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 
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CDGUmWfWEAEyBtG.jpg:large
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I thought the article could have done with a bit of editing but I thought it was funny and quite sharp at various points about Wenger and his public persona – still not to all tastes Pass and long may it be so
For the West Brom game I shall be having a look when they go on sale – I suspect unless Jose’s head explodes and injures the entire CFC squad it may be a bit of a dead finish to the season !
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Friday 24th they go on sale
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I am hoping we will need to win the final match to come 2nd – and that a few players will be staking a claim for a start the following week, both of those factors making it less dead than it might have been.
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I’m desperate for a ticket on Friday too, Andy.
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It’s against Pulis, what more motivation is there?
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from scouting team website
Apr 21, 2015
Kalin Georgiev, Martin Milushev, Stanislav Djulgerov and Eyad Hammoud play for Arsenal FC Elite Academy
Kalin Georgiev (04/05/2002) winger of PFC Chernomore Varna, Martin Milushev (30/03/2002) winger of PFC Chernomore Varna, Stanislav Djulgerov (28/08/2003) midfielder of PSFC Chernomorets Bourgas and Eyad Hammoud (24/07/2001), striker of PFC Lokomotiv Plovdiv, played their first friendly game with Arsenal FC Elite Academy.
Kalin Georgiev, Martin Milushev and Stanislav Djulgerov played their friendly game at 15.00 (local time). Martin scored the winning goal of his team and the game ended 2-1.
Eyad Hammoud played his friendly game (with the older players) at 16.30 (local time). Eyad scored the first 2 goals of his team and Arsenal FC Elite Academy won 5-3.
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West Ham have announced that they are cutting the price of season tickets massively due to the new TV deal, will this be the norm from FAPL clubs or will they just show their greed
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Remember when the AAA told us Arsenal’s wage bill was bigger than Chelsea’s, it was in fact £38.2M lower last season
Daniel Arsenal Cowan @thedanielcowan · 2h 2 hours ago
Our wage bill is 50m less than City’s and 60m less than United’s. Interesting.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CDLP3RFWYAIP7Ai.jpg:large
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The sums on that chart look to me wrong eddy.
For example Arsenal’s £154.5 million wages compared to a turnover of £298.7 million is, to the nearest whole number 52%, not as listed on the chart 64%. Chelsea’s wages of £192.7 million compared to a turnover of £319.8 million is 60%, not 67%.
Am I missing something here ?
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Distortions of the truth to make Arsenal look bad?
That’s unheard of Anicoll!, surely we must rely on the inherent ethical trustworthiness of the scribblers trade?
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It look’s like WHU only have to pay a rent of £2.5m a year for the new stadium, so of course they can offer cheap seats.
By the way, only a handful of really crap seats are on offer for the lowest cost.
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Innumerate Scum – drive then from the temple !
If the figures for Arsenal were correct at 52% it would show just two clubs, ManYoo and Palace, had a lower wage to turnover ratio than Arsenal. I do not know what, if anything that tells us, but that’s statistics folks, torture the little buggers and they will reveal eternal truths eventually.
(DC I am an innumerate fraud myself so I point out dodgy arithmetic only after checking it twice)
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Here is something amazing Arseblog have got hold of:
http://news.arseblog.com/2015/04/twitter-documents-arsenals-global-support/
It shows Arsenal’s potential global support base is massively underestimated.
Also shows that Liverpool, ManYoo and Chavski are all exaggerating their global fanbase.
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Also, are the turnover figures correct? How is City’s turnover larger than Arsenal’s? Surely their matchday income is substantially less. Is commercial revenue that much higher? Just asking.
You don’t need a higher education to know there are many ways to lie with statistics.
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Its certainly impressive DC – even those ISIS lads, when they have a moment from beheading innocent hostages and destroying ancient monuments, seem to be committed Gooners.
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Whilst we’re in dubiousness land, here’s summat I just read that made me laugh quite a lot. Steve Bould:
http://goonersphere.com/columnists/dan-betts/6210-steve-bould-his-story
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Guess who this is;
“At 1.30pm today, I left a 2nd police interview re Mirror hacking investigation.
At 4.30pm, the @guardian phoned me about it.”
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double canister
April 22, 2015 at 11:24 am
have always hated brasil…..im italia in world cups ….and watching how brasil supports chelsea has intensified my dislike for the samba posers
ok the africans i get it…generally uneducated and huge gloryseekers plus drogba, essien etc … but brasil? joga bonito and chelsea? how?
liverpool? lol ….i sympathise for a historic giant but dudes come on…. youre fucking irrlevant..your manager is brendan rodgers and you play with sturridge and skrtel and think sterling is messi….. too much lsd…way too much…
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spain too? wtf? how come?
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that arseblog infomation only shows how twitter famous we are. We all know that whenever anyone does a poll on twitter about anything gooners win it or affect it. If actual support is measured it could be very different.
On wages we should remember that its not just 1st team players wages and different clubs include different staff in their figures which scuew the result
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Th other slight problem about these figures is that there is is no single annual reporting date for clubs, any more than for any other business. Some clubs report to 31st December, some to 31st March, 30th June etc.
Therefore in some clubs new TV cash will be included, in others the results of a big cash sale with a £200k per week player coming off the books, or a big purchase and the wage figures being equally diverted etc. As you say AoB there is no single set of rules for what constitutes a club employee.
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also as in any big business tax avoidance is a speciality, obviously with my bias I believe the gangsters from chelski juggle their income more than others.
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do it zizu!
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The Groaners will groan. Of that you can be sure.
Apart from the groans surrounding the second 5pur2s result the thread that really marke The End for theendodanera believers was the thread around Hazard when Gazprom gazumped every other club in the market by paying rates comparable to a twenty five year old proven world class performer (like…Alexis Sanchez! Or Ozil…) for someone with two years at a top league under their belt. Unheard of transfer ratios were involved in tht signing, incredible value that cannot be matched by a solvent or balanced enterprise. And the response from these Experts:
“Hazard ain’t all that”
“Arsenal have not been gazumped. Vengarggggh is a Scrooge and the AFC board are the worst in football…blahblahblah yaddayaddayadda sameolsbollocksdifferentshitstainpardonmyfrench…”
You all know the drill. How has this unflattering exhibition of base behaviour been best described? Acute disphoria is a kind understanding. Listening to A.Lawrence make further excuses on various media for Rodgers and Liverpool’s spending and overall stupidity, sympathy for the loss of key players etc. I think it’s time people accepted the strength of petty jingoism and xenophobia that’s been on display with these constant attacks and groans over the years not forgetting the politics surrounding AFCs legitimate business practices.
It is, what it is.
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every country has a sports ministry..culture or something…however football is governed by f.a’ s
who controls these f.a’s
if the f.a’s have struck ‘deals’ with russians who in the government is there to research and apply the law?
nobody…………
and why would they? the doors are open to crooks to launder their billions…… but shhhhhh football is all about winning…..
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I’ve been doing some lunchtime research, after I read of moans about Arsenal’s UEFA ranking for next season.
some points worth noting:
Scores for 2011 are rescinded, the four years for ranking will be 2012/13-2015/16 seasons.
No matter what the UEFA ranking is, Pot 1 is reserved for the league champions of: Germany, Spain, England, Italy, France, Holland, Portugal, Russia.
Pot 2 will contain all the next highest ranking teams, so assuming Arsenal don’t fuck things up over the next few weeks we will in this pot, with the 2nd and 3rd placed Spanish teams; 2nd German: Leverkusen; Porto, Basel, Napoli or Roma and possibly City if they stay 4th. We can’t play against any of these – obviously.
Pot 3 might contain Utd, as they lost so many points from missing out last season they are only mid ranked nowadays. Usual suspects in this pot might possibly be Valencia, Olympiakos, Shakhtar, Lyon, Ajax, Gala, Lazio; assuming teams like these get through the elimination phase.
Pot 4 is too wildcard to make meaningful comments on.
So the new format kind of ensures the same old same old, except City’s moaning about the existing format has pushed them back down the hill again. Oh, let’s enjoy the irony of that!
Liverpool are nowhere in sight, The Spuds would be Pot 3 if they ever made a top 4 breakthrough as a result of they years traveling around the darkest parts of Eastern Europe on Thursday nights.
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ehhhmmm hugo? anyone?
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City could still drop to Pot 3; plus a bunch of Europa Cup results could mix up the minor rankings a little bit
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Re: Arsenal turnover – I just read a piece at Forbes.com by Bobby McMahon who estimates our 2014 turnover at $410m and City slightly higher so the turnover figure in £ could well be right.
I am struck by what Fins says at 2:56 pm; “groaners will groan” encouraged by the petty jingoism and chauvinism spread by the media and eched by certain blogs. Can you imagine a fraction of the apologia for Wenger that the hypocrites are spouting for Brendon if Wenger spent £200 plus million and not make top-4? The worse of the lot being the-end-of-an-eraists.
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Watching what I suspect will be the tightest game in the 2nd legs in Monaco
Chiellini booked one minute in
Come on the red and whites
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A5, why?
The Arsenal turnover is incorrect as the official turnover for the period ending 31st May 2014 was £301.8 millions, for 31st May 2013 it was ££280.4 millions.
Was it Eduardo’s snippet ?, shows only the 2013/2014 Financial results, the DT gave the previous year as well.
I am seeking the source for the DT article, by one of their football scribblers!
Nothing in the comments, that I can find.
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A5, why?
The Arsenal turnover is incorrect as the official turnover for the period ending 31st May 2014 was £301.8 millions, for 31st May 2013 it was £280.4 millions.
Was it Eduardo’s snippet ?, shows only the 2013/2014 Financial results, the DT gave the previous year as well.
I am seeking the source for the DT article, by one of their football scribblers!
Nothing in the comments, that I can find.
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The same unattributed table was in the Times this morning NOTH – with a headline that suggested it was fact
What I presume has happened is some mug media content collector ( formerly known as a journalist) has scooped up this dodgy table produced by some nutter and served it as gospel.
Any old unchecked rubbish to fill the space of the Times
Marvellous – I hear Henry Winter has been lured – perhaps he can
Improve their two bob approach to news
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i went to get my sandwich and i saw a group of weirdos dressed like clockwork orange ..and red socks ..holding sticks and ..dancing (??) and hitting eachother! what do we do? call police?
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Are any of them called Morris ?
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What a disappointment Monaco were last night – As the game went on I expected them to inject a burst of energy into their efforts but it just did not come, and Juve were able to hold them off quite easily in the final quarter. No adventure at all and you can understand why they had failed to score so often this season.
The Italians put up a resolute defensive display with almost no chances offered to the home side. They sat deep and did nothing foolish. They can expect a vey different set of problems whichever of the big three they draw in the semi final.
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i dont know i didnt ask..i started running away..thought they were fanatics of some sort
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Just heard that Jordan Henderson signed up for a £100k per week by the Scousers and the Liverpool-loving press wanted Raheem Sterling to do the same at the same rate. What a bunch of crooks. No wonder Raheem has given them the finger.
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You may larf Hunter but two years ago I went to Stratford upon Avon one Saturday to see some Shakespeare with one of my youngsters to discover the town as hosting an international MORRIS DANCING weekend ! You could not walk five yards on a pavement without some maniac coming at you with a stick raised, a flowery straw hat and with bells on their ankles. Terror thats all these people deal in, pure and simple.
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heh…gang wars …saxophones and sticks….
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@ cannon13, anicol’s picture looks like a vicious gang scene from Westside Story. I suppose it’s to be expected on St Georges Day though….
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Come, come, let us have a cup to cheer!
Limestonegunner is a tenderfoot, in this wonderful Arsenal world of ours.
Arsenal in season 2012/2013 in the EPL, points 73, goals for 72, conceded 37.
Arsenal in season 2013/2014 in the EPL, points 79, goals for 68, conceded 41.
Whatever it is in Sherwood Forest, a certain blogger should steer clear!
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Arsenal to wear yellow in the FA Cup Final
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Arsène FC @VieiraPaddy · 26m 26 minutes ago
Fabregas faked injury, refused to train, paid his way out then joined Chelsea.
Remember to give him the respect he deserves.
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No eduardo ..thats a trap.
We greet him with flowers and memorable placard thanking for his services. Get into his head. Make him feel sentimental and a touch embarassed. Psyche him out the war mentality mou will have him in.We wont boo him. But we will tackle him hard.
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Our emphasis are the 3 points…not cesc.
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We need to be smart..play poker..bluff if necessary…you cant do that if youre in rage or holding grudges.
Please arsenal fans… show maturity…show strategy
the booing to be reserved for farah….
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Goona Gal
April 23, 2015 at 5:40 pm
how can they expect the children to stay off the drugs when the rave culture is promoted in broad daylight by grown ups in the centre of town ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
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Hunter: how dare you suggest that half a pint of Old Thumper with a lemonade chaser is sending the country to the dogs? Folk Dancing no doubt the cornerstone of UKIP Policy.
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