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

5.5 Centre Forwards and the fans want more!

There’s an Arsenal web site that is currently running a yes/no question along the lines – should Arsenal sign another striker?

The majority have said yes.

Which is fine – except we are getting a bit overloaded. We have

Adebayor – scored the same number of goals in Season 3 as Theirry Henry, which is not bad.

Van Persie – two bad seasons with injuries and surely he is due an injury free time soon.

Carlos Vela – two seasons in Spain and he is scoring – “just like Eduardo” said Wenger, and that is good enough for me.

Nicklas Bendtner – not expected to achieve anything last season but he came through and scored some vital goals for us. Never forget Tottenham.

Eduardo – due back in August according to reports – but even if not that early he should be ready to play by September or October. Before being attacked he was brilliant. Remember the goal at Everton?

Theo Walcott – I counted him as the half. He will become a brilliant striker for us, but I think this coming season he would be best on the wing doing a Pires to Ade’s Henry.

So – if we buy someone else, then what. OK, let’s assume we get injuries like we have suffered for the past two years – even so, that would only take two of the players out. Worst scenario – Van Persie is done again playing for Holland, and Eduardo doesn’t get match fit until October. We have Ade playing up front with Nicklas Bendtner and Theo on the wing drifting in ready to pounce. On the bench, Vela.

Ade gets injured, but then Eduardo comes back and Theo is still an option for moving inside. Carlos Vela starts getting games.

The point is of course that we might not get these injuries – so just how are we going to keep all these players happy. Yes, Wenger can do it because of the Cup games, the extra Euro games for qualifying, and the fact that Eduardo will be reintroduced very slowly indeed, and Vela won’t expect to get too much.

But remember, Vela was playing every game for his side in Spain this last year, and with the Mexico squad this summer. He won’t wait forever.

So for me, another striker, no – because to do that we would have to sell someone, and there is no one I want to sell.

Tell you what though, I really want to be there when Eduardo comes onto the pitch for the first time.

FIFA / EU compromise emerges – Arsenal to benefit

Uefa has produced its alternative to the wild scheme of FIFA – which goes completely against EU law.

The UEFA proposal, which the EU has indicated it could well accept avoids the issue of the nationality of players and instead requires that clubs playing in the European competitions should include in the 25 man squad eight “home produced” players.

There are two vital points here. The first is the definition of “home produced.” This has nothing to do with accident of birth, or the birth of the parents or grandparents, but rather looks at where the players were trained between 15 and 21.

To qualify for a club playing in England the players would have to have spent 3 years in England during that period, which makes players such as Denilson, van Persie, Fabregas, Clichy and the like, all “English”. Indeed these players would continue to be English if they chose to move from Arsenal to another club.

Secondly, it must be noted that this has nothing at all to do with the EPL, and clubs would remain free to play anyone that they could get a registration for. EU citizens would have an open door as now, and those from outside the EU would have the chance of going to Spain or Belgium to get their registration within two years.

This is great news for Arsenal because it vindicates the Wenger model of world-wide scouting, bringing in younger players – as opposed to the Chelsea model of bringing in the “finished” article at the age of 25 or more.

Could internationals be outlawed? Probably yes.

“We were at the crossroad between the interests of clubs and national teams, and the congress of Fifa has given very clear indications of where we have to go,” said Sepp Blatter as he pushed through his infamous rule about home grown players.

The crossroads is exactly where FIFA is. Its position has been undermined both by the legal cases bought against it (remember the judge who proclaimed “Fifa lied and lied and lied”) and the crazy antics of its leader (remember his comments about women appearing in shorter shorts).

But now it is trying a final desparate move – a move to make international football dominant over club football.

As a regular at Arsenal, I get into a lot of conversations about this that and everything else to do with football, and I hear a majority of people in and outside the ground talking up club football, and talking down internationals.

The argument against internationals is well known – players get injured, they are abused by managers who play them when they shouldn’t, and there is no proper compensation for the clubs who pay their salaries. The internationals are often meaningless (see this week’s England games) and they are often imbalanced in terms of the ability of the two sides (England v San Marino anyone?)

Now, however there is a chance to fight back – because the international is based on the same premise as Blatters 6+5 rule – that you can discriminate against an individual on the basis of his place of birth (or his parents, or his grandparents).

Here’s how it works. International associations are edging towards paying players for international games. So the international associations are the employers. But they employ on the basis of selecting by place of birth – illegal under EU law. So out go internationals.

Now that is something worth looking into.

The Arsenal Curse strikes again

Poor sad Flamini. He leaves Arsenal, which is bad enough in itself, and then the Arsenal Curse begins to hit – just as it did on Birmingham City FC after the attack on Eduardo.

First, he finds that he is not going to play in the Champions League. Then he finds that he is not playing for France.

Of course he might now think his troubles are over, but if he looks at what happened to Birmingham City after the attack on Eduardo – the raid on the club by the police, the arrest of senior figures in the club, and relegation.

So what next for the poor deluded Flamini? Who knows – but it won’t be good.

Arsenal unaffected by EU rejection of FIFA wild ideas

Vladimir Spidla, European Commissioner for Employment, Social affairs and Equal opportunities has confirmed what Untold Arsenal has said for months, that the FIFA plan to limit the number of “foreign” players in each team is completely illegal under EU law, and would be opposed by the EU.

It is now more than likely that FIFA will adopt the UEFA plan of including players who have been trained in a country as being “of” that country. But even that may not be enough.

FIFAs problem is that it is so used to demanding independence for football federations from the national government that it has no ability to understand that the EU is not to be trifled with. While the likes of Greece and Iran will bow to the threat of expulsion from FIFA for the national team, the EU, being supra-national will have none of this nonsense.

The UEFA compromise package which might just be allowable by the EU will be no problem for Arsenal, many of whose young players are are English, and many of the rest are players who would qualify under the UEFA approach.

It is however highly amusing to watch FIFA make idiots of themselves thinking they can walk rough-shod over organisations as powerful as the EU.

Nasri’s here, Grimandi stays, Randall & Barazite in 1st team

As we said on Untold Arsenal last week the Nasri deal is on – just the usual boring stuff about whether it is 20k a week or 22k, and how many years. Clever aren’t we?

And as we said nine months ago Grimandi is of total importance to AFC – he was in Colorado, which is now part of the Arsenal network, he won the double twice with us, and he finds the gems. Not just a bunch of kids, but the real live winners – some of whom are 15 and aren’t even listed on the radar. There was no way he was ever going to PSG or any other club.

These kids are now of double importance because of the new FIFA 7 + 4 rule – if the kids have been trained for 2 years at Arsenal they don’t count as “foreign”. And its down to Grimandi.

Meanwhile Randall and Barazite have joined the first team. So that’s two more in the first team squad, plus Vela and Merida. Four so far, plus some of the injured from last year. Rosibky perhaps, Van Persie perhaps. Then there’s the reborn Theo and the emerging Song. The new squad is building.

Blatter’s 7+4 restriction on foreign players won’t hurt Arsenal

The idea that FIFAs bizarre attempt to limit the number of “foreign” players who can play in domestic matches will easily get through EU legislation is bizarre.

But let’s assume for the moment that Blatter’s limit of seven foreign players on the pitch for any team at any one time, does actually happen in 2010/11. What would that mean for Arsenal?

Not much, in effect, because the “English” players will include players that have had part of their youth training in England.

This will mean that in terms of being counted as English, we have such players as Cesc Fabregas, Robin van Persie, Denilson, Johan Djourou, Gael Clichy, Armond Traore, There’s also Manuel Almunia who could apply for a British passport because of his length of residency.

Overall not much of a problem for Arsenal. But a bigger problem for Chelsea, who have no youth player development programme to speak of.

One interesting side effect is that this is going to be a rule about “English” players – so a Scots or Welsh player would be part of the “foreign” grouping.

However all this is a long way off, as there is no chance that the EU will allow the implementation of a rule that just rides roughshod over the rights of workers throughout the Union. More likely the rule in the EU will be “at least 7 EU players” which will have no impact at all.

When commentators go bad

According to Wikipedia Stan Collymore “is widely regarded as one of the best football analysts for his work on radio,television and in print.”

There can be few Arsenal supporters who would agree with this after Collymore’s ludicrous and bizarre outburst on Radio 5 on the evening of 26 May 2008. Collymore, part of a discussion programme which focussed on Manchester Bankrupt and Chelsea Bankrupt claimed that Man U are the only team with stability. Liverpool, he “argued” are in turmoil with their owners at war, Chelsea don’t have a manager, and Arsenal have turned into a selling club – they have already lost two players and as a result of that more will follow.

It is hard to find much that relates this wild outburst to Arsenal.

Flamini left because his contract had run out. Arsenal could have renewed the contract one year earlier – but there was no certainty whether Flamini would come good in the 2007/8 season, and had Wenger signed Flamini on a five year contract, only to have him playing little more than a handful of games a year, everyone would have criticized Wenger.

Hleb’s agent is trying to get a better deal for another player who has suddenly come good. Hleb has two years left on his contract, and it is up to Wenger if he wishes to sign the player on a longer contract at higher rates.

So, one out of contract player has gone, one wants a better contract and the rest….

Quite what Collymore – or come to that whoever wrote the Wiki piece – was thinking about is anyone’s guess, but what is clear is that if you find his statements on 26 May ludicrous and nonsensical you too might like to change the Wiki piece. It is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Collymore and you don’t have to log in or give your name to make a change.

Arsenal in clear as UEFA start to define its approach to debt

The Daily Telegraph has reported that UEFA has held a committee meeting too look at the issue of the bankruptcy of this year’s two Euro Cup Finalisits.

Unfortunately there is no mention of the committee meeting on the UEFA web site (although it might well go up in due course) but there is no doubt that the headline about the finalists being £1.5 billion in debt was not welcomed by UEFA.

However this has also raised the issue of Arsenal’s position, and it looks from the quotes of Platini given in the Telegraph that he recognises Arsenal’s position as being quite different from the bankrupt accounts of Manchester Utd., Chelsea and Liverpool.

What links those three together is the fact that they each have debts which cannot possibly be repaid. Manchester Bankrupts are no longer making full payment on their debts as the debt interest exceeded the “profit” that they declared last year (the “profit” being the money made prior to paying interest.)

As we all know, it is possible to survive just paying interest, in the hope of a windfall in the future, but Man Ban fail on two fronts – they aren’t paying even the interest (let alone the debts) and there will be no windfall. Manchester operate on sell-out tickets, they have tried every trick to get more money (remember that season ticket holders have to buy tickets for league cup games even if they don’t want to go), they are regularly in finals, and they tour as much as they can overseas. They have world-wide marketing. There’s no more to do.

There simply is no source of money that remains untapped, but “sir” Alex Ferguson demands 40 million pounds a year to buy players.

Chelsea hid their real financial situation until this month when they finally revealed that their owner had not “given” them the billions to spend on players and salaries, but had just loaned the club the money. The loan says that the money must be repaid within 18 months of request – and since that is clearly impossible, the club is in trouble.

Part of Chelsea’s way out was to make the club self-financing by 2010, but this is laughable, and there is no progress towards that. Sacking managers isn’t going to help, and the chances are that one more manager who doesn’t win everything every year will result in the owner walking away and asking for his money back.

Liverpool’s debts are a bit smaller and they too have maximised their income with sell-outs and regular Euro jaunts. But they too are based on the notion of spending 40 million or so a year, and they are still trying to find someone crazy enough to lend them 350 million to build a stadium. Certainly if they took on that debt the rate of interest would be very high since the chance of failure to repay (given the other debts) would be very high also.

Which leaves Arsenal. The debts are based entirely on the stadium, and the club is thus like a house-owner with a mortgage based around the value of the building. This is a totally different type of debt from that seen elsewhere, and is made better by the fact that around one third of that debt will be repaid from the income from Highbury and other properties Arsenal purchased in order to build the new stadium.

Additionally Arsenal often make a profit on player buying and selling, and they still have some way to go to maxmise their income. The new income strands include

The tie-up with Colorado and the establishment of the Arsenal brand in the US.

Growing audiences for league cup games (which at one time played to half empty stadia, and for Youth and Women’s games, both of which have drawn ever larger crowds recently.

Expansion of pre-season activity (the Emirates Cup looks like selling out for example)

Further marketing of the brand into France (where it is very strong) and perhaps north Africa.

Above all Arsenal is a club that uniquely has no debts which can be called in quickly, and is meeting all its debt repayments.

It therefore seems more than likely that UEFA wll draw up debt regulations based on the security of the debts and the ability of the club to repay the debts. Anything in fact that will stop other clubs following the lead of the Big Three Bankrupts of Man U, Chelsea and Liverpool.

Welcome to the battle of the bankrupts

Tonights the big night.

The two most indebted clubs in the history of football, who between them owe over £1.5 billion and have absolutely no way of paying it back.

One of them the most notorious anti-footballing team of the present era, the other sinking deeper and deeper into the financial mire.

Meanwhile in the real world Arsenal continue with attacking football, signing the greatest young players – two more on their way today.

But does anyone notice? No, of course not, they are hypnotised by debt. The debt of football, the debt of three of the top four clubs, totally out of control and getting worse.

There’s more details in the article below.

Arsenal not in final as they don’t have enough debt

The two teams in tonights cup game owe 1.5 billion pounds between them. They are the most debt laden clubs in the world – and the fact that they have made it to the final says something utterly awful about football.
This is Match 39: the great dream of the English Premier League. A game played between two EPL teams on foreign soil.

So here it is Manchester Megadebt vs Chelsea Megadebt. And you don’t get much more debt than that.

Starting with Chelsea who owe an amazing £736 million. £578m of that is owed to one man Mr Abramovich. It was often said that he had “given” the club the money – but no, not really. As the figures finally reveal what we have been saying all along – he has only loaned it. If the gets bored, or suddenly loses his money in a court case over oil rights (and we are not suggesting either is likely) or tragically gets injured or taken ill (and it happens to all of us in the end), then the club has 18 months to repay the money.

Then there’s Man U – they owe £764m, which is mostly made up of the debt run up by the Glazier family. They are unable to make repayments on all that debt (the club made £40m profit last year so all that went into paying the debts, but this was nowhere near enough) and so the debt is rising. There is nothing illegal or wrong in this – it is a statement of fact – as long as the profits aren’t big enough, the debt just gets bigger and bigger.

So is there something special about Euro Cup clubs and imbecile levels of debt? Well, yes if you also include Liverpool – there, the owners claimed they would put no debt into Liverpool (2006) and then they put all their debt into Liverpool (2007). They are paying interest at around half the rate of Man U – so only half the problem, but the Liverpool income is nothing like the Man U income, so there are big problems ahead.

But what of Arsenal? The debt here is around £360m, which makes it look as if they are in the same boat as the other clubs. But here’s the twist.

First, Arsenal are about to get in the money on their old ground at Highbury – so far the accounts have only shown the expenses of demolishing and rebuilding Highbury, not of any income (about £140m). Then there are all the properties that Arsenal bought around the new Emirates Stadium. They have in many regards been re-furbished or demolished, and again there is no income yet on the sale of the land or the properties.

Second, Arsenal’s debt is not just a debt to buy a club (a debt which has no guarantee other than the club itself). Arsenal’s debt is a mortgage just like the mortgage on your house. As such the rates of interest are about half those paid by other clubs – because the debt is secured.

What’s more, Arsenal’s income shot up dramatically when the club moved from Highbury. Even after the mortgage repayments Arsenal earn far more month by month than they did before – so Arsenal are better off than 5 years back, whereas all the other clubs are infinitely worse off.

Does it matter? Well ultimately it must do, because one of Man U, Chelsea and Liverpool, will ultimately fail because their debts long term are unsustainable. And when that happens the whole EPL edifice will crumble. Arsenal will survive because its debt is a mortgage rather than a speculative loan based on nothing but the club’s ability to earn more money in some unspecified way in the future. But they should start planning for life after the EPL – presumably in a Euro league with clubs like Inter, Milan, Real M and Barca.

The Arsenal Superstars of Next Season

More Untold Arsenal awards

Superstar of next season: Theo Walcott. Suddenly, just when we all expected it not to happen, he exploded. The one thing that was wrong – his inability to avoid being drawn into blind alleys where he lost the ball – vanished. It was as if he thought, “Bugger this, let’s do something” and off he went. A season of that and you will only hear his name

Unexpected star – Alex Song. Voted Wenger’s worse buy simply because of one duff game against Fulham, Song looked good in Africa, and has at the end of the season looked really terrific. If he turns up in Flamini’s position next season, do remember that the idea was first mooted here.

Young player of next season: Carlos Vela. Who else could it be. Mexico are not the best team in the world, but they are not slouches either, and he’s their centre forward. He Eduardo can come back and the others stay fit we will have five centre forwards next season, so he might not get too many games outside the cups, but when he plays he will score.

Player of next season: Robin van Persie. Saying it is going to be Cesc is too obvious. Robin is a sensational player who has had injury problems galore – maybe this time he will make the breakthrough and play a brilliant season without injury. “Maybe” because there’s the Euro competition first, and that’s where he got done last time around.

Comeback of this season: Bolton away. OK it was a messy goal, but it was the first flicker of a recovery following the awful run after the assault on Eduardo

Comeback of next season: Tomas Rosicky / Gilberto Silva. Either or both would do me. Gilberto’s performancs have been erratic, but we got flashes of what made him so vital to us for year on year in the past. Rosicky has been injury prone, but maybe the very very long lay off and thankfully no Euro call up will mean he can come back and become Little Mozart once again

Try some of these (Gooner News doesn’t highlight them all)

20/05/2008: It’s debt vs debt in Match 39

20/05/2008: French miss out on top players

20/05/2008: Yes it is on. We’ve got Nasri

19/05/2008: Untold Arsenal Awards: Best and Worst Moments

French miss out on top players

Gael Clichy, along with Sagna and Diaby have escaped a possible long term injury of the type suffered by Van Persie and Alex Hleb, as France have failed to procure their services for the Euro Finals this summer.

There was a concern that France might inflict international football on Clichy after he was put into the initial squad, but France have decided to inflict more football on Eric Abidal and Patrice Evra instead. The fact that Sagna and Clichy were the full backs of the year in the EPL doesn’t count a gram in France, thank goodness.

This is great news for Arsenal who will have to play a Champions League qualifier sometime around August 16. Anyone who has played in the Euro games will be struggling to be fully fit by then – which is something of a horror given the importance of this game. Certainly anyone from a team that gets into the semi-finals is more than likely to not make it back by then.

Thus Arsenal might be without Fabregas, Galls, and Van Persie, Senderos and Djourou

But we will have

Sagna, Toure, Song and Clichy across the back four, Hleb or his replacement, Rosicky, Walcott, Eboue, Denilson and Gilberto to pick from in the middle, and Adebayour plus Vela and Bendtner up front: a much stronger team than we might have feared.

Given that the Swiss are likely to go out fairly early on, that should give us some backup in the middle of defence, and there is less concern about goalkeepers who need less recovery time.

Yes it is on. We’ve got Nasri

Gilles Grimandi has been watching him, everyone says he is incredible, and Nasri himself has said he’s leaving.

The price is around 14 million pounds which is within the realms of Arsenal’s affordability for the right player – and if it is true that Hleb wants to go, then Arsenal will get all of that back for Hleb – and indeed Arsenal can name their own price because Wenger wants Hleb to stay so is under no pressure to release him. Even better, Hleb’s price has shot up after last season’s wonderful displays.

And this is what the Guardian said about Nasri

“The silken touch, the balletic elegance, the majestic strength. The vision. The trailblazing dribbles that begin with the drop of a shoulder and a graceful dash and conclude with a piercing pass or a scorching shot.”

In short he is Zidane reborn – and he’s a Frenchman of Algerian descent. (At least most people call him Zidane II, except one web site which amusingly compared him to C Ronaldo at Man U.

The rest of last weekend’s stories

Untold Arsenal Awards: Best and Worst Moments

The best moment – the first goal away to Milan, which shows that Fabregas is not only a genius but is able to take control of the match. Not only the best moment because of what it signified there and then but also because it showed a side of Cesc that can only grow.

Runner-up: – the final goal against Tottenham at WHL – a magnificent shot which just left the Tiny Totts fans standing there thinking “why can’t we do that”

The Worst Moment: the anti-semitic chanting at the Barnet friendly right at the start of the season. It was good to see our own supporters take a stand against this and tell the neo-Nazis who should be supporting Chelsea where to get off. The fight was unfortunate, but in the end Nazis have to be dealt with.

Runner-up worst moment: not the attack on Eduardo itself but the was in which Birmingham reacted to FIFAs enquiry into whether there was a case for a player getting a longer spell out of the game when his tackle has such an effect.

Some recent articles

Everyone says its Nasri

The reason is that

a) he’s amazing

b) he’s said he’s ready to leave Marseilles

c) lots of people have linked him to Arsenal – although that’s probably because Gilles Grimandi has been watching him.

The price is around 14 million pounds which is within the realms of Arsenal’s affordability for the right player

And this is what the Guardian said about him

In short he is Zidane reborn – and he’s a Frenchman of Algerian descent. (At least most people call him Zidane II, except one web site which amusingly compared him to C Ronaldo at Man U.

Anyway, it is the strongest rumour by far of the summer, so it might, just, perhaps, be about to happen.

The rest of the weekend’s stories

Everyone is saying we’ve signed Nasri

The reason is that

a) he’s amazing

b) he’s said he’s ready to leave Marseilles

c) lots of people have linked him to Arsenal – although that’s probably because Gilles Grimandi has been watching him.

The price is around 14 million pounds which is within the realms of Arsenal’s affordability for the right player

And this is what the Guardian said about him

In short he is Zidane reborn – and he’s a Frenchman of Algerian descent. (At least most people call him Zidane II, except one web site which amusingly compared him to C Ronaldo at Man U.

Anyway, it is the strongest rumour by far of the summer, so it might, just, perhaps, be about to happen.

The rest of the weekend’s stories

Flamini out of Champs League 08/09

Colorado Arsenal top US league

Arsenal’s American partners, Colorado Rapids, are top of the Western Conference after beating Real Salt Lake 2-0 in a televised game. They are now two points clear of their nearest rivals, changing their formation to 3-5-2 after a more conventional 4-4-2 in earlier games.

Colorado signed a long-term deal with Arsenal on February 9, 2007, which included the establishment of the Arsenal Center of Excellence at Colorado’s ground and the launch of the Arsenal Cup youth tournament open to American club teams. Colorado conduct part of their preseason training at the Emirates each year.

The club is owned by Stan Kronke who is seen by many shareholders at Arsenal as a bulwark against the activities of Russian investors.

Untold Arsenal Awards 07/08: Management

3 awards in the Management of Clubs category.

Most aggressive management: Beyond any doubt “Sir” Alex Ferguson during the Arsenal 2 Manchester Utd 2 game at the Emirates. Man U scored their second goal and “Sir” Alex ran out with all his accumulated flunkies and hangers on, to the edge of the pitch jumping around and shouting, arms waving and all that stuff. A long way out of the technical area – but of course no action taken. It was however an attempt at pure intimidation.

“Sir” Alex Ferguson (as he likes to be called) was then reduced to bitter rage when the attempts by the Manchester team to pretend that the final Arsenal goal had not gone in was failed, and he followed the game up with a set of complaints against the chanting of the Arsenal crowd, demanding that Arsenal take action.

Arsenal patiently and quietly pointed out that M Wenger suffers far far worse than that at every game at Old Trafford, and never makes a word of complain. “Sir” Alex Ferguson then shut up (for once).

Most cynical management:

Birmingham City. At Arsenal the entire bench could be seen waving to players to go down and require treatment during the last 15 minutes, to disrupt the Arsenal play. Time wasting was taken to a new level in probably the most cynical approach to the game ever seen.

At Birmingham’s ground Eduardo’s leg was nearly ripped off in a terrible tackle, which heralded a second round of cynicism, in which the player responsible was brought back after just 3 games ban, and large-scale attempts (sadly ultimately successful) were made to get FIFA to drop their investigation into the affair.

Fortunately a group of Arsenal fans were able to take their revenge – but that is the subject for a different award.

Finally best chairman: Mohamed al Fayed

Anyone who claims that the Duke of Edinburgh is running a prostitution ring from inside Buckingham Palace wins our votes hands down. Thanks for all the fun Mohamed.

Untold Arsenal Awards 3: Most delusional supporters

There were only two serious contenders for the category of “Most Delusional Supporters 2007/8”: Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool.

The argument in favour of Tottenham was based on the bizarre belief expressed at the start of the season that they would end up fourth. In reality they spent much of the season in their spiritual home of the relegation positions, and never got out of the bottom half of the table. Arsenal gained nearly double the “Tiny Totts” number of points.

For Liverpool the argument was twofold. First that they were in same was a “Top Four” or “Big Four” club, and second that this season had been “an improvement”. Both views are clearly delusional.

Liverpool have never won the EPL, and unlike Arsenal and Man U have finished outside the top four in the past ten years. Quite how this puts them in the same bracket as clubs who have shown consistency and have won the EPL it is hard to see. They are, in fact, rather like the Tottenham of the past, a bit of a cup team.

As for this season being an improvement Liverpool have spent billions of pounds and managed to go down a place and get knocked out of the Euro Cup one round earlier – which makes the claim (which was, to be fair, made by their demented manager – so it is hard to see where the “improvement” lies.

True, Liverpool did not get beaten at home 3-6 by Arsenal’s Children’s XI, so maybe that made it better. But against that, there are no obvious superstars in the junior teams, so simply avoiding defeat by not playing Arsenal seems a bit of a weak claim.

In the end we went for Liverpool, not least because apart from a few mindless twirps not many Tottenham fans seriously expected a move into the top 4 – it was more a journalist fantasy, created by too much booze.

So there we have it, Most Delusional Supporters: Liverpool

Other awards so far

· Arsenal Awards 2: Poorest visiting supporters

· Untold Arsenal Awards 1: Worst Visiting Supporters

Arsenal Old Boys 1, Cardiff City 0

In the Fairly Anemic Cup Final, an Arsenal Old Boys team including Kanu, Diarra and Campbell under the guidance of Tony Adams meandered past Cardiff City.

It was a bit of a shock to see the empty seats in the stands opposite the TV cameras, but that I suppose is indicative of the way this competition has man-handled itself down the importance scale. It could have continued to be a big time thing, had the FA handled it differently in the past.

Kanu provided all the fun, with a miss that was nowhere near as bad as some commentators said (in a desperate attempt to beef up the match) and then tapped in the goal. The main fun came when some ex-Liverpool player got himself all hot and bothered and talked about a playing “having to go – he’ll have to go” after he delivered a late tackle. Later he (the Liverpool fella, known sometimes as Lorro) excused himself by saying he thought that this player had already had a tackle. Difficult stuff this commentating with 11 players in each colour shirt running about all over the place.

Anyway, nice to see the old players can still move around a bit and enjoy themselves too.

Also it was fun to hear how the TV pundits would excuse their ravings of just a few months back when they said over and over that the Fairly Anemic Cup could only be one by one of the “big four” teams (by which they mean Arsenal, Man U and Chelsea, plus – for some reason – Liverpool).

I wonder if Carlos Vela will be playing in the final next May?

Untold Arsenal Awards 2: Poorest visiting supporters

Bolton’s support was awful – just plain awful.

There were about 30 of them, and they just sat and watched and went home. I saw more visiting supporters when I went to watch Kettering against Southport.

There is something really wrong with Bolton – to put up with the anti-football that Fat Sam the Slug played year after year, and then, when he has gone, to stop supporting the team.

I suppose the problem is that these people only turn up when the club is doing ok – no matter what the quality of football is all about.

On that basis, and assuming that the Bolton fans could tell the future, they got it right. The match “facts” were Arsenal 19 Bolton 0 (goal attempts) and Arsenal 9 Bolton 0 (shots on target). But in case that sort of pre-cognition is ever taken seriously (and there are people who will believe anything in football) just think of Derby fans. They got slaughtered and yet kept turning up game after game until the end.

Bolton stayed up – but on the basis of the support they have they should be in Conference North.

Untold Arsenal Awards 1: Worst Visiting Supporters

WORST SUPPORTERS 2007/8: ASTON VILLA

As usual there were votes for Man U with their dreadful pedophilia song, but for sheer awful bad taste and managing to get the whole stadium against them within 30 seconds, the winners must be Aston Villa.

They played Arsenal just after the dreadful assault by Birmingham City on Eduardo, and chose their visit to unleash a disgusting piece about the event.

Within seconds the whole stadium rose in a howl of disgust, and even the dozy stewards realised that what was happening was far beyond the normal level of singing. A significant number of Villa creatures were removed, and the song was not heard again.

It is difficult to imagine anything more appalling or distasteful than those 30 seconds of singing, but it is possible that next year Man U will regain their regular place at the top of the league.

FA & government intensify battle against Arsenal

We saw last week how the government had manipulated the situation to ensure that Arsenal’s bid for a UEFA cup final at the Emirates would fail – and then changed the rules again so that Wembley’s bid would succeed.

Now they’ve gone much further.

A bunch of MPs that make up the culture, media and sport select committee yesterday told the European Commission that its white paper on sport was unacceptable. They said that national governing bodies (meaning the FA) must be ableto decide how their sports should be run.

Decoded this means, if the FA wants quotas restricting overseas players, they should be able to have them, irrespective of whether this breaks lots of European laws.

The EPL remains against quots, but the FA, with its warped view that quotas will help England actually get into a final of some international tourney or other is against the EPL.

Any such reversal of the law will affect Arsenal, which is built on the famous World-Wide Scouting model invented by Arsene Wenger, through which the club attracts the very best players from across the world. FIFA are also trying to undermine Arsenal’s approach which values quality irrespective of race, colour or accident of where your grandmother was born, but their approach is different from the new FA/government stance.

FIFA’s argument would make players registered to play for Wales count as “foreign” in England – and vice versa – which would make life difficult for Cardiff and Swansea, whose sides are usually packed with Englishmen. The FA however are trying to introduce a rule that treats the whole of the UK as one – while separately keeping the two individual countries, the principality and the province, as separate footballing “nations”.

If the FA and FIFA get their way, football (especially the EPL) will decline as clubs are forced to bring in second-rate English players to replace the top players from around the world that we currently see at Arsenal.