Untold Arsenal: the stories no one else runs » 2008 » May » 17

17/05/2008 by Tony Attwood.

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

17/05/2008 by Tony Attwood.

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?

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