By Tony Attwood
There is an article on the Mirror’s website today which sets up a series of ideas about Arsenal which are, perhaps not surprisingly, unfounded, or at the very best completely unproven.
The whole piece is promoted on its website, under the banner “Today’s headline” as being by Daniel Orme who is described in Football.London (which is, like the Mirror, part of the Reach plc group) as being “a Trainee Trends Writer for football.london. Originally from the Midlands, he is a Leicester City supporter and witnessed the club win the Premier League title in 2016.”
Now although Reach admit he is a trainee, that doesn’t come over in the story, which is written with what turns out to be an utterly misleading style of authority.
For example….
“Arsenal have reportedly made the decision to end their pursuit of Napoli striker Victor Osimhen” who they also quote as being priced by Napoli at over £100m. For a player who missed a third of the season last year because of covid, caught once on international duty, and once through partying at home while recovering from injury. That seems a bit unlikely.
Victor Osimhen has indeed appeared on Untold’s list of 85 players so far tipped to be coming to Arsenal this summer, but as our notes show, he has only been mentioned in outlets owned by Reach plc. No one else has taken up the story at all. And when the rest of the media are not mentioning a story that usually means it is a load of balderdash.
The piece continues with the bland assertion that “the north Londoners have been linked with a lengthy list of attacking recruits – some expected to be more expensive than others.” Well, yes that is true, given that footballers are rarely the same price as each other.
Despite this the trainee writer adds that “there is no doubt that the 23-year-old would be an excellent addition to the side” (Arsenal). But, it seems, Arsenal have not been put off by his having covid twice (at least once because of silly behaviour). No it is only the price.
And even here this is not because the player is not worth it, given his behaviour and injury record in the last year, but because “that fee is far too high for Arsenal to play” (I think he means “pay”).
So instead we are asked to believe that “Gabriel Jesus has moved to the top of their shortlist”. The trainee doesn’t then tell us, but Gabriel Jesus scored eight goals in 28 league games last season. And given that Smith Rowe got 10 league goals in 21 games last season that doesn’t seem much of an improvement.
But there is another issue that this story raises, and that is the notion that we don’t have a centre forward who scores lots of goals playing for the team. True, for much of last season Arsenal didn’t have such a player and even when Lacazette was on the pitch he was proving to be the man who makes the assists rather than the goal scorer much of the time.
However, this is a spot misleading, especially when we look back at the last seven games of last season. During that period in which Arsenal won five and lost two Lacazette, didn’t score a goal, while Eddie got five. So would we really want to drop Eddie and replace him (when he has just signed a new contract) with a new player forcing the rest of the team to play in a different way?
If so, it seems a bit strange to spend time negotiating a new contract with the player. Here are the details….
| 20 Apr 2022 | Chelsea v Arsenal | W | 2-4 | Eddie: 2 |
| 23 Apr 2022 | Arsenal v Manchester United | W | 3-1 | |
| 01 May 2022 | West Ham United v Arsenal | W | 1-2 | |
| 08 May 2022 | Arsenal v Leeds United | W | 2-1 | Eddie: 2 |
| 12 May 2022 | Tottenham Hotspur v Arsenal | L | 3-0 | |
| 16 May 2022 | Newcastle United v Arsenal | L | 2-0 | |
| 22 May 2022 | Arsenal v Everton | W | 5-1 | Eddie: 1 |
Arsenal’s scorers during this spell, alongside Eddie were
- Saka 2
- Smith Rowe
- Tavares
- Xhaka
- Holding
- Gabriel
- Martinelli
- Cedric
- Odegaard
So apart from Saka, Eddie was the one player who was knocking in the goals – which of course is what we would expect from a centre forward.
Which raises the question: would we go to all that trouble of getting Eddie to sign a new contract and having seen him emerge as the one player who can score multiple goals (five in seven in this final spell in the season, which is a rate of 27 goals a season) and then replace him by a new goalscorer with a propensity for silly behaviour?
More to the point we need to find a regular place for this one
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/football/61686339
Yes we need a new goalscorer.
1. you can’t judge a player on 7 games,
2. Your cherry-picking. I could equally say he only scored 5 in 21 prem appearances.
He’s a welbeck… or a bendtner if you will.
Not bad. Has his moment. He can be a striker but not THE striker
I could equally say he didn’t score in his first 14 premiership appearances.
Your cherry-picking.
It would appear to be even sillier to sign another player with behaviour issues when you consider that we got rid of a very good striker (Aubameyang) in January precisely because of his alleged behavioural problems.
Blah blah blah…the press…blah blah blah. Can’t you write an article without obsessing about the press. for goodness sake.
Jonny Arsenal and Jonny Martin, on this site when the same person writes under two different names they are normally blocked, but I’ll make an exception this time. One could also say that of most young forwards – in early games played at a young age they don’t score. That is why we tend to prefer recent games to earlier games. Nketiah is 23, an age at which many centre forwards see their talent at Premier League level start to emerge. So I look at recent games, not earlier ones. I would do the same with Lacazette – he is to be judged now on his more recent performances. In 2020-21 he scored 17 goals in 23, while in this last season it was six in 36. That shows he is in decline not on the rise. Eddie’s figures show he is on the rise not in decline.
Indeed I think that is so blindingly obvious I can’t quite see how you can not see it.
Andrew Banks this is a point you have made multiple times in commentaries to Untold. And my answer is always the same: Watching the way blogs are written and commentaries evolve on broadcast media, it does seem to me that many people are influenced in their thinking by the way in which the media presents a subject. Few people take up this point, this is “Untold” Arsenal, and so it seems a good topic for this blog.
Now I have made that point both in articles and in response to you many, many times before, and yet you continue to do two rather extraordinary things. First you continue to read Untold (which of course you are most welcome to do) and then second you write in and complain about Untold, which seems a strange use of your time.
You clearly know by now that a number of my articles are about the media and the way that the media twist the reporting of Arsenal in a negative way. So the question, which I have put to you before, is why do you keep reading?
It clearly takes up your time (even if you don’t get past the headline), and you invariably disapprove. This is indeed a strange twist of narcissism that you exhibit here, which could easily be overcome by not reading this blog, and yet you come back over and over again.
It is very strange. Although as I said above, you are most welcome to read the blog whenever you wish.
seems like competition within the squad is becoming less and less important this day. i remember the team under Wenger even have 3 to 4 strikers competing for the same spot
@Bushido,
3 or 4 strikers for the same spot, like number 9 ?
Of equal value and goal scoring record ?
Can’t remember that team. Please reresh my memory
@Tony, Nketiah got 5 EPL goals this season simple. Is that good enough, probably as a back up striker. Of course Arteta doesn’t have a choice he will go for another striker this summer, let’s hope we get someone who can get the job done and give us closer to 20 EPL goals next season
Do the Media lowlifes actually work for, and collect a salary from agents? I think Osimhen’s fee was originally being quoted at £40 million 3 months ago. Today I have seen it at £102 million.
Has he improved so much over such a short period of time?
@seismic,
we are just talking fantasy football here not IRL.
What you see is idiots pretending to become reporters trying to come up with any word or word combination that puts them into news feeds and adds to the probability of someone clicking on the link so their earn their pennies which, because people are so credulous, in the end add up and pollute the whole discourse.
They are part of an eco-system thriving on fake and invented news, not part of any sports reporting organisation.
Daniel Orme, I’m glad you’re keeping an eye on all the sterling work this twit turns out, I for one find it very entertaining.
The first “Gabriel Jesus will sign for Arsenal in 10 days time” stories appeared 10 days ago. Are Reach Media living up to their name?
Today I saw a story in the Express claiming that Jesus’ outrageous salary demand of £4.3 million pounds would be too much for Arsenal. That works out at about £83,000 per week, which is quite different to the £200,000 per week they were claiming that we’d pay him a couple of days earlier.
Media. What is it good for?
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Say it again, y’all