By Sir Hardly Anyone
The Daily Mirror is the Trump of football journalism.
The denial of Arsenal’s three part success in the last two thirds of last season is now well established. No mention is made of the incredible improvement in the club’s win record, no mention of the way Arsenal changed their style to make them the club undertaking by far the smallest number of tackles (to avoid excessive PGMO punishments), and no focus on the fact that by the end of the season Arsenal players were dominating the Opta Europe wide statistics throughout the team. It’s a constant three part denial.
Instead what we have is the media adopting a President Trump and Bolsonaro approach, as when he endlessly claimed he won the election while all the evidence points the other way.
Thus the Mirror’s statement, “Arteta’s side are coming off the back of a deeply disappointing season…” whereas Mr Arteta changed the style and approach of the club with stunning success.
Now they are setting up part two – because of the “failure” Arsenal desperately need new players, but they fail to get them (because they were never after them in the first place).
Then part 3 says that the players Arsenal have sold were great and Arsenal were wrong to sell them. TBR has one such headline: “Jamie Carragher says one man Arsenal got rid of in 2019 is the ‘greatest’, simply ‘amazing’.” In this case it it Unai Emery. Curiously he didn’t say that at the time. Instead the media were howling for Mr Emery to go.
Meanwhile the players Arsenal and now allegedly trying to get, are in fact useless as the Express implies with the headline “Premier League relegated XI involving Arsenal and Tottenham transfer targets”.
In short, think of Trump – or if you prefer the Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro saying that coronavirus is “just a sniffle”. He convinced quite a few people in his own country that this was the case. Over time the evidence became clearer and clearer, and yet still many people followed his view.
And just as Trump found, if you deny reality often enough, people will fall for it.
As for why they do it, this “journalism” requires no research since it is untrue, and thus new stories can be pumped out as fast as scribblers can make them up – and because almost every blog and paper is doing it, people start to believe it. When the players don’t arrive, it is the fault of the club!!!!
So the Mirror says, “It promises to be a busy transfer window in north London as Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta plots to revamp his under-performing squad,” and so it goes on.
Remember, last summer, just three in every 100 rumours turned out to be true.
| No | Player | Current club | Position | Reported by |
| 1 | Max Aarons | Norwich | Full back | Daily Express |
| 2 | Houssem Aouar | Lyon | Midfield | Football.London |
| NEW | Tosin Adarabioyo | Fulham | Centre back | Daily Express |
| NEW | Loic Bade | Lens | Defender | Boot Room |
| 5 | Sander Berge | Sheffield Utd | Midfield | HITC; Express – he was seen out with Odegaard |
| Update | Yves Bissouma | Brighton | Midfield | Africa Football, Express, TBR, HITC. No he’s going to Liverpool (Express) – it’s a swap deal with Nketiah. |
| 7 | Emiliano Buendia | Norwich | Playmaker | Daily Mail, Metro, FL, Boot Room, Sportslens, HITC, TBR, Teamtalk, Telegraph, F365, FoLo |
| NEW | Philippe Coutinho | Barcelona | Midfield | Just Arsenal, FoLo: Arsenal will have to wait |
| 9 | Moussa Dembele | Lyon (At. Madrid) | Striker | Daily Express, HITC |
| 10 | Oddsonne Edouard | Celtic | Striker | Daily Star |
| NEW | Achraf Hakimi | Inter Milan | Right Back | Daily Express, with multiple articles. |
| 12 | Jules Kounde | Sevilla | Centre back | Daily Express |
| 13 | Layvin Kurzawa | PSG | Left Back | Sport Witness |
| 14 | Neto | Barcelona | Goalkeeper | Caught Offside |
| 15 | Paul Onuachu | Genk | Striker | Sport Witness |
| 16 | Kays Ruiz-Atil | PSG | Midfield | Just Arsenal News |
| 17 | Edmond Tapsoba | Bayer Leverkusen | Centre back | HITC, Just Arsenal News (twice) |
| 18 | Pau Torres | Villareal | Centre back | Football London |
| NEW | Dusan Vlahovic | Fiorentina | Striker | Teamtalk, FoLo. This is futbol: “he’s not going” |
And the list of players we are about to lose (according to “reports”)
| No | Player | Going to | Reported by. |
| 1 | Hector Bellerin | Real Betis | Sport Witness |
| 2 | Dani Ceballos | Rea; Madrid | Daily Express |
| 3 | Matteo Guendouzi. | Not staying at WBA | Daily Express |
| 4 | Sead Kolasinac | Not staying at Schalke | Football London |
| 5 | Alexandre Lacazette | Daily Express | |
| 6 | David Luiz | Daily Express | |
| 7 | Ainsley Maitland-Niles | Daily Express | |
| 8 | Konstantinos Mavropanos | Stuttgart | Daily Express, Kicker |
| 9 | Reiss Nelson | Daily Express | |
| Update | Eddie Nketiah | Brighton | Sports Lens, Sussex Live |
| 11 | Martin Odegaard | Real Madrid | Daily Express |
| 12 | Mat Ryan | Brighton | Daily Express |
| 13 | Runar Alex Runarsson | Daily Express | |
| NEW | William Saliba | West Ham | Hammers New |
| 15 | Lucas Torreira | Atletico Madrid | Daily Express |
| NEW | Willian | MLS or Chelsea | Givemesport HITC says not going to happen |
| 17 | Joe Willock | Newcastle | Daily Express |
| NEW | Granit Xhaka | Roma | Sports Witness, Sky Sports, cultofcalcio.com, Mirror, Athletic (he just wants to leave) |
PS: The Mirror, The Express, the Daily Record, Daily Star, Daily Record, and Football London – plus some 20 other titles are all owned by the same company: Reach plc. Isn’t that strange.
The four dangers that could stop Arsenal’s return to greatness
- Arsenal face four huge dangers as they stand again on the edge of greatness
- The four dangers that could stop Arsenal’s rise next season. 2: The journalists
- The four dangers that could stop Arsenal’s rise: Part 3; returning to the tackle
- The four dangers that could stop Arsenal’s rise back to the top: Part 4 – the rabble rousers
Thank you Untold, for once again cutting through all the nonsense peddled by the press.
For Ryan, Odegaard and Ceballos thats cheeky from the Express as their loan is up.
Tony
Apparently according to certain posters this rampant negativity of which you speak isn’t actually happening at all. It’s all just a figment of your imagination, despite you actually reproducing article after article in support of your apparent paranoid fantasies.
And in any case everyone else gets similar amounts of negativity anyway, despite the deniers never ever producing evidence in support of their accusations and despite several requests from me for them to do so.
It’s strange how the more you ‘bang on about it’ the more conspicuous by their absence these deniers become.
Thanks Nitram. However they could be lurking behind the bushes.
Why would we want to be rid of Xhaka, he has just been named in the CIES team of the season, based on Opta stats.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-9612507/De-Bruyne-Foden-Salah-MISS-place-CIES-team-season.html
Strange how so many of our supporters and most pundits see him as deadwood and think we need to replace him with someone better.
mick shelley
Because either ‘a’ they know what they see with their own eyes or ‘b’ they believe what they read in the tabloids.
For their sake I hope it’s ‘a’ because that can be sorted with a pair of glasses, where as ‘b’ requires a new brain.
In their effort makings to revamp their first team squad this summer window to enhance greater performance next season to win laurels for the club in all the 3 major domestic competitions they will play in next season.
In this regard, I believe Arsenal will sell some of their players at the club this summer who played in the team for them last season. And sign some top quality new ones to play for the club next season is a no brainer. For, us Gooners have envisioned this team revamping exercise will happen at the club this summer.
So therefore, let every one of us who is eager to see Arsenal summit biddings to sign, or received biddings to sell this summer patiently wait until the club is ready to make their moves in the transfer market and make have made them this simmer.
In the meantime, let us Gooners restrained ourselves in our outbursts to not be over criticizing the club’s management leaders. Nor be abusive or insulting to them in our demands making to the club’s hierarchy bosses asking or telling them to sign the new players us like to see them sign this summer. And sell the Gunners us dislike to see them remain at the club to play next season.
My own takes for Arsenal this summer are, let them please keep Willock and Saliba in the team for next season’s summer campaign. The duo Gunners whom they loaned out last season.
And sign a top quality Premier League level goalkepeer for adequate option and cover in team next season. But whether is Mat Ryan they’ll sign I don’t know.
Then, sign 2 prolific new midfield generals. One of whom should be Emiliano Guendai. And if signing Odegaard will work this summer, fine and good for us. But if it will stall, Arsenal should leave him to move on.
And a new top quality top League strike signing of 30 League goals plus scorer per this summer is a must signing for Arsenal to do this summer to refresh their striker’s department with him for a better goals scoring tally up front in the team next season.
But I wouldn’t want to mention the names of the Gunners who I think Arsenal should offload them this summer. But whoever be the Gunners they decided to offload, should not be the wrong ones but the correct ones who should be offloaded.
100%! Equal second with Man U since Christmas. But for a woeful start we’d already be back in the Champions League. Here’s the starting XI I’d like to see on opening day. Leno, AMN, Holding, Saliba, Tierney, Willock, Partey, Pépé, ESR, Saka, Auba.