I made the mistake of listening to Talk Sport radio immediately after the Liverpool – Villa game last night. It was full of irate scousers demanding that Rogers is sacked.
This is the same man that took their team within a Gerrard slip of winning the PL last season. Now I know their stars aligned with Saurez being on fire, one game a week and few injuries, but still, he took advantage and even with a very poor defence, he almost made a miracle.
Liverpool have the 5th most expensive squad and the 5th largest wages,in all likelihood they will finish 5th, plus they have reached the semi final of both domestic cups. That is at least par or better. What do fans expect ? On top of that they do play, and try to play , expansive entertaining football.
Now I am not saying Rodgers is a great manager, what I am saying is that he is doing a decent job.
There is a proven 85% correlation between money spent and success across all major leagues. Of course that leaves 15% to buck the trend, and teams do. Southampton this year, Everton last. But is just stupid to expect a team to buck the trend every year. It seems though that this is what many fans demand .
The reality is that no team in the history of the PL has won it without having a sustained period of spending more than their rivals. People will point to United and claim they did it , but they didn’t, they just topped up their previous bigger spending on players that were still at the club and in their pomp.
Of course Arsenal did it , and did it three times, but we had Arsene and it was at a time where only United had a clear financial advantage.
People also point to exceptions in other leagues, Like, BVB, Atletico Madrid and Montpellier, but they are not in the PL, and have only one behemoth club (Two in Spain ) to contend with. Also Atletico have won it once in 20 years. That’s 5% of the time, well within the !5% exception rule.
Can managers make the difference? Yes ! But its in the margins.
Until fans accept that money is the overriding factor in modern football they are destined for constant heartbreak.
The “next level” that people want to reach can only follow the next financial level being reached first. That is why Arsene and the board should be praised beyond all others, Their planning and steadfastness have elevated Arsenal to that next level. The squad now reflects that and I believe there are great times ahead,
A final word on Brendan. Its hugely unfair to compare him to previous Liverpool managers who, at the time, were managing the richest club with no financial competitors other than the sleeping United. Look exactly what happened when they woke up.
Pedantic George, AKA @Blackburngeorge
Positively Arsenal 
Listening to the lynch mob after Rodgers last night had its moments, the spit flecked swivel eyed insanity of the gravely wronged was the feeling that have not got a clue, about football, about people, about life.
The other highlight was the West Ham FAT SAM OUT fan;
” 38 years I’ve had a season ticket but that Citeh game was it, I’ve had enough of Allardyce, end of season comes I wont’ be renewing for the final season at the Boleyn, I shall be buying a season ticket for me local club Bournemouth …. etc ”
Five minutes later a lady West Ham season ticket holder phones in to point out to the gravely wronged former Hammer that if he had not already confirmed his season ticket by last Friday, with an additional £75 reservation fee, he had lost his season ticket anyway.
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top post george, fans too often ignore the reality where money is concerned, we also have the demand for owners to spend spend spend even if this either means them spending their own money on the club, or borrow the money. Roman and co coming into the game (in fact jack walker might have started it), changed the game in England for ever. SKY and the FAPL also played a big part in this change too. Time fans realized this and changed their unrealistic demands.
On BBC radio 5 yesterday both liverpool and newcastle fans were out in force, demanding manager change, owner change, massive money to be spent, success bought, nothing else would satisfy them, even west ham fans were on talking about a boycott of their last season at the Boleyn ground
I get it that we all aspire for our clubs to do better, but I really don’t get this demanding of it. Self entitlement, childish and stupid.
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I think you make a very good point George when you observe how disciplined and steadfast the Board and AFC together with Arsene in raising the financial capacity of the club to the level of the money bags. The key here has been the expert management-coaching of Wenger in being able to keep the club competitive during the barren years despite the temptation of abandoning the project in favor of Real Madrid, PSG etc who tried multiple times to prise him away from the club. I remember how Wenger was lambasted at End-of-an-era.com and by Swiss Ramble for refusing to get into a bidding war with the oilers, the case of Michael Essien immediately comes to mind. Wenger was accused of being timid and timorous for his refusal to spend beyond the club’s capacity and for being unwilling to burst the wage structure to accomodate the mercenaries within and without. To this day the advocates of wreckless spending go out of their way to repeatedly lie that “the stadium is already paid for” to make the case the club can go toe-to-toe with City, Chelsea and United. Those three clubs have significantly superior sources of cash to still blow AFC out of the water in a head-to-head battle.
It is becoming clearer every day that this slow but resolute approach is bearing fruit. Meanwhile clubs like Liverpool and Tottenham keep falling further behind. Remove the benefactors at Chelsea and City and they would disappear like Leeds. All in time my friend.
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I do feel that the dumbing down of football coverage by the media, both the written and on the airwaves has encouraged the more moronic spoutings by fans.
When you have the likes of Savage, Shearer, Wright, Merson, etc etc on talking absolute bollocks about the game, about incidents in the game, when none of them have even a basic understanding of a lot of the rules, yet proceed to teach the general public the rules, is it any wonder there are so many idiot fans.
Many in the written media are exactly the same, we also have the twisting of what actually happened or what was said or done, so as to create a headline, to make a story. Take for instance Debuchy saying recently that he hopes to finish his playing career in a couple of years back with Lyon, that turns into “INTERNATIONAL DEFENDER DEMANDS MOVE FROM ARSENAL”, we had something similar with Bellerin and Cazorla, we’ve had the “Ozil is stealing a living from the game”, etc etc etc,
We live in a world where all that matters is the headline, and not the substance of the facts, the X Factor world, the next big thing, build them up then destroy them so we can build up the next big thing. it was Josh McEachran, then Jack Wilshere, now its Ross Barkley, only a matter of time before the next one.
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yes surely..i mean the way things are going ill be surprised if the world is still in oen piece in the next decade….. have lost all sense of morality and direction…dogs eat babies..mothers suffocate their children..grown up men cry about football teams and trophies…. some maniacs are chopping others maniacs heads off..and the we have the civilised cannibalism of imf and banks ..were doing great !!
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yeah !!! premiership!!!!! its all about winning!!!!!!!! all that matters!!
but the world is going to shit….
we dont care …. we want the title !!!!!!!!!
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no ill admit..fuck steven gerrard and the media obsession and although i respect histroical clubs like liverpools i will admit i wanted to throw up last year with the ‘ justice for 96’ and lets win it for steven and the whole delusion of rodgers …..we have eyes and we can see….it was all suarez….
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sturrdige and that dance is a reason to want to see them relegated…sorry im harsh …
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Look on the bright side Hunter. No Stevie G 35th birthday “final game for the lovable Scouse Scally” media orgy at Wembley, and the 30th anniversary of the death of 39 football fans at Heysel on the same day can be marked with a rare bit of dignity, I hope.
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The best book I’ve read on football is called “Why England Lose: And Other Curious Football Phenomena Explained” by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski. After an exhaustive examination of a variety of football management styles and techniques and the way differing clubs have tried to achieve success they come to one simple inarguable conclusion. The club paying the highest wages will almost always win.
So yes George you are quite correct. Money drives the whole charabanc and you might buck the trend once in a while but in general, without a serious ace up your sleeve (Arsene Wenger being the most obvious trump card), you’ll end up where your spending dictates.
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Leeds, Risdale, Bates…et al. Not insanity but a fairly strong and consistent pattern unbroken by the current owner who has banned several of his slaves, sorry players, from playing for the current coach or manager. It’s football Jim, but not as we know it.
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I think the scousers will stick with Rodgers,as George points out,last season was their perfect storm until Gerard slipped up against Chelsea,I don’t mind Liverpool as it goes.
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Top work George and depressingly all rather true. However, in a competitive league I still hold out hope for a slightly different model, where a team is put together with a mixture of home grown, a few bargain picks and the occasional superstar that stays together for 3 or 4 years. Yes – you need the wages to keep them together, but I fancy that sort of side will always have too much in the way of spirit and cohesion for a purely mercenary model to cope with.
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Thats the hope Heady
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There’s that famous quote by George (Orwell!) on the footy, don’t worry I won’t copy an paste it again.
If I were a Liverpool fan i’d have been confused by the call to keep Lovren on the bench for Toure in the game against Arsenal, considering his recall yesterday, but there could be many reasons for that.
Rodgers hasn’t the awesome reputation of a Biesla, a Pellegrini, let alone a legend like Wenger, but he could go on to earn such plaudits. I only see his teams in Arsenal games so I can’t really comment.
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I like Nigel Pearson. Nothing to do with the football, though to be fair his team played well in both games against Arsenal. Mahrez and others could go on to a bigger club, they have some players too.
Nope, it’s been the palpable disdain for the petty plundits of the press corps in the press conferences that earned my admiration! Of course, Arsene pursued a different path with the bigoted twats (the threat of libel) pardon my French, from the off a result of their own vindictive stupidity, but it’s an interesting contrast in, erm, technique on how to deal with such virulent pests.
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In contrast to the meltdown of other fans, at AFC we have our extremely credible AAA still moaning (of course) about why AFC waited till the Xmas transfer window to pick up an extra senior defender. When you’ve invested so much of your time in aspiring to be King Canute, it’s hard to stop. Well, let’s look at the information that we have available about CBs moving about last summer:
The braying Mendezian Mule Mangala:
Says here that the Wonga loan for this transaction was a lip smacking
£31.8 million
Nice work if you can get it,
Southampton’s second best CB last year (not Fonte the other one!):
The gospel of wiki tells us he went to Liverpool for:
£20.0 million
I’m not going to look at half decent CBs moving on the mainland because they were simply not sold to PL clubs, not comparable. Not worth the time.
Gabriel:
“On 26 January 2015, Gabriel was granted a work permit by the UK government and expected to join Arsenal for a fee of around £11.3 million.”
So there it is. People are holding on to that CB groan for all it’s worth. Which is not very much. Did AFC half the value of the player by signing him January, was he not available in the summer because Villareal were hoping to compete for the Spanish top four? Who knows? Not me!
I have given the matter some consideration and the only groan that anyone should even indulge on this topic would be to groan about AFC potentially missing out on Toby Alderweireld, the Dutch player playing in Spain who moved to play for a Dutch coach with Spanish connections…so, not that much to indulge there then!
Anyway, with Per Mertesacker joing the indefensible list of Arsenal players who have been badly injured in simple fouls that weren’t even called fouls, then it’s a good thing that Arsenal got their man!
And Unlike many I won’t ignore the rookie who came in at the start of the season and played so well at CB, with a simply outstanding dare I say it inspiring performance at Wembley against City’s first choice front line to win the Super Cup: Callum Chambers. We know AW is reluctant to expose young CBs (from Thuram onwards). In fact using Thuram’s apprenticeship at RB we can understand how Chambers and Bellerin have been rotating through niggles knocks and rests (for teenagers – Chambers suffered from the lack of breaks earlier on) these past few months, and also why it’s important to get Debuchy back up to speed.
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A kickin’ soundtrack for today’s post:
Primal Scream Moving On Up
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thuram? whos that? is he better than cahill and samba? where does he play?
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so what do we call headbutts from girls? girl butts? une gribulte sil vous plais
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I thank our lucky stars that Arsenal IS run by a bunch of risk adverse old men.
Money has been kept aside for rainy days, or when genuine talent shows up – Wenger has the luxury of making an instant decision to get the check book out.
These old geezers on the board are generations old with the Club and will and can only think in the best long term interests of Arsenal.
Did they sell their remaining shares to Stan? well yes – so now they are free of any thoughts of personal gain when thinking about what benefits the club’s interests. Dividends? me arse.
I’m all for a bit of diversity, so If the board wanted to find some deserving new members – go ahead, and I assume they would bring something new to the equation?
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Oh, the day Reliable & Cheap Nuclear Fusion Power comes on line, I’ll be dancing down the Holloway road in my Gunnarsaurs PJ’s!!!
No more feckin’ Human rights abusing Oilers and Gazprom assassins!
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Looking at the lamentable central defensive capability of both PSG and of Bayern in their recent QF games Fins I wonder how much longer the diamond that is Laurent Koscielny will go unnoticed ? Dante at Munich and the clown that Luiz has become barely look up to the standard of a League Two team, let alone regulars in what are supposed to be top eight European clubs.
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Great article George but football fans dream and as soon as you ask them for a reality check they get abusive.
We’ve had the definitive reason from Arsene why Debuchy played basically shutting up all those critic who said Hector should of played, including myself by the way. Hector has been playing with ankle problems so the switch was necessary.
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It is no time for rest;
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poor Mario – greater ignominy knows no man – his name removed today from the Liverpool Echo on line player of the year poll after the contest was hijacked.
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anicoll5
April 20, 2015 at 2:49 pm
lol..come on ..guy wasnt even fit….
cant really understand how a genuinelly likeable player like luiz attracts so much hate…..dont remember him ever acting liek a prick towards anyone..always smiling and always gives his all
his price tag is not his problem…its psg’s problem….
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but yeah…heroes and villains….and whoever thinks chesney is a bit of a liability castigate the fucking idiot doomer cunt….how dare he/she/they…. wojo? the worlds greatest?
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I like Luiz, I especially like he doesn’t play for Arsenal.
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Fins: I found myself wondering whether Gabriel needed to play for Villareal until January in order to qualify for the work permit, and whether that explains the slightly scant defensive cover we found ourselves starting the season with. I also wonder how important the loan of Campbell was in that deal, and what the future might be for him.
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and obviously missed lots of episodes…i remember lennox lewis hollifield and klitchko
who the hell is mayfewtehr and that mexican…what category we talking about? these guys look like comedians /background actors for james bond movies
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Very few colourful ‘characters’ around these days, G.
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Dante we saw exposed in the 2-0 in Munich and more comprehensively by Walcott and Wilshere for England (Wilshere playing the ten in that game for Roy’s team, their finest performance to date…).
Don’t think anyone hates Luiz, it’s just that most of us were not incapable of accepting that the player completely lost his discipline when he had to take on the responsibility of marshalling his back line (with Silva suspended): not the worst player in the history of the game but without someone to tell him where to stand, what to say and what to think he can look a bit of a dummy.
Against Gazprom Silva was there to hold his hand, wipe his nappy etc.
“Paris Saint-Germain captain Thiago Silva has been ruled out of Tuesday’s Champions League quarterfinal second leg against Barcelona.
Silva, 30, was forced off after 21 minutes of the first leg due to a thigh injury…” Which was a shame for the PSG fans. Looks like it’s Barcelona on the next round!
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the responsibility of marshalling his back line huh?
hey i dont want to be funny but what could we say about per mertesarker’s responsibility of marshalling his back line early this season?
just curious…..
end of the day we can pick up on luiz isolated incidents of embarssment at brazil 7-0 ( although others were way more criminal in their defending i.e marcelo..the two dms..maicon etc) and that night with the shark but excuses wont hold..whereas with per even though the duration of embarssment was for a longer period than luiz’s the understanding is far greater.
up to a point its understandable..we are arsenal fans we protect our own…
i respect all players who have something to offer and are not arseholes …..gary neville may have won the champions league but he was totally influential, just a boot licking soldier and a moron. luiz was influential for his teams triumphs in big ways and i dont remember him behaving towards anyone like a provocative son of a bitch. yes he gets enthusiastic and goes apeshit at times but not the worst of players…full of soul /heart.
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and for gods sake please dont take this as a comparison of the players..just attitudes…
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Problem is Luiz’s duration has been ongoing throughout his whole career. Whereas Mertesacker was llong accepted to be Germay’s best defender, a statment backed up b results when he wore the shirt.Like I said:
“most of us were not incapable of accepting that the player completely lost his discipline”
How that relates to fatigue for Mertesacker (hence the old retirement from Int. Footy, I’m sure you noticed…) I don’t understand, i don’t think it’s possible for anyone to understand. But if it makes you happy Carry On.
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Fatigued. A bit like your favurite player Ozil was after helping lead his team to WC glory after his first, successful, season in Blightly after the move from genteel la liga.
As in, before he came back from a rest. And some sessions in the gym. He certainly has been getting some praise since. I can’t imagine why.
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Says here that young ‘Ector was fatigued/niggled and that’s one reason Debuchy got the nod.
Fatigue a factor in modern sporting schedules? Is that one reason why we’ve seen (teenagers) Bellerin and Chambo rotating at RB?
Blimey!
Rodgers to be fair has been very careful in not overplaying Sterling. Resting him from the first team for spells last season and this. Credit where it is due!
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I don’t hate David Luiz, I just think he’s an overrated, overpriced player.
Fin, we’d be paying incredible amounts of money for players if it wasn’t for Arsene’s scouting network and him having the cojones to trust young players.
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No senior players in the Arsenal squad for tonights U21 game v Middlesbrough
Arsenal Under-21s: Iliev, Smith, O’Connor, Dobson, Ormonde-Ottewill, Kamara, Maitland-Niles, Iwobi, Zelalem, Crowley, Mavididi
Arsenal Under-21s subs: Macey, Bola, Robinson, Mourgos, Willock.
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Michael Oliver is the ref for the Chelsea game
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You’ve obviously ignored Mertesacker’s stats in order to pick on him, Hunter. Oh, and he cost us a fifth of what PSG payed for David Luiz.
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Michael Oliver ?
The planets are aligning
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Did you know Per Mertesacker was rated higher than John Terry and Vincent Kompany last season, Hunter? No, you didn’t. This is why you’re here trying to make Per Mertesacker, a world cup champion, look as bad as the joke of a player that is David Luiz.
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A very laudible piece PG.
I have noticed a very deafening silence from the arch anti-Arsene brigade. I even looked on ANR for any activity and it was rather muted. Myles Palmer writes about ManU and Chelsea when Arsenal are doing well. Even Pedro struggles to write anything on Twitter these days. Well that says it all really.
I’m on the sunshine bus.
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Gains, kicked Hunter in the bollocks!
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Or better still kick him in the αρχήδια
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Absolutely not gains but since none of you cares to read ..
i used the arguement of marshalling the defence…. a criticism on luiz … and asked if the same strict criteria apply for a more experienced defender.
If you read that as me putting mert down you are wrong.
Im putting the arguement down. you cant mock luis for failing to marshal his defence when our own can be guilty of the same.
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Mou eklase ta arxidia…. 😉
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And then you will say ‘he needs silva to hold his hand’
While per needs lolo…. and someone in front..and someone to the right to avoid getting exposed….
Im just going with what youre giving me and asking questions
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