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 
Just to prove how smart and knowledgeable you are you need to use current buzz words, in this case “confirmation bias.”
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Shotta, I considered giving it the title “Confirmation Bias For Simpletons”
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George – I think there retort would be fools seldom differ without a trace of irony.
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It took me nearly 15 minutes to write that. And no one is saying anything. What a waste of time that was.
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What if you take the path of modesty, as ive chosen, and catch fools with my meticulous thoughtful calculated conclusions and findings. It beats relying on ‘opinion’, no? Then you can turn the mock/abuse mode at full speed/power ahead. Its quite liberating.
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Have to say zanetti’s all star team is exceptional….. anyone who includes robbie baggio and vieira is my friend. Will have to disagree on the inclusion of giggs there, obviously xavier is being kind..ronaldinho all day/night. as for samuel..meh..not when hes had lucio as teammate ..but then maybe he was too young to witness matthias sammer..heh… these kids…
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great article george, I agree with everything you said 100%, now what did you say
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It’s the silence before the journey North. The Old Enemy.
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eduardo
May 13, 2015 at 8:34 pm
he was just talking bollocks …
….
bravo reservoir dogs ! bravo ! la veca signora ! marchisio myboy, come to arsenal !!! you too gigi!!
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the only disappointment is that cunt evra…wtf is he doing there polluting juve? cant we find better?
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one of the worst individuals ever in football…provokes and inititates trash talk and general slimy behaviour and then cries to the camera playing the racism card..you aint fooling me patricia..coward..luis will eat you alive…
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Good article, George. A couple of things, though:
1) Don’t think bringing yourself down to the level of those who abuse and mock is the way to deal with them. Won’t change them, won’t give you a whole lot of positive emotions. Those who abuse are better left ignored, in my opinion, as no constructive dialogue is possible with them. It’s your choice, however. I’m merely voicing my opinion
2) We do not (and will never) possess the absolute knowledge on any subject. As such we are always basing our opinions on facts, facts that can be interpreted differently by different people, depending on their views/experience/knowledge of the subject matter. Also, it is human nature to try and prove we were right. We always (all of us) seek ways to prove we are right, not that we are wrong. That can be explained by the simple fact that each person needs to be consistent in his views. Otherwise he’d go insane (literally) by constantly changing his opinion. As such, we are prone to ignoring certain facts that do not fit our theory. It’s normal, it just shouldn’t be taken to the extreme
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A good article, George. A couple of things, though:
1) Don’t think bringing yourself down to the level of those who mock and abuse is the way to go. It won’t change them and is unlikely to make you yourself feel any better. But it’s your choice anyway, I’m merely voicing my opinion
2) We do not (and will never) possess absolute knowledge, therefore we’ll never be able to make absolutely correct judgements which takes all facts into consideration. So basically you say that any opinion is wrong, simply because it’s not based on all the facts. Also, ignoring some facts which do not for into your theory is normal. People need consistency in their views, they cannot change their opinion each time something new pops up, otherwise they will, quite literally, go mad. We should only be concerned by those too stubborn to change despite the facts not confirming their theory at all. Those, who never change over time whatever.
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Michael Gooner @MickTheGooner · 17h 17 hours ago
Net Spending 2005-Present:
Man City £580m
http://R.Madrid £522m
Barca £336m
Chelsea £335m
Man Utd 303m
B.Munich £233m
Arsenal £42m
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Yes Alex. I think I said all that.
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and as things go..you have pogba but you sell him and you play with felaini
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George you said well… was just sad for a while over the loss of of nice unbeaten run building by Swansea and the fact they actually did a double over us… both games ought to have been draws
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TS I was at the game on Monday but I think the away defeat was more painful!
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I watched a cross section of the game and really wondered that we seemed to be shooting straight at the keeper. not attempt to place to the corner top and bottom! we really had no business losing the game we did play well and actually create chances
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TS I was at the game on Monday
wtf?? why didnt you say anything? where?
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weird feelings…love juve buffon, pirlo marchisio del pierro baggio tachinardi legends ..hate barca but admire mesi suarez iniesta ….hate alvez evra busquets ..ill support football.
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Didn’t I mention it when I offered to attempt to type something (text made it past the editor but St.Bob Wilson of Totteringham didn’t make the cut!)
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Off topic:
I’m posting this as I haven’t seen an Arsenal footballer speaking out about being deliberately injured – until now:
http://www.kicca.com/kelly_smith10/posts/5553484aaed1d9e01f5ec4fe
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so it was your fault then …you show up and we lose the game….devil, spy, outraged now…
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“She should learn how to tackle”
It would require a girl (a lady no less! One England’s finest!) to break the Old Boys omertà on such matters
Thabks Ranty. it was going to be one d us posting that link hehe
Her comments are remarkable and I hope that the gr*tty grizzlers out there can muster up the footballs required to remark upon such simple and obvious things.
We have seen elsewhere how low people can go in order to avoid talking about the turkey when sat at the Xmas table
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have i missed something? since when have we allowed women to play football? what next? bankers and lawyers and doctors? and we wonder why the world is going to shit? ……… Arsene please restore some order……. we want Monica Belucci and Charlize Theron. If that rat-face ozil touches any of them we’ll send keown out….
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Fins and Ranty: I thought the same was going to happen to Alexis in the first few minutes when Shelvey took him out from behind. My immediate reaction was it was potentially a Red Card assault, but when it was not even deemed Yellow I feared the worst for the rest of the game. I haven’t seen much comment about the way the game was reffed but it did seem to me that that challenge had quite an effect on Alexis for the rest of the game.
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alexis should man up really..get to the gym do some work …this is england..if he dont like it he can fuck off to the favela he came from….
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what did the shoe-less dwarf think? that he would come to our castle island and rule us? together with the french? over our dead bodies! Jonjo…raise the gates…we charge!!!
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lol thats a horrible tackle ..first time i see scissor tackles using the knees..hah..and form behind too……ouch! get well soon amanda
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ehmm ..actually… *get well soon Kelly*
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You should see some of the comments on Kelly’s Kicca page. A bit post Shawcross-esque. One comment lays out the rules about speaking out re other pro’s, and i suppose these rules are why Arsenal’s men haven’t spoken out.
K Friend allowed Swansea to kick us about but I haven’t seen a mention anywhere of the assault by Ashley Williams on Giroud. What was striking for me was the deliberateness of it – to take him out. That was followed by a long lying down of the defender (offender), long enough for the ref to allow the physio to take Williams off – and don’t bother about booking him.
Williams has a habit (pattern) where he kicks people then lays down injured. The refs must know that. They just allow it when it suits.
And yes, Fins, it takes a woman to point this out. After all, any man – particularly from an unfavoured, honest club, is surely gonna catch hell for complaining about malicious tackles – cos “It’s a man game”, and “it’s a contact sport”.
Which it isn’t! Football is a “game of limited contact”.
(You’ll have to look that up, please).
If/when Kelly returns, will the rulers allow her to be targeted, as happened with Eduardo?
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In the spirit of George’s article I know that when refs allow deliberate assaults on Arsenal players the team is unlikely to win. I also know that these unpunished assaults contribute to the Arsenal are soft meme. For me, it is this fact, rather than a lack of spending power, that ultimately determines our place in the League.
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Rantetta
May 14, 2015 at 12:11 pm
paragraph 3 …and thats why i consider ivan to be a failure in protecting club’s interests on/off the pitch.
then again if he talks he will be greeted with @ who the hell are you guys? what do you spend? how do you contribute in our carousel? oh you dont….fuck off then…@
so ….are we big enough to bring down the establishment and lay down our own rules? remains to be seen…..
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What a load of boll*cks!
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Fins, I couldn’t add that photo.I tried, but I dont know how. Sorry.
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No worries Georgie boy, there’s always next year!
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Tim
If the first uncalled clump didn’t have an “impact” on his game then the second one minutes later might have.
Ditto for Giroud
It takes effort to ignore the uncalled clumping every week that cannot be witnessed in other games in the league (I’ve tried, and others more qualified have a taken a record that proves it beyond any reasonable doubt).
BFG two weeks ago.
Rambo could train last week
If people think this drip drip smack smack knock on of knocks doesn’t have an Impact they need to try out some experiments haha!
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could not train…
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To be honest no one including us gets anything 100% right however their are lots of people that manage to get things 100% wrong. The majority of people are quite happy to be told something by the media and run with it without any evidence at all. Georgie Orwell had it right many moons ago only its a bit more subtle nowadays. Remember the fictional player the press thought we buying and the average punter fell for it as well. There was a day when journo’s used to check their sources but what’s the point when the mug in the street will believe you anyway. People complain about managers and politicians lying all the time but if your going to take them at face value then your the stupid one.
On everyones friend but ours well once again Untold got it spot on again with their preview telling us he would ignore the opposition going through us and they were proved right within minutes. Its amazing the aaa saying they are bias and yet their accuracy is quite superb.
I see the always wrong Ian wright has been slagging Arsene again. Once again he criticized a snippet of an answer Arsene gave without reference to the question he was asked, he is a bad a pundit as he was good a player. Its quite bemuseing to see how legends try so hard to tarnish their legacy.
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Seems to me Arsene has deployed different media strategy for last couple of years. Nowadays even when our players are victims by bad tackles and rotational fouls during games he praise the commitment of our opponents and then goes on about how our players can look after themselves. This gives the hacks no change to write us off as a soft bunch and changes the perceptions of us among refs and oppositions. Smart I think.
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Used to follow womens football in Sweden and went to occasional games on sundays when not too hungover. (The screaming of hundreds of teenage girls can be quite damaging.) Whats noticeable on those occasions is how disparate the qualities of players are in the league and Sweden is one of the top ranked nations when it comes to womens football. Because of the difference of quality among players bad injuries will always happen for obvious reasons. Not putting down womens football here, we all witnessed what happened to Diaby.
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Marta was in her own league thou.
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Used to follow womens football in Sweden
you can stop lying now….. i know what you were doing there…..
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ianspace2014
May 14, 2015 at 3:23 pm
ian wright ? legend? he was talking to move to benfica after we had won the title cause wenger had made brocolli mandatory….he then spent 5 years trashing us with his every breath cause his son was too crap for arsenal…legend my arse…
buffon is a legend. xavi is one too. we only have dennis who can classify.
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I do agree ian wrong wrong wrong has done everything to b elittle ARSENAL since he has left, however any player who gets the amount of goals he got has got to be classed as a legend…dont they? I know we won the league with a team the season before he came and didn t win it again until he was out for the large part of his last season but surley that wasnt down to his greed in attack was it? did we not function consistenly as a team and destroy our best youth striker for years because of him? hmm its a bit of a jonney nash more questions than answers.
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spider o’leary stayed at our club when favourites like Brady and frank judas were leaving, he got his reward when he got his league winners medal in one of his last seasons and another cup medal in his last ever game for the club sureley he is a legend.
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Pat was here for 44 seasons true legend
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I also love kolo and terry mancini
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and obviously Rocky
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