“It is at times like these when, for a manager, the world can seem a dark place. As methods are pilloried, tactics crucified and past glories forgotten, friends can feel like foes and adversaries appear as assassins. When criticism is flying at you from all angles, self-belief is the only solace.”
A well written rare piece of sports journalism. You would immediately think, the article talks about Wenger, but no. It is the Guardian defending Guardiola after Bayern’s defeat against Real Madrid. Sure, defend Guardiola. He is certainly much better than the likes of Mourinho. However, why is there no sincere defense of Wenger?
Wenger has consistently shown remarkable self-belief during plenty of dark days in the past 8 years. Spending figures show that the club has overachieved. Despite all the challenges, many of them unfair, the club is still on track and is now becoming a beast about to be unleashed. So, why isn’t there a defence of the club and manager? All that the manager consistently gets is, “Arsene did some good things, yeah yeah , but blah blah, cliche cliche, spend spend or go go…”
It is not as though these people in the media are dumb. Sure, you have the Michael Owens, but what about those cunning pundits/writers who are professional sports journalists? The likes of Amy Lawrence, Henry Winter, etc.. These people are not dumb. They clearly know what they are pushing and how to sell it.
Many of you here say that we need to ignore the media agenda and think for ourselves. I agree with that. However, the media also has a social responsibility. Not just in sports, but this applies even more so in the general world. We all have a part to play in society, especially voices that are heard by many. When, page 3 girls are pushed ahead and real issues affecting a society are hidden, those driving such agendas must be exposed. While every media outlet should have the freedom to write what they want, there should also be accountability.
For Arsenal, the media has been successful in building this image of a manager who is afraid of spending big, doesn’t know defence or tactics, a board interested only in money, keeping away the saviour Usmanov and last but not least, the poor shortchanged fans. An air of weakness has been built around the club. This mood must be shattered and those who made it shown wrong.
We have made a lot of progress in the past 8 years. The club and manager are highly regarded throughout the world. The media darlings Guardiola and Klopp, look up to Wenger and seek his advice. Players respect him. As much as we have mixed feelings about Cesc, he still calls Arsene boss. Theirry Henry calls him boss even in interviews these days. That, to me speaks volumes about his coaching. The club has been self-sufficient even when it could have taken the easier route, especially during times of financial difficulty and sold it’s soul to Usmanov. Instead, now club is about to burst into a self made super club. There are a lot more points, a lot more things going well for Arsenal that are written, discussed and shown very well by those of you who fight for Arsenal. People like you are needed, to fight back and push away the agenda.
Lastly, I would like to repeat a point many of you here have mentioned as I think it is quite important. As the man representing the club, Arsene is more than capable to handling the media vipers. Just read his responses to some of the media comments and I assure you, you would be enjoying his put-downs. It is the boos, jeers and criticism of the fans that hurt the man.
Please don’t do it.
Don’t be a Piers Morgan. Support the man (people like him are rare) and the club.
Today’s post was by Sensational Arsenal.( @Madras_Periyar )
Positively Arsenal 
Fantastic piece, SA, absolutely spot on….A beast about to be unleashed…..I love it…
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well said. some of arsenal are stupid and blind.
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“Many of you here say that we need to ignore the media agenda and think for ourselves. I agree with that. However, the media also has a social responsibility. Not just in sports, but this applies even more so in the general world. ”
As the great Billy Bragg so succinctly put it 30 odd years ago about the scum press:
“Where politics mix with bingo and t*ts
In a strictly money and numbers game
Where they offer you a feature on
Stockings and suspenders
Next to a call for stiffer penalties for
Sex offenders”.
Cross, Lawrence et al are no different to the rest of the hypocrite press, not interested in presenting the facts rather than what sells. Who needs them?
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Excellent post. So glad to see a real Arsenal fan out there. Arsenal and arsene shud be the most praised club in football for the way we do things. And arsene is a genius! Shame so Many fans have been brain washed by media and sites like the le grove. The writer of that site is trying to destroy arsenal with the way he is turning fans against the club.
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So true Sam, so true. And a great post too. Love the beast unleashed motif.
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Good piece SA and nail on head in most respects.
Two points that got me thinking though – the media does not exist to inform, or at least there are large swathes of the media that do not see that as its function. It exists to entertain, and therefore what grabs the interest of the public, ideally by the testicles, rather than what is in the public interest sets their agenda.
And the only measure of the success of entertainment is audience size
The work of the Crosses and the Winters and the Lawrences, not to mention the Samuels and the Durhams, should perhaps be viewed as an efforts to entertain rather than to impart knowledge or offer an insight on the truth of events or people. They are sincere in their attempt to amuse the reader or the listener, but insincere and at times blatantly dishonest in how they go about it.
The second point leads on from the first. The successful entertainer learns to know his or her audience. You cater for the lowest common denominator. What you know will bring in the clicks. If there is a noisy group decrying a manager or a club, allegedly from within and fans of the club, then you give them what they want.
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Great post Sens.
Arsene and Arsenal must be really pissing off the media by not going along with all the distorted crap said about us.
Glad to see 2 clubs in the CL final playing football the right way.
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All valid points but a word of caution; it is absolutely right that the Guardian runs to defend Pep even though his methods and tactics were ruthlessly exposed over the two legs in much the same way he himself did to Tito in last year’s semi final. Therein lies the difference between using same pleas for Arsene as for Pep…. Pep won everything last year and for years before; Arsene has won zero for 9 years.
You have argued the case very well with very valid reasons why we have fallen behind our own very high standards over the last 6-7 years – we have actually performed more or less in line with expectations based on salary spend and with the restrictions that the stadium move, and the Board’s ethos bring.
However I just can’t help but feel that Arsene can be his own worst enemy – and that with just a little more effort, whether tactically, motivational, or in meeting a seller’s price for a quality player, we would have never ever have got close to this “9 years without blah blah” nonsense. An ECL Final, 2 League Cup finals, a European semi, an FAC Semi (all lost) and, 2 or three seasons including this) of being well in the mix in Feb/March time for EPL only to fall away; that is his current legacy so questions and criticisms should be expected if not always justified and often pushed to an extreme by people with more sinister motivations than Arsenal’s best interests at heart.
I know not everything can be perfect, but I do believe that things could have and should have been better than they are. Let’s hope we get that 4th place and beat Hull to at least get the monkey off our backs…….
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I disagree. Why do people look only at wages when it suits? Its a combination of wages AND net transfer spend that determines expected position.
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Sensational,
That was a very interesting and sensible Post and contained many very valid points.
I have a couple of comments you might consider,
The first is that I think it is a mistake to group all journalists together, because there are definitely some of these people who are known supporters of rival teams, and have a personal agenda to pursue.
You have named Michael Owen as an idiot, and who can deny that, but he is also a dyed in the wool ‘Pool supporter and again has an agenda.
On the other hand Amy Lawrence is an accredited Arsenal fan, as is John Cross, and although they may present information in a way that does not appeal, they are not in the same boat as Owen and others of his ilk.
Then there is Durham, a sly sneaky individual who succeeds in setting Arsenal fans against each other, because sadly there are all too many of the disconnected faction who allow their bile to be aired on the Radio because they feel important when they get on Talk Sport.
In summary, you have raised an important topic, but many of these journalists are informed and aided by Arsenal fans to write their articles, and others are Arsenal fans who themselves are disaffected by the lack of trophies, and yet others are open supporters of other clubs with their own pathetic agendas, and finally there are the downright stupid and then the malicious like Durham.
Re-reading that, (I felt the need to respond to you) — but I agree with far more of what you were writing than would appear from my comment.
I agree with you that Arsene shrugs off much of this nonsense, but equally he must be hurt by what many see as the betrayal by some of the club’s own fans, and by their dreadful desire to insult and disrespect a great man and manager.
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I apologise for the disjointed nature of my writing – that is the consequence of doing so contiguous with enjoying a glass or two of Sauvignon Blanc. 🙂
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Thank you everyone. It feels good to get your appreciation.
Anicoll, I agree that the likes of Durham, Lawrence are just cogs in the machinery. Just watch them praise us to high heavens without any shame the moment we start winning trophies. This is where I think there should be accountability: people like us to say, hang on, you were just mocking us a month ago! The louder we are, the better.
This paragraph is political and non-Arsenal. All of us have desires, but the exploitation of it by exposing us to saturating levels of sexuality serves two purposes. First is to make more money. Second is to distract us, just like fear is beat into us, whether we want to be afraid or not. Corporations like Fox make money through exploiting what can be easily sold and they make more money by controlling what the public know and should not know by distracting us or instilling fear in us, while we are being screwed over by something somewhere we have no idea is going on. We cant just blame fox though. As a society, we are all responsible for where we are now.
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Sauvignon Blanc ! Going tee-total H ?
Interesting point about journos – I like Paddy Barclay although I would not always agree with him, Marcotti, Syed, Barnes, Winter from time time although he can be a right prat and cant make his mond up if he wants o be a serious football wroeter or an entertainer, Hytner ditto. McIlvenney is still very good.
The interesting thing about most of them is that they are good writers who happen, though in some cases not always, to write about football.
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A fine article SA, written with real authority and no little insight – great piece and memorable, with it.
I agree with PG’s disagree – but I’d add that statistically this is likely to be true most rather than all, of the time. The two biggest variables have popped up this season, in fact – impact of injuries on outcomes and the kind of one-off rogue success threatened (though still not achieved) by Liverpool.
Both these points – being our friends the ‘exception to the rule’ – go a long way towards helping to prove the rule that PG advocates. Had AFC had a ‘deeper’ (more expensively assembled) squad, then our injuries would have been less likely to have proved so troublesome to the club this (and other) season(s). Bear this in mind: it is nothing short of truly astonishing that despite all the injuries and the apparent disasters on the pitch, here we are in May a mere SEVEN points behind the leaders. Seven.
And the vastly reduced number of games played by Liverpool this season combined with a striking purple patch and decent, positive management, have given that club what only time may prove to have been a one-off crack at winning the Premiership. That Liverpool were hardly hindered with injury this season (despite Suarez’s initial ban) also adds credence to the point.
In a way it would be ‘handy’ if Manure finished outside the Europa places just to test this theory further. They’d need the addition of at least SOME very decent new players plus an experienced top-level manager to replicate Liverpool’s playing conditions this year, but it would be an interesting experiment to replicate and test the idea.
The REAL question, however, isn’t whether net spend has an impact since most will see it as a given, for the most part. What we most need to know is, in terms of finances, how much is enough? Jose has spent £100’s Millions winning nothing in recent seasons so we can see that simply spending without restraint is no guarantee of success. Citeh’s rewards on £1 Billion spent are hardly impressive in the context of that spend.
But how much extra will Arsene need to spend to bring AFC’s achievements level in the league and level in Europe with the top spenders?
Or how little?
And going back to SA’s excellent article – how little credit would the media give for Arsene’s achievements when he finally pulls it off?
No matter how great those achievements end up being?
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Fair points Iwasthere and I am sure Arsene reflects on what he might have differently over the past few years. I know I do.
However he took the decisions he did, some worked out, some didn’t.
The imbalance in the media coverage, and the irritation it causes on here and among the Positivistas ( well me anyway) is there is no recognition of the good things that have happened, no praise for the positives of which there have been multiple instances. The narrative is incessantly negative – culminating in Roy Keane whining about our player celebrating their semi final win ffs !
Reading certain journalists and certain websites you would think we had been on a terrible journey, plunging ever lower season by season, mired in defeat after defeat and forced to watch utter shite. Our name breathed in the same tragic whispers as Pompey, Leeds and – I can hardly say it – Tottenham Hotspur
Well it really aint been like that
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iwasthere,
I dont think our wage bill has been as bad as touted. We are a big club and a wages of say 30,000 pounds per week feels cheap compared to our reported basic scale of 50,00 for the likes of Bendtner. We have to remember that if we had won the title in 07/08, the move to attract youngsters with our pay scale would have been lauded. I also think that, that group would have stuck together more. Yes, we might not have won all the trophies, but missed some great chances to win a few. However, looking at positives, it is remarkable that we were even close. We were building a team that had the potential to dominate the league for a long time, but sadly that team broke away. Oh well..no point in what ifs. We now have a spectacular team who have silk and steel in equal measure and make you fall in love with them time and again.
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Well said, Anicoll, @ 6:50
The injury ‘problem’ is one that is also used to berate Arsene, and is usually coupled with ‘red zones’ blah, blah.
What gets me is that the guys bringing this up time after time, no sod all about the red zone and the technology which was brought in by the aforementioned Wenger.
For example, how many of then know that an ex-Irish International rugby player (Healey?) had been brought in, at the beginning of the season, as a conditioning and development coach to address the perceived problems with chronic injury sufferers like Walcott, Wilshere etc.
What he said (obliquely) was that although footballers used different muscle groups to rugby players, because of the different needs of the two games, they could benefit greatly in preventing injuries caused by the twists and turns that football demands of players.
And do you know what he said? Despite all the benefits he found it very difficult to get the players to take the conditioning seriously, and If players are not prepared to adopt the conditioning regime, there is little anyone can do.
But guess who gets blamed by the all knowing moaners? Well you know it is M. Wenger!
Idiots.
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HenryB, a couple of years back, I read a piece by Lawrence mocking Wenger and stopping very short of calling him senile. As far as I am concerned Lawrence is no Arsenal fan. Yes, there are some good journalists. There is even a reluctant piece by Jeremy Wilson acknowledging our injury problems and saying that 160+ days at the top of the table is no accident. Most likely, they realise and see Arsenal building steam and are changing their tune to be on the right side of things when it happens.
Sauvignon Blanc eh? enjoy!
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Thanks AA
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sa,
I can get cross with the journos too, but most of the time they are not too important to me, anymore than are the opinions of some fans who cannot help themselves with their ill informed opinions.
Neither group are going to change – so why bother with them! 🙂
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hic ……
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Sens,
You are right about Amy,
She burnt her bridges with Wenger and us years ago.
She occasional writes the vaguely pro – Arsenal piece but I stopped buying the Manchester guardian years ago.
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Well my what a fantastic discussion. Well done my buddy SA…..
A while ago I made note of the following quote for the express purpose of writing a piece like the one posted today….
“News coverage is produced everyday. Most of it filler, packaged in the form of stories that are designed to obscure its unimportance. The classic form of media bias is called “rooting for the story”- hoping for a more dramatic outcome that might increase newspaper sales.”
The Signal and the Noise: The Art and Science of Prediction by Nate Silver
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Hey DC are you joining us on Sunday? Same place around noon…..
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Iwasthere
Pep is not a terrible manager, neither is Maureen.
It’s just that both have been in a league with guaranteed success for a good while and and have become complacent. No pressure on then for achieving the CL year after year in Spain, both at massively rich clubs and enough domestic trophies to go around for everone concerned.
It’s just the old firm in the sun.
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GP, I’ll be there!
just working out the finer details of my protest banner.down with this sort of thing.
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GP, by strange coincidence – Tim Stillman’s post today on Arseblog about the media’s desire to always create a ‘story’ narrative about a football club’s situation is very telling.
At the risk of pissing-off the meerkat I recommend reading the blog post over there. It makes a good parallel piece of reading to Sen’s post.
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“This http://arseblog.com/2014/05/skip-out-for-beer-during-commercials/ … …@LittleDutchVA is just about the best blog I’ve read this year. .Outstanding.”
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Great stuff SA,I agree with all of it.
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Yes, an excellent post by LittleDutchVA
Thanks for the heads up DC….see you around noon on Sunday….
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There has not been fair play and objectivity, much less much basic factual analysis by the media of Arsenal, even when attempting to “explain Arsenal’s failure to bring silverware” it is always in crude terms, negative, no context – financial or otherwise – and facts bear this out. Simply put no journalist worth his salt can “explain” anything much without mentioning the biggest trophy of all, building a new stadium from internal resources. Secondly, how anyone can fail to see Arsenal’s obvious achievements is a complete travesty; as if 16 or 17 years CL and top four is not a massive and singular management achievement in itself. The stats say everything, average position of 6.9 for 40 years versus 2.6 for the last 16. Simple.
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A good response to a very erudite article. Congratulations.
Anyone can go to arsenal.com, to find the official reason for David Dein’s sacking.
Go to Arsenalinsider and one can discover Kevin Whitcher’s view on the sacking. Whitcher was co-author of a book about the Arsenal, based on the thoughts of David Dein, apparently.
HenryB, who makes an occasional sally on this site, challenged an old age pensioner who is his dotage, to put up or shut up about the sacking of David Dein.
Needless to say, the poor old fellow could not put up, so he shut up and scarpered off to Crete!
Quite a card, HenryB. He now has freedom of expression with acensoredleftfoot.. So does Northbank. Well done fellows.
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Well done SA. super writeup. In my opinion ( with an exception of few ) journalists have become insect like in behavior. Smell a story like a decomposing matter and they all fllock our and within a short time ( due to lack of individuality) they all churn out the same ( more or less ) report on said story. Job done. The readers ( also insect like ) read and gobble up the the cloned story and clicks come fast and furious. Products sold , advertisers happy again job done.
Two choices for those in disagreement with the common drumbeats.
1) ignore the shallow pieces and the corresponding writer and publications. ( I have to a large extent belonged to this group for the past five or six years.) what you don’t read or hear can’t bother you.
2) find those ( few ) mentioned above that have their own brain cells and dig deeper for the more clear picture of the story, read their piece, comment on the piece, defend the writer against aggressive commentators and in short make those few your advocates ( in the long run ) for your cause. ( did this in 06,07,08). this requires time , patiance and tact. Something’s I did not have in abundance at the time specialy the time.
The ARSENAL public relations department is sourly lacking in their covert support for those journalists that see the story for what it is. More access to team and manager, public programs go promote their views and using arsenaltv to the max in promoting the correct version of the events and the media advocates of the club and its ways.
One must be well aware that a few ( not all ) of these sports journalists approach their work with an agenda whether it’s financial or loyalty to a club from an early age.
A certain section of our fan base is no doubt on the take and loaded with an agenda . Well versed and know exactly how to stock the fire at the right time and place.
A sizable section is undecided in the middle and move with different winds at any given time.
As you say , it’s the silent majority who have by and large dropped the ball. Time and effort is all it takes to shut some people up and change the minds of a sizeable group in the middle.
1) learn all there is about your enemy and his methods.
2) attack the weak foundations of that ideology and pick apart their arguments in public if possible.
3) support your media advocates. This could be just one or two entities and I’m not talking about the ex-redmanc butcher.
4) wait for those with an agenda to show you their other cards.
Do you have the time , energy and desire??
Well educate yourself with facts and WELCOME ABOARD…….
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Most of you, will not know this, and why should you?
The accounts for the subsidiary companies in The Arsenal Holding’s portfolio, as dated 31st May 2013, are now in my grubby hands. These accounts were not cleared until November 2013. A long, long wait.
The Arsenal are one of the few clubs, that run a Ladies Team.
The Gate Receipts were £15,000 (2011/12 – £10,000) for the season 2012.2013
The Arsenal are running the Ladies at a loss. The salaries of course, will be part of the whole wages and salaries for the Arsenal Football Company Ltd (another subsidiary).
How many scribblers bother with the nitty-gritty of The Arsenal’s contribution to football, in the community?
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The stadium is not the only trophy.
Making Arsenal into one of the worlds most recognisable and richest super clubs is some achievement too, and at the same time as £500m going into the stadium and property deals while also being lumbered with far poorer commercial deals than our rivals,
Keeping and rebuilding team after team though this is a trophy too with each ‘star’ in turn who couldn’t wait around stabbing Wenger in the back on their way out the door.
While Arsrnal invest £500m of our own money into our own clubs future our rivals went on the game, and got in more than in that from Johns.
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NotOverTheHill
I await with great interest your interpretation of the accounts, with the salient points for the layperson, that I have come to expect from you….
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Love the debate – no name calling – just good opinions, well presented and respectfully received….. is this really a blog 🙂 ??
Double Cannister – of course Pep and Maureen aren’t bad managers – didn’t imply that they were (although didn’t even mention Maureen actually :-)) – I’d tried to agree that the Guardian piece, trying to bring some balance to the other journos who have been castigating him for the beating he got at Simeone’s hands, was actually reasonable and correct.
Sensational – there’s actually quite a clear correlation between wage spend and final positions in the league…. more so than if you factor in transfer spend. I discount English Cup competitions because of the randomness of their outcomes…. really any team can put together a string of 6 wins over a 5 month period and end up with a trophy – witness Portsmouth, Birmingham and Wigan of late…. (doesn’t mean I am any less gutted when we lose in the final or any less happy when we triumph)…….
My own personal criticism of the wage structure that Arsene adopted especially during the years of the stadium move and debt funding, was in its ‘socialist’ nature. We were always close to 3rd or 4th in total terms (hence my claim that we are hitting more or less where we would expect to be) but the its distribution tended to reward potential at the expense of achievement. It meant that players who were too early in careers rewarded with fat pay cheques didn’t have such an incentive to do better to earn more and the flip side was that players who clearly were worth more, were not paid their value. Yes – Wenger decisions…… Wenger philosophy – but probably built around an admirable sentiment of ‘all for one and one for alll’ team and group mentality he wanted to instill in his players to keep them together. Unfortunately when success did not come, it meant it was hard to move out the deadwood like Bendnter, Denilson, Djourou, Squillaci, etc and difficult to find more to pay the Nasris and RvPs of the world – and impossible to atttact the type of player who would make a real difference. I see that this is changing now; but in the world of 3 – 4 year contracts, it takes time to unravel the consequences of bad decisions taken earlier.
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A very good point NOTH,
Arsenal have over 1000 staff and many many youth academy teams, and that costs millions to run.
The investment and commitment to the North London community and our sponsored charities (get well soon Bob Wilson) is inspirational.
The ladies successes over the years has been a constant source of pride for our Club, and for me especially as many of our lovely footballing gems have come from the Emerald Isle.
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That incredible. THE ARSENAL LADIES have won everything there is to win. How could they not be self-sustaining. Hard to believe and harder even to contemplate. I hope the club keep on supporting them.
Are there any figures In relation to the ladies league in general??
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wow that was really good sensational, real purpose and structure in every sentence. well said mate. well said! im tapping my snooker que on the floor ..great shot !
i agree with anicoll too in that media have become entertainment. i always felt journalism is about recording and presenting the events as happened and not to form opinion. seems modern journalism is tantamount to trolling for they only seek to provoke. amy and jowhn and co provoking for a living makes them sad. if they are following an agenda though then they are cunts like mourinho…no excuses
iwasthere, in 07-08 this club was about to win the title. imo thta was too much to handle for a system that promotes a 4 billion product around the globe. yes we all know wenger is top top class but we cant be having him running away with the top prizes while repaying stadium and fielding kids who cant shave yet…..what the fuck? we invest hundreds of millions while arsene is taking money OUT of the system/markets to keep it for arsenal.??? .screw arsenal!!! and that manifested with assaults on our players legs and minds. this will sound so wrong i know but this country and the football system have raped arsenal,again imo the fans should have formed umbrella of protection around manager and players instead of turning against them.
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I suppose Socialism is paying £50k a week for not so special players when Barca, City or Chelsea would pay the very same players £150k p/w to just turn up at their training academy.
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Goonerkam,
Ladies football is not yet a big thing in the UK.
Arsenal are investing for the long term.
Is that not surprising?
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HenryB May 1, 2014 at 7:54 pm
legend!!!
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NOTH,
You said;
— “HenryB, who makes an occasional sally on this site, challenged an old age pensioner who is his dotage, to put up or shut up about the sacking of David Dein.
Needless to say, the poor old fellow could not put up, so he shut up and scarpered off to Crete!
Quite a card, HenryB. He now has freedom of expression with acensoredleftfoot.. So does Northbank. Well done fellows.”
I genuinely have no idea what you are talking about.
I blog on a number of sites, and ‘belong’ to none.
I have never been rude to anyone on here or elsewhere – let alone an older person – and certainly not about David Dein.
Care to explain?
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We don’t like and refer to any of our players as ” de••••od “.
And if it wasn’t for that wage structure the way it was set up we might have lost many of our youth products to our competitors. We had to keep and fight for our assets . Or else the vultures would have picked us clean.
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DC – of course those clubs have their bad decisions and bad transfers – there’ll always be some bad ones. But they (those clubs) can hide behind the sugar daddies, absorb the loss and bring in another. Arsenal don’t have that luxury (or haven’t had to date) so our ‘duds’ stay on the books, can’t be sold on at the high salaries (for the quality of player) and effectively drain the limited & self-sustaining budget of money that could have been put towards keeping players who were worth keeping and / or attracting quality players in. I was a noble philosophy, but without the success to ‘oil’ it along, the consequences were, imo, overall negative for the club,,,
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HenryB ,good luck with that request.
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goonerkam – well OK – but what do you call a player who is unable to contribute. I totally get the idea of setting up as we did, I never said it was a bad idea in its conception but as above, without the success to go along with it, it became a problem…
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PG,
Do you know what he is referring to? Very puzzling.
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DC
not on this side of the pond either. Unfortunately the ladies sports leagues have either folded or are in process of.
Sad really. You would think that at the very least the champions that are our ladies would be self sustaining. Heck, it should be one of the hottest tickets around. This year though I fear it will be a transition year for them. Five or six top players gone. New faces in and I don’t think we have become a full time professional athletics club like pool ladies last year. That right there is a game changer.
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