By Sir Hardly Anyone
Although, as we saw in the last article, the Guardian’s list of transfers does not seem to include anyone coming in for a fee, this is not how the rest of the media see the situation. As for example with ‘Done deal confirmed’: Romano says Arsenal have reached ‘full agreement’ to complete first signing of 2022 which appeared in
The player is Matt Turner of New England Revolution, who is allegedly coming in to replace Leno as the backup to Ramsdale.
Next on our list of transfers satisfactorily completed we had this one: Mikel Arteta’s £74m Arsenal success confirmed by late Douglas Luiz move to bury Newcastle worry
Which is interesting in that it comes from Football.London which is part of the same group as the Mirror as said (as we quoted in our last article) that Arsenal couldn’t sign anyone.
Now that story has disappeared from the Football.London website – which rather looks like someone at the Mirror reminding someone at Football London that the policy is one of knocking Rsenal not celebrating its forthcoming success, whatever that success happened to be. This incidentally is not the only FoLo piece suddenly to vanish of later- it looks like they are making a bit of a habit of it.
Mind you other websites have suddenly changed their tune as well as we had ‘Final details and then done deal’: Fabrizio Romano shares Arsenal transfer update from ‘Agreed to terms’: Pundit claims Arsenal have just taken huge step towards first summer signing from HITC.
Arsenal’s reasons for allowing early Calum Chambers transfer exit become clear from the
Then we had another story that quickly disappeared: Arsenal report: Ruben Neves targeted, as Gunners ‘reach agreement’ over another midfielder
Report: Arsenal now the most likely side to sign ‘incredible’ £40m winger before Monday from
Liverpool’s Luis Diaz move gives Arsenal major boost over high priority £83m double deal was yet another story quickly put up and taken down by
Eventually of course some stories have to be true just because if one tips every player to come to Arsenal in the end one will actually sign up.
But there are a number of things wrong with the whole way in which this group of newspapers and websites deals with transfer.
First there is a total lack of seriousness about both the reporting and the story that is reported. There’s no background or build-up, just suddenly the announcement that this player has appeared. And when between 95% and 98% of the stories don’t happen, no one in the media admits it is their fault. Rather the implication is that it is the club’s fault for not focussing on the issue.
Second, we can see how the media tosses aside the story that Arsenal are after this player, or need a player in that position, when such transfers don’t happen. Instead they then pick fights with Arsenal, claiming Edu and co are not up to the job (implying that if only the writer could run Arsenal’s transfer arrangements then we’d see things really happen).
Put those two points together and we get a third: the readers of these tales are dopes. And a publication treating its readers as idiots is surely itself contemptible.
And yet despite the above, seemingly more than half of the readers of this endlessly wrong set of predictions seem to think they are true. Although talk to people in the ground and one finds more like 5% think the stories are real, but Arsenal simply cock the opportunities up, one after the other.
In fact the most reasoned and logical conclusion is that the modern day media has utterly lost touch with both the reality of what is happening in football and the reality of what many (probably most) supporters think.
The journalists and their editors are aware that the incoming player story is itself well past its self-by day, but no one in the blogs or the pop media has a clue what to replace this by.
The media in fact has adopted a campaign-style form of reporting in which pronouncements about what Arsenal need are mixed up with predictions of what will happen. This sort of writing builds up a momentum of its own, which has to be fed by ever more overzealous efforts to tell us who else Arsenal are going to buy.
Thus news and analysis have been abandoned – indeed how many outlets made any attempt to cover Arsenal’s dramatic improvement in the last two-thirds of last season or their change from being the most carded to almost the least carded club in one year?
The attraction for the media is that invented transfer tales cost nothing, but ultimately some fans do realise that the whole premise that buying players takes a club up the league is gibberish. For as we showed (complete with evidence) just a couple of days ago, of last year’s top spending clubs, only 1 has reached a higher league position.
Football journalism is just a nasty little con trick.
There is also the possibility that agents put out these falsehoods in order to agitate the market place.
Who cares? So what? Why are you so obsessed?
Everyone knows the transfer stories are made up. Why do you keep going on about the press? Is it the only thing in your life?
Cant you write about something else? Something interesting?
The same thing is so boring. Again and again
Andrew I think the bigger questions are a) why you keep reading Untold Arsenal when you hate it so much and despise what we do, and b) why you think that enquiring into what the media is doing is so lacking in interest.
But of course what interests you is a matter for you, and the one thing I would say is that the content of each article is clear from the title and the first paragraph or two, so if you do feel inexorably drawn to reading something you loathe so much, you will at least know the content within a few seconds which should reduce the amount of pain you suffer.
Red yes I think that is possible, but if the media was thinking and balanced, they would realise that too.
Tony
And I clearly showed the top 3 spending clubs over the last 18 years are by far the most successful. Only 2 titles have not been won by them.
One by Liverpool, still massive spenders, admittedly with a lower Net spend, and Leicester, which was a freak and will not happen again.
How much more proof do you need that spending money, big money, over long periods is the ONLY way to win the big trophies.
You can keep highlighting individual seasons, perhaps even longer periods, of high spending with no return, as much as you like, but it wont change the fact that if you DON’T spend big, you win nothing.
If Arsenal keep spending, say an average of £50 Million Nett per season for the next 5 seasons they may eventually win the Premier League. I say may, because if Chelsea, Man City and Man Utd keep spending similar amounts, they probably wont.
But I’ll tell you what, if we DON’T keep spending, stick with what we’ve got, as much as I love our boys, we will not win the PL. That is a fact.
I’m not saying we should. I’m not saying I want us to. I’m just saying if we DON’T we will not win the Premier League.
As I say, you repeatedly showing us teams that have spent and failed means nothing, because all that’s happened is they’ve been beaten by teams that have been spending that sort of money for years.
Playing catch up is very very difficult. The top top players still want to go to Man City, Chelsea and Man Utd, and probably now Liverpool before us, and certainly before Villa and Everton.
That may sound harsh but that is the reality of the situation.
I don’t get it, are you really suggesting Arsenal and all those other teams you’ve highlighted should now stop spending as a way to win the premier League ? Really ?
What do you mean by top spenders? Are we not spending at Arsenal? Please, take a single sheet of paper and calculate what we’ve been spending since 2013 when Ozil entered for 43m pounds. Arteta alone has spent more than 230m pounds in just two years! We’re not mentioning the cost of players he inherited!!!.
The truth is that we’ve not gotten a good management and a good coach. If you write a cheque of 500m pounds to Artera now, he’ll waste it on scrape as he lacks the capacity to identify good players.
The problem is Amos your first paragraph relates to previous managers and then links to Arteta. The simple fact is that of the big spenders he has done better pound for pound in raising up two positions than other spending managers.
We all know Nitram is right. Even Untold knows it, they just wont admitting it.
Arsenal still needs to spend. In December we were feeling assured of top 4. AFCON, a few injuries and suspensions and now Tottenham and Man-u have caught up. The position was ours to loose. January has been massively affected by not being able to field our preferred starting 11 which really points to issues of squad depth particularly in midfield. Aubameyang saga has also left striking positions a player short. To sort these issues players need to be bought.
But I don’t think Arsenal will be making any new signing which is a massive gamble. Hopefully they can bring back the performance levels of November and December.
Arsenal s’ inability to sign quality players makes it impossible too, to qualify for the top four position. Quality players want to play against top teams in Europe. This is the main reason why good players avoid joining Arsenal. When is this situation going to be changed?