The anti-Arsenal conspiracy, revealed.

By Bulldog Drummond

Things really are looking bleak. Given the inevitable furious outpouring to the fact that Arsenal actually took the chance of the interlull to play a friendly without inviting the journos along (goodness how the media hated that) and won it (something now considered utterly unacceptable) and revealed yet another young player on our books (too much to bear for the journos who had never heard of him before but were trying to act as if they did), it now seems only a matter of days before we get a move by move reconstruction of the game presented in the media showing where Arsenal went wrong.

Indeed a DVD using avatars to show how Brentford should have won 6-0 is also probably on the production line while I write this.

Meanwhile the gibberish pours forth.   Consider the Mirror’s “while Martinez enjoyed a stunning first season in the Midlands, question marks over Leno remain….” and compare that with the league table in the order of goals conceded.

P	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Manchester City	38	27	5	6	83	32	51	86
4	Chelsea	38	19	10	9	58	36	22	67
8	Arsenal	38	18	7	13	55	39	16	61
3	Liverpool	38	20	9	9	68	42	26	69
2	Manchester United	38	21	11	6	73	44	29	74
7	Tottenham Hotspur	38	18	8	12	68	45	23	62
11	Aston Villa	38	16	7	15	55	46	9	55

Or come to the fact that Leno played 11 more games than Martinez – something also ignored in the headline.

The journalistic knives are of course out for Mr Arteta and the facts are the last things any journo wants to get in the way of such a hunting season.   Instead with the crowds back, Premier League commentators and journalists are expressing utter delight at the chance of telling us all how thoroughly those in the stands are disgruntled.  Of course there was no mention of the behaviour of some Chelsea fans at the Arsenal game, because, well, that doesn’t quite fit the scenario of Chelsea good Arsenal bad, irrespective of the facts.  No, the self‑confessed showmen of the media are finding it ever more difficult to say anything other than what they have said before.

We’ve all long since realised that football without journalists and pundits and experts and all that bunch of attention seeking “opinion formers” (as if we weren’t able to have an opinion without them) would be a place where proper reviews and analyses could evolve.   And indeed insights were gained last year as for the first time we saw just how PGMO can affect games by giving a club like Arsenal the referees who show themselves more likely to hand out cards.  The refs who oversaw Arsenal games last season and who gave out no cards or just one, were least likely to get another game in which Arsenal were playing.

But did the self-opinionated but otherwise somnolent occupants of elite journalist zone, actually realise anything about the changes that happened last season?  No, of course not, they were too busy congratulating themselves on being the only people allowed to watch the game.

And now we are back, and their monopoly has gone.  And they don’t like it – so they are dishing out the dirt doubleplus time.

Few clubs appear to have been targeted more than Arsenal, and the negativity poured forth by the  perennially disgruntled journos who have called Arsenal games, “a kind of nervy on-field slapstick” reducing football matches in their reports to the status of comedy punchline.

Journalists as we know sit bottom of the appreciation league, without an insight to their name, just an endless vision of putting down Arsenal, Arteta and Edu, never criticising Fifa, failing to understand what is happening in the courts as Manchester City and the League slog it out, utterly unwilling to mention the way the PGMO works, and seemingly unaware of the tactical change that took place last season, and which Arsenal are attempting to reintroduce this year with a new set of players.

The key point is journalists don’t do “insightful”.  It is either full on adulation or outright outrage.  Mr Arteta is described as “working hard on the brooding dark-eyed fury look” while no one considers that journalists are getting utterly desperate trying to find explanations for what is going on, something impossible without mentioning referees or the transformation of tactics.

Certainly if Arsenal games were played without journalists things could be better, because the copycat bloggers would have nothing to copy.  The callow capitulation of the scribblers to the mass mood without putting any insights in front of their readers suggests they are writers who may prefer not to have their work scrutinised.  And in this they have been successful.  Commentating on the influence the one direction of football journalists is simply not permissible.

Reactions to performances are always kneejerk.  And we can only ponder what life would be like if journalists were left secretly dreading next weekend’s fixtures, where once again their ludicrous commentaries on the weekend before were exposed for what they are: a set of copycat fantasies where differing interpretations are not allowed.

But no, the old cliches are got out for one more run.  The game against Norwich is being described already as “a bona fide early-season six-pointer.”    There is talk that if the result goes a certain way there it would “almost certainly prompt open revolt from supporters who in recent years have never seemed happier than when they have something new to be extremely unhappy about.”  But that merely confuses supporters with journalists.  It’s a clever trick for journalists to pull, for it works.

We only have to consider the media’s promotion of 134 Arsenal transfers this summer and a 4.5% accuracy rate to know how inept they are.  But they are still there.

Barry Glendening’s article in the Guardian “Arteta and Bruce may have preferred to stay far from the madding crowd” on which some of this little piece is based is indeed accurate, except that the madding crowd is the journalists, not the fans.  Once one realises that, football becomes much more enjoyable.

Gaslighting: how refereeing in the Premier League is manipulated, and why the media never speak about it.

• 1: Are the referees and the media really out to get Arsenal, or am I just imagining it?
• 2: How discussions about refereeing are deliberately stifled by the media
• 3: Referees: the odd statistics that are simply never revealed or discussed
• 4: How we have been utterly misled about football: part 4
• 5: Hiding the problem of refereeing is destroying the credibility of the Premier League
• 6: Revealed: PL referees are not 98% accurate but actually just 75% accurate

(Footnote: the first ever mention of gaslighting in connection with football other than in this article appeared in the media just six weeks after the launch of the above series on Untold)