Revealed: how the media campaigns constantly to stop Arsenal signing players

By Tony Attwood

If you ever wanted to undermine a football club the way to do it would be to set up what appears to be a serious news service about the club and then pour forth negative stories all based on the same concept of incompetence spiced with a few quotes from people who back up this view.

What you will find is that very quickly the stories will be picked up by other football writers, since most writers like nothing more than doing nothing.

We did a bit of an expose on this when Amy Lawrence as a way of putting Arsenal down a few years back, suggested Arsenal had only two players who had scored in double figures.

It sounded awful – but in fact, at that moment 15 clubs in the Premier League had only one player who reached double figures in goal scoring, and the virtue of several players having eight or nine goals is they are harder to mark out the game.

But the use of “only” suggests that even the most common or garden Premier League team would have many more than the three Arsenal had who had scored in double figures by the end of the season.

In fact, at the time Arsenal were exceptional in terms of their scoring capacity from individual players, and the use of “only” was highly inappropriate.

Today, on the NewsNow Arsenal site, there is the usual collection of six top stories – that have of late been getting the most clicks.  Here are four of the six top stories at the moment I write this on the morning of 14 October 2021.

‘Doesn’t make sense’: Maitland-Niles says player Arsenal released is the ‘best’ he’s played with HITC

Bizarre report claims Arsenal have offered £182k-a-week to Real Madrid in January swap bid for 32-year-old The Boot Room

Roy Keane claims ‘quality player’ Arsenal reportedly want has had ‘bust-up’ with his manager HITC

So that is four stories out of the top six on the morning of 14th October 2021, that are negative in their headlines – and they come from just two sources.

And I must stress, these four stories are among the six most read pieces at the moment that I write – they are not stories from across today or the past week.  In fact all four stories appeared within a 90 minute period of each other.

The impact, the feeling created, the key central idea of four such stories all at once, is that Arsenal are in total turmoil through to gross incompetence.  The result of which is that some Arsenal fans will be influenced to think that the club is useless and the manager should go, and some players who we might sign are influenced to think that this is not a club making progress, but is a club best avoided.

So let’s quickly look at the stories

1:  “Doesn’t make sense”.   Maitland-Niles says Ozil was the best player he ever played with.  Well, yes, probably he was.

2: “Bizarre Report”: Alexandre Lacazette “moving to the Bernabeu in January and Gareth Bale coming to the Emirates, according to a bizarre report from Defensa Central.”    Now here is a part of that story:

Aal Real Madrid tampoco le interesa ya firmar a Alexander Lacazette. Es cierto que su nombre estuvo sobre la mesa hace años, pero ahora las prioridades son Mbappé y Haaland.

De hecho, aunque aparece en algunos medios de comunicación, el Real Madrid no valora fichar a ningún delantero en invierno. Creen que la temporada puede afrontarse con Benzema, Vinicius, Hazard, Bale, Asensio y compañía.

Which, in case you Spanish ain’t up to much, means, “Real Madrid is no longer interested in signing Alexander Lacazette. It is true that his name was on the table years ago, but now the priorities are Mbappé and Haaland.

“In fact, although it appears in some media, Real Madrid does not value signing any striker in winter. They believe that the season can be faced with Benzema, Vinicius, Hazard, Bale, Asensio and company.”

So, utterly untrue.  Just read  the story.

3.  Reportedly had bust evidence.  For this one there is no evidence save for this line, “the out-spoken Keane thinks something has gone on behind-the-scenes.”  Roy Keane thinks – well, I suppose that is a revelation.

4:  Getting rid of.    This story reads, “according to Turkish outlet Yeni Asir, Kolasinac will be leaving Arsenal and joining Fenerbahce when the transfer window reopens.”

Hardly a revelation is it?  Sead came to Arsenal in 2017, and for his performances in August, he was voted as Arsenal’s Player of the Month and he played as a sub in the victorious cup final of 2020.  But now we’ve bought in new defenders so he moves on.  Worthy of a story?   Certainly not a “getting rid of” with its implication of kicking out the door.

So that’s what they do, twice an hour, hour by hour, day by day.  And if you see Arsenal linked with a player who could seriously contemplate coming to Arsenal, but doesn’t, you’ll know part of the reason why.  Remorseless, twice an hour, made-up negative publicity.

 

 

4 Replies to “Revealed: how the media campaigns constantly to stop Arsenal signing players”

  1. Off topic but halftime at Borehamwood and Arsenal lead Hoffenheim in the Womens Champions League by two goals to nil. A Kim Little penalty following a foul on Beth Mead. The commentators initially scathing of the decision and yellow card but after the replays were shown they had to admit it was a very good decision and absolutely correct! In injury time Tobin Heath opened her goal account smashing home from a Miedema headed knock down following a Katie McCabe cross.

    We haven’t been anywhere our fluent best for most of the first half but it started to gel in the last ten minutes or so.

    Hopefully that will continue in the second half and we will score more goals.

  2. Two more for us in the second half. Miedema bundling the ball home from about a foot after the German keeper could only parry a fierce shot by Nobbs from the edge of the 18 yard box and a late header from a McCabe corner.

    I just wish i was at the ground rather than watching on a small screen at home with a knackered calf muscle which is virtually stopping me from walking. If you complain about the BT coverage then the DAZN/Youtube effort makes that exemplary. Coverage cutting out every few minutes then when you restart it you have the most inane adverts in the world – the UEFA deal with them is for four years – going to drive me mad before it finishes!

    Anyway a good win tonight which was important as we need to finish in the top two in the group to progress to the knockout stage of the competition

  3. I watched it on DAZN via the Arsenal site, and had no problems with the coverage.

    I thought the refereeing was quite good for a change.

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