Its the new stick used by the malcontent to beat Arsene with. They are turning Leicester’s miracle season from their success to Arsenal’s and Arsene’s failure. “Arsene said we couldn’t compete with oil money” they squeal with glee. “George, this destroyed your argument that we needed oil money to compete” my own personal hoard of following halfwits screech at me on Twitter.
Well they would be right, had I, Arsene or anyone else said that. The problem for them is, we didn’t say that. Or anything remotely like it. In fact here is exactly what I said on this very blog last July.
“There have been studies done that show an 85% direct correlation between spend and success, across all major leagues. This isn’t my opinion, it is fact. It may be a sad fact and one we wish didn’t exist, but a fact it is and being a fact, we have to acknowledge it and until it changes, accept it. In simple terms that leaves you a 15% chance of beating the odds. So yes, it can be done. Again I ask though, not why Arsenal ‘could’ be the team to do it, but why they ‘should’ be the club to do it?
People will point to Atlético Madrid as an example of how it can be done. Yes, but they are the 3rd biggest club in Spain and have done it once in 20 years. That is 5% of the time and within the previously mentioned 15% window.However that simply proves the maths, it does not mean they (or anyone else) should be expected to do it. Just that its possible. No one is saying its impossible.”
So there we have it. A correlation of 85% between spend and success means that 85 times out of 100, money wins. For the slow of learning, it doesn’t mean 100 times out of 100. The debate has never been whether its possible to compete with less money, but rather how much of a disadvantage it puts Arsenal (or any other team for that matter) at.
If Leicester do go on and win the title, it will do nothing more than confirm that it is possible, but as I said, that was never in question.
The fact is that since Roman and Mansour tipped up with their ill-gotten gains, they immediately made it (this is simplistic) 85% more difficult for teams that can’t match their spending, to win the league. No one was making it up. Chelsea, and City have won it with United being the only team that was able to have a squad that matched their’s on cost. Only those three clubs were able to pay the wage bill that allowed them to compete for the League Cup and Champions League. The two exceptions, so far, have been Leicester and Liverpool, coincidentally both teams that had/have no interest in any competitions other than the league itself. I’m not imagining this, it happened. Honestly, its in history book now.
If we glance across The Channel we see that PSG are 21 points clear after 24 games. Is anyone going to tell me this is down to anything other than “oil money” ?
The rarity of what Leicester are doing does not show how easy it is to do, the very opposite in fact, it proves how difficult it must be.
People will say “if Leicester can do it , why not Arsenal ?” Well the truth is there is no reason why it should not be Arsenal. That said, you must accept then that any team can do it. Not just Arsenal. Why should Arsenal be the one club that should have been expected to do it?
So let all the malcontents climb back on their perches and wait until they can find their next stick.
Positively Arsenal 
don’t think there was even a yellow issued for this
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Cian @noIookpass 2h2 hours ago
£38m for Payet lmaoo. These Chinese clubs are getting their money in a totally legal and ethical way. Definitely.
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“These Chinese clubs are getting their money in a totally legal and ethical way. Definitely.”
Is that because they are foreigners ?
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I would say anicol that the doubts being raised is more to do with so many Chinese clubs have vast amount of money to spend all of a sudden, without any sign of them having any new streams of major finance. Maybe the experience of how dodgy so much of the money the big spending English and European clubs, has also led to the conclusion that it might be the same with the Chinese clubs.
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The emergency loan window opens today and closes 24th March. A player can be signed for any length of time between 28 and 93 days. This is the last emergency window, as FIFA have decided it against the rules.
Serge Gnabry is the most likely Arsenal player to be loaned out. There are others too who may be loaned out.
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I would say it is because Chinese football clubs are owned by exceedingly wealth people who are mindful that President Xi has decided that China is to be a major player on the world stage of football. The Chinese have been engaged in a shopping spree these past few years funded by the vast trade surpluses generated by a booming economy and has bought businesses all over Europe, Asia and the US.
Simple as ……
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DC
The most intriguing stay on Leicester is pelanties for. Last time you had such an outlier was Liverpool.
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Chinese football is probably as clean in relation to their construction industry as ours is to, um, ours! Wembley…
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Of course all legal under the contacts. Maybe completely the wrong kind of contract, or worse, but the plebs can’t read and write anyway so who cares?
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Ranty
IBSF = Insert Banned Smiley Face.
And again
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“It’s the same the whole world over
It’s the poor what gets the blame
It’s the rich what gets the pleasure
Ain’t it all a bloomin’ shame?”
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Except of course in football.
In which the rich get the blame and the poor march round in black scarves.
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Reminder that the U19’s play at 5 and there is a youtube live stream, strong looking team selected, 3 players with first team experience – Bielik, Bennacer, Reine-Adelaide, and one who has been an unused sub – Willock. also Crowley who has Football League experience
Arsenal U-19s to play Anderlecht: Keto, Johnson, Bielik, Pleguezuelo, Bola, McGuane, Bennacer, Crowley, Reine-Adelaide, Willock, Mavididi
Arsenal Under-19s subs: Huddart, Da Graca, Robinson, Mourgos, Malen, Nelson, Dasilva
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10 minutes in and AFC U19’s losing
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27 minutes in and more poor defending and its 2-0
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HT: Anderlecht U19’s 2-0 Arsenal U19’s
not been a good half from Arsenal, very disappointed in Reine-Adelaide, so little effort, especially when back in defensive positions, just lets his man run off him, second goal came from that, and when attacking if he lost the ball, no effort to win it back, or to even track back. Crowley also a big let down, all fancy flicks and tricks when either not needed or not on. Jonhson at right back has impressed, very willing to join in attack and try and make things happen, Willock keeps beating his man but then most of the time does not cross the ball, turns back and passes back or sideways. Our corners and freekicks been poor so far. I think one shot on target, although we’ve nearly got in a few times but last ditch blocks and tackles have stopped us.
A big step up needed in the second half or its bye bye YCL for another season. If it was me I’d take Reine-Adelaide off, he really has been oh so poor in so many ways.
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Nelson and Malen on for Crowley and Willock for the second half.
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about 20 left, Da Graca on for Johnson, not looking like there will be an AFC comeback in this game.
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The construction industry really do have fantastic PR it has to be said. They must use the same old boys as the sweet FA.
Highly amusing announcement by some lobbyists pushing for a new terminal runaway type thing over in Heathrow. A splash of concrete gets them very excited. Of course anyone with two cement particles left to echo about inside their skull will be able to make the consideration that a giant fake island built far out in the estuary* will be far more lucrative for said industry and the U.K. Economy as a whole but no it’s not going to happen, rebuilding an economy appears to be too progressive it seems for the likes of Cameron or his pals who struggle to build not for lack of funds or Finance like Lewis. Building stuff seems to be harder for some then others.did I mention house building?
Tottenham still haven’t secured their funding even though they have bullied and bought their local council into numerous concessions: given the relative increase in costs over the last decade those Etonian old boys in N5 deserve far more credit then the fools have been able to give them over the years. I’d never have imagined that people would ignore a 60,000 seater stadium in c.london when arguing over their club’s budget.
*(when it comes to the abuse of people treated like cattle over the poor birdies my human instinct does win over)
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You can blame Wembly on the Australians, and a bunch of morons running the FA.
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I hear the bad at maths brigade want to protest over premier league ticket prices this weekend.
No surprise – anything to help destabilise the team on a vital match day.
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Though if they do go ahead with the new runaway it shouldn’t affect matches in N5!
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Yeah I know Metrowotsite who declared bankruptcy at some point of the Wembley arbitration fiasco. I guess the deal they offered the eminintely reputable FA outbid I mean outdid everyone else and secured them the loot, but I can’t imagine that it was metro who dictated the D&B contract on a job where you needed four of the worlds biggest cranes,no replacements available nevermind the prospect of one them breaking down, or maybe they did that bakseesh I mean tender hate been very impressive shame about the final build coming in at over three times the original budget…I’ve always wondered what it must feel like to print money now I know, you’ve got to laugh.
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If Leicester do win, that would be a bit of a black swan event to say the least. But these things happen, as pointed out. I once hit 180 in darts, despite having very poor eyesight and throwing ability…..and gin.
But they have won nothing as yet, and we have lost nothing so far, except the Milk Cup.
As for the haters, they are reacting, because they are terrified that Arsenal could actually win this, that event would render even the most vicious, and vocal , and even some of their blogs, as truly irrelevant. Must be frightening, they might have to reinvent themselves.
Seems strange, Arsenal fans could yet end up praying for the Sours to win the league, just because they despise our manager. Football has gone mad in some quarters.
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God forbid I would ever play the football fan but the PL this season is as exciting as I can remember it ever – still four teams very definitely in the race for the title – plenty of head to head contests – 13 games to go.
I can’t recall four teams still in it at this stage for a long while – if ever in PL years
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Close not just on points but GD too. Nine goal variation over the top four.
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ah yes, fins, thanks.
Honestly, I knew it wasn’t to do with snooker & billiards, or even BS.
I’m quite unsure about Keown’s pundrity. He’ll be pro Arsenal in more little bits than the rest of ’em, but I think he’s naive to think Arsenal can get away with any kind of “rough stuff”, and he, like the rest of ’em, doesn’t even know what a foul is, rather like the plundits. Martin always resorts to “set piece” comments which’ll diss the Arsenal.
You, fins, and edu have contributed well on this thread, along with A5 who laid down some poetry and another significant thread.
I’m troubled – trying to remember what is was as I’ve just finished watching WHam v Liver – where ref East tried hard to give it to the Northeners, but in the end, some Hammer bloke scored in the last minute of extra time. Hahahah
I started watching the U-19 game after Anderlecht had scored thier 2 goals. I found it painful to watch, frankly, but without seeing the 1st 35 mins. I’m not sure why our yoots appeared off-key. (Were the Belgiums simply better?)
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Like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like.
There’s so many posts I want to like, but WordPress and me just can’t hit it off. Sorry.
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Ranty: Are you registered in WordPress with a user name and password? Once this is saved online, all wordpress sites will recognize you via the wordpress cookie that follows you around. Do you have a cookie blocker on your browser?
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Well. There’s a protest planned for the first five minutes of the match on Sunday.
For context; in real terms it’s possible to get cheaper tickets in better seats then the more expensive upper tier (I prefer lower tiers) for the footy today then when compared to when I was a student (something to with the giant 60,000 seater stadium the Groaners kept on ignoring).
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Not much point having a walk out protest ten minutes from the end at the Ems Fins – it would be indistinguishable from an average home game.
As for people arriving five minutes late ?
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To be fair to some perennial late arrivals I know and like and often have to stand up for, they usually have a good excuse (they’re very very drunk!)
Possibly the biggest home game of the past few seasons though they are all important is not the time or the place for such a vague and insincere protest. The tennis balls thrown on the pitch (at Utopian Dortmund) this past weekend seems more useful and helpful. Don’t worry I won’t mention the story on tennis umpires. Not here. No need. IBSF
Where were the protests when kids from my generation and area, the area around Highbury, were priced out of going to games off their own money? It’s all so disingenuous. Makes one wonder about the motives I guess the protestors were too busy back then designing and ordering mass produced black scarves from factories in East Asia famous for their reasonable employment practices, for that personal touch in the dislocated modern game (I guess that they must be experts in marketing, branding, finance, football, physiotherapy etc.)
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Whilst fully aware of the last straw that fleeced the golden hind it seems to me that a complaint about tickets costing 60 rather than 50 pounds shows the argument was lost years ago. It should certainly knock on the head any notion that following a premier league team in the flesh is a working class preserve and entitlement. 50 pounds? For a football match? Someone has been avin a larf. If twenties plenty for away fans then so should it be for the home support. Many of whom travel as far. And if Sky, BT and the club’s themselves don’t get that then there’s none as blind as those that won’t see. By all means keep the expensive dress circles, continue to fleece the corporates (they’d only find other ways to avoid the tax) but let’s get some sanity back and for goodness sake let’s stop The Arsenal being the scapegoat that allows all others to avoid censure.
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It would be easier for an ostrich with its head firmly in the sand to pass through the eye of a needle than cut ticket prices. I enjoyed this snap from January 1972 I came across the other day though;
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Sorry if I sound elitist, but I have no sympathy with these ticket price whiners. Like it or not, that is the cost of modern football. If you don’t agree or can’t afford it, you have a choice, don’t go. It’s not like there are not alternatives, like the Internet or TV. I wouldn’t mind, but the same people yelling about ticket prices are the same ones begging for every expensive new toy and accusing the manager of being a tight wad for not just throwing money at other clubs in a vain attempt to get them to give up their best players.
Sorry for the rant, but I’m getting sick and tired of all this entitled bull crap that is sucking the life out of the actual football, which is what it’s supposed to be about.
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Ah and the biggest moaner about commercialism in football is the biggest seller of ARSENAL merchandise outside the club (shewore) strange that in it.
However I do agree with the general argument that the average fan is being, or has been priced out. While I love the excitement of the way we play football with some of the best players in the world, I would have still enjoyed it just as much with a less technical, less beautiful, cheaper product. The atmosphere was better although not always the sightlines.
I’m am realistic enough to know sky and the PL are at fault and not specifically my club. So yes the argument was lost in 92 but there’s nothing wrong with small victories against the corperate machine.
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Passenal: I guess elitism versus entitlement has been a running theme in England for a long time, and perhaps if the decision to remove a kings head hadn’t been a couple of hundred years premature things would be a lot different now. As with most things I can argue it both ways: I love it that I can now see top level football more or less on demand (although it still irritates that 3pm on Saturdays is barren in the UK) but I do think it a shame that today’s youngsters don’t get to grow up roaming the terraces. Perhaps I also mourn that maybe they don’t want to, but that’s to long for a time that is no longer with us, and I guess there are more than a few Liverpool and Turin families that wish that all-seater libraries had been around in the 80s.
But if the average age of the crowd continues to edge upwards, as does the socio-economic make up, then will there come a time when the atmosphere no longer excites – and will that then see the cameras drift away too? I do wonder whether safe-standing at the goal ends is the answer, especially if greater numbers might bring prices down whilst simultaneously lifting crowd noise.
But what I don’t think you can have is someone who is spending £1200 for their season ticket, and quite possibly all of that again on match day beer, pleading poverty and down-troddedness.
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We know the broadcasters don’t care about sports fans.
Just look to the one day cricket World Cup held in the Caribbean in the middle of the last decade. It was awful on every level. I’m not sure the one say game has recovered: World Cup Games being played consistently in brand new and empty stadiums not because people were protesting but because the local citizenry had been completely priced out of the equation by those bullying their national governments. I think the only people on the planet who cared about the games were the players, maybe not even them.
For myself I didn’t blame Arsene Wenger for that debacle (in the cricket) and neither did I resort to abusing my beloved Arsenal in spite of the Compton Connection and I don’t intend to start now.
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I’m going to protest against the protest!
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I mean, excluding the cup finals, It’s only the biggest game the club have had since ’08, ’06…perfect time for a protest eh? Unbelievable yet entirely predictable.
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Fins: I’d like to say there are no words for those protestors but I find I’ve just thought of a few.
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Stans got a new ranch comprising much of the state of Texas…..worth a protest, clearly Wengers fault, …he could have spent that money on Benteke ..Martinez or Carvalho ….maybe throw some inflatable Texas Longhorns onto the pitch or something?
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I have to say Mandy the idea of inflatable Texas style cattle horns is an absolute belter – can you imagine the herd of black Scarfers on Sunday, out on the concourse, each with a set of blow up plastic horns on and mooing loudly at Stan ?
Bloody brilliant – you’re wasted on here
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I see Leceister City have been crowned EPL champions in today’s Guardian…..
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/feb/10/who-will-win-the-premier-league-title
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Oooops Leicester City….
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Typical Grauniad and its crystals balls!
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on high ticket prices, again I ask those Arsenal fans that complain about being priced out and of the club pricing a whole new generation of fans out of the game, why do our Cat C games – Price £26, and why do our youth tickets – Price £10, very rarely get sold out, is it Arsenal they want to come and support, or do they only want to attend the Cat A games. Stop whinging about the price until the Cat C and Youth section are sold out every time. Then you might have a point.
Its odd that the Dortmund ticket price protest has been ignored, especially by those that hold up Germany tickets prices as the be all and end all.
I would also add that the LFC fans have won a very hollow victory, no price increase, jeez Arsenal get blasted for no price increase all the time, yet LFC get praised for it, if LFC fans really want a victory what about a major decrease in the price of away tickets. Its the away fans of the big clubs that get ripped off week in week out. But that is not highlighted at all.
I would also remind people of what used to happen when tickets were a lot cheaper, touts always had loads of over priced tickets to sell, its much harder to get these extra tickets sold when they already cost a lot.
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Fins, if your going to protest against the protest does that mean your going to get their five minutes early
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One thing that I don’t think LFC fans or fans in general have copped onto in the LFC Restructuring of tickets prices is that there is a Removal of game categorisation – regardless of the opposition fans will pay the same price for matchday tickets – so its same price for a LFC v EFC ticket as it is for LFC v AFCB
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