It’s the old media game – if the result goes the way that suits your narrative, you big it up like mad, calling the match the turning point, or the dire warning. Suggesting the club is on its way or that collapse is imminent.“Players routinely suffered individual and collective lapses in tactical discipline … Work-rate and commitment seemed to diminish with every passing minute as the game wore on.”
Now, let’s imagine just for the hell of it, that this commentary from the Telegraph, or the “season over” stuff from the Mirror owned Football London was the truth.
That would surely then give us one of the biggest stories of all time in football, because not only have Arsenal moved on from three straight defeats, they have also moved on from lapses of discipline, meltdown, reckless tackles, lamentable errors and no plan B. And in the process played 10 won 8 drawn 2. Surely a miracle.
Surely recovering from meltdown so quickly really is the biggest story of the season. Not just because it was so utterly unexpected (by the media, although not by Untold), not only because the depths to which Arsenal had sunk were (according to the media) greater than any depths seen by a team in living memory, but because it happened so quickly.
Because Arsenal have just played ten games since losing the opening three. Won eight, drawn two. Goals for 18, goals against 5.
This surely is a miracle of transformation, and yet amazingly the media is not mentioning it at all. Yes they note that Arsenal are winning, but where is the tale of how a team that routinely suffered individual and collective lapses in tactical discipline, and that engaged in lamentable errors and had no Plan B, have just played 10 won 8 drawn 2.
I mean it is bizarre that the media don’t see this as a story. Unless, of course, all that stuff about “season over” and lapses of discipline and didn’t actually happen.
You see, if the journalistic interpretation of those early games was right, then how Arteta has turned this semi-skimmed half-baked team around is one of the all-time amazing stories of football.
The only other explanation is that what the media were saying after the first three games was a tripe, made up by a gang of low lifes who don’t know one end of a football from the other. If you see what I mean.
In short the media has either missed the biggest football story of all time, or else the stuff they were writing about Arsenal at the start of the season was made up, and those journalists knew it. And maybe they have even seen the last six games league table
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | West Ham United | 6 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 12 | 6 | 6 | 15 |
| 2 | Arsenal | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 11 | 4 | 7 | 14 |
| 3 | Chelsea | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 15 | 3 | 12 | 13 |
| 4 | Manchester City | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 5 | 6 | 13 |
No that can’t be true. I must have made that up. I mean, if it were true, surely those journalists would have apologised by now.
Tony
“…..or else the stuff they were writing about Arsenal at the start of the season was made up, and those journalists knew it.”
Of course it was and of course they did.
It started after the first match at Brentford, a game in which we dominated every stat bar one. Goals for.
Okay that is the most important stat but we actually played well, dominated the ball, the territory, the shots at goal. It happens.
As you have shown elsewhere Tony, that is our problem or at least was, as we are now improving.
Chelsea were over run by them. Had one shot on target and won one nil. Again it happens.
But we look at stats. Everyone looks at stats, and they do it because it gives an indication beyond that of solely the result, as to how well a team is performing. If the scoreline was the only aspect of a game that mattered, why ever analyse a match.
Brentford won. That’s it. That’s all we need to know ?
But it isn’t is it? Which is why we at untold didn’t go in to meltdown after, one two, or even three defeats.
We saw the stats at Brentford. We watched the game for pity’s sake. We saw the injuries we had. The players out. The new players learning a new way of playing.
The Chelsea and Man City results were disappointing, but given the Above problems, along with bedding in those new players, in a new league, in a new system, not entirely unexpected, especially as we played one of the best teams in Europe with 10 men.
Again we at Untold could see all that. We also knew just how well we’d played for the last two thirds of last season, due to all the work put in by Tony.
Many of the regulars here actually remembered how well we finished last season, put those defeats into perspective, saw the fixtures on the horizon and boldly predicted this up turn in our results.
Now either a) we are all absolute geniuses here at Untold or b) the media are just a bunch of ignorant shite stirring idiots.
Now I KNOW I am not a genius so it has to be ‘b’.
John Cross is an absolutely terrible journalist. The fact he pretends to be an Arsenal fan makes it even worse.
Back to that first game against Brentford, how on earth did the VAR allow that second goal to stand in spite of the obvious infringement on Leno? He was clearly held by the Brentford player and no mention was made about it in all the media reports.
I still remember the Spuds fans raving about their team , their (then) new manager , and the fact that they were 9 points above their neighbours , who had no points ! It is our year they proclaimed – 60 years on !
Well we all saw the fireworks that went on.And now they have a (another)new manager !
Blessed are they with the brain span of a goldfish !