg.”   That number appears to be five.  The evidence that this is the case is… non-existent.

But “these Arsenal fans have shared their reactions on social media” anyway, and the blog felt it was worth publishing.  The overall suggestion is that the club is doomed.

2:   Freddie Ljungberg identifies the one change that can end Arsenal’s winless streak 

Football.London spent quite a lot of space reminding us that Unai Emery had now gone, and Freddie was in charge.  And allegedly his big tactical insight is, “If you score the first goal you don’t have to go chasing the game.”   I doubt he actually said that in isolation, but even if he did, is it worth a headline for any reason other than to trivialise Arsenal?

3:  Arsenal’s nightmare scenario which could force Josh Kroenke and Raul Sanllehi into a decision 

Football.London were at it again a few minutes later as they told us “Arsenal need to speed up the process of selecting a new manager because they have difficult games  ahead.”   Again the piece is so trivial that it gives the implication that this is the level of thinking going on at Arsenal, rather than the level of thinking going on in the offices of FoLo.

4: Arsenal show little ambition in scouting unwanted Manchester United 30-year-old 

Of course there is no evidence that Arsenal are “scouting” whoever it is, but the Daily Cannon thought it was worth making a headline out of.  

The player is Chris Smalling, and the chance of it being true is zero, since Arsenal don’t have a manager who would decide if a player is worth adding to the squad.   Of course occasionally older players are brought in to share their experience and help balance a squad for a year or so, but can one judge ambition from that?  Of course not.

A better headline would be, “Blogger shows no interest in real news by running this story”

5:  Ljungberg calls on senior Arsenal stars to halt ‘downward spiral’ 

Goal.com ran this headline which if it is about a real event at all, is about an event of no consequence.  So the boss said, “Come on guys, show the youngsters how to get a grip.”   Well, yes, pretty much as you might expect.   Is it a story?  No.

6:   Freddie Ljungberg explains why Arsenal youngsters are not being trusted to end Gunners’ woes 

Football.London’s third offering in our top ten as befits a blog with a 40 Arsenal stories a day habit.  And the story is that quite reasonably Freddie does not want to place the burden of turning the string of losses into a set of wins on the  youngsters shoulders.   Pretty big news eh?

7:   Marcelino lands in London amid Arsenal speculation 

The Metro always has the feel of a retrospective publication, and its return to the old “spotted at the airport” theme fits in with this totally.

8:   ‘I wasn’t happy at Arsenal’ – Koscielny reveals his reasons for leaving the Gunners 

The thought that why Kos left in the summer is still news is slightly strange, although I guess it could be news if the reason was something fairly spectacular, or fairly awful from a personal point of view, like a serious illness of a family member.   But no, Laurent said, we needed to go back to France and have a new challenge.’   And that was it.   No story, no news, but worth putting out as a blog apparently.   Once again everything is trivialised.

9:   Pundit slams Aubameyang and is not impressed with Ljungberg decisions 

There would be news if a pundit were impressed with something at Arsenal – ever – but they never are.   This is Just Arsenal News undermining the whole of Arsenal, by suggesting that this is news.

10:  Perry Groves wrong to criticise Rodgers for choosing Leicester over Arsenal 

Daily Cannon’s pundit tells us that another pundit is wrong in talking about a speculation for an event that probably hasn’t happened.   Has Rodgers been approached?  Who knows.  If so, can anyone blame him for staying where he is?  Is it nes that Groves said something and the Cannon thinks he’s wrong?   Not at all, but it serves the purpose.  Trivialise everything to do with Arsenal, so that trivia is the news, so that it costs nothing in either time or effort to produce a blog.   

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