Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger in all he does » 2009 » January

Arsenal: this is getting insane

I read an article on a blog yesterday in which the writer (who claimed to be writing one of the most highly read of all the Arsenal blogs) said that this was the time when Arsene Wenger had to prove himself.

It struck me as one of the most crazy things I had ever read, although in style and approach I must admit it was similar to a number of letters published on this blog. The central theme is that the writer can see the reality and only Wenger is blinkered, inept, silly, stubborn, unable to see what needs to be done etc. The names of Song and Diaby come up quite often in such pieces at the moment as examples of uselessness.

This morning there is a piece on the Mirror’s web site in which they have the headline FLOP GUNS WENGER

I am not quite sure what it means, because after the usual journalese in the first couple of lines it settles down to being a rather good article, with a very lucid and clear set of statements in impeccible English (no split infiniteves here) from Dennis Hill-Wood.

What really surprises me is the lack of credible alternatives that are presented in most arguments. Not all articles, I admit, but in most. The argument is, this is rubbish, Song is rubbish, Denilson is rubbish, you are on another planet if you don’t see we need a defensive midfielder…..

What I find is a lack of any set of notions as to who would replace Wenger. And in this I mean someone who would be better without taking the club to the edge of ruin that Liverpool currently face.

(And it is important to recognise that the Liverpool crisis is not just of my invention for the sake of this blog. In July their money runs out for the very last time. The current £350m loan was given on strict instruction that none of it is to be used to buy players. Their only hope is that the Arabs move in. The Arabs have every ace – they can cut the price, they can withdraw, they can let the club sink, they can lose interest, they can declare war on Israel (or vice versa) they can find another Iraq in their midst…)

So who could run Arsenal better without taking us to the financial edge? Not Sir Alex F-Word. Apart from the fact he wouldn’t, he survives by having endless money to throw around – and of course that is going to stop eventually.

Look at the other managers near the top. If it were O’Neil, I would walk away, because that would be a total betrayal of everything Arsenal. (Ask Celtic supporters too – there are many who were just delighted to see him go, even though he delivered championships).

There’s in fact no one in England I would think is likely to do any better – and the same is true when I look overseas.

Look at Real Madrid – the only coach there who could deliver is now the coach of England, and he’s not going to come here. I won’t go on and on, but the current England manager is probably the only person who could have a claim to take over Arsenal – but my goodness that would be boring. Just go back and look at how he got those two championships at Real Madrid. True he used more flair in Milan, and maybe he could do it, but… it won’t happen.

the point is that most of the negative arguments are too narrow – they are mostly criticism without credible alternatives and ways of handling the finances, and they are based on what seems to me to be the intellectually unsustainable idea that Wenger has lost the plot while the blog writer (who judging from the style of writing) possibly hasn’t actually been at all the games, can instantly see what is wrong.

The example of Denilson is perfect here. Some fans think he is wonderful, some think he is useless. The stats show he is brilliant – and the response from the negative camp is either to ignore the stats, or say that you can make stats say anything, or suggest that he only makes easy tackles to get his stats up. It seems a sterile argument to me.

And yet there has always been criticism at Arsenal. When George Allison (one of the great Arsenal managers, as you will know) first came to the club in September 1910 he was employed by Henry Norris to write the programme, under the name Gunners Mate. He wrote the most vitriolic attack on the players that has ever been published – something no club programme would ever dream of printing today. Now that is making inside criticism public!

Here’s another example – although it is just based on one conversation. In the 1930s when Arsenal ruled football for the first time, my father used to go regularly, and he told me that even when they were winning the three consecutive championships there were moans and groans. A dire 1-1 draw with Portsmouth on December 29 (my dad’s birthday) 1934 produced boos, moans and groans from a crowd of only 36,000 (Highbury held 75000 in those days). Shouts of “rubbish” were heard across the ground, and the players were jeered. They won the league that year.

So maybe I shouldn’t be too amazed at all the vitriol. Maybe it is just what people do. Maybe my suspicion is right and that a lot of people are simply not at the games but just watching it on TV. Mabe blogging makes some people negative.

Maybe it is just me, carried away with a 9 match unbeaten run.

Hopefully Wenger won’t explode like Megson did this week and start arguing back. Because if he were to go, I really have no idea who we could get who would do any better.

Final note on different matters.

I have to go away for the rest of friday, and won’t be back at my computer until after the West Ham game tomorrow. If you have had 2 pieces published here before, and want to write in, then your comment will be published automatically. But if you are writing in for the first or second time, it will be held until I return. This system does help keep out the spam, but I am sorry for the delay in the next 2 days.

And, all things working out ok, I should be doing the fans eye view in the Observer on Sunday on the West Ham game. Expect 10 out of 10 for every player!

This is a great moment for Arsenal

I write this in reply to a detailed letter that has been published on this site, which says why we should no longer support Arsenal. I believe the opposite.

Partly, because I am a naturally cheery guy (except when I am not) and partly because I am currently writing the history of Arsenal in 1910, and have just got to the bit where they were bought by Fulham, and went on to lose and draw the first six matches of the 1910/11 season.

But leaving that aside, why should we be cheerful just now?

1. Because we don’t have Benitez as manager. Remember this man is rated as a really tip top manager in Europe. He demands total control over the spending of the club (just like the Lord Wenger) and he picks the players, and talks to the press (just like most managers except Sir Alex F-Word).

But if you heard a recording of his commentary about yesterday’s game you’d have noticed the ravings of a mind completely out of control (and on this topic I speak as one who knows). “Crazy games” were blamed – but there was no definition of the meanings.

He then made silly remarks about Everton being a little club. How childish. Childishness is not for managers. It is for bloggers.

Can you imagine this man in charge of Arsenal? Can you imagine Wenger attacking the Tiny Totts or their idiot board? If we had Benetez as manager within one transfer window the club would be £200 million in debt, and the team wouldn’t be improved one jot.

2. We are not Bolton. Which of course is obvious – but consider this. Bolton under Fat Sam the Slug were a disgrace to football, slithering up the table by every illicit means possible, conning refs, feigning injuries, wasting time from the second minute of a game. This is the side that invented rotational fouling. Now the Slug has gone and they are managed by G Megson, who has made some modest improvement in the style of play. In an outburst today said of Bolton supporters, “My feelings about them need to stay private”

He then launched into this huge attack on his club’s fans in which he called Bolton supporters “pathetic”.

3. We sell out short-notice games against little teams.

We sold all our away tickets for Cardiff, and most of us had a jolly good time on the terraces. Then, I have to admit I suggested we might not sell out against Cardiff in the replay. It is short notice, it is on TV, (mark that – it is on TV) and it is against a team that has only a limited amount of gloss and voom and anything else. And you know what, we’ve sold out all the Arsenal seats.

4. We are 90% of the way to getting Arshavin, Rosicky, Eduardo, Theo, Cesc. What a team to bring in to the club! We are 9 games unbeaten, and we are going to introduce that lot into our team. That is just totally bloody amazing.

5. We don’t have Harry Houdini as manager. Imagine supporting a club that brings in super star managers like Oswaldo Ardiles, Glenda Hoddle, that bloke from Spain who didn’t speak English and Harry Houdini. The only one who was really much cop was that Dutch fella, about whose mother there was some doubt – he went off and took his team to the top of the German league.

6. We don’t have a board like the Tiny Totts, who want to sack a new manager every September.

7. We have a really good ground that is being paid for by a well-organised totally affordable mortgage – and that’s before we start bringing in all the apartment money. The Tiny Totts have a planning permission (and are bringing out the DVD of the planning permission to celebrate). Liverpool We Want Yer Money Wak can’t even get planning permission. Everton “just say no to local democracy we know what’s best for you” can’t sell their disused training ground.

8. We have no debt other than the mortgage. Compare with KGB Fulham, Manchester Bankrupt, Al Fayed Fulham, Liverpool Arab, Manchester Money, Newcastle Zebra and almost everyone else.

9. We have Jack Wilshere, Carlos Vela, Fran Merida, Kieran Gibbs, Aaron Ramsey, Nacer Barazite…

10. We have the Lord Wenger.

For the latest on the injury situation, getting these wonderful blogs direct to your mobile at no cost, and other stuff like that, go to the main site page, if you are not there already.

If you see what I mean.

Arsenal: not quite the end of the world.

We’re not playing well, it was a lucky escape, and we’re further behind Aston “if you fall over hold your head” Villa.

So all bad news then. Except…

It is nine match unbeaten run which has included games against a number of clubs near the top or at the top
Three of the four players that you would expect to feature regularly in midfield have been out for ages
A brilliant centre forward who would provide extra relief to the regular strikers has been out for a year
And to repeat the regular phrase, it is an astonishingly young team

Actually I thought it was an enjoyable if nerve breaking game – there seemed more life in it than against Cardiff. At Everton I never know what to expect… Wayne Rooney scoring to end our unbeaten away run, or slaughtering them four-one. In the end we got neither, but the goal was certainly worth waiting for.
I guess if I had been manager at the start of the season I would have thought my midfield would be Theo and Rosicky on the wings and Cesc and Denilson in the middle. With Nasri as the relief – particularly until Rosicky came back.

To cover for injuries and tactical issues I’d have thought… Song, Diaby, Eboue, Ramsey…

Yup, looks fair enough to me. But of course it is not if the first three names on your list are all long term injuries.

And so we are 8 million points behind the Bankrupts and heading for the Southern League (at least that’s how some blogs seem to read). Or we are holding on in terribly difficult circumstances and should be celebrating 9 unbeaten with half the team missing. You take your choice.

But let me say the unsayable. Supposing we end up 5th this season. Then what? Does the world end? Does Russia set up a nuclear strike (as per the last episode of Spooks last year)?

Not really. We get to play in a smaller cup competition, where there is less show and less pressure. By next season the players are older and wiser, and let us hope, our dreadful two year run of injuries must surely come to an end. The financial strains on other clubs will be stronger and the cracks will appear deeper. Arsenal’s finances are not based on full houses and the Champions League each year, so we’ll be ok on that front…

Even that scenario doesn’t seem too awful to me. Last season we were four points from winning the league, and that doesn’t seem so dreadful.

One final thing. If you come to this site via Goonernews or Arsenal News you probably just see the article and any responses. If however you type in www.blog.emiratesstadium.info you’ll get the full flavour of the page with all the extra bits down the side. I mention this because I’ve managed to add a few bits to the site over the months, and I think they add a little something.

The injury table which I added last week is quite neat I think, and as the numbers go down, a bit reassuring. Natarjack, which brings this site to you via your mobile, for free, has been amended and improved so it is just Arsenal now. Arsenal News is a recent addition allowing you to vote on the quality of stories (do give me a vote if you find anything I do of interest), and there’s more to come later in the year.

I do hope you’ll have time to have a look. Thank you for reading.

Man City’s illegal transfer move, Rangers collapse: we’re approaching the end of football

The image of the band playing on the Titanic while the iceberg joined in with the percussion is so hackneyed that I always try and avoid it, but after half an hour of sitting here I can’t find anything better to describe the news swirling around football.

While most of the media focusses on the day’s events (and nothing wrong with that – I’ll be doing a little piece myself in the Observer this weekend on saturday’s game – a very little piece I must add) the whole liner, uncontrolled by an out-of-touch set of organisations (EPL, FA, UEFA, FIFA) sinks.

Only in five years time when the whole football scene is utterly different in every regard from that which we see today, will people sit up and think: blimey, what happened?

I’ve rambled on so often about Manchester Bankrupt and the rest that I’d like to try and pick up a couple of bits and pieces from elsewhere, just to show how huge the problems are.

And I would add, these stories are not the result of detailed searching through obscure Peruivian monthly reviews of local sport – they come from publications you’ll know, all currently available. The stories are there – it is just that most of us (and that certainly includes me) are generally so focussed on our own clubs, that we often don’t notice.

Manchester Money: there’s a brilliant piece on the Guardian site today showing how the agent Kia Joorabchian, who fixed the Argentine loan deal which is still bringing down West Iceland Utd was deeply and illegally involved in the attempts by Manchester to get Kakakakak.

The rules broken in this scenario are so widespread that in any other world the club would be already under detailed investigation – but no, not a word, no one moves. Presumably because Arab money is all that is keeping football afloat, so what do rules matter now? It’s fine to dock Luton Town loads of points (actually I think it IS fine to do that) but we had better not look too closely at a club from Manchester.

Then there’s Rangers. A piece in Scotland on Sunday showing how incredibly close to the edge that club is. They have gone beyond the cover-up stage of Manchester Bankrupt, they are way beyond rescue by Sheik Yermoney, they are now on the fire sale stage, with an utterly wrecked financial structure and not the slightest chance of borrowing a penny.

To people like me who have probably only ever seen a dozen matches in Scotland in a lifetime of football, it might seem like just another club going down, but this is one of the only two real big-time clubs in the country. Without Rangers there will be no serious competition at all (not that there is much anyway). Worse, the owner has fallen out big time with the supporters who have formed the “We Deserve Better” campaign. Everything is in ruins.

So, Manchester City flagrantly breaking the rules that have led West Ham into the ruins, and 50% of the giant teams in Scotland about to go down… Is that a crisis?

Yes, because it adds to the problems with Manchester United, West Ham, Liverpool, Chelsea… What it shows is that the system we have had for years of clubs being able to survive roughly within the rules of the game have gone.

Italy went into near meltdown over the fact that so many matches were fixed – and the game in Italy is now only a shadow of what it was in the 1990s. Such a collapse, only on a larger scale, is about to happen here, simply because you can only fudge and apply sticking plaster for so long.

The cause of the problem is that old-fashioned vision that so many of the people in football have that the rules don’t apply to me. We may be very happy that the Lord Wenger knows all the rules, and applies them all, but in most places this is not the case.

English football has been here before – there aren’t too many books around on the subject but between 1910 and 1915 football league matches were reguarly fixed – and prime fixers were Manchester United and Liverpool.

Indeed when Henry Norris arranged for Arsenal to come out of the second division into the first in 1919, despite the club not having finished in a promotion spot, a significant part of his argument was that unless Arsenal were allowed up he would start court proceedings against Liverpool and Manchester United and bring the whole of the football edifice down.

Norris was a dealer, not a man looking for justice, and he got what he wanted: Arsenal in the first division. The Football League took the warning and started (slowly) to clean up the game. This time, I fear, the disaster is already too far advanced, and the problems too deep.

This is really my argument against people who want success for Arsenal now, at any price. We are on the edge, and much of what we take to be normal, is about to fall apart. When the dust settles I want Arsenal still to be there, because we never got on the Titanic. I don’t want to be supporting one of fifty clubs that is existing from a lifeboat.

A total genius or a **i turnip

Tomorrow or the next day it will be known. 25 hours ago (that is around 7am UK time on Monday) I made my wholesome and exciting prediction that a certain Russian was on his way to us. At that moment virtually no one else was running the story, so I felt rather good (or rather stupid).

In fact I also felt rather neat because I gave my reasons as to why it looked like Arshavin was on his way, and those reasons seemed fairly logical (at least for 7am).

Sadly if you take your selection of news from Goonernews you might have missed my stunningly eloquent outpouring since they didn’t run it, but Arsenal News did (links to both on the right column of the site if you go to www.blog.emiratesstadium.info)

Anyway, the news this morning is

a) He’s on his way (BBC Radio 5)

b) He’s just scuppered the deal because his contract says that if the club don’t get a certain fee for him, he has to pay the difference. Mr A has now asked for the difference to be made up in salary. (Guardian – but I may have got a bit of that wrong – it seems such a tortuous load of meandering whatnot.)

But do we need him? Picking on another of my rambling themes of yesterday the Lord Wenger (clearly a regular reader of these pages) said something along the lines that we didn’t need Arshavin because Rosicky is on the way back. Well he might have said that – or not, the reporting isn’t 100% on the issue. Anyway Rosicky is running about a bit, which is good.

My point is, that with everyone fit I still think we have one hell of a team. I think Denilson is a great defensive midfielder who can do the job that Gilberto did for us, and do it just as well. As for the rest of the midfield, Ramsey will become a great player, Jack obviously is going to be a sensation and a half, and Nasri looks better and better as time goes by. (Remembering Pires’ first season, and how far above that Nasri is already, I have very high hopes).

Diaby shines amazingly in patches – and clearly the ability is all there, it is just the consistency we need (I thought the game changed for us when he came on, on Sunday) and although Song has not come as far as I would have hoped this year, he is developing at a pace, and by next season could be a very important member of the team. And then there’s Eboue, whose position is clearly not understood by many fans. On Sunday night I heard one person say on Radio 5 “even Wenger doesn’t believe in Eboue – otherwise he wouldn’t substitute him each week”. Actually Pires rarely played beyond 65 minutes either, and Wenger believed totally in Pires).

All of which means that the midfield is already getting crowded, and there is still Theo, Rosicky and Cesc to fit in somewhere. Given a decent round of fitness then next season we are going to see major rotation – and I still haven’t added Fran Merida.

Much the same looks to be happening with the forwards. There’s the regular three we use at present, plus Carlos Vela, who to me seems to have changed games at the Ems of late. And a certain number 9. And lurking behind that lot is Simpson. And Theo can play in the middle a bit too.

(Actually what’s the odds in five years for Theo as the centre forward and Jack as the number 10?)

I could go on, but out of humanity towards anyone who might still be reading, I will curtail my comments to the issue of left back. At Cardiff it looked as if we had our regular left back playing the game – assured, confident, and he is presumably still behind Traore as the reserve.

This is why I remain optimistic. Whether I have called Arshavin right or wrong doesn’t matter of course (just me having a laugh) but in the end, I wonder whether his joining us will matter or not anyway.

God it looks cold out there this morning.

PS: Fortunes told, just cross me hand with silver. Roll up roll up.

Looks like we are just about to sign Arshavin

I’ll confess straight up that I don’t have a hot line to Leningrad, nor do I have the ear of Mr Usmanov.

In fact I don’t even have his email address. But I think we are going to sign Arshavin, today or tomorrow.

Here’s why…

First, the whole saga has been full of deadlines – the last two of which were saturday and sunday. Both went by without anyone saying “ah well, that’s it, all over”. Which means the deal is still on.

Second, it has all gone very quiet on the shouting front. The agent is quiet (which is just about a first), the player is quiet, Arsenal are quiet, Leningrad is quiet, everyone’s so quiet, there must be a good reason. Indeed watching these things over the centuries has always made me feel, when it all goes quiet in a protracted deal, it is actually just being signed. The silence is of everyone holding their breath in case the pen has no ink in it.

Third, this is the first time Mr Usmanov has thrown his not inconsiderable weight around in a football matter. He’s the big bad wolf at Gazprom International which owns Zenit and has the power of life and death (or at least heat and light) over half of Europe. If the deal dies it does not look good for him.

Fourth, it is the first deal that our new Director of Everything has been involved in, and he’ll not look too good either, if it falls flat on its face.

Fifth, Zenit are onto a loser if the player is kept back. He wants to leave, Arsenal want him, and his contract doesn’t have long to run. I suspect the “I’ll go on strike” line from the player is the usual stuff made up in the Hen and Basket but no club wants a player who is unhappy and whose value is declining at a rate akin to the plummeting pound against the Energetic Euro.

So there we are. Who needs inside information?

And I have form here. After months of yes/no on/off stuff with Nasri, I did the same thing, based on the same lack of information and wild guesswork, and called Nasri’s signature four days before it happened.

If I am right, you read it here first. If I am wrong, well, it’s only a stupid blog written by that strange guy who thinks Denilson is Gilberto II and who always calls the manager Lord.

(c) Tony Attwood 2009. If I’m right, please give fullest acknowledgements to this blog. If I am wrong, I didn’t write it – it was put up by another blog that is trying to make me look stupid. As if I’d say anything about a transfer! Huh.

Money first, football very much last

The time wasting at the end of the game at Cardiff, with the home side holding on for a draw, rather than going for a place in the next round, sums it all up really. If Cardiff do get into the EPL they will fit there perfectly alongside clubs like Bolton, Blackburn, Fulham, WBA, and whoever else is there slogging it out at the bottom. 11 behind the ball, doing anything to survive. All that matters is survival and the income.

At Arsenal, apart from those who remember the Woolwich days, there is no knowledge of what relegation means. But for every other club, from the Tiny Totts to Manchester Bankrupt, relegation is a much more recent memory.

Ask anyone who has seen their club go down and they will tell you it is a terrible experience. But the following season where they bounce back up, that is great – and makes up for all the pain. Talk to a Leicester supporter and they will talk of the humiliation of being in the third division – and then the joy of being top of the league. That’s how it goes.

But that is not how it is for the chairman. As the manager of Cardiff so clearly admitted, their own supporters were booing their players for wasting time in the 0-0 draw – but the chairman was really excited. He wants 45% of the cash that will come from game at the Ems.

I hate to tell him this, but I am not at all sure the place will be full, and if Arsenal really want to fill the stadium, they could do worse than make the game League Cup status, and charge £10 and £20 for seats. Not only would that encourage a lot of Red Members to turn up, but it would also send out a message to other clubs in the Cup: don’t expect a pay day if you go for a draw.

The fact that this is now a topic of debate shows how far the game has fallen.

The balance is coming back however – Mr Absent Abramovich has just sold a lot of his shares in a gold mining company at a fraction of the cost he bought them for, and Liverpool is so insolvent the new buyer is looking to pay £100m less than he offered for the club last year. In fact he could cut his offer even more – because Liverpool will fold in July if there is no buyer.

So the financial changes are coming, although as usual UEFA is acting far too slowly. But with the likely collapse of the price that can be got for TV rights (following this summer’s court case on the retailing of Sky cards), and the UEFA plan to limit expenditure on players to 50% of non-chairman-sponsored income, investors (who seem a bit slow on the uptake in the world of football) will ultimately realise that once again the game is going to change.

Back to the replay and the question of crowds – the only game I’ve seen at the Ems in which a large part of the ground was empty was the Diddly cup game against the Tiny Totts that we drew 1-1 last year. I think that was not a season ticket game, and maybe this one is (I’m a silver member so don’t keep track of such things), so maybe there will be a pay-out for Cardiff, but if so, that’s not really how we should be doing this.

Police 4 (or more) Arsenal 0

Last time I saw a game at Ninian Park I found the most interesting thing of the afternoon was the police tactics – but I thought that was a one off. This time it was crazier, more bizarre, more insane. Even in the wild days of the 70s it was never quite like this.

As we walked to the ground there was the police helicopter scuppering around over head, but we hardly noticed for the hundreds, maybe even over 1000 police, all around the ground.

And they were doing the strangest things.

An aggression of police wagons was driving very slowly towards the ground. (I am assured that “aggression” is the correct collective noun here.) There were 30 or 40 of them in a line. Now, you’d have thought it might have been a good idea to get them into place an hour or two before the match – but no, there we were, 40 minutes before kick off, and the road was congested with police wagons. All mixed up with the traffic.

To one side were all the coppers in full riot gear marching backwards – yes I kid you not. Backwards. Then every now and then a senior cop would shout “C Division Close Up”, and the cops would look at each other and shrug. As one said to me as we sauntered by – “ain’t it great when you know exactly what’s going on!”

Eventually we meandered through the muddle and took our places just behind the goal for what was a fairly ordinary if not downright dull affair. Then as the final whistle went the PA commentator thanked Arsenal supporters for their impeccable behaviour as the Cardiff fans nearest us launched a massive attack on the police.

We watched for a while, and cheered a few of the arrests, but then walked out, to find the most extraordinary scene as police marched hither and thither, and the same cop shouted “C Division Close up” and more Cardiff fans were bundled into wagons.

What the police clearly have not quite got in south Wales is that holidng cameras within a few inches of someone’s face is aggressive policing, and quite unnecessary – as is following people along the street in a similar way. Likwise, turning as a group of three to scream abuse at one supporter who is politely asking for directions, really doesn’t do anything for public-police relationships.

Of course many of the police are perfectly nice people – and I was pleased they were there to stop the extremely violent and possibly unhinged Cardiff fans who launched their attack as the final whistle sounded. But really – good organisation is the base of good policing. Can someone tell them?

And that was it really. Mindless violence and aggressive disorganised policing – it was rather as if the 70s and 80s was taken as a blueprint, rather than a warning.

Ramsey wasn’t anything like his best – but at least it gave Denilson a break. Diaby, when he came on, livened things up. Otherwise, the fact that we ended up singing anti-Tottenham songs through much of the second half, tells you it was a bit yuk. There’s a replay sometime.

From your man, on the spot, sampling the atmosphere, interviewing the locals.

I’ve been in Cardiff for a couple of days, having managed to tie together a couple of meetings with today’s game.

I’ve driven past the hotel where the lads are staying, and if I were writing in the pop press or for ITV or BBC I’d be “sampling the atmosphere”, but in truth there hasn’t been any.

I saw a youngster walking along the shopping street with an Arsenal shirt (Nasri on the back) on saturday afternoon but that’s about as exciting as it got. The Bay is all very lovely and modern, lots of restaurants and very innovative building designs, but there’s not much awareness of football. (The wind off the Bristol Channel was something else however and I think it was snowing last night).

But as is the way of the world you can always rely on the old timers remember a thing or three, talking of past links between the clubs, and of course Cardiff’s future with a new stadium opening next season opposite the crumbling relic that they currently use.

I last saw Cardiff against Arsenal sometime in the early 1960s (I might still have the programme if I were to hunt for it), and the ground hasn’t changed since then. Not a pretty sight.

The current talking points are (in no particular order), ticket allocation, whether the Lord Wenger (whom the locals rather disrespectfully call “Wenger”) puts out the kiddies team, Aaron Ramsey and Terry Burton.

Ticket allocation has annoyed just about everyone in the city. While I used our two silver memberships to get tickets online (total time taken about 1 minute 30 seconds), season ticket holders at Cardiff have been on the phone day after day just trying to get through. I appreciate that the club doesn’t normally have sell outs, but surely it wouldn’t have taken much preparation to get sorted for the occasions when they do. They were in the cup final last year and so presumably had to make arrangements then.

So there’s lots of regular supporters who have not got tickets, who are mumbling darkly (or possibly in Welsh, which I don’t speak, but which more widespread in its use year by year).

As for the team, while I think we are all fairly sure that’s its pretty much the regular crew, with minor changes to allow for two games in a week and West Iceland at home next weekend, there is chitchat here that the little ones will play, and Cardiff might just get one over us, as Burnley did. I haven’t disabused them.

Ramsey (who I thought might have been seen as a one season wonder who ran away) seems well respected – and is expected to be a mainstay of the Wales team for years to come. (Of course I tend to talk to people of an older variety, so I don’t know what the young tearaways will be chanting at him assuming he plays – which everyone does assume.)

Terry Burton is doing some of the talking – as in talking about how he single handedly brought Tony Adams through, and what a lovely quiet lad Ramsey is, and how it was he, Burton, who told the Lord Wenger to buy Ramsey, and how it was he, Burton, who told Ramsey not to touch Manchester Bankrupt with a barge pole. Or was that a Graham Poll. I forget.

Anyway, it’s overcast with bits of blue, but not raining and not too cold, and I have no idea where we are supposed to park, so we’ll be leaving early – but just before I toddle along, there’s this Arshavin issue.

According to the Times a week ago, the deal had died then, because the Leningrad team had invited Arsenal to visit them to discuss the matter, but Arsenal didn’t turn up because “we never received the invitation”. Which seems rather unlikely.

Since then everyone with a bit of space to fill has been saying the deal has to be settled by yesterday, or else it is all off. But it didn’t seem to be settled – and it must be Sunday afternoon in Leningrad by now, and not only has no one said, “deal is done” no one has said, “we failed to reach agreement, so that’s that.”

So, who knows? One interesting thing is that the Lord Wenger has been doing a lot of talking up of Denilson of late – both in terms of how brilliant he is as a defensive midfielder and how under rated he is. I’m 100% with this, but I really don’t want everyone in every other team to know. Let Cardiff, the Everton Dictatorship, and West Iceland all think that he’s just there until we sign someone proper. They’ll spend most of the game wondering how those build ups never quite get the ball through to the front two, while wondering who that little boy from Brazil is who just seems to pop up here and there.

The only problem is, when everyone is fit again, we are going to have a hell of a problem keeping everyone happy in the midfield. They can’t all play every week.

(c) Tony Attwood 2009. (PS How many other blogs manage to do an on-location commentary before an away game? I know I haven’t said anything very exciting, but still, I am on the scene. As it were.)

Football finance collapses; Liverpool face disaster

That most disgraceful of clubs, Liverpool, are en route to join Manchester Money as the laughing stock of football, as the long-predicted changes in the way football is financed, finally appear on the horizon.

I’ll try and cover the changes to football finance in a moment. First, Liverpool. Al Kharafi, the Arab, has offered to buy the club. Liverpool have no choice but to accept, given that RBS and Wachovia Banks have said their £350m loan only lasts until the summer, won’t be extended, and must not be used for transfers. No other bank will touch the club with a barge pole.

What makes this a disaster for Liverpool is that two events are now happening which will change football as much as the end of the maximum wage and the Bosman ruling.

First, in the European courts, the word is that the legal challenge which would allow pubs to show live football without paying Sky and Satanta, is going to succeed. This will change the whole way of selling football will change. At the moment Sky get back most of the money they pay the EPL for football, just on their pubs deal. The income they get from households is the profit.

The case has been moved from the UK high courtto the European Court of Justice for advice – and that is the key issue because EU law says that although it is illegal to use a pirated card (of course) if the card was bought legally in another country within the EU, it must be legal in the UK. This is a fundamental of EU law.

If as we expect the European Court says that free trade is sacrosanct then the rights to EPL matches would be worth far, far less than at present. £900 million a year (the current rate) would collapse to a tenth of that level.

As if that were not enough, Uefa has started to discuss controlling the amount of money to be spent on transfers and wages. The proposal is that no more than half of the income (excluding owners’ injection of money, as per Absent Abramovich and the Arabs) can be spent on players. The EU has let it be known that if UEFA does not act soon, it will.

It looks as if people like Absent Abramovich and the Arabs will be able to build the stadiua and training grounds, but no more. That of course still makes life difficult – the owner builds you a stadium, and then like Absent Abramovich, decides he wants his money back a bit later. The club mortgages the ground, and is in total debt once again.

UEFAs rules will only affect clubs playing in their competitions, but no EPL club is going to take the risk of taking Arab money only to find they can’t play in Europe.

So, pulling it together, Liverpool are selling out once again because otherwise they will cease to trade. But they will then find that their income from TV is cut, and then their ability to use Arab money is curtailed. The club becomes a joke like Manchester Money, and the Arab realises this is not much fun.

KGB Fulham will find it tough, so will Manchester Money. Aston (if you go down hold your head) Villa will also be troubled with their Yankee dollars. Arsenal of course will be fine – they are the only team living within their means.

Sources: Reuters, The Guardian

Which club do you want Arsenal to be?

If we take a look at what a few clubs in the EPL are doing just now, it gives a good insight into the options on offer.

Manchester Bankrupt: not just bankrupt, but even with their mega sqaud they have injury worries and a crisis meeting going on. Yes they are 6 points ahead but the financial situation looks dire. The sponsor is pulling out and the increase in cash has to come from “more marketing” according to the owner. Not sure how you do that during a recession.

Liverpool Insolvency. With the banks wanting money back by July, they are up for sale to the Arabs (see Manchester Money below). The manager has refused a new contract and is showing signs of hysterical panic. The banks have said none of the current loan can be spent on players. The manager demands the absolute right to decide on player and fee – which is why he left his last club.

Everton Dictatorship. This week the planning application to build on their training ground was turned down by the council and the government’s appeals panel. They are now screwed because they already have a new training ground, so the old one is worthless. Their reaction – not just to blame everyone else (of course) but also to blame the democratic process and demand that the elected representatives of the people be kicked out with Liverpool instead run by a self-electing oligarchy of businessmen and bankers. Good one.

Newcastle Zebras. Lost 100 million of something (I forget how much). Can’t sell the club, right down the league, nutter of a manager (who is a laugh I must admit). No real money to buy anything except a cut price pint – and an owner who this season was warned about breaching alcohol rules.

KGB Fulham. Owned by Mr Absent Abramovich, no sign of new players, arguments within, they have sacked their entire youth set-up, and abolished the world-wide scouting scheme they tried to set up to rival Arsenal. Mr Absent Abramovich has asked for his 600 million back, and the club might be bought by the Arabs. See Manchester Money

Manchester Money. The most laughable team – as we reported ‘tother day, they have bid for everyone from our Thierry to Kakakaka and his dog, and everyone turned them down – even the dog. (The Daily Dog-bite ran a scare story about rabies in Manchester). They might have all the money but they are near the bottom, their supposedly best player trotted off to Brazil, has been fined lots of dosh, and then the Oooze (manager) has said he wants to kiss and make up. The model does not inspire confidence.

The Tiny Totts. I’ve always thought that if the Tinies did not exist you could not make them up. But the same is true of Harry Houdini. As pointed out in the ever readable comments section of Untold Arsenal, Harry does it everywhere. Goes in, says the players he has are rubbish, says his wife could do better, wheels and deals, and then… sometimes their luck holds, sometimes not. Look at Southampton after bringing in Harry. Start in the EPL and keep going down.

Arsenal. No problem with manager. No problem with the banks. Biggest deal of the transfer window looks likely to happen with us buying. While Everton can’t get their training ground sorted, and the Totts training ground planning permission was held up as an example of “all we have achieved”, Arsenal just got on, bought land, built ground, and built the flats. 6 points behind leaders is not ideal, but is not impossible. And here’s the big thing…

The run of seven unbeaten in the league is being done without Eduardo, Theo, Rosicky, Cesc, the two centre backs. And lurking behind is the ever growing Wilshere, Vela, Fran Merida (looking better every game), Bischoff, Randell. And then there’s Traore. And Jay Simpson.

Meanwhile people want to buy our players. You might not like Nicklas Bendtner, (personally given his age, and given that most great centre forwards emerge fully in their mid 20s and remembering what Henry was like when he came, I think he could well become a great classic centre forward) but others like him enough to start making bids – including Bundesliga leaders Hoffenheim. Eboué is the subject of an offer from Atlético Madrid. Again, you might not like him, but clearly Wenger is not on his own in rating these players – and the point is people want to buy from Arsenal (Real Mad are doing the Cesc + Wenger story again at the moment.)

So, if I didn’t have the emotional ties and could change, I think I’d still stay with Arsenal. Any of the others could disappear at any time.

(c) Tony Attwood 2009. You’re very welcome to reprint, but please just mention my name and cite Untold Arsenal. Thanks for reading (assuming you did and didn’t just skip to this bit, for some odd reason).

Did you see this sensational Arsenal goal. Watch it now

I am out of touch – I admit it freely – travelling here and there. So I was really grateful to receive a link to the goal Jack Wilshere scored for us against Stoke reserves. Just take a look at the link at the end of this piece.

But also consider the team…

Francis Coquelin was again at right back – that is a switch for him – he came as a midfielder. Havard Nordtveit is obviously back from where ever he has been on loan (I told you I was out of touch) and I would highlight Fran Merida and Amaury Bischoff. Both are starting to get onto the bench at EPL games, which means they are making their way up the rankings at Arsenal.

Merida you’ll recall has been highly rated all the way through, and Bischoff came to us as an injured player without a hope, but has overcome his injuries and might be about to justify the Lord Wenger’s gamble.

Eduardo played too – and I am hoping that this is being repeated on Arsenal FC, having missed the game – but just watch the goal…

http://www.101greatgoals.com/videodisplay/1995551/

or…

http://goonersworld.wordpress.com/2009/01/22/eduardo-plays-well-but-its-the-jack-wilshere-show/

Totts, Man Money, KGB Fulham, trouble everywhere

It is rare to find a day when virtually everyone is having a bad time of it: but that is the day we have today.

Starting with the Tinies – you might recall that this time last year they celebrated wildly by getting into the Children’s Cup Final, and then promptly managed to go 10 or 15 games with hardly a win. (Sorry I don’t keep exact records of such things – but it was a bad run)

Imagine if they could do that again: a wondrous return to their spiritual home – division 2. And there’s every reason to think that they will achieve this great feat, judging by the disaster of their performance yesterday, not to mention who they have in charge. (Do you know my Chelsea supporting taxi driver in Exeter yesterday reserved most of his venom for Harry Houdini – who let us not forget specialised in falling through trap doors. Must be odd to be so reviled.)

But then while we were getting ready for the Tott-Drop, the Guardian this morning reveals that Manchester Money under the leadership of Sheik Yermoney has tried (and obviously failed) to sign not just Kakakaka but also David Villa (for £100m), Gianluigi Buffon (£100m) and Thierry Henry (price not revealed – our Thierry told them that if he was going to move the last place under the sun he’d go to was Manchester).

Now this is the good bit.

Ready?

“We’re not anybody’s fool,” Garry Cook, City’s executive chairman, said last night. “We’ve turned down negotiations for three different players because we felt the demands both from the [selling] club and, in essence, the players have been ludicrous…. The perception that we are out there throwing money around is simply not true.”

Laugh? I fell over.

Even the one player they got for way over the odds has had to apologise to the Ooze (he’s the one who made baby Cesc apologise to him remember – he collects apologies). he flew to Brazil for a birthday party. Still the Ooze did buy Bellamy.

If the Guardian’s piece is right, Manchester Money have put in about 15 bids so far, and will keep going. Shay Given, up hope of signing the striker Roque Santa Cruz from Blackburn Rovers, even though their last offer of £18m, with Tal Ben Haim moving in the other direction, has been turned down by the Ewood Park club.

“It’s well documented we have put in more than one offer,” Cook said. “The last I heard, which was from [Blackburn’s manager] Sam Allardyce, they were looking to bring in another striker before they made a decision. There is an offer on the table, Sam Allardyce is working through his issues and I fully respect that.

“We’re not trying to create a situation he doesn’t want; we’re just managing our issues. We’ve made it quite clear we’d like Santa Cruz and we’ll continue with those talks.”

A successful conclusion to one of the longest transfer sagas of modern times would certainly give City a lift in a week when the negotiations to sign Kaka from Milan have collapsed, leading to a disillusioned Robinho leaving their Spanish mid-season training camp.

More serious for Hughes is the growing feeling at City that Robinho has been unsettled by the club’s inability to bring in Kaka and that the former Real Madrid player would like to move to Chelsea to join Luiz Felipe Scolari, formerly his coach with the Brazil national team. The London club had tried to sign him in the summer.

Arshavin: we might sign him, but he won’t play (yet)

Everyone is telling different stories according to the always believable and generally truthful British press. (That statement is ironic).

Dennis Lachter, agent to the man most of us had never heard of a year back, said on www.newsru.com: “Andrei wants to move to Arsenal, and Arsenal wants to acquire Andrei. All that remains is for the parties to agree compensation.”

But apparently he has had a month off for the Russian cold season. Which would mean he isn’t fit (although he is probably rather cold). So the young Arsenal reserves battling it out in the midfield, will have to battle on a bit longer it seems. (Actually a reserve midfield, and a reserve central defence, and we are only about 6 points off the top – that isn’t so awful is it?)

Alisher Usmanov also figures in more and more press statements, ever since the Daily Mail found out that he is chairman of Gazprom’s overseas division – and that Gazprom own Zenit, as well as all the gas that flows through the Ukraine pipeline.

“Usmanov wants Arshavin to join Arsenal. In fact he insists on this deal,” Anton Lisin, a football writer and columnist with Sovietsky Sport is quoted in the Guardian as saying. So that’s all right then.

Personally if Gasprom told me to do something I’d damn well do it – or else get out on the first plane and hide for a few years in the middle of Dartmoor, or Tierra del Fuego or somewhere equally disconnected from the Gazprom pipeline.

But Lisin says that Manchester Money will also bid for Arshavin. Manchester M have shown they know how to play with the big children, by blaming everyone but themselves for the way the Kaka deal worked out. They said that WC Milan used the event to bolster their own position with their fans – which of course is what happens. Everyone tries to make the most out of every deal – except Manchester Money have ended up looking exceptionally silly. So they might now go around like a playground bully, knocking over the other kids’ toys.

But really they ought to be able to afford a better public relations person to handle the work.

I’m available – but so far they haven’t called.

(c) Tony Attwood 2009. If you want to copy any of this, that’s fine as long as you give my name and the blog web address.

Something very amusing at the Tiny Totts

I love the notion of the charming cockney character Harry Houdini being in charge of the Tiny Totts. It is not just that he is not much of a manager, which he isn’t (his best is mostly moderate at Bournemouth, WHU and Portsmouth, and his worst is Southampton) it is the way he is not a very good manager, while at the same time being written up in the press as some kind of amazing whizz-kid.

The point about Harry and the Tinies is that they are made for each other because both belive in the same chaotic approach to football. None of your nonsense about building a team, merging personalities, blending individualism to the style of the manager. None of your tactical niceties about moving Nasri from the wing to the centre, while playinig Vela on the wing. That’s too subtle for the Tiny Totts from down the Lane.

What Harry and the Tinies have in common is that they both have one simple approach. Go for everyone, buy who you can, stick them on the pitch, and for tactical know-how do what George Graham used to say to Perry Groves as a substitute: “Go out there and run around a lot”.

So it is that on entering a new club Harry criticises the players he has got, and says that he has no depth, no coverage, no balance, and he then goes and buys Peter Crouch.

But what is interesting is that The Tinies owner has the same approach. Joe Lewis in the Bahamas, spends money on dead causes just like Tottenham do when paying off a discared manager each season.

Joe Lewis, was the second largest shareholder in Bear Sterns, one of the first banks to go bust. He had a 9.4 per cent stake in the bank in 2007 because he thought that talk about banks going down in the US was being overplayed by negative journalists. As the shares in the bank collapsed in 2008 he carried on buying on the basis that they had to go back up sooner or later. That doesn’t mean he is about to go bankrupt – he owns among other things, quite a big percentage of Ladbrokes (which might make you think about betting with them). But he’s got less than he used to have.

So here we have an owner who buys rubbish shares and a manager who buys rubbish players. Harry signed Jermain Defoe, and got involved with Wilson Palacios, Stewart Downin, Kenwyne Jones, Craig Bellamy, Antonio Valencia, Stephen Hunt and Adriano, while meanwhile throwing out the old boys with a speed that can only be described as suicidal.
Think of Bent (who cost 16 million) and Jenas both suddenly considered useless and offered as part exchanges in deals. (Steve Bruce, who despite his background has always come across to me as a really nice and decent guy, told Harry where to go when he offered Jenas).

The point here is that Harry is not getting rid of players not needed any more, but is getting rid of the only people who can score goals for the Tinies. And it is being done on the basis that Uncle Joe will buy Happy Harry more toys to play with.

So there we have it. Mr Confused of Tottenham in close touch with Mr Confused of the Bahamas. A match made in heaven – and the Championship I suspect.

Bank shares fall after Arsenal blog issues warning

The headline suggests (in the way that journalists do) that there is a connection – although of course there is not, unless I really start believing that the Curse of Arsenal can be put on banks as well as on players and teams.

I wrote a slightly amusing piece (well I thought it rather droll) in the form of an open letter to RBS bank stating that as a shareholder in the bank (ie as a British citizen, and thus a part owner since the bank’s nationalisation) I was horrified that they had gone and given a loan of some £60m to Liverpool Insolvency for the next 6 months. If ever there was a toxic debt in the making it was that.

Next day bank shares collapse and RBS in particular seems to be in even deeper trouble. I’ve not seen too many pieces in the press describing where they think the toxic debt is, but there is no doubt that the money loaned to clubs which is not secured by the grounds and which is being spent on transfers is very dodgy indeed.

Interestingly at Liverpool I, the jolly nice manager Mr Ben E Tez (who recently wrote a column for Untold Arsenal) has said he ain’t gonna sign a new deal because they won’t give him total control over the buying of players. What the papers seem not to have realised (although the Guardian did print the story about the RBS deal involving a clause that the money is not to be spent on players) is that without significant funding from elsewhere Liverpool I can’t buy any players. If they buy anyone they will have to show that they have got the money from another source – such as selling a player.

So the club cannot give Ben E Tez the money to buy players for the simple reason is that his free-form spending would be a breach of the bank’s requirements. The bank would then call in the loan, and that would be the end.

Of course no bank wants to cripple a club – until they are sure that the resultant administration will give them back their secured funds. In the days of Leicester City going into administration this happened – there were always buyers. Now, not so many.

Multiple ownership rules (brought in after the directors of Fulham bought Woolwich Arsenal in 1910) mean that Sheikh Yermoney can’t buy, or have any form of influence over another club now that he has got Manchester Money. Who else is going cough up the money to buy a loss-making operation like Liverpool? America, having seen the mess at Liverpool I and Manchester Bankrupt (where they still can’t find the dosh to pay the interest on their loans) really don’t fancy this at all.

Returning to the Curse of Arsenal – this season that has fallen on AC Milan (for their summer antics), and the Tiny Totts. AC Milan are currently in a spot of bother over Kaka, and their handling of Flamini (who has only started half the games this season, having started virtually every game last year with Arsenal). That fact is helping to put the dampners on players thinking of going there. As for the Tinies, what can I say? Perhaps best to save it for another piece.

Anyway Hull 4 Arsenal 14 was rather nice (that’s the number of shots total), and we’re all set fair for Cardiff in the cup although I am not sure about this standing on terraces lark. Not at my age anyway. It will be the last time at their old ground, which I first visited sometime around 1962 or so, when both clubs were in the first division. New stadium next season, so a fun farewell is in order.

Mr Usmanov starts to wield his power and influence

It has been a while coming, but now Mr Usmanov is making his move. And the moral question is, is it possible to be against Mr Usmanov the shareholder, but in favour of the arrival of Arshavin?

Russian clubs are owned by big companies for the most part. Zenit Leningrad (now known by the politically correct name of St Petersburg – which always makes me wonder what the Russian is for “political correctness gone made”) are owned by Gazprom and Gazprom’s international division (presumably the bit that keeps cutting off gas supplies to the Ukraine and bits of the EU) is chaired by that awfully nice legally active Mr Usmanov.

Mr Usmanov has, seemingly, sorted out the deal which looked dead when Arsenal offered 10 million pounds over five years and the Russians wanted 20 million now. (As in “this is non-negotiable and if you don’t pay you will witness Russian soliders with snow on their boots in the streets if Islington). Since Mr Usmanov is chairman of a division of the company that owns Zenit it is hard for the club to resist. Zenit do what Mr U says (or else you know the consequences).

Since he is a big time shareholder at Arsenal, and is doing something the Lord Wenger seems to think is desirable, he is also doing Arsenal’s bidding. Bit of a conflict of interest maybe? Well, maybe not. Who cares if we get our man?

So, is this the thin edge of the waterfall? The lull before the icecream cornet? Are we being hoisted by our own cellar door? In short, is this a metaphor too far? Or is all the world a stage? Is Mr Usmanov really being a jolly good shareholder and doing what the club wants – getting a deal with Zenit?

Obviously the Lord Wenger is never going to accept a player in his squad that he doesn’t want, so in that regard we should have no worries.

Where the worry is, is in what has happened at KGB Fulham. As I have noted, and as the Evening Standard helpfully revealed, that club now blanks out what it deems “unhelpful” comments from its own manager when it publishes the minutes of “meet the fans” sessions, (not really a sign of an open and coherant management system.) It also has no new funding for players at all, and has a no approach to paying back the money which its absentee owner now wants back.

Clubs gain stability over time, when the ownership and financial basis is well established, and is built into the tradition. That is why Arsenal has survived for around 90 years in the First Division. Sudden changes of ownership and finance do not sit easily with clubs and do not bring sustained success.

Liverpool is a perfect example of this. Moving from a club with limited debt to one in which the debts are so huge that the banks will only keep the debt running for a further six months – and then with the statement that the money must not be spent on transfers (as the Guardian has confirmed this week) shows the chaos that can result from these sudden ownership changes. Just look at the current wild ramblings of the managers ofKGB Fulham and the Liverpool Insolvents for proof (or indeed West Iceland Utd).

So back to the start: is it possible to be against the influence of Mr Usmanov and yet in favour of the arrival of a new midfielder? Is this the first step in the slippery slope towards chaos?

On the basis that anything is possible in football, probably it is possible to be in favour of both Usmanov and the new midfielder. But assuming that all this does go through, it will probably not be the last event that Mr Usmanov is involved in at the Ems. Maybe this one isn’t too troubling if our new midfielder takes us up the league and delivers a trophy or two in the next couple of years. But maybe the Arsenal-Russian activity might be a trifle more worrisome.

Couple of internal driblets: sorry for the delay in publishing some comments yesterday – I was at a trade show and then went dancing and didn’t get to a computer at all. Posts from readers who have posted twice before are automatically accepted and published, but for the first and second time it requires my ok – to cut down spam. And to confirm, I’m always honoured to be quoted on other sites etc, when there’s some acknowledgment. It’s only when someone reprints my entire ramblings as his own that I get a bit shirty. Thanks for reading. Oh and my tickets for the game at Cardiff arrived the day after I applied for them. The old cleft-stick carrying system seems to be improving.

Invented player to sign for Arsenal according to The Times

If you have followed my ramblings in the past you’ll know I am rather critical on occasion of my fellow professional scribblers who, I suggest, have been known to take a list of players and a list of clubs, slide them up and down, and come up with links. It is easier than working.

My all time favourite, and one that I managed to slip into my Highbury High piece for this issue, was Peter Crouch to Arsenal to replace Adebayor. Such imaginative inventiveness. Such drunkeness. Such drivel. How do you think up stuff like that?

Anyway, never to be outdone, the journalists of the Times have gone one better – instead of just being satisfied with linking a player to a club that would never sign him in a million years, they actually found an invented player who has no basis in the real world, and said Arsenal would sign him.

Of course in true “1984″ fashion The Times hve now changed their web site to remove all traces of the mythical player and their insane error (just like Chelsea paste out any comments on their fans forum that they don’t like. )

(Actually it is not surprising that Winston Smith, the hero of “1984″ worked for The Times going through old copies, and re-writing the news to make it fit. What George Orwell didn’t know when he wrote that novel in 1948 was how true it would be, even in the tiny detail.)

Anyway, back to our invented man: Masal Bugduv, who plays (?) for Olimpia Balti in Moldovia (club and country do exist). He’s 16, he’s an attacker and “strongly linked” to Arsenal who are trying to get a work permit.

Theofficeside.com suggested it was all a load of made up cobblers. But that great and glorious web site (oft mentioned on RedAction and elsewhere as a source of gibberish) goal.com picked up the story and ran with it, failing to notice that by then others were wondering if this was a hoax.

What actually happened was that a bunch of bloggers, (no names, no sites, because they are going to do it again soon) decided to get a moment’s revenge on the idiot journalists in pubs who spread rumour and gossip, without giving a thought to the fans who believe their drivel.

The method used was the usual one – Wikipedia. Journalists of little brain are known to inhabit it, as a short cut to doing any research. Place glowing articles on Wiki from various people and you are going to be read, not least because you can change articles to incorporate your own updated extra information.

Of course I would not be willing to suggest to anyone that they deliberately set out to mislead the drunken copywriting fraternity.

But it is funny.

Will The Times and other journalists now learn, and start checking their sources? I wouldn’t put a penny on it.

Kaka bid could help end the insanity of the EPL

When Chelsea wanted to join the Football League sometime around 1905 it didn’t do so on the basis of the football it had played so far – because there was none. No club, no team, no stats – just a ground on which the terraces were unsafe and crumbling even before the club opened. Chelsea were given a place in the second division just because of the ground – pushing aside those applicants from the then powerful Southern League who had good footballing reasons to be allowed in.

Having got used to such imperious behaviour, the club continued along similar lines, bypassing normal behaviour at each stage, until Abramovich came along and donated over £500 million in interest free loans so the club could buy success they had failed to achieve on the pitch.

Meanwhile down the M6 we have Sheik Yermoney at Manchester Money. To English supporters, bidding 100 million pounds or whatever it is for one player to play in a team near the relegation end of the EPL, is just everyday madness for our football. We’ve seen Abramovich – and before him we saw Ken Bates. And we watch Tottenham do it each year. That is English football.

But in Italy it is different. They have crazy times too – but there the crazies these days tend to be involved in match fixing. (We have that too of course, but we don’t like to talk about it).

Anyway, the papers in Italy are now totally bemused, if not downright alarmed at the Kaka bid, not because they don’t want their chap to join another club, but because of the insanity of the fee – which is called in La Gazzetta dello Sport, “an indecent proposal”. “Madness” is another word oft used today.

There was hope that the Prime Minister and owner of AC Milan Silvio Berlusconi, might stop the deal, but it is looking more likely that he’ll take the crazy money and stuff it in the vaults.

El Presidente’s brother (sorry I changed languages there but you know what I mean) Paolo Berlusconi runs the Milan paper Il Giornale and he said little about Kaka and instead stoked up speculation over the future of Cristiano Ronaldo. (Blimey, he must have been trained as a journalist in England. Incidentally I have heard that an ex KGB officer has put in a bid to buy the Evening Standard).

Back to football, and how does this help?

You don’t get people like Mr Absent Abramovich or Sheik Yermoney (or come to that Americans who use the clubs own money to buy the clubs) owning many football clubs outside England, so the lunatic activities of these owners still come as a surprise elsewhere.

Of course you still get big buyers in Italy (as when AC Milan took Flamini from Arsenal, and have since only started him in half the matches the first team has played – apparently he is not amused), but the sheer excessivenes of KGB Fulham and Mancheter Money is a surprise to them.

Which means that one can just about appreciate a rumbling in Europe – a rumbling that maybe it is not acceptable to have billionaires come in and take over clubs like this. It’s ok if they stick to England, but now they are starting to mess with Italian football, and that is a different matter.

The solution of course is that the club’s resources should be restricted to finances from football – so you spend what you get on match day and from marketing, not what that awfully nice man from an Icelandic bank turns up and donates.

That is what clubs in Italy and elsewhere might now demand of UEFA as a result of the Kaka bid, especially if they think that their own mega clubs are going to be under threat from the likes of Manchester Money.

Clearly the current situation cannot and indeed will not last. It is just a question of whether the clubs themselves implode, or UEFA acts.

Incidentally – final point while thinking about money – I have been picking up stories that Rangers from Glasgow are totally bust. I don’t really stay up with football from the frozen wastelands north of Watford, but if you can point me to an article about this, I’d be grateful.

Tony

Slowly the football financial truths emerge

Companies, like individuals, that are in trouble tend to be a bit circumspect with the truth when debating their situation.

And so we have seen with the situation concerning Liverpool FC – and it looks like there is more to come.

I reported that Liverpool’s finances are so awful that the banks that have loaned them money have given them an extension until the summer, and suggested that at that time they expect Liverpool’s financial mess to be sorted by the club – or else no more loans.

However it has now become clear that there is another clause, that the club have been hiding away. It emerged after my silly open letter to the banks, protesting at the way they have loaned the money. I doubt that my post achieved that – it must be a coincidence.

Anyway, we now know that the £350 million loan must not UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES be used for the buying of players.

What really screws Liverpool at this point is that they, like most clubs, buy players on the never-never – so when you hear someone buys Johnny Foreigner (to use the ex-chairman of the Tiny Totts name for Bergkamp) for 20 million what you are actually getting is 20 million over five years.

What this means is that Liverpool need that £350 million loan not just to pay Benetiz his newly inflated salary, and players wages, and all the other players Benitez wants to buy, but to pay for people bought in the past. And the strict interpretation of the loan is that it can’t be used for that. (Even if it can, they still can’t use it to buy players, or else the bank closes the loan down).

Of course Liverpool are not the worst placed club today. That honour goes to West Iceland United.

In simplistic terms, their owner has gone bust (because he owned an Icelandic bank), the club is for sale and no one is buying, Sheffield United want their 50 million having won the Argentine case, and now the EPL and FA are investigating them again, and will probably end up deducting points.
West Iceland’s problems stem from their fanatical secrecy – they chose not to show the FA and EPL the contracts relating to Tevez – and that is the cause of all that happened after. After that it got worse and worse, as the club starting telling the EPL and FA one thing, but then were telling the player’s lawyer something else.

In the midst of all this – with every aspect of the affair going against them West Iceland are doing nothing other than denying everything. For each issue they have an excuse.

A bit like the EPL itself. EPL top dogs are currently stating that they expect the next Sky deal to be as big as the current one. Yes well, not in the world I live in.

Last point – just a detail. I tried taking off the checking process (the maths question) for those who wish to post, and have just spent an hour getting rid of 250 spam emails sent to the group. Sorry – it has to go back on. If you want to post you will be asked a simple maths question (like 3 + 5 =). Annoying I know, but it makes the smooth running of this group (which is after all just a hobby for me) much easier.

Open letter from Arsenal supporter to Royal Bank of Scotland

Dear Sirs,

It has come to my attention that RBS is one of two banks that is lending hundreds of millions of pounds to Liverpool FC – a loan that you have just renewed.

I wish to express my concern about the risk that you are running. As a taxpayer I am a partial owner of your bank, and I am concerned about how you are running it.

It is widely reported that the manager of Liverpool FC (a Mr Benitez) has recently put new demands to the owners (Tom Hicks and George Gillett) about finances. My concern is that if Mr Benitez wins the argument, that money which you have just lent Liverpool FC will be used in an orgy of spending (partly on Mr Benitez himself), and that your chances of getting your money (and in part my money) back, will be limited in the extreme.

In the Guardian today it is reported that Mr Benitez wants total control over the club’s transfer policy – allowing to spend untold millions of pounds on people who can run around a lot.

At the same time Mr Benitez is demanding a new contract which will give him a guaranteed income of £4.5m-a-year salary until 2013 – a phenomenal risk for a club so utterly and hopelessly in debt as Liverpool FC

In relation to the purchasing of players, at the moment the issue is resolved by three people after Mr Benítez has made a recommendation: Hicks, Gillett and Rick Parry. To allow Benitez to have all this power on his own would surely be a step too far, especially when he has put himself in total control for so many years at such a high salary.

Issues arise over both the financial stability of the club and the health of the manager who is demanding these changes. You will know just how close to the edge this football club is – which is why you only agreed to extend their loan until this summer. I trust that this is a prelude to calling in the money you (and I) are owed.

But it may be worth considering moving more quickly. The recent eccentric and wild statements by Mr Benitez over one of his footballing rivals must surely cast some doubt on how well he is able to continue to in his job – which is a demanding role to say the least.

I do hope you will consider this matter seriously and rapidly so that all shareholders in your partially nationalised bank will be assured that their money is safe, and is not being frittered away on such obvious bad debts.

Tony Attwood

Wenger watch, Flamini watches his watch

On 25 February 2001 Manchester Utd (later to become Manchester Bankrupt) beat Arsenal 6-1. Manchester went 16 points clear at the top of the table. Since 1991 we had won the league just once.

In those days we hardly had blogs at all, but the fanzines were hugely active in calling for Wenger’s head.

Had he said, “all right, you win, I’m off” there would have been cheers from the writers of such fanzines and those who booed our own players.

In 2002 we did the double, in 2004 we were unbeaten all season, in 2005 we won the cup. None of that would have happened if the reaction to the previous season had been taken to heart by the Lord Wenger.

Compare with the current situation. Last season we ended just four points behind, having been top for part of the year. This year we have been cut to shred with injuries, but the essence of our team is young and will grow with us. And still people call for Wenger to go.

I believe that the only answer to them is 25 February 2001.

Moving on, there is Mr Flamini. The year before he left Arsenal he said he was ready to go, because he was not being used enough – coming on with perhaps 30 minutes left in the games he did not play in.

So it is interesting to watch him this season. He has chosen to leave Arsenal, at the end of his contract, and there is nothing wrong with that. I make no complaint – I just like to watch the result.

This past weekend Flamini’s team played Roma. He was on the bench and came on in the 89th minute as a substitute for David Beckham.

Final point – it has been pointed out that the maths question in relation to posting can be difficult to understand first time around, so I have removed it for the moment. If it does increase the amount of spam getting through I’ll have to put it back, but we’ll give it a try.

(c) Tony Attwood 2009. I notice that one or two of my posts are once again being taken wholesale and posted elsewhere. To anyone thinking of doing this, this is a criminal offence in that it breaks the copyright owned on these scripts, and we are now starting to take action. It does take a little while to get the wheels rolling in each case, but you will hear from us.

7 unbeaten + wholesale injuries = meltdown?

We’ve just had seven league games unbeaten, including three matches against teams above us in the league. And this has been achieved while we have injuries to virtually all of the players whom we would expect to do everything they can to drive us forward and create the goals.

And yet according to the majority of commentators this is meltdown time.

But if you want to watch a team that is in trouble then KGB Fulham is probably a good place to start – no shots on target and a 3-0 defeat yesterday. No money available, and the constant threat now that any day the owner is going to say, “I invoke Clause 9″ – this being a reference to the part of the Abramovich deal which says that at any moment he can give the club notice that they have to pay back what they owe within 18 months. (Which is over 500 million).

Or try the Tiny Totts. Harry Houdini has come in and done his magic, they’ve had the upturn that all clubs get when they sack one manager and bring in another, and now they are grinding out a 1-0 defeat at Wigan.

Or Liverpool Insolvency. In some ways if you were a Liverpool Insolvents supporter you might think things are ok. Only one defeat all season, and top of the league. True the banks have just renewed the loans – but they only gave them for six months (which in banking parlance normally means, this far and no further). And this weekend there was a 0-0 with Stoke, plus the wildest of rants from the manager.

True the Lord Wenger has on occasion got bit miffed with Sir Alex F Word but as far as I recall he always regained his composure quickly. What Ben E Tez did was make notes, write it all out, and refer to his compendium while chatting to the press. The fact that what he says is quite true, that the FA and EPL are terrified of taking on the F Word is irrelevant – such behaviour doesn’t give you much faith in the manager.

I’m reminded of the state of affairs (yet again) 20 years ago when to celebrate the winning of the league at Liverpool, the fanzine “1-0 2-1 Up” ran a series of articles in which “supporters” wrote a set of articles each saying how close it was to being so different, and how we nearly won nothing.

I really don’t get it.

Ben E Tez speaks exclusively to Untold Arsenal

Following his outspoken comments to the press about Sir Alex F Word I thought it might be good to get further insights from the Liverpool manager on the state of the game. Here he speaks about yesterday’s tedious and dull goalless draw against Stoke City.

I had to make a selection of players for the game against Stoke, and the League she tell me, I can only play eleven of them. Is that fair?

I say that some of these players cost me 30 million pounds, and I pay them. I don’t pay them not to play. But still they won’t let me play more than eleven.

In the game against Stoke Stevie Baby he hit the cross bar. It should go in but it comes out. That is not fair.

Diego Maradona was there. At least he speak Spanish. I ask him to go and play for me, to flick the ball in the Stoke net, but he said he was not registered with this league. So I asked Mascherano to play, but he was busy watching Diego watching him watching Diego and no one scored. This is not fair.

Shawcross scored with his head, and the flag she went up, so the goal she was not given. This is fair. I like this.

As for Stoke, her approach was to throw the ball – I thought this football not throw ball. So they throw the ball, and then we give it back to them. I ask my players why they give the ball back to Stoke. They don’t speak to me. I don’t know why. One of them say in a paper I am “nutter”. This is not fair.

Then my Stevie baby she hit the free kick when the ref she is looking the other way, and the ball hits the wall which the ref is trying to push back. So Stevie gets booked. This is not fair. Stevie is a simple baby, he doesn’t know how to cheat. He just hits things. Like the ball, or men in nightclubs.

Sir Alex F-Word is not even at the ground. I have to go to this match to watch this rubbish and he can sit at home in front of his fire watching Sky Sports. That is not fair. I keep telling everyone but no one listens to me.

You can see an earlier conversation with Mr B E Tez in the post

Dribble dribble liver dribble, Ferrari, moan moan

Arsenal 14 Bolton 2: now we see the solution

And so we come to see the solution. At least the handful of us left who do not occupy their time, supporting professional journalists, writing articles about “Meltdown” and calling supporters who believe in Wenger “extremists”.

I speak of the new process, forced on us by the incredibly awful run of injuries to Eduardo, Theo, Cesc, and Rosicky across the middle.

It is there for all to see, and I think quite a few people in the stadium saw it yesterday. We saw it too in the much duller game against Portsmouth and it unlocked the stalemate then. It did it again yesterday.

Put Nasri in the middle and play Vela on the left wing.

In my rambling notes in HIGHBURY HIGH this week I suggested that Vela was one of the ten reasons to be cheerful, but worried that some of his cameos didn’t work too well. In fact over Xmas and again yesterday he was terrific. The ball stuck to his feet, he wriggled through defenders and turned them inside out.

After a few seconds of seeing what he could do Bolton Notlob put two defenders on him, which opened up the space in the middle of defence that was needed. It was reminiscent of something from the dim and hazy past… some guy who is known for scoring goals, going out left, taking two defenders, still finding his way through and then putting in a cross into the space…

Of course it is crazy to say as yet that this is Henry II, but we’ve now seen it work perfectly, twice. Nasri in the middle is still not all controlling, all dominant, but he is getting the system going, and this system does work when he has Vela on the left to perform utter magic.

I have no idea how long it is going to take to make this something we can do for 90 minutes – and maybe that is not going to be an option, but it is one hell of a development – almost out of nothing. If you imagine this approach with Eduardo in the middle, then you suddenly see an utterly different team.

Meanwhile the unity found between professional journalists who have built a career on knocking Arsenal, some writers in fanzines, and goodness knows how many bloggers, is something I find frustrating, annoying, worrying, and tiresome. We are now well into a good unbeaten run achieved for the most part without the heart of our first team. So clearly it isn’t the results that are causing some people to be so negative.

What it seems to be is that Wenger is doing it his way, not their way. To attack Wenger so virulently because he is doing his thing, is a hell of an egocentric way to write about the club – to say endlessly, I know everything you know nothing. Tony Adams could be excused perhaps when he said, on hearing of the appointment of Arsene Wenger, “he’s French. What does he know of English football?” After all it was an instant reaction from a man who was a brilliant footballer, but who lacked a global education. But for writers of fanzines and blogs to join forces with professional journalists to attack every single action of Wenger, in the middle of a decent unbeaten run in the league, which includes matches against clubs from the top to the bottom, seems to me to be, well, daft.

What good can the endless attacks on Wenger do? In the end it will drive him out, and we will bring in…. who? One of those managers that the Tiny Totts find each season?