This might come as a surprise to many of you, but I quite often get into arguments on twitter. I used to get into spats in the comment section of blogs too, until the ringmaster put an abrupt end to that bit of fun. The problem is that I tend to resort to sarcasm , abuse and mockery. I do this because on the whole most of the people I spat with base their arguments on no logic or perspective. Its just opinion and often opinion based on ignorance and misinformation.
People form opinions based on their limited knowledge (me included btw) then look to events for confirmation that their opinion was indeed correct. Obviously any event that challenges our opinion are, at best, given little weight, and usually completely ignored.
I want to look at how this has worked of late.
For quite some time people have been asking for a defensive midfielder. A real physical specimen that concentrates on breaking up play . You know the type, Maticesque.
So in Francis Coquelin we got one( Lets ignore that he is not a physical specimen and is in fact nothing like Matic ) Results improve. So, this is confirmation to these people that their opinion was correct.
Because results improved when Coquelin entered the fray,they were right , Arteta was shit and they know their stuff.
However, this is simply bollocks.
Before we cart on, I should say I do think he has helped to some degree or other.But lets look at what is ignored and how this logic is flawed.
With this logic you could easily say ” Results have improved since Bellerin replaced Debuchy” or “Results have improved since Jack got injured”. I could even confirm such stupidity with “As soon as Jack played we lost to Swansea”.
There is no way anyone can say that with Arteta in this team, results would not have been better. Equally there is no way we can know if they would have been worse.
Its fine to have one opinion or the other, but its rubbish to point to events and say they are proof of an opinion being right.
The reality is that results improved because of many events.
Giroud, Ozil, Ramsey and Koscielny all came back around the time Coquelin was drafted in. Those four are absolutely the spine of the team. We know this because they are constants when fit.
See what I did? I confirmed my opinion with the recent selections.I ignored Sanchez bedding in, Bellerin being introduced , Santi finding a rich vein of form and many other circumstances.
This is what we do. We look for confirmation .
In other words, on the whole, we all talk bollocks.
Positively Arsenal 
i dont know……if we are talking legends of world football then ian tony etc aint got a foot to stand on …if we are talkign for the small world of arsenal then ok maybe even guys like dixon as considered as legends…its all aboutperspective i suppose….for example for me, in front of a juve, barca milan madrid fan id be embarassed ot mention adams or wright as legends, they would laugh and rightly so. but then again im not english and dont have to treat every arsenal player as the best in the world…….i follow juve in italy, valencia in spain, arsenal in england dortmund in germany panathinaikos in greece..my love is football and i chose the team that reflects my principles on the sport or the tribalism of the fans i can mostly relate too. i have been in many arguemnets cause people turn and say ‘ you no true gunner’ ..lol….but my passion is football ..arsenal just an extenntion and only because of wenge’rs ideals principles…before him it was a father to son thing …mandatory mostly….which kid can ever draw satisfaction watching stefan schwartz, merson and winterburn when at that time there were baggios and maldinis around ….. dont knwo if im making sense….. ive had three pints too..
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take ozil for example …a brilliant footballer…he ‘talks’ to the football… do you feel he is the winner who will get you the result when you need it the most? we already hold him as bergampesque. well lets wait a little ..see what he wins with arsenal.. even bergkmap..did he trully ‘speak’ the momments we needed him the most ? did henry? lets see how he influences the big games and then decide. it reminds me a bit of how the english would rush to classify becham and rooney in the same category as figo zidanne messi ronaldo to show that ‘hey look, we also have world class players/heroes/legends’ when that wasnt the case at all….
to me the legends of arsenal will be the ones who ridicule mourinho. liverpool and fergusons records and win the champions league for wenger and fans….noone else.
the closest ive seen were cambell and ljunberg who played their fuckign socks off in that final… you gutless coward thierry…freddie was runnign up and down for you man…. and you couldnt finish…
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valencia man…rufette, killy gonzalez mendietta vicente aimar ayala BARAJA…what a team ..two finals..lost them both……bayern how many finals they been? ..not easy….and weve only been in one.
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so yes i will agree with thierry when he says we need some world class players but i just wont accept it coming from him when he had the best chance to win it for us and played like a schoolboy…..shut up man…..you failed…so dont talk about giroud, girous is still aroudn and who knows..maybe he brings the trophy home ….( big maybe but still…)
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ok i think i need ot eat
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and almunia..you fucking embarassement of a man…hold your fucking ground for gods sake….one throught he legs the other close corner…..and he wasnt sacked immediately???.
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aaaarrghh …”!$^*&%*$%£”Q”£¬
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Hunter, Wrighty was a legend to kids like Henry in France (his words not mine) when they were growing up for obvious reasons!
However, I do switch over whenever he pops on the screen sucking hard on the Newscorp pickings he’s allowed. When he sent SWP to sit on the Gazprom bench is when it was clear that he was (or had become) more interested in the Moooooooolah then the Footy. No biggy, I just ignore anything he has to say about the football. Great player, interesting person, not interested in his petty plunditry.
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It is possible to feel a little empathy for Wrighty. A smidgen. A teeny weeny bit.
He’ll never be the centre piece of Sly News Central, he hasn’t had enough plastic surgery because his skin is too healthy.
Although a broadcaster once gave him the opportunity with his own programme (never saw it) he’ll never be the presenter of MOTD or any such programme. Never mind the surgery his skin is just too healthy. Hehe.
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and yeah i’ ll brag about it….
sagna!!! ffs. gave everything for us but we couldnt pay him 15k-20k more a year? fuck off…. id rather have sagna as cb than a struggling and uncomfortable monreal (albeit hard working…
hey fins whats up ..im in the tesseract and monologue….heh……henry? lol you still listen to what he says? heh…i stopped when he pussied out in front of valdez and then wrote a letetr to the sun for the fans….
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Afternoon George.
I see Man Utd. are suffering financially – well in relative terms anyway.
Retail sales have dropped by 10% and Matchday sales by a whopping 30%.
broadcasting revenue fell by nearly 40%!
Those plastic glory-hunting half and half scarf wearing fans are mighty fickle.
Imagine the disaster that would have occurred to Arsenal PLC if Wenger had missed out on UCL qualification with the gang of kids and journeymen the club has had to use over the last 10 years.
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d_c @ 6:03 pm. So United suffer commercially by missing out on that Wenger Top Four trophy? But its all opinion, not fact. OK then.
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principles = juve im not sure about that. They are one of the most corrupt organizations in football. unless your seperating the football from the club but that is difficult.
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Good post, George.
I think generally I just get fed up with all and sundry describing, for me, things I’ve just seen with my own eyes or heard with my ears. Then telling me I’m wrong and didn’t see what I saw.
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I see Arsène’s got in early again before next season:
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/may/15/arsenal-sign-11-year-old-charlie-patino-luton-town
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NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…. levy wants to sack baldini….they entering crisis talks !!!!
fins???!!!! eine schdtadtemehnt bitte!!!!
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Hunter, sol will never be a legend with any club not even with his brother. He still doesn’t understand what he done to the spuds, he doesn’t understand how he let Arsene down after saying he needed to get away from England and then turned up at Portsmouth. Arsene as usual made the decision based on the wellbeing of the player rather than his own personal gain. I have spoken to Sol and I seriously think he needs major therapy. He wants to be a manager and if he does unfortunately he will break just like he did against West Ham.
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yeah ok no problem…i was putting it under th eocntext of the final where he gave everything and freddie whereas titi…our best finisher, striker, player, wenger pupil, mr vavavooom himself, crapped it big time….
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Late to the PA party, I know (been down with the ‘flu which kicked in around the time, I kid you not, Swansea kicked in their winner), but wanted to add my tuppence worth to the Great Booing Debate.
I’ve been fortunate enough to go to most home games since the Emirates was opened and have sat in pretty much all parts of the ground with substantial periods (years) sat mid-way above the away fans, high in Clock End and now front row of the North Bank. I’ve sat in most of the areas in between on one-off occasions.
What has always struck me from the opening season is how strangely sound travels around the place. It’s almost as if there is the audio equivalent of a micro-climate, such is the variance in the ‘atmosphere’ created by the fans. Some will complain of a poor atmosphere whilst others think the place was rocking – for the same game!
Even now it catches me by surprise as songs and chants heard in one part of the ground don’t reach another. You frequently get pockets of supporters singing the same song but just a few seconds out of kilter.
This was the case on Monday night; from front row of the North end, booing could clearly be heard – albeit incredibly briefly – the moment the ref blew for full time. I was frankly horrified but thankfully it stopped as soon as it had started.
It was hard to identify the source of the sound but it felt as though it came from the fans surrounding the Directors’ Box but I couldn’t swear to it. But most people I spoke to who were at the game did not hear it; interesting that the broadcasters picked it up – suggests the area around the dug out may have been miked up but again, couldn’t swear to it.
***
Back onto George’s topic – yes, I’m sure most of us are guilty of practising the dark arts of confirmation bias but leaving that aside, what is more infuriating is the manufacturing of myths (or ‘lies’) in support of whatever bias is being propagated.
And for that, my friends there is little defence and no excuse.
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what is more infuriating is the manufacturing of myths (or ‘lies’) in support of whatever bias is being propagated.
oh bravo sir !
like the myth ‘he failed to lead the backline’ being used for confirmation bias when comparing wolves and warriors to ducks and kittens…..
or the myth of the paedophile and the myth of the racist and the myth of the wenger/vieira red card – discipline record
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PG, quite right, bring on the roll of the drums!
Not one of you, will like this FACT.
ManU paid for a survey by Kantar Media, who came up with 659 millions of ManU “followers”.
ALL of those who watched the Arsenal v ManU or the ManU v Arsenal games in 2011, were part of the “following” of ManU.
Source is the 2013/2014 Financial Report, Market and Industry Data, Page v the last paragraph.
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Notoverthehill – A brazen attempt by the Glazers to hoodwink the investment community in order to raise more cash/credit which, incredibly, they got away with.
Just imagine the uproar had AFC attempted a similar stunt …
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Aunty Bleeb carries an interview with the shiny new Manc signing.
A shame they’ve never been capable of publishing or discussing the following variations reflected over the previous decade:
Di Maria: £60M = a flop so far
Sanchez: £30M = best signing of the year in the league bar none! he’s done well not to pick up any splinters.
Shaw: £30M = a flop! but at least his agent was happy when Uncle Roy inexplicably picked a bloated rookie ahead of the only English LB who plays in the CL.
Chambers: £15M = worried about cbs tax AFC. Feeling a mild panic set in? Go and rewatch the super cup game from August amongst others. He’s a good un.
Instead you get the Özil screed. Repeated by those who have an inability to resist being told what to say.
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I hear there is good news for Chelsea that cech is planing to snub Arsenal and join PSG instead… Like we were in for him in the first place… snub indeed. Happy to miss out on him… our team is gelling just fine and the more of the present crop kept together the better for team dynamics rather than bringing in cech is sure to want to be no 1 or else no need to move from Chelsea to disrupt our keepers.. the 3 of them fighting it our is sufficient as it is.. the should be retained. All being younger than cech have be potentila to get better.. WS1 matched cech for joint clean sheets the season before last
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Yup I am certainly relieved to hear that AFC have been snubbed by the player who helped cost Gazprom re league last year alongside the other poor calls made by his manager not having the courage to call back the younger player who won a title in Spain cost Gazprom last year.
bizarrely the special friend of the special agent was absolved of any critique from the petty plundits.
It seems reasonable to conclude that the petty plundits are more interested in their agents’ friends commissions then the footy.
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Now I hear its begovic pf stoke… hmmn. Not looking for a pay rise at all all these keepers linked to arsenal.. despite it being obvious we certainly do not need a new keeper and shoot of players in the caliber of Reus and Messi or Martinez, not even necessary needed a new player in the main squad at all…
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Arsenal is the team that favours the french i have often heard said, yet note this stat.
According to OptaJoe, 20 Frenchmen have now scored for Newcastle – a joint figure with arsenal… it may not even be surprising if the number that has played to Newcastle may have yet passed arsenal.
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http://metro.co.uk/2015/05/16/tottenham-fans-turn-on-scum-danny-rose-after-he-unveils-arsenal-haircut-5200737/
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so all the experts, journos and pundits say Arsenal need a GK, CB, DM and ST to compete for the title, so if that is true, what do City, Utd, Liverpool, tottnum need, and more to the point why do we not hear all these experts, journos and pundits constantly stating what they need, why is only Arsenal a target for their constant negative spin.
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James Milner The latest to have snubbed arsenal for Liverpool… were we actually in for him? I really wonder at these headlines
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A busy schedule this week, some rotation on the cards? Welbeck might not be ready for tomorrow’s game so he could get the start against Sunderland.
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‘Ronald Koeman said: I enjoyed it very much like all the fans because we play great football. We had great spirit from the beginning and that was the difference between the last away games and today, and some help from Aston Villa who played offside, high defending.’
Villa might start the game with a slightly more conservative approach in the final. I was hoping for more adventure but after today’s result they might not risk it! Manchester up first. Carrick still injured? Mata could be in the team.
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Bolasie jinxing past Liverpool’s £20M CB far to easily there.
He’s enjoying his game. Follows up with a trick to twist two defenders and a shot off the bar.
–
Less then 24hrs to K.O.
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Liverpool needing a slip and deflection to score. The plundits ignoring the deflection.
For me:
Chamberlain > Sterling
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so, top 4 teams confirmed… positions apart from 1st needing to be eventually sorted. Come the end of the next 2 games i expect it to be Arsenal. MC and then MU
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Can tottrum actually afford to be in the eufa cup? A report the other season , I think it was in Untold, pointed out how many clubs actually lost money in the lesser European competition unless they got to the semis. If this is still the case then the new stadium build will put even more pressure for non-profit making adventures to be cancelled. So we may see the spuds give up their place. just a thought
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Are u sure giving up ur place is allowed? will they not be sanctioned?
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and apart from 5th place how many other places are available? have villa not already taken up one just by making the fa cup finals?
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TS I think villa have to win the FAC to make Europa, if AFC win then the place goes to 7th in the league
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