Good morning fellow sufferers,
A result in Zagreb that surprised and disappointed in equal measure. Not a terminal blow by any means with five games in the group to go and our qualification firmly in our own hands but a poor start. It is the result that in reason seasons we risked, for example in Brussels last year against Anderlecht, and before that against Liege, but invariably managed to pull the nuts out of the fire. We gave ourself a chance in the final 15 minutes to retrieve matters but, to be honest, that second goal did not look likely. Last night our walnuts were consumed by the flames.
I have no doubt in social and mainstream media the reasons for the defeat have been, are being and will be explored, the guilty men named and shamed and their fitness to wear the shirt questioned. I suspect Arsene’s name might be mentioned once or twice in relation to the matter. I do not propose to burden you further with my ramblings on the topic. You saw the game and will no doubt have made up your own minds.
Enough of this gloomy, self indulgent introspection, that is not what you came for.
To look at the positives I thought Ospina had a good game, made some crucial saves and some timely dashes from the line to cut out the position attacks. Unlucky with Ox’s own goal and nothing he could do about the second. Considering that was his first game of the season he is to be commended. Unfair on the Colombian that such a good night’s work will be remembered for the score line rather than his contribution.
Gibbs I thought played well, both defensively and in support of Sanchez in going forward. Another good display from a player who has been forced to cool his heels since early August but who stepped up with confidence. While Fate is cruel I have no doubt that Kieron’s display last night pushed him up the England left back list after Luke Shaw’s double leg break in Eindhoven on Tuesday.
Ozil played well. Sanchez, as ever, burned energy all over the pitch. Theo was sharp when introduced and took his goal well, and on another night was the man who could have snatched that elusive equalizer. Le Coq emphasised what an important player he is, first name on the team sheet as they say. My word what a difference a year makes to a player’s fortunes.
Beyond that I do not feel either heaps of blame or particular words of praise are merited. No one had a shocker.
The final positive aspect of the night is that Zagreb are not very good. I find it very difficult to believe that they possess sufficient quality to present as a genuine group stage winner or runner up. We have the opportunity to correct last night’s errors on Tuesday the 24th November. Make a note in your diary.
With regard to Olivier well, what can I say ?
Almost certainly nothing new. He has an irritating tendency, to me at least, to complain loudly and often to the referee in every game. Without doubt some of those complaints are justified. Some are not. And the difficulty for OG is that so repetitive are his complaints that the referee no longer can be bothered to sift the genuine from the contrived. And last night I am afraid he ran into the wrong referee, on the wrong night. A harsh red card but entirely avoidable. I looked up the Roumanian whistler’s stats and he is not some grossly inexperienced official who over-reacted to the pressure of his first CL game, as I first thought. He has been refereeing in the CL since 2011. I trust Olivier will learn from his experience and return a wiser and more effective tip of the Arsenal spear. On that basis a lesson painfully learned may have a benefit attached.
And the final positive ?
No time to dwell on last night. While there have been perhaps justifiable complaints that Chelsea have had an easier run up to the London derby than us with their home tie against Tel Aviv I am delighted that we have only 51 hours now to kick off at the Bridge and a chance to show our quality and spirit. I suspect Arsene and every single player feels the same.
Enjoy your Thursday.
And in the spirit of amity with our Croat brothers and sisters a little more of their delightful language for you to wrestle with;
*my hovercraft is full of eels
http://www.omniglot.com/soundfiles/croatian/hovercraft_hr.mp3
Positively Arsenal 
well written, balance always between disappointments and what could be done better and what was done well… that the team lost does not mean they need new players! should just do better in certain areas… which they are capable f doing.
At least the youth CL team made up for their elders!
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“that the team lost does not mean they need new players! should just do better in certain areas… which they are capable f doing.”
team spirit, that sums up perfectly the problem, we all know the players are talented enough, but on too many occasions they just don’t do it, and to compound the problem on these nights, they also let in soft goals, very avoidable goals. Last night was very reminiscent of the west ham game, clearly the more talented team, on top but not playing anything near top level, then avoidable goal let in, followed by a second avoidable goal, too many players not anywhere near their top level.
The question is why does this seem to happen Arsenal so often.
Well I know many will put the blame on the manager, but speaking as someone who has played three sports to a fairly high level and managed in one sport to a high level, I have to say that for me its down to the players. As a player I never needed anyone to tell me I should give my all, or that it was important to win, every player knows this, what I seen as the biggest need of players was the feeling that the manager rated them, relied on them, had confidence in them, even the most talented of players game could go to pot when they felt the manager doubted them and visa versa, even average players could rise to levels they thought impossible when they felt the full trust of the manager.
As a manager I overseen matches where I could talk till I was blue in the face, about how important it was not to take the opposition lightly, about the required level of performance, all to no avail, I could sense it at times that some of the players just thought they were far superior than the opposition and that this would be enough. When it happens you are fucked if you do and fucked if you don’t, no matter what action you take, no matter what words you say, the performance has to come from within the player. Drop the under performer from the next game and you can be costing yourself that game too, you can give them the hairdryer treatment, but that really is only any good at getting rid of your own frustrations, it don’t stop players still under estimating opponents etc
And as we all know the manager gets it in the neck for the defeat, “he did not get the team up for the game”, which for me is the biggest load of crock there is. For me I will always believe that players have to be responsible for their own attitude and ultimately their own performance. Tony Woodcock stated a few years ago that the one thing above all else that should be a given from an Arsenal player is “100% commitment” regardless of who the opponents are, regardless of the score in a game, regardless of form, that an Arsenal player should always have the right attitude, and give his all. Woodcock expanded on it and even said that is what being a professional is all about and is the main difference in those that do it consistently and those that do not. I’m inclined to agree with him.
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Anicoll – Your headline is not going to earn you a lot of clicks via Newsnow or twitter, maybe a few Croats. Maybe you think it is better for us to sufferer alone.
I didn’t get a chance to see the match in its entirety but your calm, measured observations are sufficient to convince me that we can soon put this setback behind us. As you know the benefit of the doubt is only granted to the big spenders like United and City who apparently swept all before them night before last.
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Not sure Gibbs had a good game Andrew.
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Good thinking Shotts – it may be to late for NewsNow but there is no need to put the punters off, other than the Croatian ones – so “My Arsenal is full of eels” it is
I agree that Gibbs could have done better for the second and as it turned out crucial second goal George but overall I thought he did well. Nothing got past him on that side and he was always on hand to support the attack and push up that side of the field.
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Bit of a shambles for English clubs the CL this week. I don’t think Citeh underestimated Juve but having gone ahead in the tie they managed to lose although the Morata goal was brilliant enough to deserve three points in any game.
I did not watch Manchester’s second club in Holland but that was a game they must have expected at least a point from, went ahead but in their turn managed to balls it up.
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Thanks Andrew. I made the mistake of looking at the comments on arseblog last night and felt that I’d entered a zone of madness. Some were reasonable but the vast majority were just like Piers M – kids throwing their toys out the pram.
What concerns me in these displays is that they seem to involve a drop in performance level by several players at the same time – hence my comment last night about lasagna. We all know that the same team can play much better than they did last night, so it’s just a mystery to me what happens. We keep saying that the players will learn from it but sometimes I wonder if they do.
Anyway, no use crying over spilt milk or overreacting wildly. Saturday beckons and hopefully they won’t need geeing up for that one. What is certain is that Chelsea will be on full throttle and we have to contain them and match them. We’ve shown that we can – but will we?
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Thanks Andrew, there’s a big dark cloud over much of Goonerville today and I liked the way you swung your article around and encourage people to not be too despondent.I haven’t looked at Le Turde as Im sure the chimps are rattling the cage and thrashing themselves off whilst foaming at the mouth.Shame none of them can kick a ball to save their lives.I would like to see them out there on the pitch!!
I hoped for a bit more from the defence and Ospina for the DZ second goal, but it all happens in such a split second, and we are analysing in hindsight and Dz have every right to play well and not lie down and they are on a good roll and had a point to prove last night.Lessons to be learned, failure is the only way to success. If we had nabbed a couple of the early chances Im not sure how Dz would have responded?Certainly we had some chances to change the game early on.
Great goal from Walcott, a real touch of class!More please!OG second yellow didnt deserve that level of punishment seemed a bit daft really.Lot of pressure on the bloke at the moment, I hope Wenger can take him under his wing and just point all of that energy into a better outlet and into the back of the net.
Brilliant post Eduardo. I totally agree.I played as high as possible under profi level ( two guys in my team went profi) and once youre out there the manager cant do as much as the non- ball kickers think. Footballs such a weird game one week you can all click and be on fire the next slumping and not really click or seem up for it. How much did we miss Ramsey and Hector? Ramsey can be a real fighter in those kind of games.But I would sacrifice that game to give Chelsea a beating.I hope that its the fire we need to do it.Thanks again.
Onward and upward!
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The big positive for me is that any time , as a fan, you’re able to get over a defeat fairly quickly is a good sign you haven’t succumbed to the worst madness of modern football.
Modern football where, unless you’ve completely lost it, typically you can appreciate all teams have off nights, that the margins are close, that luck is a big factor in football- apart from when it’s your own team!
I spotted a good example in the Barca-Roma highlights of something i’ve been trying to nail, without much success, for years now.
The guy who scored the amazing goal took on a shot late in the game and blazed it high and wide, the cloud applauded enthusiastically- I felt i could almost hear what they were saying with the cheer : ‘unlucky mate; the opportunity was there, can see why you gave it a go; didn’t go in but, hell, we love you…what about that goal earlier!’
That gets to the heart of much modern support for me. Supposedly each action, and each game, is judged separately, but we know this is complete nonsense. Had he not scored earlier and Roma been losing badly, the crowd would probably have booed that effort; had he scored and they were losing when he took the shot, they would probably have been silent, maybe a few jeers, maybe a few oddballs cheering his effort.
Likewise, while you might be able to get anyone you argue with to eventually agree all teams have off nights, etc, they’ll insist the reason that logic cannot be applied to any individual matches of ours- for instance, to last night- is because…last night, and their complaints, are not really about last night…it’s about months and years of action.
Yet the complaints nearly all, or all, centre around last night, suggesting it absolutely is about last night, one game.
There’s some sense to this, of course. It’s one of the engines of understanding football- if someone is having a good game, they buy themselves the right to a mistake or two; if someone is having a great year, they buy themselves the right to a poor game. But all the same it makes clear there is a lie of sorts at the heart of judging football- supposedly you’re judging the action of the moment or the game, but you’re not, you’re judging those moments within the context of what those players have done before, while massively overweighting the recent past.
For me, then, modern football-fans and analysis- goes terribly wrong in these two ways ; (1) what’s happened previously does not tend to count for as much as it should, doesn’t buy the players as much credit, patience, support etc from fans, and (2) there is so little acknowledgement of the truth that, even though the game unfolds through those individual moments and actions, judged in real time then pored over afterwards, the real judgement- good, bad, to be cheered or to be booed- is determined by the past.
I would say those Roma fans cheering of the missed shot was not only the correct judgement of that situation- i.e. it was worth a shot and shots of that nature only rarely go in, so we, as fans, shouldn’t be dismayed or angry with you when they don’t, ‘we’ll cheer you instead; didn’t get the desired outcome, but the idea was decent enough’- it also was the exact way fans would behave if they understood what gave their team the best chance of victory, and saw their main role as trying to do their little bit to make it happen.
The thing is, that would also apply if they happened to be 3-0 down at the time and if that player was low on confidence rather than in great form.
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When we win Rich, which is most of the time in spite of what I read on social media, I suspend my critical faculties and mark it down as evidence of our undeniable genius.
In fact we have our lucky games and undeserved wins just the same as other club a results, even trophies, can hinge on a quarter of inch of post or a misplaced glance by lino. In other games we are genuinely very good and players perform to a standard individually and collectively above the norm.
Equally, last night for example I would say, we struggled and where on another night the luck might have gone our way with an early goal or Ox’s rebound passing the other side of the post, it was not to be.
I underestimate the effect of sheer random luck, good or bad, and try to assign cause to the arbitrary clash of people and events.
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Poor result, top class match review and great comments. Thanks to all above.
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I thought we have been told by the experts the soft ARSENAL players do not complain enough to the ref.
The stats prove we didn’t play badly last night in both the shots and shots on target colums.
We were very culpable for both goals and that decided the game not really the sending off although with Giroud on the pitch we are better in both areas on set pieces.
The pundits were up to their old tricks again commentating on the score rather than the game, I am losing more and more respect for players I used to admire from our own club and from others.
chelski is another game although I would imagine they will defend deep and counter attack forgetting completely they are at home
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arse-or-brain
Yep. worse than commenting on the score rather than the game is when a commentator comes in with some idea about a player at the forefront of his mind and then makes the game fit to that.
Keown, disappointingly, fell into that trap again last night. Difficult as it is for me to believe of someone who sounds as contemplative and not-dumb as Keown does- someone I truly believe actually likes the club and wants to support them,too- Keown does a terrible job at times of discussing the game as it really is.
Yesterday the thing on his mind was that Giroud is not good enough, particularly that he is not fast or mobile enough. I don’t get it at all.
In a way, it’s like being annoyed by the fact a pensioner, or anybody, isn’t as fast as Usain Bolt. Giroud isn’t very fast, we all get it, but you can’t then come into a new game and be disappointed that he isn’t quick, or mark him down as though it is a matter of effort or intelligence. He is what he is, a good player but not a fast one. Yesterday he nearly scored twice in the first twenty minutes, then things went pear-shaped.
But that’s what Keown did from the off. As if to remove any doubt that he was barely able to see the real action of the game (maybe he had a worse view than the tv cameras, I don’t know), he then criticised Giroud for not lifting the ball over the keeper when it rebounded to him. That was astonishing- the ball rebounded and Giroud and the keeper met it at the same time, literally there was not a fraction of space or time, all he could do was make any contact with it.
Enough to make your head spin. Keown sounds like the smartest of the lot, and also like the guy whose support for the club and Wenger is the most genuine. If he’s interpreting the game like that, what the hell is Wrighty liable to say when disappointed?!
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I am embarrassed to admit I thought it as Danny Mills voicing that nonsense in BT last night until half time and he was asked a question with a pre-amble about “knowing what it is like in the Arsenal dressing room…..”.
The penny dropped
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I’m not suffering. We have a very important derby on Saturday and we fielded a weakened team against a weak team. Arsene can’t legislate for the referee having it in for Giroud and handing him an incredibly weak second booking. On the flip side, we have Watford in the league before facing Bayern at home. A bit of rest for the starters against the Hornets and the first squad is in a better position to beat ze Germans. All these idiots questioning the manager for rotating players need to go do one.
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The hounding of Giroud is incredibly idiotic. The guy gives us a presence up front which very few big strikers can reproduce. He also passes the ball well and his link up play with the technicians of the team is first class.
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Well played Andy. Its not idiotic by any stretch Gains. No one is denying the things you say. He is clearly talented. He just needs to be smarter and take heed of his own advice. Its be coming ridiculous and as Andy pointed out you can only cry wolf so many times. Get on with it like a man already.
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Andrew, well written in Croat, for the crypto-Spurs supporters on other sites?
Also, no white feather from Eduardo!. Rather white heather, or is it a four-leaf clover?
In 2012, a rumour from Spurs supporters was started, accusing Wilshere of rehab from drugs rather than the well-injury injury. I note a scumbag, on another site, has rehashed the lie.
A few years ago, Mr Wenger believed on the captain of the side should complain to the referee. I would suggest that OG will face a fine?
We cannot help it, if the winning team is anointed, can we.
We support the Arsenal, regardless.
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David Amoyal @DavidAmoyal 7h7 hours ago Boston, MA
Szczesny will miss about 6 weeks with a dislocated finger, the goalie is on loan at Roma from Arsenal (no option to buy)
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Sam @samuelJayC 9h9 hours ago
#Arsenal XI in last win at Stamford Bridge (2011): Szczesny; Djourou Mertesacker Koscielny Santos; Song Arteta; Walcott Ramsey Gervinho; RvP
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the U19 match in full, its in croat
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20150917/academy-zagreb
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AFCPressWatch™ @AFCPressWatch 2h2 hours ago
Arsenal have received six red cards in the past 14 Champions League games. (Szczesny 2, Arteta, Ramsey, Debuchy, Giroud)
Four dismissals for Arsenal in 66 Premier League games in that period
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a message to the AAA/WOB
https://scontent-cdg2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/12032087_1303879463050317_4952865456573079769_n.jpg?oh=b7a36b46b03ec82b6f6270be3e733202&oe=56A55490
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Adebayor is not the best footballer that we have seen play for the Arsenal.
He was bought by the club when they didn’t have a lot of wonga. Yet it was not an insignificant sum at the time. He also had a reputation for being trouble off the park, and on it too.
Towards the end of his time at the club he had some strange issues going on, probably still does, but it’s also fair to say that there was a Gervinho style witch hunt to scab the player by a select vocal group. The type who like to stick needles into blow up dolls of their least favourite players whilst singing the Ballad of Paul Vaessen.
This punt or gamble if you like was almost a title winning striker (when others weren’t fit, he was a part of a trident composed from three different striking options). Before the breakdown with the fans and with himself he was scoring lots of goals working and playing hard.
He has recently been released from his City/Tottenham contract. After first signing for £25M at City and then on huge wages various loans and eventually a petro-subsidised transfer to Tottenham. Let us be clear: he was never as bad a footballer as the AAA screeched at the end of this time at the Arsenal. he had problems, the same problems he had before he singed for AFC. A punt taken by a club that aren’t petro-club, what else can a club that conducts its buisness outside the whirly-gig of the financial laundrettes supposed to do? Cognitive dissonance is on display here from the AAAA and then some.
Has Giroud been targetted by the haters too? For the same treatment? Yes.
Can this consistent behaviour that can be observed from select group of fans of a football club towards players that are not global superstarts at a club that is not a petro-club/Munchen type, can this behaviour be described as insane? Yes!
Does this have a negative impact on the club? Yes. It is undeniable.
Caveat: as you all know I like speedsters players in my team. However this does mean I can’t understand what Germany’s best defender this past decade bought to the party when he joined the club. He may be entering his final season as a starter for us but the BFG has been top class.
I wonder if the people who this time last year were crying about “not signing a defender” are keeping tabs on Gabriel whilst screaming “haven’t signed a striker! Does it feels like Groundhog day to you? Why do I just repeat everything that i m told? Have you had a lobotomy too?…”
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Conversely I felt there was good support for OG from the home crowd last week against Stoke.
Songs whilst warming up etc. the works. It was good to hear.
So I’ll repeat the above: There’s the strong impression that there is a very vocal negative element that have never been a majority otherwise like those lucky Toon fans we’d have ended up with Coyle or *shudders* McClaren by now , please dontrreachfor the vomit bag. And that they get undeniable support from extremist meedjah like the rabid Metro etc. it’s not too hard to join the dots in my humble and possibly simple opinion.
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Great post Fins! I agree about the BFG, I think he actually got better with us, in the sense that his passing became so confident and precise. I speculate that he will still have a big part to play this season yet, from day one I love what he brought to the club.
Yes, it does feel like Groundhog day with the AAAA/WOB.
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“….Manipulation by the media has a tendency to sway the opinion of the masses, and unfortunately, when the media jump on a band wagon, that wagon gains some particularly fierce momentum.
For example, the media have been on the back of Arsene Wenger for several years…
… and I’m getting seriously fed up with the mindless negativity that surrounds our club.”
From the likes of AFTV inviting snakes like the Moron on to spout their filth to Gary “I love Riley” Neville-Neville it’s a wall to wall screed of gibberish surrounding the Arsenal.
When will the the great and the good the independent bloggers who didn’t dream of writing gibberish for an oligarchical rag like the Metro excreting support for football clubs owned by oligarchs, when will they find the footballs to call out this constant attack on the club that they support for the attack that it is?
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http://fortynineundefeated.co.uk/2015/09/disappointed-but-get-a-grip/
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You need to bear in mind Fins that the Scarfistas and their fellow whining fence-sitters have to choose a victim to persecute among the players and, unluckily for Olly, it is his ‘turn in the barrel’.
If it wasn’t OG it would be Theo, or Aaron, or the Ox. We have seen it so often over the past few seasons with one player after another targeted and either driven out of the cub with their confidence wrecked, or managing to put up with the abuse before it inevitably turns on to a new target. It does not matter who, and it does not matter what they have or have not done.
I have no doubt that OG will keep his head down, work hard and score some goals, at which time the unwashed pitchfork wielding mob will decide someone else is not fit to wear the shirt etc.
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I have just stolen this from Twitter;
Which Arsenal uber-blogger does this remind you of ?
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one aspect of the abuse Giroud gets that needs highlighting is the role T Henry played in it, at the time this attention seeking pundit decided to target him, OG was actually playing well, scoring freely and had become a key Arsenal player, since the unprovoked attack on him, OG has scored 3 goals in 15 games, been booed off for France too, and to think that some want the snake in the grass to one day be Arsenal manager. If it was up to me he would have been told to do one and go do his coaching badges elsewhere, but for some unknown reason AFC have given him a far bigger coaching role in the youth set up. I know the saying is keep your friends close and your enemies closer, but why invite a fifth columnist in.
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Fins: Adebayor, Gervinho, Giroud. Cognitive dissonance. All Giroud has to do is ignore the twats and do his job. Leave the over-reaction to those who prey on emotions.
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This piece in the Mirror is gold dust. It also contains a great podcast. It will be very interesting now to read how the moaners, groaners and whiners react to this very revealing article. Arsenal came very close to not building the stadium. The Invincibles came close to not being paid at one point!
http://tinyurl.com/qbu4sdp
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Rob Harris @RobHarris 40m40 minutes ago
Arsenal 2014-15 finances:
Pre-tax profit: £24.7m – up from £4.7m
Turnover: £344.5m – up from £301.9m
Cash reserves: £193m – up from £173m
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http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/arsenal-financial-results-gunners-announce-25m-profit-despite-record-outlay-on-signings-and-soaring-a2950856.html?
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Had one of those moments watching Lamela yesterday when I remembered what he cost, what he has produced, and how much attention and criticism he has had from the media.
How can someone who cost nearly three times Giroud, and who has produced only a fraction (a fifth, a tenth?) of what Giroud has, receive only…phhh…a tenth (tempted to say a hundredth but I know my view is affected by how much I follow Arsenal news) of the stick our player has? Gently, gently does it form both commentators last night.
Thing is, I don’t even feel any great need to see Lamela getting more stick- he’s a young bloke, has talent, and he’s had a hard time of it- rather the opposite and the treatment of Giroud should be more in line with that of Lamela. In which case, Giroud would be praised as delivering excellent value for money and outperforming people who cost much more.
The justification of Giroud’s treatment- not that the media see explaining that as a duty- would be that Arsenal are the bigger club, with the higher expectations; but the facts are that for quite a few years the battle was reasonably close between them and us in league position, and moreover, financially they and Liverpool are the teams we should really be compared to as opposed to the cash giants. We are closer to them than we are to the others.
Lamela, like Benteke, Soldado, Bony, etc demonstrate exceptionally well how difficult it is to go and get a striker of a higher calibre than Giroud- 20 mill, 30 mill, simply doesn’t come close to guaranteeing you the few superstars who are the very last level.
Thing that really had on affect on me yesterday was realising there’s a department Spurs are kicking our ass in : within the stadium at least, they are showing real support to Lamela. Think they were pretty supportive of Soldado as well.
Imagine how the worst sections of our support would feel about a player in the same position in our squad! Imagine what the living-stealers in the media would make of it!
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Up to about 2007-08 I used to laugh at Spuds and their fans, booing their players off at half time, demanding a change of manager every season, their most exciting time each year was the Summer when at least half a dozen new donkeys would arrive and the last batch sent off to the knacker’s yard. Even pals who were Spuds would laugh at themselves.
And now it is them laughing at us.
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I think you’re right Andrew.A question is, how far will all of this go with our club?And if it keeps building the way its going can we ever get back to something more grounded?If we lose tomorrow there’s really going to be a kind of mass lunacy that will bubble over.
But at least PA is a small oasis, where people are able to discuss things in a like minded way,where the borders are guarded.I certainly appreciate it.Thank you!
Great posts from Rich too.
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chelsea have the best team/squad and manager in the BPL,
arsenal have a useless team/squad and an over the hill, deluded, tactically naive, set in his ways manager
but there are no excuses for Arsenal not winning tomorrow’s game.
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Louis Akindele @Louis_Akindele 5h5 hours ago
Arsenal have £200m in the bank
CFC £10bn
MCFC £17bn
Just for a little perspective.
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It might calm down when the great circle of football turns, as it inevitably does, and we have a few fallow years, a few mid table seasons when a Capital One Cup will be the height of our abilities and gratefully collected.
When the fuckwits are confronted with no matter how much they pay for their seats, and how many followers they have on Twitter they are nothing special
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If we go through a few fallow years (with Merson as manager?), then they will start to say how great Wenger was!!
Eduardo, your 8.80pm post brilliantly observed!
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I have downloaded the shortened version of the Arsenal Financial Report for 2014/2015.
Looking at Mr Wisely’s contribution, two items stand-out, for me!
(1) As ever payroll was the largest and most important area of cost. Wage costs for the year rose by 15.5% (2014 – 7.7%) to GBP192.2 million (2014 – GBP166.4 million), which was mainly attributable to increases in the cost of our football playing and support staff. As mentioned above, the Club’s on field performance meant there were two trigger events in the year in respect of certain elements of remuneration linked to Champions League qualification.
and
(2) However, one of the Group’s prior land sales included provision for the receipt of a sales overage (effectively a profit share) in the event that the purchasing developer’s final total revenues, from sale of completed residential units, exceeded a pre-agreed target level. That residential development has now reached a sufficient stage of completion that an overage payment has been calculated and agreed as due to us. Accordingly, the applicable overage income and certain limited direct costs have been recognised in the 2014/15 results of the Group‘s property business.
For Item 2, it would appear that the £12 millions or so, is not reflected in the cash in hand?
The full report is due out next week.
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Arsenal had their best revenue returns last season, yet it remained £50M less than Man Utd’s despite utd not being in the CL last season, and this was said to have cost them £45M, but there are no excuses.
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I must blame Philippe Auclair, the French musician, writer and Wenger confidant, for
“He is very poor tactically, particularly terrible at subbing,” Auclair said. “He very rarely initiates switches. His problem is he sees movement rather than shape. Mourinho is all about shape. Before a game, Mourinho will have mapped out every single scenario and worked out a response. Can you imagine Wenger doing that? Never. Let the players work it out.”
Look for the source, and what do we find – someone who has never managed a football club. The idiots, have used that quote, for years now!
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I trust Stan took a reasonable fee for his commendable strategic stewardship NOTH ?
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Auclair certainly said something a bit wayward when he stated that Mourinho will “have mapped out every scenario and worked out a response”. Mourinho must be up all night then working out the billions of potential permutations of play.Put Mourinho on an equal budget with Wenger, then lets see how truly great he isnt.
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I expect Jose had the “and Diego picks up his second yellow after only 8 minutes” plan well mapped out.
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Exactly!
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Some great comments and a decent (if oddly titled) match write up.
Found myself, as usual, more incensed with the commentary of the game than any percieved short-comings of the squad in a game of fine margins squewed by a biased referee in favour of the undeserving home side. I (we all) knew the game would be followed by days of nonsensical abuse by ‘our own’ bloggers, supporters and media.
Sick of the lot of them to be honest.
Whilst I’m not saying the players or the club are above or beyond criticism, the absence of balance, perspective and fairness from all sides is truly nauseating and the sense of ‘open season’ against the club at a time when none of Liverpool, Chelsea, United or even Spurs are firing on all four cylinders is probably the worst aspect.
When those whom you might expect to be Arsenal stalwarts – such as Keown and Henry (both former favourites of mine) – let the club down then you do feel it is time to simply turn off and just watch from a safer distance.
That there is still clearly a need for the space known as Positively Arsenal is probably the saddest part of it all.
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