By Dr Billy the Dog McGraw, senior psychiatrist at the University College Hospital of the North Circular Road.
The stories below appeared within a single 3 hours 30 minute spell prior to the Manchester City game being called off. Of course not every blog followed this approach, but there appeared to be a concerted attempt to attack Arsenal from a number of sources – an attack which in the end tells us more about the writers than about Arsenal and its players.
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1: ‘Wasteful’, ‘Another Sanogo’: Some Arsenal fans desperate for club to avoid £40m-rated hotshot (
2: Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta sent £45m transfer warning over major summer decision (
Implication: Arteta and his team are simply not up to the job of selecting players to buy and they need journalists who have no experience at all of running a club or buying players, to show him what is obvious to others but clearly not to him.
3: From one of Arsenal’s worst-ever signings, to Spurs’ Mr Reliable (
Implication: Even when Arsenal get a good player they are so inept in training and preparation that he turns into total rubbish. Other clubs however never make such mistakes and can pick up players we have rejected and find their real potential.
4: Players that Mikel Arteta can sell this summer to fund a new top-class defender (
Implication: Arsenal’s purchasing policy is terrible. While other clubs manage to make sure they just buy decent players and so don’t waste the £m that Arsenal do, Arsenal are reduced to selling past rubbish to get the player they desperately need. It is also implied that despite being so awful a club, and a club criticised at every turn, Arsenal can clearly buy anyone they fancy. Quite why players would want to come to such a useless club is not explained.
5: Arsenal loanee criticised after costly error, manager says it was his ‘fault’ (HITC)
Implication: Yep, even after having three managers in the space of a couple of years we are still bedevilled by being run by men who just don’t know what football is all about.
6: Mikel Arteta told three Arsenal stars who are only ‘average’ Premier League players (
Implication: They might be stars of Arsenal but on the broader football stage these guys are rubbish but Arteta is such a bad manager he can’t see it, so has to be told.
7: How many years will it take for Arsenal to match Liverpool? (Just Arsenal News)
Implication: Liverpool are not just good now, they will go on and on and on being very good. So the normal rise and decline of clubs is now over, and Arsenal will be in the mediocre pool for years to come. Quite how other clubs can catch up with a team that only loses one match all season, without that team declining is not actually explained.
8: Arsenal ace frozen out after breaking important Mikel Arteta rule (
9: Is Kieran Tierney about to become another Matthieu Debuchy? (
Implication: Forget about the hope that new players bring. We just buy player after player who gets injured. (This article might well be a prelude to a return of the old favourite that Arsenal get more injuries than everyone else because of the bad training method of the manager – a story that served the media well for years during Mr Wenger’s time, even though Arsenal’s injuries were average in PL terms).
10: Mikel Arteta’s first Manchester City return comes at the worst possible time for Arsenal (
Implication: Had the game been played we would have been stuffed.
11: Arsenal Want PSG’s Champions League Left-Back on a Free Transfer This Summer (
Implication: Yes, we will be scratching around for free transfers again.
12: When is the best time to cash in on injury prone Hector Bellerin? (
Implication: The story says that Bellerin may never be fit again, so we should sell him. And the evidence that he won’t be fit again? None.
13: He could be done for at Arsenal’ – David Ornstein shares what he’s heard concerning 22y/o
Implication: Whatever else we have the one thing we don’t have is a settled squad.
These of course were just a few taken in one snap-shot moment. The point of all this is that it is relentless – it is the essence of Arsenal that is put out by these blogs minute after minute day after day. And because the assault comes from many different quarters (although four of the 13 do all come from one source) it feels all the time as if Arsenal clearly is the one club in the country that is screwing up.
Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if these stories came from blogs run by supporters of other clubs, but the fact that they all pour out from Arsenal blogs shows just how unified a campaign it is.
Why do they run this ceaseless negative speculation? To the psychologist, the answer is to gain a feeling of power – a feeling that they are revealing the awful news – that they have the inside information – that they are important.
As such they serve their purpose to their owners, but they sure as hell don’t help Arsenal.
When players are publically labelled rubbish their sale value diminishes. Chelsea kept quiet about Luis and as a result was sold to some gullible club
Tony,
what is being said about our neighbours and their glorious evening in Germany ?
Guess it is all being whitewashed and Boorinho given the excuse that players purchased are so bad…when at the beginning of the season the owner and ex-coach were labelled the smartest of the PL…
Talking of our neighbourrs, I wonder how long they could financially survive with their team playing behind closed doors as will most probably happen to all stadia in England…
Tonight’s game postponed due to the corona virus.
Arsenal players met Evangelos Marinakis, the owner of Greek club Olympiacos, after their Europa League Round of 32 match nearly two weeks ago, who has confirmed to be infected with the virus.
Chris, of course I don’t have access to any inside information on Tottenham’s finances, but I suspect the current situation will be causing a little heartache given the repayments on the loans they are presumably now having to make. I recall that Arsenal had to have something like tickets sold to the 95% level of each game and Champions League football three years in four, in order to balance the books for the repayment of the stadium debts.
Tottenham may have taken out insurance to cover special eventualities – but of course that is not made public.
Good collection, Tony.
There is an overall anti-Arsenal bias. I’m not British, so I cannot explain the origin, but my guess it has to do with the misinterpreted insult from the early Wenger-era, when we were successful without a single English player in most of the starting line-ups. Contrary to popular misbeliefs, it is not racist, ‘merely’ xenophobic or ethnocentric.
Then there is the issue with the Just Arsenal posts. This is a fanblog, but most of the articles are coming from the crowd (approved by admins). And some of the fans are simply not smart enough to write posts. They often echos opinions of incompetent (and biased) pundits. Sometimes they ventilate their feelings and claims that Saka should be given 150k salary a week (as he is better then Kolasinac, who is on 140k), or the club should pay Aubameyang whatever he wants, even 500k wouldn’t be out of the question. They are not attacking Arsenal – in my opinion – just they don’t know their limitations.
But the HITC post really pissed me off. That was either a seriously maligned article (on Saliba’s contribution to the Bordeaux goal), or even native guys have serious English difficulties. Because the article they were referring simply stated that according to the St. Etienne coach there could have been a fault ON Saliba. He never said it was HIS fault.
Maybe it is just me, but when I see a headline “Mikel Arteta told three Arsenal stars who are only ‘average’ Premier League players” I understand it as if Arteta said it in a conference or interview, so it is his opinion. It could be my limited English, but I feel cheated, misguided when it turns out that somebody (usually a professional nobody) felt the importance to send a message to Arteta – who obviously doesn’t give a shit.
Arsenal have become a default setting for poor lazy and unintellectual journalism. Can’t think of a story? Write any gibberish about Arsenal as to keep yourself relevant.
Personally I feel the hacks have an enormous stick up their ass, ever since when A. Wenger threaten to sue the for mentioned hacks. How dare this Frenchman tell us what to do in our land? Unfortunately social media has given everyone a platform for their opinion, so the hacks seem to have very little time to dwell on.
It definitely got worse under Arsene Wenger, but it has always existed – In former times “Lucky Arsenal” was replaced by “Boring Arsenal”. FA deducted 2 points for players defending Winterburn from being kicked by MUFC when lying on the ground. Arsenal players attacked for allegedly being rubbish, eg Peter Storey, Jon Sammels. Media hated the 1971 team because it did the “Double”, which was supposed to be a sacrosanct Spurs memory. etc. etc. etc.
Just read the piece about Sp*rs…. and see that…their not buying players is not even really criticized…
“Instead, Tottenham prioritised retaining its existing core by tying them to long-term deals. New contracts, Pochettino and chairman Daniel Levy insisted, would have the same effect as new signings. And though it’s probably unwise to admit as much now, in an era of chequebook coaches and financial doping, Tottenham’s frugality felt weirdly enlightened, even sustainable: eschewing the treadmill of disposable human talent, cutting down on single-use Ligue 1 wingers.”
Words fail me…
And they explain how Bourinho openly says his players are not good enough… yet not one ounce of criticism or even some remark this might not be the best way to motivate a team….
Talk about useless crap and permanent whitewashing being presented as journalism… and whitewashing both Sp*rs management and their coach in the same story…that requires some nerve.
Wonder how the players feel reading something like that.. really…
Chris
Thanks for highlighting that….I think?
“And though it’s probably unwise to admit as much now, in an era of chequebook coaches and financial doping, Tottenham’s frugality felt weirdly enlightened”
As you say, finding words to describe the sheer hypocrisy of it all is actually quite difficult, but given the abuse we received, and still do, that statement simply beggars belief.
And we still get people coming on here claiming we get the same treatment in the media as everyone else. Unbelievable.
Last night – Spurs. Tonight – Liverpool. Last night – Jenas. Tonight – McManaman. Oh how we laughed!
Before the Spuds /Wolves game , the commentators were at great pains to point out that their main strikers were out with injury , so basically at pains to point that the lack of goals was truly not their fault !
Why they did not point out that their stikers cupboard was bare was not touched upon. I would loved to have asked them why there were no U18 strikers available to be promoted to the first team.
Unlike Arsenal who have Saka , Martinelli , Eddie , etc !
Then again logic and expert commentary are never mutually exclusive .
The piece on Sp*rs I was mentionning above lists all the injuries they have. I mean. This ought to be the press’ subject #1 for weeks to come. They’ve got more 1st choice players injured the Arsenal ever had…and not a tenth of the bad press. Not a simple mention like : maybe they are running them into the ground.. ory maybe their medical team is bad…nada.
When I remember all he s..t Mr Wenger had to endure for players endlessly hurt by thugs never sanctionned by PIGMOB…it is a disgrace.
Untold ought to start the process by publishing a story titled : Mourinho is silently killing his team into the ground : medical staff, Ministry of Health and World health Organisation send out warning to Sp*rs.
And by the way, how I love our youngsters !!!
Chris……….Mourinho is doing what he does best………….grinding a club down and getting ready to fly the coop when things get really hot.