Like many of us I was deeply saddened to wake yesterday to the news of the death of Richie Benaud. Sport lost another of the good guys and in the world of sports media that leaves a very short list indeed. Among the tributes being paid many people, myself included, shared Richie’s tips for commentators, which could translate as guidelines for life in general. As I looked down the list so many pearls jumped out all of which are routinely ignored by the swine who usually pollute the airwaves during a football match. ‘Avoid clichés and banalities’ is probably the most often transgressed and ‘The Titanic was a tragedy the Ethiopian drought a disaster, and neither bears any relation to a dropped catch’ is a lesson in the dangers of of being sucked into melodramatic hyperbole which the likes of Savage and Pearce probably haven’t the wit to even understand.
My personal favourite however, was the most succinct of them all. ‘Never ask a statement’. I couldn’t help thinking of this perfect and obvious piece of journalistic advice as I watched a repeat of Arsène and his weekly duel with the reptiles. Count how many times they fall foul of the statement as question mistake and it is genuinely depressing how Mr Benaud’s wisdom has been entirely ignored by these odious people. I got to wondering why they do it quite so often. Why make a long rambling statement expressing nothing more than their own opinion and then end either by encouraging Arsène to agree with them or not even bothering to ask a question at all? If I were in the manager’s position I simply wouldn’t answer until they actually asked me something.
But again I wondered why. They can’t all just be stupid. Owen and Savage aside you need a modicum of intelligence to get into the industry in first place, surely. Then it dawned on me. They’re not really asking anything are they? They are simply trying to write the headline in advance. They have no interest in Arsène’s ideas or opinions. One of the single most intelligent and fascinating men in the history of this or any other sport and they don’t even want to know what he thinks. When they say something like ‘Hector Bellerin has been in great form this season, it looks like you have another fine young player on your hands, but you must fear that one day he might want to return to his home country, perhaps following Cesc Fabregas in returning to Barcelona’ all they are waiting for is any hint of a ‘yes’ in Arsène’s response so they can publish ‘Wenger Dreads Barca Exodus’ with the subheading of ‘Arsenal boss says Bellerin could follow in Cesc’s footseps’ or ‘Want Away Catalan Kid Eyes Camp Nou Return’ and then print some guff about his blood cells or some such twaddle. I believe this is why Arsène always begins answers to these minefield questions with the word ‘look’. It avoids a positive or a negative and buys him the second he needs to marshal a politician’s answer. Which is why press conferences are such a waste of time. Like political interviews they are merely jousts between journalists desperate for a slip and interviewees desperate to say as little as possible.
So we didn’t really learn anything from Arsène about today’s opponents nor today’s game. Nothing we didn’t know already. Burnley’s home form is better than their away from, their latter season form is better than their early season form and they are fighting for their lives in the relegation zone. They were unlucky not to beat Spurs in their last game, have recently beaten Man City and drawn with Chelsea so anyone out there who believes this is a simple guaranteed three points for Arsenal needs their head read. You won’t be surprised to hear me say that I think we can win and that we ought to win, it should go without saying that we need to win. While the opposition has admirable qualities and has achieved the creditable results mentioned above we have more than a few advantages ourselves. For one the greatest manager in world football, the most experienced in guiding his team through the rocky road of a season’s end. For another a collection of truly astonishing footballing talent epitomised by the peerless Mesut Özil. With the likes of Jack Wilshere coming back into contention the side will only be stronger still and at long last the manager has genuine options throughout the team.
Having said that will he change a winning line up? He might just do that. He is above all a master tactician, more capable than his peers at changing the balance of the side so that the innate qualities of the players he chooses alters the way in which the team performs. That is his real genius. He doesn’t just ask the same players to play in a different way as many lesser coaches will. He drops one player who posses one set of qualities and picks replacement possessed of a subtly different style. Bellerin for Chambers, say, or Gibbs for Monreal. Thus the way the team plays alters because you have a quicker or taller or more attack minded player in the position. The style of play, the manager’s philosophy remains unchanged but the emphasis alters. We might need a more offensive, faster or more tricksy right side with a more solid left side. Or we could be facing a goalkeeper with an identified weakness so we might need players adept at exploiting that weakness. How Blackburn must rue shooting low to Mignolet’s left every time. Did they learn nothing from us? Perhaps the midfielder Arsène wishes to play on the left covers his fullback better than the one he chose the previous week and so he picks the fullback best suited to the changes that implies. There seems to me much more going on than just not changing a winning side or simply picking the players we like best or who you and I might think are in the best form.
I know nothing about Burnley’s strengths or weaknesses but you can bet the man who matters does and whichever team he selects will be the one he believes is best able to counter and exploit those qualities and frailties. It would be fascinating to hear his thoughts on these kind of subjects but sadly he won’t be asked a proper question any time soon. We can only dream of a world wherein the weekly presser features Arsène and somebody of Richie Benaud’s capacity sitting in pleasant surroundings and discussing in patient depth the art of football management. Instead of which we have something far more closely resembling Cantona’s flock of screeching gulls diving and screaming hoping for a bite of something they can shit out onto the pages of their sordid, demeaning rags.
Positively Arsenal 
Come on the Arsenal!
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oh how different other teams are judged compared to Arsenal, on BBC Final Score the guy doing the tottnum v aston villa game was making excuses for spuds lackluster performance, “they were tired, as they have played a lot of games this season”, earlier on BBC Radio 5 we had them saying “playing Thursday and Sunday” was the reason spuds are struggling, how is Thursday/Sunday any different than Wednesday/Saturday, and lets not forget that they rotated big time in the EL games.
Liverpool have not won the league in 25 years and this is never mentioned, while we still see Arsenal have not won the league since 2004, and this season LFC got knocked out of CL and EL and not a a deadbird in sight, but Arsenal got stick for going out of the CL
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today Ramsey plays his 150th FAPL game for Arsenal and Cazorla plays his 100th
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Well, it’s in. Mel’s twitter prediction that is. Remember how scary accurate he was in our last away game? He’s gone for another sphincter twitching 1 – 2 today. Bring it on.
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Arsenal.com must be wrong with the subs list for today’s game, Szczesny is named, and we know this to be wrong cos several AFC bloggers and dozens of twatters told us last week when he missed out through injury that he was not injured at all, and that Wenger had dumped him from the squad and we would never see him in a squad again.
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I see Dortmund lost again today and are now 18 points off a CL qualifying place with only 6 games to go, will their star players be loyal to them or will there be an exodus of big name players – Hummells, Reus, Gundogan etc
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Apparently Klopp’s star is not below the horizon yet.
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Why am I nervy, palms sweaty? Why is supporting your team not light and gay? This will be a hard game but very winnable.
Come On You Gunners!
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Didn’t think that was ever going in!
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Aaron getting that instinctive finishing back
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See Coquelin’s involvement in that again. Instigated the attack so well. So much more than the meathead DM so many wanted.
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Excellent start. I am particularly impressed by the teamwork we have shown so far.
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Burnley closing down hard and fast all over. We are having to be very quick on our feet.
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Love the way we press their defenders into rushing the forward pass. Usually rushing it out of play.
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If Sanchez could pass like he can tackle… well, he’d be an even better player, that’s all.
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So easy to get dragged down to Burnley level as they kick, scratch and claw.
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HT: Burnley 0-1 Arsenal
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Burnley committing a lot of fouls to break our play up, Ozil and Alexis have been fouled a lot
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Great start and it looked as though we would blow them away – slackened off after the first 20 and it all got a bit scrappy.
Shades on our recent game at Noocastle here.
Stating the bleeding obvious but a 2nd goal absolute priority in the opening phase of second half.
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Yeah man ..theyre fouling all the time and then moaning…fucking idiots dont even know the rules…peasants..
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I don’t know if a second goal is that important. Not as important as not conceding a first.
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how many final chances will Dean give these Burnley players
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good defending from Monreal there
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Arsenal a bit raggy at the back in last few minutes. Need to up this and get that second goal
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Arsenal making life tough for ourselves with some sloppy passing
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Welbeck on for Giroud, 80th minute
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Koscielny limping
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a little better with our passing and we’d have this game killed long ago
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3 minutes stoppage time
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chambers on for Alexis with 1 minute left
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FT: Burnley 0-1 Arsenal
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After the Lord Mayor’s show …
Winning ugly …
Any more cliches?
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A very satisfactory final 15 in the game where we raised our game at exactly the time the home side might have fancied their chance for an equalizer.
Pleased with Mert and Kosc who saw off the lively Vokes and Ings, Monreal made a couple of crucial stops. Hector a bit out of sorts but he is allowed that.
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Well we won. Great. But I did get bored….
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I love Coquelin……
Sanchez can sometimes play the simpler ball….
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And I note that we are 12 points ahead on Spuds, with six games to go, and we have a better goal difference than the neighbours of +27
Accordingly ladies and gentlemen while it is still slightly early for the St Totteringham’s Day celebration do keep the bunting to hand.
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8 on the spin.in the PL a ninth would be perfect.
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By the way steww, that was one hell of a rant today. More power to you.
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Cheers dkg
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climbing nice and steady… nice for us to be the ones climbing for a change… come on qpr you know you need the points!
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Lovely win that. Arsenal passed Burnley to death. Teamwork, teamwork, teamwork.
cannon13
That’s an act of pure wickedness – mentioning Phil Pinocchio. Bits of sick reach my gullet. I don’t see Sky much. It’s awhile since SSN vanished from Freeview, so when I visit peeps to watch a game, we sometimes watch a stream. This arvo I convinced my mate to watch the game with foreign commentary. My only complaint is that the commentator to crowd volume ratio is so tilted towards the former. So I have no idea what they were saying. Hurrah!
Who’s the other bitch – the silver one? You don’t have to tell me.
I guess we’ll be down the pecking order for MOTD, seeing that matches we win by 2 or 3 goals tend to be far down already.
I was surprised to see dancing Dean give many of the fouls he did in the first half. For years I’ve seen him shake his head (flamboyantly) and ignore as much as he dared, and remember, JW10 has been out since he encouraged Manyoo to kick the whit out of Arsenal, as is his want.
The tilting started early enough in the second half. Fortunately, Arsenal had good control, only losing the ball by inaccurate passes. There was no gnashing of teeth from me, for a change.
It’s so lovely to see just a four point gap, even though shellsea have two games in hand. QPR have been tough opponents for them over the last couple of years. I can but hope.
Very well done, Arsenal.
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Very windy. Dry and bouncy pitch. Burnley playing to stay in the League. But honestly, despite all that, they hardly had a kick. It wasn’t easy at all but I reckon we made it so. Monreal and Coquelin had terrific games, while Mertersacker was peerless.
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The policeman:
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Cliche alert! Thisgame was the very definition of grinding out a victory in the heart of an industrial city.
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A performance that I really enjoyed and one that says we have really matured as a team. we have rarely looked so at ease in such a high pressure game. Full marks to wenger he got the tactics spot on.
Coquelin has to be in Pl team of the year
A special mention to Montreal he has been absolutely first class and has superb game intelligence
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Haha coplin
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Excellent result from the lads, keep up the good work. Come on QPR!
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I must disagree with the view that this was grinding out a win in the traditional sense of the term, Burnley for all their huff and puff rarely caused us any trouble, they had maybe two decent half chances all game, there was little last ditch defending from us, it was controlled defending, in fact it was a very controlled performance.
Ospina made a couple of saves and one good block early on when he came out to meet the forward.
Bellerin was always a good outlet on the right, but had a few shaky moments in defense
Monreal was very disciplined and had a couple of great bits of defending
Mertesacker was good, Koscielny was a little off today, seemed to be labored in his movement
Coquelin was simply outstanding, fuck all these idiots saying we need an upgrade, by all means bring in another to compete with him, but he deserves to keep his place on current form.
Cazorla, Alexis and Giroud all worked hard but were not at their best.
Ozil was a delight, his retention and use of the ball, especially in tight spaces was superb, he battled too
Ramsey was always a willing runner and he got the all important goal.
Welbeck caused them massive trouble with his speed and runs, really gave them a whole different problem to Giroud, a smart sub by Wenger.
Dean surprised me, probably the best I’ve seen him ref, only complaint was Burnley committed a sight of fouls to stop our flowing football and he did not use the yellow card enough.
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one side effect of the win is that regardless of results in next couple of weeks, Chelsea can not win the league at the Emirates.
St Totteringham day also fast approaching and could well happen with our game v Chelsea
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wenger’s after game comments including
on Arsenal being more composed…
When you look at the number of players we had out for four months, not two weeks, since the start of the season, we have had our squad back since January and that makes a difference.
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20150411/wenger-on-victory-consistency-coquelin
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