By Tony Attwood
Obviously players, like all of us, get their information from a variety of sources, and when an offer of a transfer to Arsenal is on the table there is sure to be a lot of information bandied around.
But because of the rumour system that runs in England with multiple sites picking up, and quite often creating, stories about what this or that club is like, it is possible for players to get all sorts of impressions about playing for Arsenal, and indeed playing in England.
1: Racism
The events at Wembley and thereafter were recognised around the world, and it is a fact that rightly or wrongly England is seen in many countries as being a place where racism exists unchecked. The attacks on black players after the international would seem to confirm that
2: Failure of Arsenal
The fact that Arsenal continued to win the FA Cup during the Wenger reign is often set aside by English as they focus on the success of other clubs in winning the Premier League. No one (apart from Untold) is writing about how Arsenal can challenge the clubs above them, and so the belief is that Arsenal have no hope of trophies – because that’s what the media says.
3: Inexperience and failure of manager
Mr Arteta belied this notion with his dramatic change in tactics in the first third of last season, having won the Cup the season before. But none of the media will admit to this phenomenal change of tactics, and so he is reported by many to be inexperienced and having failed. The implication is he won’t last – and a change of manager can mean further wholesale changes.
4: Regular changes of manager
Players are generally convinced to come to a club by the manager or by the manager’s team. Besides the above we’ve had three managers in four years which doesn’t bode well.
5: Fans at matches
As Wikipedia says, “… the perception of Arsenal fans as being hard to please is an old one. Even at times of success antagonism was noted. Such was the experience of the title winning teams of 1953 and 1971. Not even the figure behind the legendary 1930s team successes was spared: Herbert Chapman complained of the activities of the “boo-boys” and title-winning George Graham was vociferously criticized over choice of players and tactical strategy.”
And that’s without even starting to consider the “Wenger out” campaign.
6: Attitude of media
While journalists tend to be critical of all teams except Manchester City and Liverpool, they have been more vocal in their condemnation of Arsenal than most. The refusal of the media to recognise the staggering turnaround in Arsenal’s fortunes in the last two thirds of the 2020/21 speaks volumes for their desire to propagate only bad news about Arsenal. And it is that news that potential signings read.
7: The intrusiveness and racism of media in England.
Many nations have a press that feels it has a right to intrude anywhere, but I think there is a growing feeling that the media in England is now behaving rather like that in a third world country. All signs of decency and civility seem to have gone – and the clubs are doing nothing about it.
8: State of our rivals
Given that Manchester City are considered to be the team likely to win everything there is a view among some players (of all ages) that they are better off playing in Germany or Spain until Manchester City come knocking, rather than spoiling their chances by going to Arsenal or a similar team first.
9. Violence
The level of violence in English football was seen to be a thing of the past – until the Euros, and it has not gone unnoticed that the organisation that was running the Euros this summer (the FA) is the organisation charged with overcoming the violence. “Believe it when I see it” is the sort of attitude that appears to be around.
10. Competitive League
The Premier League has been liked by many because it did not just have one or two clubs that could win it. The sudden arrival of Leicester was an encouragement, and the fact that six clubs have won the league this century is a further good sign. But take out the two clubs who have only won it once, and Arsenal not winning since 2004, and we are down to three title contenders. Not quite as bad as France or Germany but similar to Spain. The PL simply isn’t as competitive as it used to be.
Add in much higher tax rates and a most erratic and strange refereeing system unlike anything else in Europe and you can see why the country is losing a little of its charm.
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I can never get enough of this site
I can’t believe Danny Mills has a paid job
That’s right Seismic.
I was shocked to read the statement attributed to “that pundit”. Some of these “TV studio experts” no longer bother to cloak their extreme hatred for Arsenal with some nice words. They have something obnoxious to say about Arsenal ….. no problem, they just go ahead and say it
seismic
“I can’t believe Danny Mills has a paid job”
Being a serial Arsenal hater always helps especially when it’s utter crap.
The Sun by GARY STONEHOUSE
16th February 2016:
Ex-Man City man Danny Mills says Robert Pires brought diving to the Premier League. Former Arsenal and France winger blamed for introducing the dark art to English top-flight.
Sports Joe by DARRAGH MURPHY
3rd July 2000:
Danny Mills names Arsenal legend as the player who brought diving to England Prior to this date, nobody dived in the Premier League but, since then, it’s turned into a modern phenomenon.
———–
Maybe this is why he’s such a bitter and twisted numnuts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhR-WnafzoE
Never nice when your totally embarrassed in front of 38,000 people.
Everybody is an arsenal hater,.. I guess it’s because we’ve won the league 10years straight
Arome
Nobody said “everybody hates Arsenal”
Arsenal haven’t won the league 10 years straight.
Honestly Arome, you should get your facts straight before you post otherwise you just look a bit silly.
Arome your sarcasm is totally unrecognizable but hey irony was clearly never your strong point just like your punctuation!
Hi Don – good to see you.
Sorry “sir silly police”
Apologies, I should have written “I can’t believe Danny Mills works for TalkSport. He’s better than that.”
Except he isn’t.
Now this was a turn-up for the books. It’s eight months old, but I couldn’t suppress a smile or two.
Three of the top five divers in the Premier League are homegrown
When a commentator or pundit says “goes to ground”, they’re not talking about gardening. Why don’t they say diving/cheating?
Hi Tony….like the groundhog, I saw my shadow and hid for another 8 months! Arome….you are not pardoned but still an a**hole!
Should put Danny Mills and Simon Jordan together in a locked room and throw the key away.
seismic
I’ve done in depth articles on this subject many times, especially when I’ve felt the need to yet again defend Pires from the ridiculous exaggerations regarding his ‘diving’ that surface every now and then, and have in fact recapped recently in another article. There is, or at least there was a couple of utube videos showing the ridiculous dives from Rooney and Gerrard. Gerrards is excruciatingly embarrassing.
Again as I showed elsewhere there are other tables that don’t even mention Pires, but you can rest assured whenever the diving issue surfaces on SKY, BTS or MOTD Pires will be front left and centre of the debate. But if you trawl the interweb thingy the most I have ever found are 3 Pires dives. The infamous Portsmouth dive. One at OT where he was nearer the touchline than the box and it’s a 50/50 call in any case, and one for France.
As for the list you linked, it contained a comment I have seen many times before that attempts to exonerate the referees from any blame. Durham says:
“He does it well too often and he’s so clever with it, he gets away with it more often than not,” said Durham of the Tottenham No 10.”
“He’s so clever with it” ?
No he’s not. That’s why he’s top of the worst divers table. Everyone, other than the referees it seems, can see perfectly well that he’s diving. And even if they argue in ‘real time’ they get fooled, well they’ve got the same TV angle we have. It’s called VAR.
No excuses. He’s an English darling and they WANT to buy his dives.
The referees see what they want to see. VAR is operated by the referees. That should tell you all you need to know.
I think I watched 44 matches at the Euros. The refereeing was good for the majority of matches, VAR also did a very good job. I think forty of the games I saw were well officiated. Two of the matches featuring questionable refereeing involved England. In the semi-final, we got the benefit of poor decisions, and in the final we didn’t. It does seem interesting that the overall standard of the refereeing dropped after the group stage of the tournament had finished.
Is Kane a vegetarian? He does seem to like the taste of grass, when he’s not making deliberate fouls (which the referees never see).
seismic
Kanes propensity to back into a ‘jumping’ opponent is clearly illegal and extremely dangerous, hence that type of challenge has been outlawed in Rugby, a game that appears to have the well being of it’s participants much higher up the agenda than football does, which seems hell bent on protecting the perpetrators.
Worse than not being called for what is clearly a dangerous challenge, he often as not gets a freekick awarded to him.
I cant remember who but one of UA’s regulars did a small piece in this phenomenon last year, with accompanying utube clips I believe.
As I’ve said many times, I believe our referees don’t referee the match, they referee the team and or the player according to how they think they will be judged in the media.
As for the Euro referees. I agree they refereed pretty well by and large, but I don’t think VAR worked very well.
Yes it got praised for being un intrusive and quick, which is great, but not if it’s at the expense of doing it’s job right and overturning obvious refereeing mistakes, which after all is what it is there for.
I’d rather it took 2 minutes longer but ultimately delivered the correct call.