Depression is not worry – it is a lot worse than that, and can alternate with manic hysteria or with a short-term feeling that everything is wonderful.
So it we look for these traits in EPL supporters, where do we find them?
Newcastle Zebras must be top of the league – except they are not EPL any more, but let’s give them a few moments grace. Up for sale on EBay, about to lose their players, with no manager and League One a real option in a year’s time, that’s a recipe for depression. It is only now that Away The Lads is understood to mean “Going down going down going down”. The manic upturn comes from the view that most of the players were overpaid rubbish so getting rid of them is no bad thing. Depression rating: suicidal. Depression rating 10.
Aston Hold Your Head Villa. What we have to admit is that for the past two seasons they have made more noise than any other away fans at the Ems. Problem is they gambled everything on getting into the Champs League and failed. Also the ploy of holding the head every time a player goes down, to get the ref to stop the game, has been spotted, and will have less impact next season. But worse, the star man has gone to Manchester Arab because he thinks he can get Champs League action there. (Don’t tell him). Not enough capital to buy new talent, it doesn’t look as good as it did half way through the season. Depression rating: 8
Liverpool Insolvency. There are rumours that the nutters at RBS/Nat West are going to give these people more money – but this time it has to be guaranteed by the owners. Which means the owners will probably be less excited by the Ben E Tez approach of “if it moves, sign it”. It could well be “sell first, buy second” and in a market in which Manchester IOU is spending £80 million Liverpool might well not be able to afford anything. Depression rating: 10.
Portsmouth Adams Family. Have gone from Richest Club in The Universe (or at least the south coast) to maybe ownerless in a few weeks. The trouble with very rich people from very undemocratic countries is that they don’t quite get the fact that if you want to bribe someone in the UK you have to be a bit more subtle than you do back home. If the owner doesn’t come through with the dosh the club could be forming an alliance with its neighbours Brighton and Southampton – not to mention Bournemouth. All are at the seaside, and all are in the sh….. Depression rating: up and down like a yoyo.
The Tiny Totts. Tott supporters don’t get depressed. They live in a bubble of eternal belief that this year they will break into the top four. They have been told by their board of directionless directors that this will happen THIS YEAR for the past six years, and the rationale down the poor end of White Hart Lane is that it must happen sooner or later. They’ll buy lots of players and sell D Bentley and some others at a huge loss. After that? When’s St Totteridge Day? Depression rating: nil. (You have to have some ability to know what the good times are before you can be depressed about the bad, and this is not the case with any living Tott supporters).
Gone West Ham Untidy. After 24 hours of euphoria following a bizarre piece in the Times in which the club was said to be rescued, the truth returned – the people currently owning the club are the bankrupts from Iceland who destroyed the club. No buyer, no money, and owing Sheffield U a load of dosh each year because of their use of a certain Argentine, they could go bankrupt and lose ten pints. Sorry points. Depression rating: 11 out of 10.
Hull Spitty. After a bright start the most disgraceful manager in the entire game decided to humiliate his players by sitting them on the pitch at half time for their team talk. I don’t think they won a game after that. Every trick has been tried from screaming at refs to making up wild and insane stories about Cesc. Of course the FA and EPL will do little, but it can’t be long before men in white coats remove the manager – but he will probably have destroyed the club by then anyway. Depression rating: beware large long bridges that connect with Grimsby for most of the season.
Bolton Rotational. If you had to watch a team whose tactics consisted of 11 behind the ball, rotational fouling and rotational time wasting, wouldn’t you be depressed? Depression rating: rotational.
Birmingham City. The police have raided the club, directors have been arrested and/or questioned on anything from sexual offences with an Essex woman to financial what-nots… so it is just life as we know it. How do you tell if a Birmingham City supporter is depressed or not? Please let me know, I can’t work it out.
Manchester IOU. Presumably Sir Alex F-Word will spend, spend, spend as normal, and everyone knew that the jumped up snarler was going anyway, so depression level is going to be very low. But the KGB in Fulham are also spending, so the only clubs who are really making money are those who are selling and who don’t have debt. Depression level probably about 1 (that’s the guy in the 95th row who hadn’t realised that Toy Boy was leaving.)
Wolverhampton W. Depression level 13. (Wouldn’t you be depressed if you supported a club who sing “Hi Ho Wolverhampton” at every game? That is assuming they still do. They did last time I was there. Kolo scored. Quite a good game.)
Coming soon: review of the new edition of The Arsenal Stadium Mystery. Coming sooner: me saying, ‘this computer won’t load properly’. And, why next season is looking rather bright and jolly. (c) Tony Attwood. 2009. (that’s the year, not my age).
You missed out on the poor sad deluded non-supporting Arsenal supporter who started non-supporting after the unbeaten season and has been wailing ever since. Actually I hope they are so depressed that they do the honourable thing. Or just go and pretend to support someone else.
Great post as ever, I’m feeling extremely optimistic about the future as an Arsenal supporter and decidedly chipper. Cannot wait for next season with so many great Arsenal sides to support, injury returnees bolstering the first team, and maybe even a new face or two (not that I think we need them). It’s such a good time to be an Arsenal fan.
Becouse we go our one, slow road to the top, I can”t care much about what the others do.
We will be stronger next season and the years to follow even more.
MU has lots of money (and lots of debts) but the loss of Ronaldo on the pitch is big. I dislike Ronaldo but I must admit he gave them 3 titles in a row. And the last 2 almost on his one.
oh my god got a long week and my English is letting me down. It’s not my mother language ….
i think most depressed lot will be al burj Machester fans; so much spending yet no improvement in the league standing; and so much dosh yet spiky as manager wtf!!! those petro dinars can do better than that.
Manure will be better off w/o gaynaldo if the money is invested for player acquisition.Since RM is buying so many superstars cant we try and get Higuain? Or Joaquin from the so-called Valencia fire-sale.
STRICTLY NO DEPARTURES + 2/3 acquisitions ==> excellent summer for Arsenal.
Never knew the ‘The Arsenal Stadium Mystery’ was a movie based on a book!
I have a DVD of the movie, which was a part of the Official Membership Pack 2005-06. Would love to read the book!
On another note… No departures for Arsenal? Unfortunately I don’t see that happen 🙁 Infact, I think we’ve sold off a few U18s in the last week or so. No first-teamers obviously, but a touch upsetting all the same.
We always release some youngsters every year – they are all brought in on the basis of the possibility of development, and it is always known that some won’t come through.
The general thought is one makes it through each year, but I think the current group is so good the number will be higher than that.
In the first team we have 5 forwards – Vela, Ade, VP, Eduardo, Bendtner. Plus two more who can play central – Theo and Arshavin. Plus Nasri and Diaby who can play as Number 10 support players. We use them all if we have a season of injuries, but if we don’t some of them are going to be fed up at a lack of games. We rested VP a lot this season, and that seemed to pay off, and maybe Eduardo, if he returns, will need the same. But even so, that’s a lot of talent expecting to get a game.
Tony
Hi Tony
You again make the point about the requirement to balance the depth of the squad with the possibility of injury. As you point out, we have seven forwards, although six of them can play as wide men in a 442 or 451. With Cesc, Rosicky, Nasri, Diaby, Song, Denilson and Ramsey we seem to have plenty of CM. With Sagna, Clichy, Gibbs and Eboue, plenty of full backs. And Lord Wenger might be addressing the CD issue.
I would like to see opportunities for Wilshere, Merida and Lansbury – and I really like Hoyte. In addition to Hoyte, we have three young, very promising CDs, but they probably need another season or two – I’m really looking forward to the Carling Cup! Lord Wenger seems to like Randall a lot – and as always, he knows more than I do!
So, how many more players can we bring in? It would make sense for players to consider leaving Liverpool for the financial reasons you have documented. Mascherano and Torres are both world class – in fact a strong case could be made for saying they are the worlds best in their positions. Would I want them at Arsenal? Of course! Would I be happy to screw Denilson and Song, Bendtner and Edu? On balance I would prefer we didn’t get them. Does that make me weird?
The failure of Flamini to get injured led directly to us losing Gilberto, and indirectly to us losing Diarra. I would hate the same thing to happen to any of the players we have at the moment.
well i meant no departures for the first team only :P.
given the long season (38 games in league + good cup runs in CL/FA) we are looking at 50+ games; add to that the internationals — a few additions will be more than welcome in the current squad.
I would actually like to see bendtner and AA go. as i think Eddy could work with RVP quite well and the young blood like Vela and simpson could support if there were any injury’s. I like that simpson, he will become big and strong to shurug off defenders and he has a lot of pace. However this proberbly wont happen. AW likes a tall chap up front for ‘different option’.
sorry to come off the subject. i was reading your posts and thought i would have a say lol.
Faron – Are you suggesting that we sell Arshavin?
Tony – With regard to NatWest and Wachovia (or whatever they’re called) refinancing the loan for Liverpool, where does this leave Liverpool for the future? The holding company is losing £46 million a year, LFC is making a profit in the region of £10 million a year. The obvious way to increase profits is to increase capacity but this would require another £350 million, assuming that this would double the interest repayments and if the stadium took 3 years to complete Liverpool would be a further £210 million in debt. This adds up to a debt in the region of £900 million, even with increased income they could never pay it off. How do the owners put together a business plan that the banks will buy?
Lol no I meant Adebayor.
Marc – my guess, and that is all it is, is that with guarantees in place from the owners, RBS will lend money to Liverpool, with conditions attached about how it will be used, and conditions that the interest is paid to the bank, and not rolled over. That is good business for RBS – they can’t really lose unless the whole empire of the owners falls down at once.
It puts the stadium on hold until the American owners sell to Arabs who pay off the debts and bring in another £450m for a new stadium. It also gives Liverpool restricted spending – at a time when Manchester are going to be spending a lot.
That’s my guess – but RBS could be stupid and not be so tight with the money. But either way, only about £30m of the bank loan is left unspent, and most of that has to be kept for paying the losses each year, so there still is no money at the moment for purchases without sales.
Liverpool have a lower salary than other top 4 clubs, so they are already a bit behind, and can’t cut there. They will I suspect move over to an Arsenal model – they already have a decent youth set up, and that is what they will try and build.
Just my guess of course.
Tony