A Guest post from Shotta, @shotta_gooner
“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?“
Did you know there was a mini-pitch invasion by at least 2 or 3 Manchester United supporters when they scored their match winning goal vs Crystal Palace on Saturday? The goal was also met by a cacophony of noise from the away-end as the travelling fans erupted in ecstasy that there 4th place is seemingly secure.But for the assembled media, given the scant coverage, there was no sound, no tree fell in the forest.
Hah, they hope. Contrast the media’s silence to their noisy reaction to that famous speech by Arsene to the October 2012 Annual General Meeting when he said:
“For me there are five trophies every season: Premier League, Champions League, the third is to qualify for the Champions League…”
Ever since, the media and the doom-mongers have had a field day accusing Wenger of mediocrity and or diminishing the importance of the venerable FA cup. Hopefully by the end of this piece you will agree with me that there is “lots of noise, but no substance.”
Wenger’s very sensible observation of the importance of qualifying for the Champions League eventually morphed into petty ridicule and plain idiocy. Fourth place became the Arsene Wenger Trophy. Denizens of twitter, facebook and blogs had a field day mocking the club and the manager. In a bizarre type world where reality is distorted and emotions manipulated, the second most successful coach in the EPL history with 3 trophies and 6 FA cups was being equated with mediocrity and lack of ambition.
Paradoxically, during that same period, clubs like Liverpool, Everton, Aston Villa and Tottenham, desperately sought the brass ring of becoming a top-4 club at Arsenal’s expense. The 2012-13 season, which Wenger’s speech will be forever associated, was no exception. The club had to fight until the very last day of the season to clinch 4th place, by beating Newcastle 1:0 (Alan Sugar, ex-chairman of Spurs, infamously tweeted that it was 1:0 to the Geordies and the Totts were temporarily misled into believing they could overtake us as they played concurrently – pure comedy). Yet media types were quick to decry the achievement. After pictures emerged of the players celebrating in the dressing room, the notorious celebrity gooner, Piers Morgan, long before he was separated from his lucrative gig at CNN, tweeted to his thousands of followers:
“No Manchester United team would ever celebrate coming 4th. That’s the difference.”
In retrospect, Morgan’s tweet marked the highwater mark of the anti-Wenger lunacy, the silly mocking of 4thplace trophy had met is Waterloo. Morgan could tweet as he did because Ferguson had, triumphed in the EPL for the 20th time, primarily at the expense of Arsenal by encouraging Van Persie’s messy divorce from the club. The Dutchman’s goals arguably won the United the title but came at a very high price, £24million for an ageing striker with a history of injuries as well as the alienation of Wayne Rooney, hitherto United’s most valuable player. Ferguson’s retirement and David Moyes inheritance of the consequences some of his final-term decisions resulted in the unthinkable, the demise of United as a top-4 club to a 7th place falling below even Europa League qualification.
Not only was the flagship club of English football no longer competing among the top clubs in Europe’s most prestigious club competition but the drip-drip of news from the owners and management of the United was to warn that prolonged non-participation in the champions league could be disastrous financially especially for its far reaching portfolio of lucrative commercial deals. In quick time, during the summer of 2014, the stenographers of United’s greatness and invincibility were falling over themselves to convince the public that the minimum goal for the 2014-15 season was qualification for the champion’s league. Ah ha, almost exactly what Wenger said at the AGM Arsenal less than two years before:
“I say that because if you want to attract the best players, they do not ask ‘did you win the League Cup?’, they ask you ‘do you play in the Champions League?’.”
But United “could never ‘celebrate 4th”, would they? Nor would they make winning the FA cup secondary to the champions league? Yet on March 2nd as reported by the Telegraph, Van Gaal explicitly agreed with Arsene:
“Yes, I think that he is right,” Van Gaal said after a thoughtful pause. “I think that Arsène Wenger is saying always the right things. I think that for a club the Champions League is the highest level and that’s why he is saying that. And to finish in the first four it’s a fantastic result, I think, and for us, Manchester United, more I think.”
“What is important for the clubs – when you win the FA Cup you are not in the Champions League but you have won the title. A title,” he says. “So for the players it is fantastic, for the manager it is fantastic but our goal is to reach in our first year together a place in the Champions League.”
Surely a tree fell loudly in the forest. Yet Jason Burt, the reporter giving the quotes, insist there was no noise, holding fast to his belief (and I suspect his peers) that the FA cup is priority:
“Van Gaal needs to win. And so does Arsène Wenger who is desperate to retain the FA Cup after his own nine-year long wait to land silverware and with accusations flying again last week – aimed by the former United midfielder and now a pundit Paul Scholes – that Arsenal simply lack ambition.”
What a piece of crock. The last refuge of a scoundrel or an English reporter is to give credence to quotes by a former well-known pro turned pundit. Go figure. In the meantime, as evident by the celebrations at Crystal Palace, United fans are desperate for that Arsene Wenger trophy. That ambition is clearly not exclusive to Arsenal.
In conclusion, I leave you with a quote by a friend of this blog, Bootoomee, who writing on the same subject for Untold Arsenal a few weeks ago, said:
There is little doubt that football fans are treated like idiots by the media but that is because far too many are stupid crowd following, cliché spouting lemmings. They take their cues from the media and run with it. With Manchester United and Liverpool fighting to get a CL place, all of a sudden it becomes important again. I wonder what they will say if either of Man United or Liverpool get the 4th place at the expense of the other and their players celebrate. Would they be mocked like Arsenal were in 2013?
Positively Arsenal 
Thanks Shotta. Great piece.
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Hear,hear, Shotta.
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The media silence on LvG’s comment is simply deafening. Hope they read this article Shotta. Thanks.
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Pls send piers morgan this piece, he dont know hw football is run, and he shud start critisizing man unt now or we we will disown him as arsenal fan………….. think before u say, or u will eat your words someday!
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If Arsenal is in 5th place now, the whole gang of pundits will be gleefully mocking Arsene & Arsenal…of course, joined by plastic winger-out brigades.
In current 3rd place, there was nothing for the pundits & critics except ridiculing arsenal players changing room celebrations
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Here is my understated comment…. Well said.
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So Arsene Wenger is not The Scrooge?
He does do this thing called “tactics”.
He can coach deeeeeefence.
The Arsenal have won a trophy. Two if you want to count the super cup.
Big players have signed for the Arsenal. More then one! As Coquelin comments the signing of Santi was the Sign. by the time Nacho was brought in to compete with Gibbo there wasn’t much doubt which direction the good ship was sailing in, the Arsenal had caught the trade winds, pirate raids and pickings off the coast of Malaga, and they were on the their way. Alas some chose to stick their heads so far up their own Arsenal’s that they remain lost in the smelly darkness.
Etc.
That’s quite an incomplete list. I could go on. But I won’t.
What kind of, um, lemming, would ever have believed any of it? Pardon my French. Xenophobia? On such a scale? So easily manipulated? Stooges used to flush out and beat the heard further to the right? Hmmm. Haven’t seen anything else like that of late…hehehe.
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Politics and football/sport? No. They never mix. Can’t think of any examples.
Ha. Ha. Ha.
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“Who is Cazorla?”,
Said AW to the assembled press pack. Days before he was signed! Legendary scenes.
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4th place meant nothing when Arsenal were getting 4th place, it also showed a lack of ambition (funny thing is both tottnum and liverpool were spending loads and changing managers to try and get 4th place, and this was showing ambition), now man utd want 4th place it is important again, the FA Cup was a big cup till low and behold Arsenal won it, now it is vying with the capitol one cup in its meaningless, if we don’t retain it this season the FA Cup will once again be a big cup. the sad thing is that the biggest promoters of this sort of nonsense is not the media, but Arsenal fans, especially bloggers and the twitterati
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Thanks for your kind feedback guys. Am not the most prolific of of scribes and writing this piece was a reminder that I will never quit my day job. Fins made various comments listing the several lies and false narratives directed at Wenger which many of us have exposed over the years with varying success. In doing my research for this piece it became obvious that the media, as exemplified by Piers Morgan, could only sustain the lie as long as Manchester United was among the top four. Only then did United supporters (see Red Cafe for example) and the various hacks acknowledge that 4th Place is more important than an FA cup. On a personal note, it is a clear redemption of those of us who split with ACLF because it became a purveyor of this anti-Arsene nonsense. And it took only two years.
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what is ACLF
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exshöttenal
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QPR lying down and having their belly tickled by city, not doing our goal difference any good, city now 7 goals ahead of us and game not over yet.
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Ramsey took part in training today, as did Akpom and Martinez, both back from their loan deals.
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20150510/arsenal-train-ahead-of-swansea-match?
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FT: Man City 6-0 QPR
QPR relegated, now leaves one from Hull, Newcastle, Sunderland, Leicester, Aston Villa to go down.
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Absolutely fucking excellent piece. The myths are one by one falling by the wayside as uncomfortable hacks and wobs try and reshuffle their position. The sea of truth is washing away wob rock leaving them little place to stand and they must surely feel cold and washed out.
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with all this talk about Pep joining Man City I’d ask why do so many Gooners pine for him, he stays no where very long, he was one year Barcelona B manager, 4 years Barcelona manager, and now after only 2 years with Bayern he might be leaving, he builds nothing, and is not in it for the long haul. He actually looks ideal for Chelsea or city, not Arsenal.
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Gunner Report @GunnerReport · May 9
Our defensive options next season: Bellerin, Debuchy, Jenkinson, Gabriel, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Chambers, Nacho, Gibbs. Do we need more?
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Jenks wont be back next year . Sold or more likely, another loan.
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even without him do we really need to sign another defender,
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liverpool already losing, if it stays that way top four is done, only who ends where to be decided.
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http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/32681196
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16:03LIVE UPDATE
BY: ED MALYON
Ed Malyon
That should have been a red card.
Filthy stuff from Fabregas, but the rules of football seemingly contain a clause – not confined to this match – where you can do anything you like in the first minute without fair punishment.
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Happy Mommies day to all you Mom Goonners.
I believe Jenko is going back out on loan and he’ll be brought back to compete against Bellerin the season after that. He’s just too good a player to sell.
If we beat Swansea and tie against the Mancs, third place and automatic, CL qualification is ours. If we win our next two games after that, we can end up in second.
Honestly, I’m more psyched about automatic qualification that ending up second or third. That extra week or two off will do wonders for the boys.
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Thanks Shotta: you’ve nailed the hypocrisy there good and proper. I have noticed that one of the key tactics in attempting to ridicule Arsene is knowingly to take his figurative statements literally and then apply a kind of reductio ad absurdum to them. As you point out, it is an irritant to the meme creators to have Van Gaal publically backing the wisdom of Arsene’s words.
I have just watched a dull match from Stamford Bridge on Sky: whoever the commentator was carries unspeakably smug brown nosing to another level.
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Excellent Shotta, very well written and beautifully observed.
I came to the conclusion quite some time ago that those who attempt to mock Arsene only end up mocking themselves. Their lack of self-awareness is matched only by their ignorance of the game; their inability to understand the bigger footballing picture is something to be pitied as you wonder when, for them, the Wenger Penny will finally drop.
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Well said Shotta.
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Coquelin’s Guardian interview here:
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/may/09/francis-coquelin-arsenal-king-counter-bling
Interesting to read what he says about his time at Freiburg.
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Well written… seems to take so long for these myths to be slowly but surely busted,,, we will get to the very top and more and more AW will be better appreciated for remaining consistently n he top 2 for a long while and then not dropping ut of the top 4 at all. , glad AW signed on and was not moved by so many contrary comments… seems we are getting back to our top 2 finish… the very top for us next season…
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dkg the key point in the Coquelin interview for me is him admitting that the reason why he could not get in the Arsenal team on a regular basis before this season, was cos he refused to play the DM role like how he is now, and that he was trying to play a far more expansive game, in an attempt to impress too much. But the penny dropped with him this season. This is very much what Wenger said about it a couple of months ago, but of course the AAA said it was Wenger’s fault for not knowing he had a DM in Coquelin despite the lad being hear six or seven years. So its good to see the lad admit it was down to him. You can still see aspects of trying to overplay in Coquelin’s performances, such as his attempts at spectacular long passes.
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Nice piece Shotta
Ultimately those who know, know. It’s all that matters.
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http://www.gunnerstown.com/arsenal/2015/05/10/when-you-consider-who-could-replace-wenger-you-may-decide-arsene-is-still-the-best-man-for-the-job/
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now that is what you call a cut, (Stevenage v Sheffield Utd game)
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CEqduPMWAAEyE4t.jpg:large
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a tottnum fan rant
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did stevie Gerrard say something about Chelsea today
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MontyBankes @MontyBankes · 3h 3 hours ago
Arsenal fan on 5live wants Brendan Rodgers to take over from Wenger, for fucks sake.
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Fantastic stuff Shotts,a superb read as usual.
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Just found out I didn’t get a final ticket for the second year running, I suppose I was lucky going to both semis though. Maybe next year!
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Wenger see Chambers as a CB next season
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20150508/boss-why-chambers-will-play-centrally?
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reports that Arsenal scout Brian McDerrmott was at the Dundee Utd game at the weekend to watch 18 year old John Souttar, who can play in defence or as a defensive midfielder, southampton and celtic also said to be keen on the lad, who made his debut for Dundee Utd at 16.
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thanks a lot shotta. the epl title will beceome meaningless next season when we win it. now every istalking about quaters of the champions league, just wait till we get even past that.
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edu ACLF? i’m sure you do know right? anyway i do check on the former playground once in while. the atmosphere is getting possitive nowadays. though never so positive as to give arsene credit for anything good happening at the moment. at least for a change, it is different to 2012/2013 end of an era preditions. i also notice that some of the regulers who constantly criticize us are no longer there or regular.
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i expect jack start in place of rambo tonight. rosicky pleeeese!
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