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France’s defeat had nothing to do with Ireland

Arsenal News, International, Rants, World Cup 2010 30 Responses »

Jun 182010

After a 2-0 defeat to Mexico tonight, France have become the first big team to come within touching distance of elimination. A Uruguay-Mexico carve-up in the final group games would see both through - a draw sees Uruguay top the group with Mexico second, no matter what France do to South Africa.

It was dramatic, it was exciting and frankly, it was deserved – Mexico were excellent, France poor. Given how much we love to see the big nations brought down a peg, it should have been highly enjoyable.

But it wasn’t, thanks to the commentators and the reactive media (particularly a few sanctimonious ones on Twitter) taking the opportunity to mention that handball in that playoff match every minute of the game, as if France’s loss was more of a victory for Ireland than it was for Mexico.

I don’t pretend to know the entire Irish population. But while those I do were pretty irritated by Henry’s handball at the time, they soon got over it. They certainly put it behind them quicker than the English media, led by a few individuals calling for Henry to be banned for the tournament, France to be thrown out, and other ludicrous and overblown suggestions.

Tonight was a huge win for Mexico. A draw would have left them needing to beat a flying Uruguay, but instead they proved the talent they have in the squad and are on the brink of qualification for the knockout stages. They should have been the stars, yet inexplicably, too many chose to focus on the ‘karma’ of the situation and how delighted Ireland would be, despite a) as far as I can see, the Irish don’t care anymore and b) Henry didn’t even feature in the game.

Don’t get me wrong, I felt for Ireland at the time, and if some still harbour ill feeling towards Henry, and France in general, then maybe they will have enjoyed tonight a little more than most. But the impression I get is that the majority hold no such grudge, so this continued campaign of vitriol is not representative of their feelings in any way.

The more the written press continue this faux holier than thou attitude on behalf of a nation that do not desire or require their ‘support’, the more they irritate me. And I’m sure I’m not alone.

For the record, I have a sneaky suspicion France will still go through. Mexico will fancy their chances of beating Uruguay to top the group, therefore avoiding Argentina in the second round, and that would open the door to France, provided they can hammer a demoralised South Africa. Don’t write them off just yet.

As for the Arsenal representatives, no-one covered themselves in glory. The entire French team was unimpressive, while at the other end Vela missed a great chance before going off with a hamstring injury. In earlier matches, Cesc inexplicably remained on the bench while his teammates lost to Switzerland, and Eboue was part of an Ivory Coast defence untroubled by Portugal.

On the plus side, the entertainment level of the tournament has picked up after a slow and cagey start – Argentina demolished South Korea today, and teams are certainly playing with a freedom missing in the early days.

Betting Update

After a bad day yesterday – three out of three bets failed to come in – Argentina’s big win over South Korea and Greece’s victory over Nigeria boosted the profits once more. Part of me wishes I was staking more than a pound on each bet…

I will continue to place a bet on each match in the tournament, adding some random ones here and there, so keep checking the tracker to the right to see how it is going.

Other Arsenal news

The fixture list is out for the 2010/11 season and we start with a belter – a trip to Anfield to face a Liverpool side hoping to feel the effect of a new manager. Our next crunch game is also away - Chelsea on October 2.

November, often a bad month, will again be tricky – Everton (away), Villa (away) and Spurs (home) provide plenty of challenges, especially surrounded by Champions League fixtures. We complete the trio of away games against the Big Four before Christmas.

If we are in contention at Christmas, having played Liverpool, United, Chelsea, Everton, City and Villa away, we are in with a real shout.

But that is for another time – I have to be honest and say that I struggle to get excited about the season when it is so far away. When the players start training again, and we play our first pre-season match, everything will change.

Before then, we have the rest of the World Cup. And I love it, at least when the TV is muted.

The internet can be an unedifying place at times – Cesc thoughts

Arsenal News, Rants, Transfers 25 Responses »

May 192010

It has all kicked off today, hasn’t it?

We always knew this would be the summer of Cesc, or more pertinently, the summer of incessant transfer rumours surrounding our captain, irrespective of whether any truth lay within the articles. Barcelona’s presidential campaign ensured that, and our end to the season allowed the assembled hacks to play their ‘Arsenal in crisis’ trump card.

Today’s rumours began from a fairly innocuous source. Spanish paper AS carried a story in which Joan Laporta (who, remember, will not be Barcelona president much longer) claimed both Cesc and David Villa had expressed a desire to move to Barcelona, with Villa’s negotiations progressing more smoothly of the pair. The Guardian followed up by reporting the story as fact.

Since then, it has been rumour and counter rumour. Various media folk are suggesting that the story is well-sourced, but there is little concrete evidence to suggest that this is anything other than the overblowing of another Spanish media attempt to unsettle a player.

In short, most of us do not know the facts.

What has been incredibly frustrating to watch is the hysteria that has surrounded the story. The day has essentially followed the following pattern:

Stage 1 – denial. The story written off as garbage.
Stage 2 – hype. More and more people jumped on the bandwagon, giving the story far more credibility than it had previously – whether or not the story turns out to be true, this is the surefire way of legitimising a rumour.
Stage 3 – panic. A slew of articles about Arsenal in meltdown, calls for Wenger’s head and the complete removal of the board.
Stage 4 – abuse. Suddenly Cesc is disloyal, contemptuous of the fans, and not even that great a player. Worse still, his sister gets a torrent of disgusting abuse on Twitter.
Stage 5 – claims of knowledge. Certain members of the written press actually have some knowledge, as do perhaps 5% of bloggers, but most are simply inventing a unique angle on the outcome. Yaya Toure is a makeweight. No, hang on, Ibrahimovic is coming the other way. Or maybe they’ll give us a keeper. Or Xavi.

I have to be honest – it has been truly awful to watch. Fans turning on each other, the management, the players – anyone they can turn their anger on. Hype has turned into hysteria, worry into panic, disappointment into the worst kind of abuse. I have had absolutely no desire to even attempt to add reason to the debate – those who have tried have been comprehensively drowned out by the wailing of the masses.

In the absence of concrete quotes (from reliable sources, at least) or a desire to invent a brand new angle (we’ll have Iniesta, Bojan and £60m please), I thought it wise instead to return to the facts.

Cesc will return to Barcelona at some point. We all know that, and that knowledge ensures that we cannot simply write off these sorts of rumours as complete garbage. One summer, they will be true.

That said, Cesc’s most recent quotes indicated that he intends to stay at Arsenal for a while yet. Of course, his mind could have been swayed by a number of factors – the end to our season, Barcelona’s superiority in the Champions League, or even something as fundamental as missing home.

If any of those reasons have driven him to request a transfer, then I fail to see why we can possibly hold it against him. A return to your hometown would be appealing to any man or woman in any profession, especially if that homecoming included a hefty payrise and the joining of perhaps the biggest name in your field of work (the analogy’s getting weak here, I know).

However, Arsenal are in better financial shape than they have been in years, so Barcelona cannot drive a hard bargain. Cesc will understand the economics of the situation – if Arsenal do not receive an excellent valuation, he won’t leave - it really is as simple as that. He has four years to run on his contract, and seems level headed enough to realise that if Barcelona under-offer, the transfer will not occur.

The key difference between this potential transfer and so many others is that Cesc’s value is not going to drop – he is young and miles away from the end of his current deal. Under normal circumstances, clubs are forced to cash in to avoid losing their star men for free, but we have no such worries.

If Cesc leaves, it will be a bitter blow, but we will recover as we have in the past. If he stays, he will continue to lead in his inspirational fashion.

Either way, I’ll support him from the rafters. Unlike so many raising their voices today, the man has acted with class throughout.

Fragility of the players is plain to see

Matches, Rants 14 Responses »

May 042010

Blackburn 2 (Dunn 44, Samba 68) Arsenal 1 (Van Persie 13)
(Premiership)

If I were in Arsene Wenger’s shoes this morning, I’d have called the players in, sat them down in front of a big screen, and played them Sam Allardyce’s post-match interview. And once it was finished, I’d have played it again. And again. And again.

Looking at his smug face, gloating at the success of his predictable tactics, should drive the message home to those who failed to put in the required effort yesterday – if you play one of his sides, you have to be up for a battle. Cruise around the pitch, duck out of the physical contests, and you will be beaten. Stand up to the challenge, and your superior ability should shine through.

And for goodness sake, give your goalkeeper a little protection. If three opponents are crowding him, get in amongst them and disrupt them right back. It isn’t rocket science, people.

But apparently, to some of these players, it is. Traore, given an opportunity to prove his worth at left back, shirked every opportunity to drive forward. Vela missed a sitter early on then vanished. Diaby had another of his lazy days.

You can’t afford that against Blackburn. In fact, you can’t afford that against many teams – go away from home in the Premiership and you will face a challenge – it doesn’t matter who you’re playing, they won’t make it easy. If they work harder than we do, any technical advantage is cancelled out.

Of course there are extenuating circumstances – we lost Song, Rosicky, Clichy, Bendtner and Denilson on top of our existing absentees. But while a drop in quality is understandable, a decline in effort is baffling – the thing with injuries is it gives the squad a chance to shine. They not only failed to take it, they didn’t seem that bothered.

We have one game left this season, and third place is still not secure. A draw against Fulham is all we need, and while that might seem a foregone conclusion, so would some of the other games we’ve chucked away in recent times. We fought so hard to be in the title race this season, and the stark contrast in fortunes as soon as that drive slipped away shows just how little we can afford to let up. A small drop in work rate and the points dry up.

Fabianski has taken the flak this morning, and he was indeed at fault for the second goal – he was bustled but he and the rest of the defence need to be stronger than that. But I’m more annoyed with certain other members of the team – the Pole worked hard and made some fine saves under pressure. Some of the rest ambled around as if the game didn’t matter.

It did matter, to the fans who will be here long after they’ve departed. It will always matter against Sam Allardyce, and if they never want to see his smug face again, they’d better buck their ideas up.

Final word on the Ramsey incident – the press are missing the point

Arsenal News, Broadcasters, Idiots, Rants 11 Responses »

Mar 062010

Reading the newspapers, listening to Five Live, and watching Arseblogger get more and more irate by the Soccer Saturday coverage of the Ramsey incident, it strikes me that the written and spoken press are completely missing the crux of the issue.

Shawcross did not mean to break Ramsey’s leg, but that is not the point.

Gallas put in a poor challenge on Davies, Vieira and Lauren used to put in hard challenges, and Arsenal are no angels, but that is not the point.

Wenger was emotional after the game, but that is not the point.

Shawcross cried, but that is not the point.

The Stoke fans contained some of the absolute lowest of the low, but that is not the point.

Ramsey was quick, but that is not the point.

Shawcross has injured before, has broken legs before, but that is not the point.

Ramsey has suffered a dreadful setback, and while that deserves more of the focus than any of the above, it is in some ways, also not the point.

No, the point is that we have cultivated a culture in English football in which weaker sides can do more than harry and press, they can close the gap using methods other than the legal approach of working harder, being better organised and coming off the pitch exhausted.

In addition to all of that, it has become accepted to put in sly tackles, flail elbows, and deliberately foul to put your superior opponent off the game. It is even accepted to come out before the match and declare this as your intention. Instead of applauding the workrate of the strugglers, the pundits snigger at the late challenges, the full blooded swipes, irrespective of the danger they cause.

No other country allows this to happen. Wild tackles are punished no matter what the consequences, but they only come into focus here if they result in a serious injury. Even then, they are defended – how else can the smaller team compete, they ask? The answer is simple – by playing football better than us. The clue’s in the name of the game, you morons.

I get it, you get it, the blogs linked to the right get it. So why do 90% of those paid to analyse the game miss what is the real story here?

Trial by media is getting to be a major concern – Eduardo/Henry and Sky Sports Justice

Analysis, Arsenal News, Broadcasters, Rants 32 Responses »

Jan 182010

It is nearly three years since Arsene Wenger first coined the term ‘Sky Sports Justice’ following the Carling Cup final with Chelsea. That day, in case you’ve forgotten, Adebayor was sent off for slapping Wayne Bridge, when that was in fact Eboue’s action. The press machine went into overdrive, focusing heavily on the ‘brawl’, and Eboue in particular, and as a result both clubs were disproportionately fined, with Eboue banned (Adebayor’s ban was not rescinded). Drogba, meanwhile, slapped Cesc away from the main cluster of players, but Sky refused to show it in their coverage, and no charge was brought. It was one of the clearest cases of media-driven action (and lack of) we’ve seen.

Since then, it has become worrying prevalent. We are now in the age of 24 hour news coverage, Sky Sports News running stories on a loop while the written press pick their targets, going after them online and each morning. Phone-ins give voices to those who read the Sun’s agenda-filled stories and wish to emphasise and embellish them, and suddenly fiction becomes fact. A minor incident becomes the disgrace of the century, and an individual finds himself the victim of a bloodthirsty witchhunt. It is all rather unedifying.

Moreover, it is a tough subject for a manager to broach – challenging the power that the media have over the football authorities can and will turn them against you, which only increases the focus on those incidents in which your players could be seen to be in the wrong. For example, any Arsenal fan can tell you that the Daily Mail has become the anti-Arsenal rag, with a constant stream of stories mocking everything that goes on at the Emirates, irrespective of whether there is any shred of truth in the words they print. With every story they twist reality to make us seem like the bad guys.

That isn’t a complaint, incidentally – I’m sure fans of other clubs can find columnists and even entire papers that continually paint them in a bad light. Much like political affiliation, they like to appeal to a subset of the country’s readership by taking a consistent line on the ‘good guys’ and the ‘bad guys’. They pick their targets, and stick to them. If their numbers dwindle, they switch. It is classic marketing, but so many are gullible enough to soak in every last word.

Sometimes they even announce their change – witness the Sun’s recent political declaration of support for the Conservative party over Labour, a complete about turn after a decade of allegiance. Now every story comes from the opposite angle. Do all the columnists and reporters back the switch? Of course not – they’re just doing their job. It is the same in sport.

If the media are effectively only doing their job, the same cannot be said of the authorities who should be strong enough to act independently of public furore.

First, of course, we had the Eduardo farce. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I believe it was a dive and I would like to see divers punished. But, and this is a big but, UEFA charged him and found him guilty based entirely on the media outrage sparked by the Scottish FA. FIFA’s rule is clear – if there is any contact it cannot be deemed a dive. UEFA were attempting to pacify the outcry with a scapegoat, but had to back down when they realised the punishment would never stick, and that they were only giving themselves a massive headache going forward.

Had the press not focused on the dive, the charge would never even have been brought. Was FC Zurich’s Alphonse hauled before judge and jury for his dive against Real Madrid on the first day of the group stage? Of course not. It was the first in a string of examples that exposed UEFA’s hypocrisy.

More recently, we had Henry’s handball. More instinctive than a dive, it was blown out of all proportion because of the magnitude of the event, and the timing. No other handball incident (Scharner and Defoe, to name two who transgressed in the weeks after the furore) even got a mention. The hypocrisy is staggering, yet once against the press triumphed, Henry today being forced to attend a disciplinary hearing.

Not only did he face sanction, but he was found guilty before the trial. Sepp Blatter said:

“This is a matter of the disciplinary committee but it was blatant unfair playing and was shown all around the world, but I don’t know what the outcome will be.”

Henry escaped a ban, but it was made abundantly clear that it was due only to a lack of legal options. You can be sure that had laws not been set firmly in stone, FIFA would have found a way to suspend him, effectively giving the press carte blanche to vilify individuals and get them taken to task for offences no worse than we see week in week out.

Worrying times, indeed. But all it takes to fix this problem is for FIFA and UEFA to be strong and communicate. Resist the hype machine, and explain clearly why fair decisions are taken.

But instead, they pander, and show themselves up as weak-minded in the process, presenting the media with an opportunity to influence by carefully selected stories to fit their agendas. They no longer report the news, they create it.