Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger in all he does » 2008 » August

Satanta coverage of Arsenal an absolute disgrace

Setanta Television, the diminutive Irish satellite channel, delivered a performance on Saturday 30 August 2008, that was so appallingly biased and self-opinionated that it will be hard for them ever to recover any respectability as a commentator on the game.

The channel used the build up to its live coverage of Arsenal vs Newcastle to indulge in continuous diatribe against the management of Arsène Wenger, calling for the manager to reverse his policy and buy player after player. A series of supporters were interviewed outside the ground, with the interviews edited so that there was not a single word saying, actually we have a really good team here and there is no need to change it. Meanwhile the two so-called “experts” in the studio – someone who appeared to be called Macca, and another bloke who had nothing to do with Arsenal – both spent their allocated time endlessly saying that the manager had to buy.At the end of the game one of the commentators returned to the theme again calling for Wenger to buy two or more players.

The fact is (although you wouldn’t know it from anything that Setanta said) that Arsenal have a whole raft of central midfielders: Song, Fabregas, Denilson and Daiby, with Eboue as a backup – all spring to mind at once.

Then there is the fact that Nasri can also play in the middle (so you might imagine Rosicky and Theo as the wingers and Fabregas and Nasri in the middle).

Then there is Bischoff – by all accounts a highly talented central midfielder who could end all our problems. Ah but he’s injured, people say, as if that means he won’t ever play again. But then think of Gilberto – out for a year with his back injury. And Robert Pires with his knee ligament problem. And quite possibly Eduardo. People do come back, although Wenger admits Bischoff is a gamble, his gambles come off more than not.

So, to cover that ground again: Song, Fabregas, Denilson, Diaby, Eboue, Nasri and Bischoff. That’s our central midfield. Of course you can still create an argument for more – but surely such an argument should take account of all the midfielders we already have. And I haven’t even mentioned Ramsey.

As if this lopsided approach to commentating was not enough the TV station then spent much of its coverage pushing the idea that Barton should not be allowed to play for Newcastle, because he had been in prison.

Here again there are two points of view, and whatever you think of Barton, you have to recognise that there is the point of view that says, when a person has been found guilty of a crime, and has paid their fine or served a prison sentence, then that should be it. The courts are the designated place in which retribution against offenders is meted out in the UK – unless of course you fancy justice by Irish owned TV station.

I personally felt Arsenal were right to stay with Tony Adams during his imprisonment, and to bring him back into the team as captain upon his return. But much more to the point was that Setanta kept on giving voice to the notion that there is a moral stance for Newcastle to take – that of giving Barton the sack. In fact there is another moral stance to take – which is to say, people who have been to prison should be given help and support once they have served their time, and that this is a more moral stance than sacking a person.

Of course, as TS Eliot pointed out in “Murder in the Cathedral” it is possible to do the right deed for the wrong reason – and for the club to hold onto Barton because they are short of players smacks of that as it does not take any sort of moral stance at all. But no one mentioned that issue. And the fact is that the arguments of the station on a complex moral point were simplified and trite. If they were not going to cover the issue properly they would have been better off leaving it alone.

Finally there’s the man of the match award from Satanta for Van Persie. I don’t have inside knowledge on this but I was sure that RVP was a Muslim – which would mean that he can’t drink. If so, it’s a bit dumb to give him that prize isn’t it. £300 to a charity would be better.

I’m not saying Sky, BBC or ITV are any better. It’s all fairly awful in fact – this one just happened to annoy me more than most.

Man U finances in trouble; Arsenal flying

It was much reported this week that Arsenal are at last saying openly, “Just read our financial statements and reports” in the face of endless mindless commentary about Arsenal having no money.

What was not reported however was the fact that Manchester Bankrupt’s situation is so bad that they are now having to cut costs anywhere and everywhere they can.

So far the problems signing Berbatov have been put down to “bad blood” between the Bankrupts and the Tiny Totts, but the fact is that the Bankrupts have simply not been able to afford the Tinies high price and anyway vampires don’t eat each other, that’s just daft.

This week however matters went further with the Bankrupts off-loading Silvestre to Arsenal and Saha to Everton.

Saha cost £12.8 million and is going for nothing – simply to get rid of the £65,000 a week wage bill. Add in national insurance, player insurance and Silvestre and the Bankrupts have just saved themselve £6,000,000 a year. This might not seem that much to a football club, but when you can’t even afford to pay the interest on your borrowings, every single bit helps.

Arsenal meanwhile have no such problems, and according to the Guardian, Arsenal are the sixth highest spending club this summer. The top six being

Aston Villa £48m

Manchester thailand £45.45m

The Tiny Totts £44m

Liverpool Liquidators 330.8m

CSKA Fulham £24.2m

Arsenal £21.5m

These figures will change over the weekend of course, and they are only purchases; sales are a different matter.

And this is the same week that the top shareholer at Arsenal said that if Wenger asked for £30m to buy one player the answer would be “yes” before they even asked who it was.

Platini offers Arsenal everything

If you are reading this it is either because

a) you don’t want to read any more of the negative stuff that it pouring out from Arsenal blogs hour after hour – all saying that we are bust, we are doomed, we’re going into the Conference, no one wants to sign for us, Wenger has lost the plot, and at the next high tide the Emirates will be under water

b) you clicked the wrong button and got here by mistake

Either way, here’s the good news.

First Liverpool Weetabix (so named because the owners of Liverpool are also the owners of Weetabix – subtle eh?) are to be renamed Liverpool Insolvency. Today, the Guardian revealed what our back of the beer mat calculations have been revealing for some time. That Liverpool are living so close to the edge that if you were to take out the £20m gained from the Champions League even for one season, they would be technically insolvent.

Second Liverpool Insolvency have just lost their stadium. First they had the ignomy of the EU pulling out its £5m support. Then the Regional Development Agency pulled out. Now they have admitted it. They can’t raise the money to build the thing. It’s over. It’s off. As is Everton’s planned ground move as well.

So while the poor, defeated, awful, lost Arsenal managed to build a rather nifty 60,000 state of the art place, the rest of the universe struggles.

Manchester Bankrupt are, well, bankrupt. Last year they couldn’t even pay the interest on their debts.

Liverpool, Everton and Man City are struggling to pay, CSKA Fulham only survive as long as the owner doesn’t call in the loans, Tottenham’s finances simply don’t add up at all, and now….

Uefa is launching an investigation into club debts. Oh yes. Experts (that will be me, then) will make recommendations (clubs that can’t pay their interest should be put in the Conference – sorry that’s just me, not Mr Platini’s men).

Now, if you are still there, here is the really wonderful bit.

Platini said that he thought some clubs are “cheating when they buy players they cannot afford.” With Man Bankrupt and CSKA F owing over £1.5bn we can guess who he means (although he also included Celta Vigo who did a Leeds.

“European football must be clean and transparent and we do not want clubs buying success on credit,” Platini said.

If he sees this through then a significant number of EPL clubs are going to be in real, and I mean really real – like big-time really big real – trouble

Arsenal night: Guardian very funny, BBC truly awful

There is a piece in the Guardian today concerning last night’s Arsenal / Twenty Twenty game which really made me laugh out loud. Scroll down through the report, to the be underneath, and there you will find a minute by minute Dutchness rating of the McClaren. Not to everyone’s humour I’m sure, but it had me in fits.

Here’s an extract

32 mins Twente pass and pass and pass but never get anywhere. Just when you think they’re about to progress, the ball suddenly and mysteriously ends up back at the feet of their goalkeeper. Of course, we’ve seen this trompe l’oeil effect before: could it be they are stuck in an MC Escher print?

Dutchness rating: 82%

Meanwhile the BBC’s coverage of the game was the worst ever. There were calls for Arsenal to cheat (“if he’d fallen over at that point he’d have got a penalty”) and to foul “they need to ‘mix it’ more”) and precious little acceptance of a job well done. Much of the time there were negative comments about the style and approach.

I find it so sad – the BBC is a great cultural institution and yet they have let the sport drift into the hands of people who have modest communication skills and limited knowledge as they shuttle between one location and another.

But back to the Guardian. They win today’s prize for being silly in football. I feel much better for it.

I told you journalists were dodgy

Although this column is about Arsenal, a central part of our thesis is that much of the problem in football is caused by the way certain journalists and their editors report the doings of football clubs – in particular Arsenal. The malicious twisting of the stories about Arsenal’s finances are a case in point.

Thus it is with much glee and delight that I can report that The People (which although not a newspaper likes to pass itself off as one) has has suspended its sports editor.

Of course I have no insight into the situation, and know nothing about the rights or wrongs of the case. But since most sports editors know nothing about the rights and wrongs of cases and that doesn’t stop them commenting like mad, so I’ll say a word or two.

It is, it seems, all about “financial irregularities”.

What could this mean?

I leave it to you to guess. Journalist. Financial irregularities.

Hmmmmm

Payment of money for stories maybe?

One interesting point is that the journalist concerned, a “MrHorton” is known to be a fan of a so-called “football team” known as “West Ham”

Say no more.

The secret behind the transfers, getting wet and going bust

Two important pieces of transfer news and some big financial chit-chat. First: Senderos – exactly why do Milan want him? According to the Sun (yes I know its not going to be true, but sometimes you get a laugh) the Manager said that Milan had searched high and low for the best possible big central defender, and found him in Senderos.

Meanwhile Vidic of Manchester Bankrupt says in the Telegraph, the “main attraction [of Manchester] is considered to be the timetable at the railway station, where trains leave for other, less rainy cities.”

I think we can all go along with that.

Meanwhile the Guardian today reveals that Manchester City are now so broke, that in order to pay the compensation due to Blackburn Rovers for the purchase of their “manager” (known as Ooooze) (a total of £2m) they had to borrow it from another director.

This news comes on top of the revelation last month that Manchester City took out a loan for £25m which was secured against the TV income not for this year but for next year (I think they have already mortgaged this year’s money). (I wonder what they do if they get relegated).

And meanwhile Man-See are still shopping around to buy players! Just like Tottenham. And just like many Arsenal blogs want Arsenal to do (although to be fair, Arsenal do actually have the money).

So Senderos to Milan, Vidic doesn’t like Manchester, and Man City going bust….

Of course the biggest problem we now have is what to call Manchester City. Given that their wet neighbours are called Manchester Bankrupt. Maybe Manchester Overdrawn. Or just plain Manchester Wet.

2012 Olympics bad news for Arsenal

The next Olympics (they are being held in London – but maybe you knew that) will cause Arsenal much bigger headaches than those that have just been held in China.

This time we only lost Song. Looking at the number of youngsters coming through the chances are that we are going to be decimated in 2012.

Olympic football is a dreadful mess of screwed up stupid regulations. England, Scotland, Wales and N Ireland are not allowed to enter because they are not “countries” – although the British Virgin Islands can enter if they wish. Football is also the only sport where the Olympics puts in its own artificial age limit – it is an under 23 tournament with a couple of older players allowed.

However because the Olympics are being held in London, the Olympics association has told “Team GB” as we now have to call our country, that it has to enter a football team.

Scotland, Wales and N Ireland have told the committee to stuff themselves – after all the only impact the Olympics has on them is that they have to pay for it. So it is going to be an England team playing as a GB team, and it is going to be full of young players.

And guess where all the young players are going… Arsenal of course.

So Jack Wilshere is going to play – along with other members of the team now coming through. Theo might be there as captain.

The only up-side is that the government is demanding that the EPL should put the start of the EPL season back to the end of August, so that it doesn’t clash with the Olympics. Which might be good, because otherwise, if England were to qualify for the next European Championship we could have players playing in one tournament, and then another.

Mind you, according to most of the blogs around at the moment, Arsenal will be a League Two team by then because of the ineptitude of our manager, so maybe we won’t even notice.

Dont panic: its just an injury thing

This article was published a little while back, but didn’t get logged on the news sites, so I thought I would give it another go.

Going into the Fulham match Arsenal had 8 players unavailable: Silvestre, Eduardo, Rosicky, Diaby, Fabgregas, Senderos, Bischoff and Vela. No other club had disruption on that scale.

Here’s the run down (figures from the Guardian on Saturday morning 23 August)

Aston Villa – doubtful 0 injured 2

Blackburn – doubtful 0, injured 0

Bolton Notlob – doubtful 1, injured 0

CSKA Fulham – doubtful 1, injured 2

Everton – Doubtful 2, injured 5

Fulham – doubtful 0, injured 3.

Hull – doubtful 1, injured 0.

Liverpool Weetabix – doubtful 2, injured 2, Olympics 2

Middlesborough – Doubtful 0, injured 0

Man City – Doubtful 1, injured 4

Manchester Bankrupt – Doubtful 1, injured 5

Newcastle – Doubtful 1, injured 3

Portsmouth – Doubtful 0, injured 5

Stoke – Doubtful 1, injured 0

Sunderland, Doubtful 1 injured 3

Tottenham, Doubtful 3, injured 1

West Ham – Doubtful 2, injured 5

West Brom – Doubtful 1 injured 0

Wigan – Doubtful 1 injured 1

Some injuries are of course just bad luck, but there is a tendency here – clubs that have a huge number of internationals and are already playing in Europe suffer early on. Clubs with neither have fewer injuries. Of course the rule is not absolute, but it is a guide.

Now you can think that Arsenal players will continue to suffer this very high level of injury, and so we need to buy more and more players, or you can think that over time the number of injuries will settle down closer to the average for the league.

If a manager buys too many players he gets players who get thoroughly annoyed and leave (Diarra is a perfect example). Because agents want players to leave they will encourage them, even when there are signs that waiting for a while will result in more games. If a manager doesn’t buy enough players then he gets the criticism that you can currently see on any blog today.

If Wenger had bought 2 more midfielders already maybe we would have beaten Fulham (although the problems were not just Denilson – they were also the problems of Van Persie, Gallas, Theo, and even at times Sagna.) But if he had bought those problems what would happen if, in 2 months, others are back.

I’m not really expecting to convince anyone through this, but rather to say, there is a logic in Wenger’s work – I don’t believe he is as mad as some bloggers think.

Arsenal’s problems are entirely down to injury

Going into the Fulham match Arsenal had 8 players unavailable: Silvestre, Eduardo, Rosicky, Diaby, Fabgregas, Senderos, Bischoff and Vela. No other club had disruption on that scale.

Here’s the run down (figures from the Guardian on Saturday morning 23 August)

Aston Villa – doubtful 0 injured 2

Blackburn – doubtful 0, injured 0

Bolton Notlob – doubtful 1, injured 0

CSKA Fulham – doubtful 1, injured 2

Everton – Doubtful 2, injured 5

Fulham – doubtful 0, injured 3.

Hull – doubtful 1, injured 0.

Liverpool Weetabix – doubtful 2, injured 2, Olympics 2

Middlesborough – Doubtful 0, injured 0

Man City – Doubtful 1, injured 4

Manchester Bankrupt – Doubtful 1, injured 5

Newcastle – Doubtful 1, injured 3

Portsmouth – Doubtful 0, injured 5

Stoke – Doubtful 1, injured 0

Sunderland, Doubtful 1 injured 3

Tottenham, Doubtful 3, injured 1

West Ham – Doubtful 2, injured 5

West Brom – Doubtful 1 injured 0

Wigan – Doubtful 1 injured 1

I’m not really expecting to convince anyone through this, but rather to say, there is a logic in Wenger’s work – I don’t believe he is as mad as some bloggers think.

Arsenal do not have to emulate Tottenham

The Tottenham response to failure, year after year is to buy, buy again, sell someone, buy a few more, spend £30 million, buy and then buy. Year after year they fail, celebrating widly when their first team beat our kiddies in the diddly widdly cup. That’s what they get, that’s what they win, that’s what they scream about.

For those who have a feeling for the northern part of London, and who feel that buying and buying and buying is the way forward there is just such a club. The Tiny Totts.

Arsenal on the other hand do it differently. True, they don’t win the EPL every year, nor have they won anything for a few years. But they have still won a hell of a lot more than the Totts.

There have been disasters before. Those of us who suffered Manchester Bankrupt 6 Arsenal 1, in a team complete with Henry and the rest, will know that it can at times be awful. But that is not how it continues. No Wenger team has ever suffered an awful defeat and then gone on and suffered another and another.

If this happens – and we lose again and again and play dreadful football, I will of course admit that I am 10000% wrong and that the whole essence of Untold Arsenal – the complete and absolute support of Wenger and his World Wide Scouting policy is wrong, and that ultimately the policy of World Wide Scouting has failed.

But not yet. One result – one bad result – does not mean that he has screwed up totally.

I will be honest, and I will admit it if wrong (which at least distinguishes me from the 8,983,762 football journalists who infest our daily and sunday papers), but for now I think that the Fulham game was a screw up – a combination of events where it all went wrong on one day – nothing more.

I might be the only person saying this, and I might ultimately be proven to be the total moron that you think I am, but I still believe that this is going to be ok. We’ve had sebacks before. I’ll still be there cheering, not booing, at the Euro match.

Arsenal in time warp mode: but there are positives

To say that the disaster against Fulham realised all our worst fears is nonsense. It was a terrible display – rather similar to watching Arsenal in the 1960s – but that doesn’t mean its all over for the season, and we can write everything off now.

The same players as we saw at Fulham have put in much better performances in the pre-season games, and we have to remember that what we saw was not just a dreadful display from Denilson, and a modestly ok performance from Eboue – it was far worse than that. We also saw a very poor showing from Van Persie, Nasri, Gallas… even our full backs had an off time. Those who weren’t actually off, were average.

It happens in all fields. Talk to musicians and actors and they will tell you, even at the top of their professions they get collective off-days. The only thing that can turn such a day around would be a sensational display by one player – but Cesc wasn’t there, and Adebayor hit the post. Had that shot gone in we might have been saying, “we were rubbish but we got away with it”.

So the good news is…

a) With a bit of luck we got our one dreadful game of the season out of the way straight off. (Remember Man Bankrupt last season – two points from the first three games – oh how we laughed… until they started winning).

b) This injury run can’t go on forever – ultimately the injuries that destroyed us last year will stop.

c) Carlos Vela must stop playing for Mexico sometime or other and be available.

d) Nasri will ultimately adjust – the problem is that it could take a while. Pires, who I always rate as the man who made Henry the great player he became, was ordinary in year one, and an utter master in year two.

e) Wenger might well buy someone else.

f) Cesc will come back, and Song is now looking better and better.

g) Gallas and Toure must get back eventually on speaking terms and know where each other is.

i) No one doubts the full backs, and they will return to sparkling form eventually.

j) Denilson is not rubbish. Just as Song had a dreadful time at Fulham a year back, so he’s had it this time. That does not mean the end.

k) Either Wenger will ultimately be proven correct over Eboue or else he will let him go.

l) Jack Wilshere gets a day older every day, and with that comes strength and ability.

I could go on to z but no one would read on. The fact is, it was a collective disaster – kick the ball up field and hope. Lob it in from the sidelines and hope.

Of course if they play like this again, then there is cause for concern. But if it was our one off disaster, fine… let’s start the season again.

Forward, forward, forward, winger, overseas, injured

Not every Arsenal story gets listed on sites such as GoonerNews. It is not that there is censorship going on, its just something odd about the way the system works. So, from time to time, I’ll try and do a summary of the exciting, stunning, amazing and overwhelming stories that Untold Arsenal has covered recently. In case you missed any. There’s a list of a few at the bottom of the page.

Meanwhile, for the Fulham game we’ll have three forwards available: Ade, Nic and Van P.

Then there’s Theo who might be on the wing.

Then there’s Carlos Vela who has been playing in Mexico (how many bloody games do Mexico have to have???? And don’t accuse me of being anti-Mexican – I’m against all internationals).

And there’s Eduardo, back in November.

At this rate we will never ever have a forward shortage, for as soon as one goes down and another trots off overseas, we have 3 more ready to come forwards. Rather nice that.

Here’s some of the other odd stuff that has been run on this exquisite site this week.

Do Arsenal fans really need to copy Tottenham?

It’s bad enough Arsenal supporters doing the bidding of the Daily Mail and News of the World, but when they are reported to be copying fans of the Tiny Totts, it really does get a bit much.

I speak, of course, about the booing.

The Tiny Totts boo Berbatov because he has said he wants to leave – and Ramos couldn’t even bring himself to put Berbatov on the pitch for the start of the last game. Berbatov says he wants to go and play for a bigger club. So, by and large, most of us would say that’s ok – boo him. He is by far and away the very best Tiny Tott player for the past 20 years, and if you want to screw up his time at the club, boo like mad.

(Oh and please could you sell him to a foreign club, because actually he is rather good, and we don’t want him at Manchester Bankrupt – who won’t pay you anyway).

But what then makes people think it is good to boo Adebayor? He did NOT say he wanted to leave the club – at worst he read a script held up by his agent, which resulted in him getting a better deal at Arsenal. He has not behaved liked Berbatov, and Arsenal has not behaved liked Tottenham. Adebayor has signed and is part of the club and in case anyone did not notice, he has scored one or two vital goals.

Of course the people who really got the story running – the Mail and News of the World – love this. It is another story to run – Arsenal fans boo their own player, and (as can be seen on the recordings of the opening game) it made him try harder and harder personally to score a second goal in the game. As a result he lost his natural flow and the goal did not come.

I don’t get it. Why bother to pay all this money to come into the ground and do the work of the wretched fanatical right wing idiots who write for such newspapers? Would it not be better to focus on having a little snigger at Tottenham, and then work like hell to support Arsenal?

Ramos has complained in today’s Guardian that the current football situation in England is unfair because the football is mixed with the transfer window. So having gone from transfers up until 6 weeks before the end of the season, down to transfers only within a specific 6 weeks of the season (August and January), he now wants to get rid of all that and just have transfers in July. You don’t have to make anything up to laugh at Tottenham – they provide all the material. As if Ramos didn’t know when the transfer window was before he took the job.
Of course in arguing for a short transfer window Ramos is continuing the Totts wonderful transfer tradition. (Remember Hoddle when he claimed that although the Totts had signed no one they had in fact NEARLY signed eight players).

But this circus style approach to football is best left to the guys at the wrong end of Seven Sisters Rd. What we should do is support our team, and smile in amusement at yet another year of the newspapers saying that Tottenham are going to become a top four club.

Yes dear. Of course they will.

Now have your hot milk and go to bed.

Attack, attack, attack, attack (don’t apologise)

I guess it is only one when goes abroad for a while and you bump into supporters of rival clubs who (c0ntrary to popular belief) do not have six heads and can manage more than a couple of grunts in response to questions on Britain’s entry into the Euro and whether Paul Ince is actually a decent manager, that one begins to see the extent of the bile that “supporters” pour out onto their clubs’ managers and directors.

Personally I think Wenger represents everything I want an Arsenal manager to be, and the attacks on him that I read on blogs and in the press suggesting that he is so trapped by his own notion of recruiting youngsters and not spending money that he needs to be sacked NOW, are really just rather silly.

So it is a relief to realise that supporters of other teams suffer from the same attitude. Once you get below the bravado, and learn how to speak the lingo, you find that many Liverpool Weetabix supporters are very fed up with their manager and their board. While the media keep running the rather pathetic “big four” line, the Weetabix supporters actually do recognise that they haven’t won the EPL and don’t look like doing so and that there is in reality a “big 3″ and they are not there. They see themselves slipping when they should be rising, and they are full of frustration.

Manchester Bankrupt supporters are surprisingly critical of Wayne the Virus Eater, are utterly frustrated by the Board, and worried by the fact that they cannot pay their debts.

CSKA Fulham fans are really not convinced by their new man at the helm, and believe that the owner is interfering in team selection and transfers. And there is that nagging doubt that one day, just one day, the Great and Glorious Leader of the People’s Revolution (and multi billionaire) will get pissed off with the lot of them.

So it goes on. No one is very satisfied. No matter whether you have just risen from the Green Cube Conversation or whatever the league under the league is called, and are having your first season in Division 4 for 10 years, or whether you have the entire economy of Russia at your disposal, there is a feeling that the manager and chairman are dolts.

But, in terms of Arsenal, I have to differ. My dad watched Arsenal under Chapman, and those who followed during the three consecutive championships. He was there in January 1933 when we lost 2-0 away to Walsall (away support was not huge at the time, but he played in a jazz band and they were on tour in the Midlands) and went on to become the greatest team in the world. And he told me about the good and the bad.

I watched the club through the Billy Wright era – hardly a high point, and through those long long years of Liverpool domination when Arsenal and Manchester Then Not Very Bankrupt were considered to be dinosaurs. Relics of an old time – no longer relevant to the new ways of football.

Wenger has taken us beyond that and given us a new approach – an approach based on World Wide Scouting. An approach where we can put out a team aged 19 and win a European 3rd round tie. An approach where we are the only team to have gone a season unbeaten since the opening season of football in the entire world.

And what do people do? Attack him. Over and over again. He signs no one: attack. He signs a guy from Cardiff: attack. He signs some 16 year old from Barca that we have never heard of called, oh, what’s his name, Francesca Fibreglass or something – what’s the use of that? Attack. And when four years later Cesc is one of the greatest players on the planet, a player who we now could not afford to buy, a player who is devoted to the manager who gave him a life, who apologises?

No one.

The only thing going for the Arsenal fans who attack and attack is that they are the same as the fans of Liverpool Weetabix, CSKA F, and Man Bankrupt. And personally, I’d sooner keep my difference.

Virus contracts Wayne Rooney: a world perspective

Viewing events from high up in the Julian Alps gives one a new perspective on football affairs, and none more so than in the extraordinary case of the virus that caught “Wayne Rooney”.

I can tell you that in much of the world this was a story of considerable concern, and many were deeply worried about the health of the virus. Fortunately as we now know the virus ultimately recovered but the affair does reveal exactly how dangerous a Wayne Rooney can be.

For, as we saw on Wednesday night, while the Wayne Rooney is a totally useless shambles when wearing an English shirt, if a virus catches a Rooney it can do untold damage to the virus as a semi-life-form.

I think we should take far more care when letting things like the Wayne Rooney out. When it happens (as it did last night) GP surgeries should be put on high alert, and there should be leaflets through every door warning the natives of the dangers of children contracting a Wayne Rooney. It is said that one can catch Wayne Rooney just by putting a Wayne Rooney shirt on. While this is of course just a silly story (along with the one that says you can go blind by putting a Wayne Rooney shirt on) it should not be used to cover up the real dangers of Wayne Rooney.

Thankfully life in the virus world has now calmed down, talk of retaliation and mass innoculation of viruses against Wayne Rooney has been set aside, and we can focus on Fulham.

I had a wonderful holiday, and thank you to everyone who took the trouble to write personally both wishing me well for the trip and welcoming me back yesterday. Slovenia is a brilliant, relaxed, clean, calm and friendly country. I recommend it to everyone who knows that just occasionally there is life outside of football and the pub.

Tony

Silvestre may be more than a player

I have no insight as to whether the notion of signing Silvestre is true or not – but if it is true it is almost certainly for three reasons:

a) To allow some of the younger talent to come through Consider Havard Nordtveit who has recently toddled off to Salamanca on loan. If we look ahead to the end of his loan he will need experienced people around him who can help, steady the ship and give guidance.

b) To ensure that no one is rushed into the squad. We’ve seen Traore and Song both have hard times when they were pushed a little too hard too fast.

c) Because Wenger sees him as part of the broader team – as he did with Garde and Grimandi when Wenger first joined the club. He has shown several times that he is as concerned to get his scouting team right as he is to get his players on the pitch right.

I’d guess that Silvestre is coming in, but that there is far more to it than having an extra experienced player around for certain games.

Just because its different, doesn’t mean its wrong

Wenger is building a very young team – and every day on the radio, on TV and in the press there are screams that he has to buy buy buy buy buy buy buy buy.

You’d think that somewhere an editor or a producer might say, “Hang on guys, we’ve run the story about Wenger needing to buy experience 284,811,047 times in the past week – shouldn’t we try another story?”

“Oh but its the big news boss,” says the rambling reporter. “It’s what everyone is talking about.”

And yes they are. Like the idea that we were going to sign Lilian Thuram (Daily Mail). Thank you very much for that one. Three weeks before Thuram retires we are going to buy a guy born in 1972. And what a surprise we didn’t.

In fact, Wenger is trying a huge experiment. He knows that there are both mental and physical issues in football. In fact Wenger invented the phrase “mental strength” which everyone now uses as if it were their own. And he values high speed as a way of turning the thug defenders of Bolton, Blackburn and (until we put the curse of Arsenal on them – Birmingham).

So he is trying the idea of an incredibly young team. It is unusual, and it is worthy of debate, but it is not necessarily wrong. Young players have some significant advantages…

a) The thug defenders don’t know much about them, so don’t know which way they will turn and run. The reason so many attackers have problems in year 2 or 3 is that by then the defenders have got the hang of them.

b) The youngsters can run faster than anyone else – fly down the pitch and get behind the defence.

c) They are still learning mentally, and are more responsive to the club’s ways than some older players who come in.

So could a team of 21 year olds win the league? I think it is possible. A revolutionary thought – but that is the glory of Wenger. He is the great revolutionary.

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We’re closing down today for a couple of weeks in the sunshine. Back in 2 weeks. Thank you to everyone who has written in with kind words and comments, and to those who called me a racist – well I just think you are wrong.

And if you haven’t taken a look you might enjoy a little wander around Making the Arsenal, which has started to tell the story of Arsenal 1910 to 1930 through the eyes of a journalist at the time. The next episode will have to wait on that site also for two weeks, but it will continue.

It could be Alonso, it could be a house

Bluffing is the game – you go out and say you want player X but then say, “but the price has to be lower”. Or you see that Manchester Bankrupt are looking to sign Y, so you jump in quickly with an offer that you are never going to see through.

Cynical, nasty, bent, with twisted agents… yup, it is exactly like buying and selling a house.

You want to buy a house and the estate agent says, “oh everyone is after that style at the moment. Really popular, comes at a premium. And in that location – all the rage. Of course everyone wants to do up older properties so that’s why they cost more…”

You want to sell the same house 3 years late, and the agent says, “unfortunately the market is flooded just now with properties of exactly that type. They haven’t been popular for 10 years or more. And the location – it really doesn’t work. I can see you have done a lot to it, but the style isn’t really right for this year…”

So with Alonso

Either we want to buy him, and the agent and Liverpool Weetabix have upped the price

Or we don’t want to buy him and we are just messing up Liverpool’s attempt to sell Alonso and buy Barry

Or it was all made up by the journalists anyway.

Certainly we are lacking next to Cesc. Diaby looked rusty, although that might just be because he is rusty. We can’t see what Song is like as he’s playing with five rings in China. Ramsey doesn’t look right there… but maybe it is because Vieira was so sensational that we just can’t accept anyone else.

Still, we do have Jack.

Those who boo Ade simply support the Daily Mail anti-Arsenal campaign

I don’t have any doubt that the Adebayor summer show was run by a pimp (aka “footballer’s agent”) trying to get more money for his slave (ie “player”).

Knowing that football journalists will print anything they are given and that clubs like WC Milan and BarBarBarcaSheep will grab at anything to divert attention from their disasters of last season it was clear the story would run.

As a result Ade got his pay rise and new contract.

So I ask myself, if I weren’t very bright (sorry Ade, but its my impression) but happened to be a stunningly brilliant player, and my pimp said “hey man you could get twice as much cash, just read this autocue” then I would do it.

And he did.

Now we have to consider our reaction as fans. If we cheer him because he is rather good and scores goals, and can help us win the EPL this season, then we do something for the club.

If we boo him, it gets onto Sky, into the papers, and we have another “Arsenal in Crisis” shock horror story, which does no one any good but keeps the idiots who write the Daily Mail etc in business.

Personally I prefer to keep Arsenal in business and at the top of the league. The football I watched against Real Mad today was the best I have ever seen in a pre-season game. So I go with Arsenal against the journalists.

And that’s the choice. Cheer Ade for Arsenal. Boo Ade for the Daily Mail.

How much did Wenger really know

Summertime – when football journalists remind us just what total prats they are. They make up stories, rubbish our club, and then… play the pretend game.

Ade will sign for Barca tomorrow, screams the dribbling little child, and then when Ade turns up ready to sign his new contract, they say, “while some sources predicted that Adebayor would leave…”

Some sources indeed. It was you, you idiot.

But in the midst of all this garbage and deliberate attempt to undermine Arsenal, I wonder what Wenger is up to. Here’s a guess…

Wenger knew at the end of the season that Hleb was going and Flamini would probably not re-sign. Flamini had been a gamble – Wenger could have given him a new contract a year back, but didn’t know if Flamini would make it. Hleb, I suspect, he was getting fed up with. He could dribble to infinity – but then it you watch some of the film of last year you can see Eduardo could do that if pushed. Big difference: Eduardo can beat two players out of a corner and put in the killer pass.

So that was his starting point. Hleb to go, Flamini probably.

Lehmann was also gone – hence his cameo at the end – and Gilberto could be expected to leave, rather than pick up his money for 10 games a year. There’s honour in that position, and everyone respects it.

Adebayor, having come on in leaps and bounds since his transfer from Monaco 2.5 years back clearly needed a new contract, and that was always going to happen.

Now comes the twist. BarBarBarcaSheep and Real Mad, along with WC Milan, would all start playing silly buggers with their transfer talk – Cesc, Hleb, and that sort of thing. Why not let them have fun dragging Ade into it, while Arsenal quietly got on with signing Ramsey, bringing in Vela, and ultimately unleashing Wilshere. That would allow the Mail to do its “Board will sell over Wenger’s head to try and balance the books” story to run, and encourage everyone to think that Arsenal were a selling club.

But why?

Because if WC Milan, Barca or Real Mad really thought they might get their hands on Adebayor then that would destabilize them – all that energy going into the wrong place.

I was drawn along this line of thought by remembering how fast Henry left for BarBar after the end of the season – it was done on day 1. And this year Flamini was out before the transfer window opened.

I am starting to think that there is a puppet master in all this – and the puppet master is Wenger.

Still, as the wonder S McClaren said, “It will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience that doesn’t come along that often.”

BBC reveals its full anti-Arsenal approach

The BBC has revealed just how far it will go this year to knock Arsenal.

In a Radio 5 piece in Drive on 1 August a piece about Arsenal covered all the players who had left (including Lehman and Gilberto), and said that Adebayor might leave too. They then listed the players in, totally missing Carlos Vela – despite his superb performances, the fact that he is the resident centre forward for Mexico, and the club has given him number 12.

Meanwhile the BBC publication Radio Times for 2-8 August has a piece on Arsenal on page 66 which says, and I quote exactly, “Cesc Fabregas will want to dispel rumours of a move back to Spain as Arsenal take on Real Madrid in the Emirates Cup.”

Rumours of a move back to Spain???????????

I despair but at least we know where we stand with the Corporation before we start.

So let’s return to the fun of the fair.

“A once in a lifetime experience that doesn’t come along very often”

I’ll run that by you once again

“A once in a lifetime experience that doesn’t come along very often.”

I’m coming back to it because for reasons best known to itself Goonernews didn’t run the last article on Untold Arsenal in which I gave a fulsome and generous review of the life and times of Mr McLaren – as in Arsenal 7 Muddlesbrough 0.

You can click back to the article, if you feel so inclined.

Let’s have fun tomorrow.

A once-in-a-lifetime experience that doesn’t come along that often

I love Mr McClaren. He is my favourite twirp. He’s also a turnip, and several other vegetables as well.

And today, the wonderful magnifico Mr Mc said, and I quote here directly without any little extra words added or subtracted, he said…

“It will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience that doesn’t come along that often.”

Isn’t that something. Doesn’t it make you think, yes, this man would be a good manager for, oh, I don’t know, Engerland. Yes.

I mean I know he was in charge of Middlesbrough for Arsenal 7 Middlesbrough 0. And I know that he said that the reason they lost 7-0 was that they had teenagers on the pitch (when in fact he put 3 teenagers on as subs when they were already 4-0 down – which is something even sunday morning football managers know not to do).

But still, he’s a jolly good old stick, and he speaks in funny tongues.

And of course you know that we are going to play his current side in the third qualifying round of the cuppy thing. You know this because if you go on GoonerNews every single web site (except this one, and one that sells that Wilshere is rubbish) leads with

McClaren’s men to play Arsenal in Cup

or some such.

So there we are

“It will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience that doesn’t come along that often.” Well now, in my experience once-in-a-lifetime experiences come along once in a lifetime. By and large.

As it were.

I think.

Arsenal 7 Middlesbrough 0. I quite enjoyed that match.

Bentley gets on top of himself – not a nice sight

Bentley – “player” whom Tottenham have had to pay Arsenal for – is busy creating a role for himself. “I’m the one they are going to boo” he dribbles from his crib.

It is a bit like Paul Ince – desperately anxious to create a role for himself, so he makes up his own nickname, gets a personal number plate to match, and then tells everyone he doesn’t like the name. So Bentley tells everyone Arsenal fans will boo him, and will then to a serious of interviews in the Mail and News of the Dickheads in which he says how childish Arsenal supporters are for booing him.

Personally I would love it if when he “plays” next at Arsenal everyone should have little tweety bird whistles and they should all be blown each time he touches the ball. But certainly not boo.

Booing suggests that one cares about the creature – whereas in fact Bentley is a figure of fun – a man who demanded he should be in the first team from the moment he got in the squad, a man who thought it better to go to Blackburn than fight his way up through the Arsenal scheme of things, a man who thinks The Tiny Totts are a football club.

Bird whistle noises are much more appropriate.