In that classic piece of American movie-making A Few Good Men, the then fresh faced, unspoiled, up and coming lead-man, Tom Cruise, is playing the part of the newly minted, inexperienced and unenthusiastic U.S. Navy lawyer. He is up against a mean, corrupt, brooding representative of the Establishment, in the form of Jack Nicholson, Hollywood’s ageing warrior whose time at the top of the A-list is drawing to a close. It is the brilliant Mr. Nicholson’s role to disrobe young Cruise of his naiveté about the harsh realities of an Institution like the Navy. Despite Nicholson’s brilliance, which is now part of American film folklore (his reading of “You can’t handle the truth!” was in 2005 voted the 29th greatest American film quote of all time), this being Hollywood, in the movie itself it is the idealistic defender of the system, young Cruise, who is depicted as the hero riding off into the sunset under the beautiful gaze of Demi Moore while Colonel Jessup (Nicholson’s character) we are led to believe is driven to drink and dissolution. Isn’t Director Rob Steiner and writer Aaron Sorkin, two stalwarts of the American film-making, telling a cautionary tale of insiders who happen to blow the lid on the system, 20 years before the persecution of whistle-blowers such as Bradley Manning, Julian Assange and Edward Snowden? But I digress.
What an apt metaphor for us to commence our pre-match musings. Like Hollywood, the start of a new football season is time for the mainstream media, pundits and the majority of Arsenal bloggers to unroll their portfolio of myths and clichés. Not surprisingly, the universal theme is the biggest spender will be the most successful. The BBC, that institutional voice of football wisdom, spoke through its stable of pundits here.
| Overall predicted ranking, using all BBC predictions | ||||||
| (using system of 4 pts for a 1st place, 3 pts for 2nd, 2 pts for 3rd and 1 pt for 4th) | ||||||
| 1. Man City | 2. Man Utd | 3. Chelsea | 4. Arsenal | 5. Tottenham | 6. Liverpool | 7. Leicester |
| 116 pts | 92 pts | 58 pts | 33 pts | 20 pts | 18 pts | 3 pts |
Jermaine Jenas: “When I look at everyone’s squad and the transfer business that has been done, I cannot see City not winning it. “
Guy Mowbray: “It will be harder for Pep than it was at Barcelona or Bayern but he has the players and the financial clout behind him to win the title…”
If not City, then it must be United, another of the big spenders with the biggest cheque book manager of the past ten years.
Jason Roberts: “I think United will win the League as Jose Mourinho has adapted his squad quickly into his philosophy by bringing in an effective spine of quality acquisitions…”
Conor McNamara: “Jose has cleverly brought in some big egos in Ibrahimovic and Pogba. This will give United some of their old swagger back.”
There is universal disdain for prudent Arsenal who haven’t shown similar profligacy as their peers.
Ian Wright: “Chelsea are going to be back in the mix and with United’s outlay and City also spending big, all three of them are going to be strong under Conte, Mourinho and Guardiola. As things stand, with no significant signings since Granit Xhaka, no new striker and injuries to their top three centre-halves, the best I can hope for Arsenal is that they make the top four again.”
Kevin Kilbane: The big clubs have all strengthened a lot, apart from Arsenal – how often do we say that? This might be the year they finally miss out on the top four and Arsene Wenger’s contract is up next summer. “
Maybe the BBC is off-message and ESPN has more balanced and rounded pundits (after all, they have the likes of Arseblog and Gunnerblog giving the Arsenal viewpoint from time to time). Shock, shock, shock. Practically the same results after summarizing the picks here of their editorial team:
| Overall predicted ranking, using all ESPN predictions | ||||||
| (using system of 4 pts for a 1st place, 3 pts for 2nd, 2 pts for 3rd and 1 pt for 4th) | ||||||
| 1. Man City | 2. Man Utd | 3. Chelsea | 4. Arsenal | 5. Tottenham | 6. Liverpool | |
| 55 pts | 50 pts | 27 pts | 15 pts | 11 pts | 9 pts | |
I will spare you dear readers of any quotes from the likes of Iain MacIntosh, Nick Miller, Tony Evans, Miguel Delaney, Julien Laurens, et al who are members of the ESPN stable of pundits. Trust me, it is the same guff as the BBC’s, i.e. future success is guaranteed by the amount that is spent on transfers with one new wrinkle, the importance of a celebrity manager who is willing to spend big in the market.
Nobody is willing to speak the truth that to the contrary, as was proven that 2013 study by Nick Harris of Sporting Intelligence; after ranking the ‘big six’ in the Premier League in order of their total net spending on transfers plus wages combined between 2000 and 2012; Chelsea spent most, with £2.078 billion, then Man Utd on £1.43bn, then City with £1.4bn, then Liverpool with £1.3bn then Arsenal with £1.1bn and Spurs on £777 million:
Chelsea did not do better than their resources in any year, under-performing against their wage bill eight times and doing only as well as expected four times.
United did better seven times, worse three times and as well as expected twice.
Manchester City performed better once: when finishing ninth in 2002-03 when wages said they should have finished 10th. They have otherwise under-performed apart from the title-winning season when they did as well as expected.
Liverpool did better than expected four times in the period, worse four times and as expected four times.
Tottenham did better than their wage bill six times – and worse six times, in the period under review.
The best performer by a country mile was:
ARSENAL “who out-performed their wage spending seven times, did as well as expected three times, and under-performed in 2005-06 and 2006-07.”
I am repeating the results of the study because neither the BBC nor ESPN seem to have any interest in educating the public of the wastefulness and unsustainability of the continued gargantum spending by the likes of City and United.
But there is additional data that makes a mockery of their predictions. Twenty years since Arsene Wenger arrived in this League there is some fairly predictable statistics.
- Arsenal has finished an average of 3rd; no other club except Manchester United has a better average.
- No other team has a better absolute deviation from the mean than Arsenal at 0.985, meaning that on the average the club’s position will deviate by less than 1. United is the next best at 1.28.
- All other big -6 team have in 20 years finished lower than Arsenal; City fell away to as low as 47th, way down into the 3rd
- Arsenal has never finished less than 4th.
- Arsenal has never finished below Tottenham.
Despite this never, never data there are pundits at the BBC and ESPN who predict that Tottenham will finish above Arsenal. Jermaine Jenas, Chris Waddle, Kevin Kilbane, Jason Mohammed, Tony Evans, and Dan Kilpatrick deserve awards from the Flat Earth Society. How do they get paid for such rank stupidity?
Think that is bad. Fifty percent (50%) of 34 and sixty percent 60% of 15 pundits at BBC and ESPN respectively expect Arsenal to finish out of the top-4. This is a club whose results in the last 3 years progressively improved from 4th, 3rd and 2nd. Who is willing to tell the truth that the majority of pundits in the media are idiots?
I suspect if I was to put the sports executives of the BBC and the ESPN on the witness stand and ask them why they employ people who repeat lies and falsehoods to the public, if goaded enough, in a rare moment of honesty they would respond as angrily as Colonel Jessup:
You can’t handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with lies and clichés
In the world of silent, unemotional data including what we know about the risks of spending and the importance of stability and continuity (Nick Harris and Sporting Intelligence), perhaps a more objective tool of predicting next season would be to use the data from last 8 years, since City became the beneficiaries of Sheik Mansour’s and the Abu Dbabi Group’s unlimited largesse, and do some projections.
| TOP-SIX : LEAGUE POSITION 2009-16 | ||||||
| YEAR | AFC | CFC | LFC | MCFC | MUFC | THFC |
| 2015-16 | 2 | 10 | 8 | 3 | 5 | 3 |
| 2014-15 | 3 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 4 | 5 |
| 2013-14 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 6 |
| 2012-13 | 4 | 3 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 5 |
| 2011-12 | 3 | 6 | 8 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| 2010-11 | 4 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 5 |
| 2009-10 | 3 | 1 | 7 | 5 | 2 | 4 |
| 2008-09 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 10 | 1 | 8 |
| Minimum | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Maximum | 4 | 10 | 8 | 10 | 7 | 8 |
| Mean | 3 | 4 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 5 |
| Median | 3.5 | 3 | 6.5 | 2.5 | 2 | 5 |
| Mode | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| Range | 2 | 9 | 6 | 9 | 6 | 5 |
| Skewness * | -0.82 | 1.60 | -1.04 | 1.91 | 1.03 | 0.99 |
*Rule of thumb: If the skewness is greater than 1.0 (or less than -1.0), the skewness is substantial and the distribution is far from symmetrical.
If we use the well known statistical tool of time series forecasting , we would arrive at the following predictions of future league position ranked from highest to lowest:
Man United: 2.88
Arsenal: 3.38
Man City: 3.38
Chelsea: 3.63
Tottenham: 5:00
Liverpool: 5.75
Lo and behold, far from the almost universal crowning of City, United is more likely to win the title. Furthermore Arsenal Football Club is not a disaster-in- waiting, it being projected jointly with City for 2nd place. However as any good forecaster would disclose, past performance is no guarantor of success. In fact as Leicester demonstrated, a club can go from almost last to first, not by spending big, but it in relying on the mental strength of the players. As Arsene Wenger emphasized:
“Maybe they are not the most prestigious in quality of the passing, but they found a way to be efficient and have shown mental qualities that are absolutely top.”
But none of this is sexy enough for the pundits. Instead, they use the time honored methods of appealing to fear and greed, two of the greatest human motivators. Fear that Arsenal may somehow slip behind its rivals as groundless as that has been during Arsene’s tenure and greed for the title which drives so many otherwise well thinking fans to believe that somehow Arsenal can afford to match City and United in their spending to be sure of getting over the line, a guarantee which is equally groundless based on recent experience.
Given my experience of the difficulty in trying to convince most fans with data I am reminded of a quote from a more recent movie The Big Short:
“Truth is like poetry. And most people fucking hate poetry.”
I wonder if they will be willing to doubt my prediction that by end of this season it is Arsenal – 3rd, Liverpool – 6th.
Positively Arsenal 
the home crowd booing
69 minutes – iwobi off, oxlade-chamberlain on
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that should be 59 minutes for the sub
60 minutes – Ramsey down holding the back of his leg, Cazorla to come on for him
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WHY DIDNT CARZOLA START?
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62 minutes – Mane just ran and ran and ran and fired home to make it 4-1 to liverpool, ragged defending there.
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it was a fine finish by mane, but chamers and monreal done poorly
63 minutes – ox ran and ran and ran and fired home to make it 4-2 to liverpool,
this could end 3-6
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66 minutes, our final sub of the day is Xhaka who comes on for Elneny
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what a load of crock from the ref, coutinho has cramp, and oliver stops play, such bullshit. play is only meant to be stopped for a serious injury, such as head injury, not cos some lad has got cramp.
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20 minutes to save this game, come on you gooners
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71 minutes, we’ve done about 20 passes and are still in our own half
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72 minutes – Cazorla well over the top from about 20 yards
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74 minutes – cazoral with a fine freekick delivery from wide left, Chambers gets a flick on it and its 3-4. come on you gooners
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the 3-6 is still possible
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10 minutes to save this game, come on you gooners
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alexis not been in the game at all.
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85 minutes – xhaka booked.
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there is to be 5 minutes of stoppage time to be played. come on you gooners
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no man we missed more today than Giroud, no one up front to hold up the ball and bring others into play.
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2 minutes to save the day, come on you gooners
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that about sums it up today, cazoral cross hits monreal on the arse and goes out for a goal kick.
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Eduardo: i do think that we did miss Koscielny and Mesut too…
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Carzola holds the ball and moves with it so well… i really do not get why he did not start!
Oh well 4 goals deficit is not good for our young debut pair at CB… sadly things dd not work out well for them…
Sanchez did not contribute much either… Would have started the Ox ahead of him
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FT: Arsenal 3-4 Liverpool
boos rain down from around the stadium. a very disappointing display, controlled a scrappy first half, took the lead through walcott, one minute after he had penalty saved, conceded from a soft free kick in first half stoppage time, started the second half poorly and fell behind, 4-1, some very poor defending on several of their goals, as there was on couple of ours from liverpool. chambers and ox pulled goals back but we never created another good chance after getting it back to 3-4.
to compound problems, both iwobi and ramsey went off injured.
alexis had a very poor game, monreal and chambers awful on couple of the goals, cech could do little about any of the goals.
an interesting aside to the game, our 3 goals and 2 of theirs came from ex southampton players, theo, chamers, ox, lallana and mane.
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Hindsight is good though cos on their game Sanchez and Ransey are certainly capable of better than this…
seems our 3 changes were down to injuries? that would be sad! Iwobi, Ramsey and oh.. Okay, i think Elneny was not…
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ales of course we missed them, all i’m saying is that without giroud we had no hold up play up front, and no one to actually contest balls with their cbs, no one to act as the wall,
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well at least the malcontents will be happy.
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Liverpool did very well in the 2nd half. We made little errors that cost us. But excellent fightback. Top, top mentality. No need to panic.
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What is the matter with me. I was very disappointed for about 10minutes. Now I can’t wait for the next game. I’m deluded, but it’s better for my cardio health….
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Aaron didn’t look right from the start of the second half. He felt something early, I think. He had so much energy in the first half and it evaporated in the second. But he doesn’t let his head drop, that’s not like him. I kept thinking something was up, and then he just sat down. I’m hoping he was just trying to not make it worse. In hindsight, he probably should have come off at HT. I’m sad.
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AR was targeted by a couple of hacks and picked up a first half nighle.
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< niggle
And in an ideal world AR would've been rested for this fixture considering that post leg break his hammies need extra care.
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People questioning the resting of Cazorla & Koscielny likewise are choosing to ignore their ankle tendon concerns.
Likewise Xhaka not thrown in straightaway also makes perfect sense.
If the experts can’t accept that their team was weakened when it was weakened then they’re in for a long season.
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As Ronan would say “Ah, fuck it”
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Henry showed exactly why he could not be allowed be a part time coach at the club, he showed many reasons, but the biggest one is, they man is an idiot.
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Arsenal official twitter getting better, no tweets at all from the after match press conference. No article on arsenal.com from the presser either. not good enough from the club.
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reports that Cech’s day went from bad to worse, with him said to have smashed his car into a bollard in the car park, and wrote his car off.
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Gutted. We played really well in the first half and Holding was good in my opinion.
A non existent free kick was taken beautifully. Nothing wrong there. However Lallana’s goal I felt Cech could have stayed on the line. The angle was very acute and he should not have scored from there. Monreal turned his back on Mane and lost him. No challenge for the shot. On the bright side Ox’s goal was great and Cazorla’s free kick for Chamber’s goal was fantastic.
A well contested and entertaining first game. Unfortunately conceding 4 goals at home is not gonna help any team win. However we scored 3 so that was good.
Still think we can win it this year.
Cheers.
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Chkmiaot/Alabama Gooner. Right attitude imo. We can win the title with that intangible ingredient that Leicester showed; mental toughness and dogged determination. We can match any of the better teams technically butt we must be mentally ready for the challenge.
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well shotta if would be great if the team showed that mental toughness you talk about, but just like last season, once we let in one goal, we let in another quickly thereafter, that does not show much sign of mental toughness, in fact the opposite. we let in 4 goals in 20 minutes today. Last season we had massive problems letting in a second goal once we conceded one, and we only won one game last season where we let in more than one goal, and here we are, first game of the season and it was a problem again. The team have a problem steadying themselves when the blow of a goal going in. Even having the half time break today did not clear their heads. Wenger mentioned after the game that conceding the goal before half time muddled the players heads. Its a self fulfilling prophesy, goal goes in, the players are afraid to make a mistake in case we concede again, and due to the fear, we make a mistake and let in another goal. Its not something easily fixed.
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‘OF COURSE WE’RE BITTERLY DISAPPOINTED’
Read the first quotes from Arsène Wenger’s post-match press conference as the Arsenal boss responds to our 4-3 Premier League defeat to Liverpool
on the disappointing nature of the defeat…
Of course we are bitterly disappointed. It was a contrast between the two halves. We lost this game for many reasons and was one of them is [the psychological impact] of Liverpool making it 1-1 just before half-time. The second one is that physically we are not capable of maintaining the level, because not all the players have the same level of preparation. Maybe we lacked a bit of experience but if you look well at the goals, I don’t think it was necessarily the inexperienced players that cost us the goals today.
Read the match report
on why he played Holding and Chambers together…
If you look well at the goals, it’s not necessarily our defenders who cost us the goals today.
on the physical requirements…
You could see that we dropped physically today. It was a game of contrast between two halves but I felt as well that mentally we kept going and we have been absolutely remarkable on that front. But I believe that the first goal was a big shock for us because we didn’t see that coming in the first half and maybe we didn’t recover from that.
on needing to be ready for the first game…
Yes, I agree with you. But we are not stupid. We prepared well the players we have in but I think you have to consider we have been a bit unlucky as well. We have lost Mertesacker and Gabriel in preparation, and Koscielny is not fit. You have to sometimes accept that you cannot control absolutely everything, even if you try to be as intelligent as possible.
on how long it’ll take to get everyone ready…
I don’t know. We have to be ready next week because we go to Leicester. But we’ll see first what we can do with the players who are preparing at the moment and how many players are injured today. Can they recover for next week? I don’t know.
on fitness issues compared to other teams…
Because we had many players that played very late in the Euros – Ramsey, Koscielny, Ozil, Giroud – they went to the semi-finals [at least]. We had four players who went very late.
Copyright 2016 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to http://www.arsenal.com as the source
Read more at http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20160814/60231/-of-course-we-re-bitterly-disappointed-#11T8BkEBPvWZRlvh.99
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WENGER ON THEO, RAMSEY AND IWOBI
Read more quotes from Sunday’s post-press conference as Arsène Wenger looks back on the Liverpool game:
on who the designated penalty taker is…
Theo Walcott.
on if Walcott will continue to take penalties…
I don’t know, it can change game by game.
on why Arsenal have lost three of last four opening-day games…
Physically we are not ready. You are in a Catch-22 situation with the Euros – do you give the players a rest and start the season without many of your players? Or do they play in this kind of game and get injured, like Ramsey today?
on how Ramsey is…
I don’t know, I haven’t spoken to the medical people.
on what his injury is…
Hamstring.
on Iwobi’s injury…
It’s a thigh.
on Koscielny, Giroud and Ozil’s availability for Leicester…
We will try, but when they have not enough preparation they get injured.
Read more at http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20160814/wenger-on-theo-ramsey-and-iwobi#hW4cez07YSLiqdbm.99
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its that quick succession of conceding that gets to me too…. too often we do this… regardless of the playing staff…
I think Holding was actually okay…
so many more players to come back ion… Ox, Kos, Giroud… 1st game of the season.. long way to go… just that we start off with too much pressure on the defense already so conceding 4 will not help their course much.
just a s hull winning the first game does not mean they will win the league so also, we are not relegation bound..
Alexis should not have started though just my opinion.
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aha… i thought as much.. Ramsey was in euro semi… played much and hard… shows why he should not have started or maybe played only the first half…
glad Kos, Ox and Giroud will take time to be fit… we can cope…
today was a one off…
Iwobi and Ramsey out brings campbell and likely ozil on the bench.. Ox and Cazorla to start… Not bad.
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Wenger: “Yes we need some players back and of course I’ve said many times before we are working very hard still to get one or two more players in,”
“It’s always desperate because there’s not much time left but I don’t know what you’d call desperate, it has to make sense and be quality.
“We’ve done that [spent big] before, but it’s about identifying the players and the availability of the players.”
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Maybe our sports psychologist/s needs to be upgraded.
The pattern of conceding which goals in succession seems to be a psychological issue.
Liverpool couldn’t cope with us until they scored.
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Well TS, on rushing players back and risking injury, we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t, Ramsey(just like lloris for spurs yesterday), has got an injury, and its being put down to, by us uninformed, to him being rushed back, but iwobi had the summer off and he got injured too. we also see fans and pundits alike, whinge that we did not rush back ozil, kos and giroud, and in the same sentence blast wenger for ramsey injury, and cazorla not being selected, and of course alexis below par performance. So which is it, did AW give players too much time off, or too little, which is it, ah I know, its neither, the problem is that we did not buy five or six well rested top quality players in the summer so that we would be certain to win even without our summer international players.
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I was surprised to see Elneny make way for Xhaka and not Coquelin.
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yes Chkmiaot it does seem to be a psychological issue, wenger even said as much, and not for the first time. But it is not a simple thing to rid players of.
I had a chat a few years ago with a top GAA player, here in Ireland, and he talked about his years of team failure due to how his team crumbled when things went wrong. No matter how much talent in the team, no matter how many changes from year to year, and no matter how good or long of a winning run they were on, once something major went against the team, like conceding a goal against the run of play, too many players just got that sinking feeling, that “here we go again”, and then in an effort to make up for the hit, players would try to do too much individually, and try spectacular things when simple pass or ball would have been the right choice, and the “self fulfilling prophesy” would be fulfilled, defeat would happen and the negative feeling would be reinforced, and be the one waiting to jump to the forefront of the players thinking the next time something went wrong in a game.
He explained that is why in his view that in the GAA the same few counties keep coming to the fore, even when they don’t seem to have any better team or squad, its that they have the belief that things will go right, cos that is what they have seen all their lives, they seen the teams that came before them win, they then win, and they nearly believe its not a matter of if we win, but when we win. Same thing with the almost teams, for those of you who know GAA, then Mayo, are the prime example of a team with a negative mindset when things go wrong in big games. They, have not won a senior All Ireland in 65 years, and have in that time, had what looked like the best team in the country many many times, and in the last ten to twenty years they have had outstanding teams, and made several all ireland finals, only to crumble at the conceding of a goal, or to miss bucket loads of scoring chances and end up losing by a point or two.
the final step to victory is the hardest and longest step, especially for those carrying a bit of psychological baggage.
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yeah chk, I too thought coquelin should have been the one to make way, once he got booked his effectiveness was curtailed, and he does not add a lot to our forward game.
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Good evening,
Just to be clear a review of this afternoon’s Arsenal v Liverpool will appear on the blog at slightly before 10.00 uk tomorrow morning.
I have absorbed, synthesized and reflected.
I have the kernel, the spirit shall draw out the rest.
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Some good play, but , not for the first time, a suicidal twenty minutes.
Psychological…..may well be, it can have a huge effect, just ask the England players who forgot how to control a ball against Iceland.
But they will get through this, Leicester would be a good start.
In addition, we were missing quality and experience today……and looks like yet more injuries
Guess the learning point, need to start out campaigns a bit better! Maybe they should give Wenger his serene Austrian training camp back.
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