Arsenal “lied” to the fans. They said we would be as big as Bayern Munich. They said we would be able to compete financially with any club in the world. Blah, blah feckin blah.
How many time have you seen or heard such bollocks? It is said, repeated and accepted by the brain dead all over the Arsenal fanbase. It can be only one of two things that allow this ignorance, either those saying it, and believing it, are genuinely stupid, or they are choosing to pretend to be stupid.
Arsenal now they make more £££ on matchday than any other football club in the world. When the stadium move was planned, that was the goal. It’s an incredible achievement that it has now been realised.
However when the move was being considered, matchday income would have made up the vast majority of income. So had the circumstances remained the same, we would actually have been one of the biggest clubs in the world, right now. The problem is that “right now” match day income is less than 25% of the income of big clubs. The rest comes from commercial sponsorships and TV . So that means we are still considerably behind the really, really big boys.
Of course people will then ask why our commercial income doesn’t match theirs ? They will insist “we should be doing better”. This insistence is made from a position of total ignorance and lack of understanding.
Commercial deals are given on the worth of the brand name, which more or less comes from the global standing of the club based on recent and historical success. That is where Arsenal fall down, historically we were miles behind Liverpool and United, at least in the terms of global support. So when the worth of kit deals etc. are calculated, we are in the queue behind them. You know 5 Champions Leagues and all?
The rise of world wide popularity of the Premier League also means the most successful PL teams are ahead of us there too. City and Chelsea are at an advantage because their owners have chosen to buy them domestic (and in Chelsea’s case European) success. Sponsors not only know about the recent success of these two pretenders, but they know that their owners will continue to plough money in, in order to get more success , over the term of any deals struck. That makes them a more valuable investment than Arsenal.
The only way to make us more valuable, to sponsors, is to win more. But in a league where at least three teams can massively outspend us, that is no easy task. It’s not as easy as saying “we should be doing better”. The fact is we are doing better, a lot better. But the other clubs not only have the advantage in buying players, they also have the advantage when it come to being sponsored.
All this is before we even consider that the petro-fuelled clubs also sponsor themselves.I think City’s training kit is sponsored to an absurd extent by, basically, Mansour’s brother.
So before we accuse the board of “lying” we should consider that they have in fact achieved the goal they set out too. They just failed to see into the future , just like every other board in the world. No one could have foreseen the change to the football landscape, especially the serial moaners within our fanbase.
The reality is that our board has done remarkably well, given the changes in revenue streams and the global recession that they encountered, and in the midst of a property development based stadium move. So let us celebrate the good work they have done rather than ignore the difficulties and demand, that somehow by magic, we achieve par ( or better) with Real Madrid.
P.S. This was published last night, but this reply from our own Arsenal Andrew should be read with it,as it perfectly sums up why certain misconceptions were allowed to exist.
In terms of the so-called ‘big picture’, Arsenal clearly ARE now competing with the biggest clubs for the biggest trophies and the best players football has to offer.
That the club told PR-led porkies at certain points in the journey is largely beyond dispute but the price we may have otherwise paid in a collapsed credibility and an impaired ability to attract the best young talent during these years was potentially catastrophically high.
To any of us who turned up for Bergkamp’s summer testimonial, the sight of the bare bones of a stadium greeted us around about the same time the club told us we had money to spend on replacing players like Vieira and his ilk.
The reality was that at one point we were struggling to pay the players’ wages and years of austerity lay ahead of us.
Actually winning stuff was the least of our worries; the possibility of ‘competing’ was the height of our ambition and even that rested on Arsene’s extraordinary abilities to out-perform every other coach on the planet in terms of £’s spent for points/league places gained.
When Arsene re-signs at the end of this season it’s likely that The Wonder Years could really be upon us, as an already mightily strong squad continues to strengthen and compete and yes, win, at the highest levels.
But those first 6 or 7 post-Emirates seasons will go down as The Miracle Years. It turns out we had not a bean to spend, contrary to the club’s official position. THAT was the Board’s lie, but frankly, my dears, who gives a damn?
Some of us, at least, could see the bigger picture. Some of us could see what we are about to become.
That others chose not to support the manager or the club during these extraordinary times will be a matter for their conscience alone.
I’m just glad and proud that my conscience – and that of the friends I found during this era – is as crystal clear as the day I started supporting Arsenal Football Club.”
Positively Arsenal 
I just had to publish Andrew’s comment. It was gold.
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I am afraid the “Arsenal lied to us” is another symptom of the the fragile mental health of a significant proportion of football fans, among then Arsenal fans. A reaction one might expect from a person who has limited self esteem and a necessity to find a figure or organisation to BLAME if the world and everything in it does not proceed along the path they feel is their due. It is not just football that the discontented mob is broken loose; it is politics, government, the law etc. This week the Governor of the Bank of England pursued by the howling mob determined to drive him out of office and make him “pay”.
Allow these feeble minded refugees from Jeremy Kyle the weapons of social media, place a few well trained agent provocateurs among them to whip them up and drive the herd toward the next victim, and you have the present random social and political chaos.
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It serves no purpose to know what Stan “thinks” or Ivan’s latest take on the corporate cashflow or the success of “branding initiatives” in SE Asia by the club. I could not give a fuck who the the club’s noodle or the washing machine partner might be.
I’d say the solution for a football club to extricate themselves from mob rule is to disengage from it.To keep the media in all its forms at firm arm’s length. To say nothing.
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anicoll5-
The Bank of England is a government institution. But look at the published accounts and you’ll see shareholders. Try to find out who they are – a law was passed protecting their identity. This has corruption written all over it and is highly, highly dubious.
Why would you imply that anyone questioning this has fragile mental health? Or is stupid?
You have been fooled but your pride won’t allow you to admit it. Much easier to believe governments don’t lie, banks lend real money and sceptical means believing your government and ridiculing those who demand answers.
Wake up. People are educating themselves and you should too.
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See what I mean ? ↑
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Wow. I wonder if he thinks the earth is flat and the moon landings were faked too Andy. That is elite self deception right there.
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Where’s mine from the original post and I liked and retwitted the story I now have the ump. Banned frownee face.
Oh and yeah AA’s was gold
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Is the Bank of England a governmental institution or is that understanding inaccurate and misleading?
Does The Bank not rest or lie within the municipality of the Corporation of London? Therefore it follows that if dear old Queenie (her account is with Deutsche Bank?) has to ask permission from her old chum the Lord Mayor in order to set foot within the square mile then therefore the rational and reasonable question is to which government does the above refer? For myself, history can and has been great fun (Especially the history of the Arsenal).
Did you see what I did there? IBSF!
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–
Asking some of these virulent parasites to publicly acknowledge their disingenuity from which they have been profiting would be the proverbial equivalent of asking a turkey to vote for xmas.
How could any self declared expert on football physiotherapy and finance not understand any of the above. The mind boggles, until it sees the amount of advertising clicks that these scammers have been raking up.
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Excellent posts from PG and AA. This is the crux of the matter. Certain folk belittle the task or have no desire to try and comprehend what was required to remaining competitive through these extraordinary years. It is frustrating to listen to them. I have noticed that by and large the loud mouth WOBs are barely articulate…
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I found this polite note in the postbox;
“Hi,
I’m Anthony, the owner of an Arsenal blog called Gooner Daily.
I was wondering whether we can exchange links. My blog’s URL is https://goonerdaily.com/
Looking forward to hearing from you.
And yes…North London will always be RED
#COYG”
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Carried forward from the previous post
“Rich
Top post and top-notch comments. I think Arsene stopped short of outright lying and the board were much the same. We just, of necessity, left things unsaid.
For most of those years I reckon he did believe we could win it, just that it was unlikely or very unlikely we would. I believe both the optimism and the realism would have been essential to a manager who had to keep pushing on while expectations remained sky high, yet whose job had become a great deal harder.
My take is that Wenger would have needed that genuine optimism for his own motivation and to keep the players constantly outperforming the budget- no mean feat- for years.
So the optimism was real. We aimed as high as possible the whole time, but knew that winning the league would be extremely difficult. Normal, let alone generous refereeing would not be forthcoming, but the deterioration * in refereeing and the savage treatment this paved the way for, leading to serious injuries we could never afford if we were to reach the highest goals, could not be anticipated.
For instance, in trying to envisage a midfield to take on all comers around 2006, Diaby would have been seen as a main piece; who knows what could have happened if he had been allowed to fulfill his immense potential- those three games with him, Cazorla and Arteta about 5 years ago were enough to convince me he would have been a gigantic player for us.
*set in motion at the time Reyes was infamously targeted, by free kicks being nothing, clear yellows being free kicks only, and reds being yellows only.”
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TEAM NEWS: BELLERIN, THEO, NACHO, SANTI
Arsène Wenger has revealed the latest team news ahead of Sunday’s north London derby against Tottenham at Emirates Stadium.
The boss revealed updates on Hector Bellerin, Theo Walcott, Nacho Monreal, Santi Cazorla and Kieran Gibbs and this is what he had to say:
on the team news…
We have still some uncertainties at the moment because Kieran Gibbs has been touched on his shoulder and I don’t know how will respond to that. I will see today [Thursday]. After, the players who did not travel like Cazorla, Monreal, Walcott – there is still some uncertainty today. The closest to coming back looks to be Walcott. We will have a test with him.
on Bellerin…
Hector has a test. I left him behind [in midweek] because I was cautious with him. We could have basically forced the issue, he could have played maybe in Bulgaria but he should be alright [for Sunday].
on Nacho…
He has tests today and tomorrow and then we will decide.
on Cazorla…
He is similar, he has not practised yet – he will try to go out today and we will see where we go from there. He is a doubt, yes.
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/20161103/team-news-bellerin-theo-nacho-santi#pjupzeTolLCgPkRi.99
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I would say Arsenal did not lie, but were purposefully ambiguous and done nothing to clear this up, and allowed misconceptions to flourish.
Its much like how Arsenal use the term “compete” when talking about CL and BPL, you see any club taking part in a competition can claim it competes, but only a couple of clubs actually “contend” for the winners spot. The ambiguity in we will “compete” for x, y and z, is that fans take it to mean we will be “contenders”.
By the way, five years ago AFC income included £65M from player sales, our latest accounts show we brought in £2M from player sales. We have not sold a first team player we wanted to keep since cunty to man utd four years ago. and since then we have signed the four most costly players in the clubs history. So no one can tell me our financial position has not changed massively for the better in only four years.
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WENGER ON RESTING OZIL, JACK, RAMSEY
A rest for Mesut Ozil, Jack Wilshere’s future and Aaron Ramsey’s primary position were among the topics of discussion at Arsène Wenger’s pre-match press conference on Thursday.
on whether Mesut Ozil will be rested during the international break…
I got a noise of that, yes. I think it would be an intelligent decision and I would welcome the decision but we have to wait until he [Joachim Loew] gives his selection out to see if Mesut Ozil will get a rest or not
.
on how midday kick-offs change preparations…
You get up a bit earlier and eat a bit earlier, but basically no.
on Jack Wilshere’s future…
I think he has [a future at Arsenal] but that’s my opinion.
on Fifa’s poppy stance…
I find it a little bit surprising. I believe that, by wanting to be too politically correct, sometimes you go against tradition. In this case, that is the part of English culture that I love. They respect tradition and they respect people who have given their life for their country. I think that Fifa should not get involved in that.
on whether Aaron Ramsey will regularly play on the right…
I just consider the next game and try to find the balance with the players to be in a position where they can give their best for the team. Aaron Ramsey has come back from 11 weeks injury you know, he has to come back, you do not come back [and have that] magic. It takes time but he can bring us his strengths in every single position – wide or central. He prefers to play central, to be central, and I can understand that. But when he plays wide he has enough freedom to be central as well.
on whether Aaron talks to him about that…
Yes, of course I speak with all of the players about their performances, about their positions. Most of the time I think you want the players to be happy and to play in their best position.
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/20161103/wenger-on-resting-ozil-jack-ramsey#pIAk4vbcmlMfyIdV.99
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http://bet.unibet.co.uk/football/premier-league/alan-shearer-should-be-embarrassed-not-branding-arsenals-mesut-ozil-world
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seemingly Germany are leaving Ozil out of the squad for their up coming games, so that he can have a rest.
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A timely and well written Post.
I cannot be fussed to get into a discussion with people who are so rigidly fixed within their own implacable views that they will never be swayed by any argument — so why bother?
The above is a true but neutral comment – but let me say, first, that ArsenalAndrew and anicoll are guys I have a great deal of time for, and secondly,
— although I have no idea why the Bank of England was referred to by someone above — the facts are really quite straightforward, and totally different to those expressed: The Bank of England is not a privately owned company making ‘profits for shareholders — but a body corporate with its own Articles of Association, as amended by various Acts of Parliament going back to 1694 – and the Parliamentary Acts of 1998 and 2012 established that the Bank was not instructed by the government of the day, but it has independent responsibility for its actions on setting bank interest rates, and its general financial oversight, together with that of the Treasury, is subject to the Financial Policy Committee [FPC] and the Financial Conduct Authority [FCA] and then to a Parliamentary steering committee and finally to Parliament itself..
You don’t have to read that – other than to know that the BoE sets bank interest rates for the country, and not the government of the day, be it Labour or Conservative.
I have no idea why I bothered — I should take more notice of my aim stated above not to get fussed ……. oh, well.
Oh, and I agree with PG, AA, and anicoll.
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Jose: My office 9 a.m. please
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The crux of the finances, is the fact that the Emirates, Nike, Granada (shares), were required to fund the new stadium!
Further the season tickets revenue belongs to the Bondholders, and is drawn down as the matches are played.
It is a myth that the Arsenal matchday income, is the highest in the land. It is not, Manure has the higher total matchday revenue stream, as it includes catering about £12 millions when the stadium was opened. The Arsenal receive a share of the profits from Delaware.
Keith Edelman, then the main man, was full of the joys of success, in September 2005. May I quote:
“Some of the money in our reserves relates to future financial years, where we keep some cash to pay all of our costs in those years – but there are sufficient funds available to the manager for transfers,” Edelman said.
The late Danny, with Ken Friar led the charge to the new stadium. Again, Danny was full of pride having been able to repay the £100 millions plus loan, for the property funding. Despite the financial melt-down at that time. No wonder, Danny said,” if I offered £100 millions to Wenger, Wenger would return it…..”
On Tuesday, May 31st, 2011, the Swiss Ramble came up with a transfer budget of £50 millions?? When I checked that figure against the November 2010 half-year financial report, not one of his calculations, was correct. I checked his previous articles and realised, he is a “chancer”.
This site tries to check it’s sources, in order to confirm or deny.
Less we forget..
,
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Jose used to claim the europa league was a nothing competition, then only this week, he claims its very important as the winner gets in the CL next season.
Odd that none of the media jumped on this, if it was any other manager of any other top club, the media would go on the theme that the manager was admitting only 10 games into the BPL season, that his best chance of getting CL for his club next season is via winning the EL. It would be seen as an admission that getting top 4 in the league was beyond him and his team. But of course our Jose loving media would never do that to him or man utd. No bias at all there.
This defeat for utd now puts their best chance of CL football next season in doubt.
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As I said earlier I would say Arsenal did not lie, but were purposefully ambiguous and done nothing to clear this up, and allowed misconceptions to flourish. Seeing as Notoverthehill mentioned transfer budgets, it reminds me of how the club after the move to the Emirates would say that we could sign a £50M player, this despite there being little funds in the accounts. But they were not telling a lie, they were being purposefully ambiguous, as the club had an agreement with the banks, that AFC could call down a £50M loan for transfers. Something that they did not want to do and would only have done for either an exceptional player, or couple of players, if CL qualification was in doubt. In fact there was probably more chance of it being used if we had missed out one season on getting in CL, and we would have had to do all we could to get back into it, as we had to qualify 2 out of every 3 seasons
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The Mourinho effect comtinues for Manchester United.
Come on Arsène, please put the boot in!
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Exclusive: Crystal Palace academy boss set to join Arsenal
By Matt Woosnam – November 3, 2016
Crystal Palace’s academy has been dealt a blow as under-18 manager Ken Gillard is set to move on to take up a position in the academy set-up at Arsenal.
Gillard took charge of the team in February 2014, shortly after Des Bulpin left to link-up with former Palace boss Ian Holloway at Millwall, and oversaw seven victories in his first 11 matches.
The former Republic of Ireland under-21 international, who left his role as assistant manager at Nuneaton Town to join the Eagles in 2012 as U15 boss, was promoted from his role with a younger age group to replace Bulpin and led the Eagles to a fourth-place finish in the Professional Development League 2 that season.
The 44-year-old took the side to third in the league during his first full season in charge last year, and has given debuts to several promising under-16 players including the fleet-footed winger Joseph Hungbo, Kian Flanagan who made his under-18 debut at 15, and Luke Dreher, who went on to become a permanent fixture in the development side. Dreher also featured on the substitutes’ bench for the first team fixture at Manchester United last season whilst still a first-year scholar.
Gillard, who will take up a role as assistant to U18s boss Kwame Ampadu at Arsenal, has also helped bring out the best in Levi Lumeka, who netted 17 times from the wing last season.
He will be disappointed by the failure to reach the latter stages of the FA Youth Cup after a heavy 5-1 fourth-round defeat by Aston Villa at Selhurst Park. The Eagles have had an alarmingly poor record in the competition recently which has seen them fail to go beyond the fourth round since the 2009-10 competition when they reached the quarter-finals but were knocked out by Newcastle United.
Formerly a professional player for Luton Town and Northampton, Gillard has led his side to third in the table this campaign, having won five of their 10 opening games, with just one defeat in the opening eight, and a 7-0 victory away at Barnsley which saw striker Francis Baptiste net a remarkable five goals.
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not taken jose long to throw the players under his bus
Paul Hirst@hirstclass
Jose not holding back in press conference. Says he passed all his knowledge and experience on to the players but they let him down.
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Eddy
Kwame Ampafu is also an Irish international.
Liam Brady’s legacy continues.
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he was an irish u21 international. His son is a welsh youth international.
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Squawka Football @Squawka 3h3 hours ago
Man United lose 5 consecutive away games in Europe for the first time in history.
LLLLL
Goals: 3
Conceded: 9
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This is such an obvious point, and I know people here, like Paddy, have made it again and again. But the Man Utd result yesterday and their recent form shows just how difficult it is for any club to string a consistent run of wins (and draws) together. That the Arsenal fans now expect to win every match, season after season, is testimony to the enormous achievement that the club has made since the end of the last century.
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As recently as 17th October Jose was being fulsomely praised in the media for his “tactical masterclass” at Anfield.
The shambling rambling character I saw last night squirming in front of the camera was the same man I saw 12 months ago.
“He needs two or three seasons” (Scholes)
Stand by for the “vote of confidence” I’d say. The hotel may want to start finalising the bill.
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anicoll
Fingers crossed. I think I’m better than to wish gratuitous mental troubles on anyone, but Mourinho tests that to the maximum.
Main thing is, I just want him gone as soon as possible. It’s not easy to see where he could go in England if he fails badly at Utd, and it would be great for the game here to be permanently rid of him and his toxic ways.
Watching Utd yesterday you could easily believe we’re quite close to that point, but I doubt we’re that fortunate. Chance remains that with another window and another 100 mill Utd may finally start looking a team again.
Quite something that it could take that- 400 mill, 600, I’ve lost count- to take a title-winning team and get them to the top.
It should make even the densest pundits and supporters revise their views on our last ten years but there’s no sign of that.
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Cheers George.
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Afternoon, Peeps,
You have pretty much covered all the Maureenhio stuff, but I do not think it would hurt to repeat a piece of his aftermath interview.
“I am disappointed because I have a lot of experience of playing against Turkish teams,” Mourinho said. “I played twice against them with Real Madrid, twice with Chelsea and with Porto too. I passed to the players all my experience. I told them it is always easy to play them at home, but when you come to Turkey, it is a completely different story. I told them to wait for that and to be focused, but we started the game sleeping.”
If ever it was necessary to show what an egomaniac looked like Maureen will do nicely.
Does he believe what he says? Which position did he play in? CF, midfield, GK?
He was like any other manager or coach – a passenger once the team get on the pitch – he always ‘wins’ when the team he ‘plays’ for wins, but it is always the players fault when they lose.
The man is insufferable and sad!
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That is fairly mild for Jose Henry. I trawled this up from his post match interview following a defeat by Liverpool at the end of October 2015, five weeks later he was gone;
Des Kelly: José, a 3-1 defeat after a fabulous start to the game, the game just got away from you then?
José Mourinho: I have nothing, nothing to say.
Kelly: Nothing to say about the game at all?
Mourinho: Nothing, nothing to say.
Kelly: Nothing to say about the Lucas [Leiva] decision that left him on the pitch?
Mourinho: Nothing to say, I have nothing to say.
Kelly: The [Diego] Costa clash?
Mourinho: Nothing to say, I am so sorry, I have nothing to say.
Kelly: Do you not think it’s time to have a chat to the fans to give them some message, an indication of your thinking?
Mourinho: They are not stupid.
Kelly: We heard them chanting your name.
Mourinho: The fans are not stupid.
Kelly: You did say before this game that you were not worried, are you a little bit more worried now?
Mourinho: Worried about what?
Kelly: Your future, your own position at the club, the backing of the board?
Mourinho: No.
Kelly: Nothing about the game at all?
Mourinho: No.
Kelly: No individual performance you would like to pick out?
Mourinho: No.
Kelly: Nothing about the performance going ahead?
Mourinho: Nothing.
Kelly: Nothing about the way we could fix it?
Mourinho: I cannot say.
Kelly: Thank you for your time, José.
HOW ON EARTH DID A CLUB LIKE MANCHESTER UNITED EMPLOY THIS NUTCASE ?
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The man is apparently one game away from achieving Manure’s worst ever start to the season ever, EVER!
Having achieved the same at Chelski last season. Extraordinary effort.
Well played Jose.
And is it just me or, despite the continued presence of Costa in their side, are Chelsea a far less unlikable side now the impossible-to-like Mourinho is no longer on the payroll? I realise this may well have been discussed at length previously but it still amazes me how the presence of one individual can act as a lightning rod for all manner of negativity attached to the club largely thanks to that same individual.
I’m sure my intense dislike of Manure was mainly due to Red Nose’s unending malevolent presence although Rooney has done an admirable job continuing his work on this front.
It’s also noticeable that no matter how much we laugh at spurs, what they really lack is a thoroughly unpleasant pantomime villain to really get us going. But no, nothing there and in any case, we’re too busy laughing at a side that really hasn’t been the same since they pipped us to 3rd place with that suicidal defeat to the Geordies on the last day of last season. Crikey, how they must wish they’d hung on to Bale, eh?
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I am sure no leopard could change its spots Andrew but in the past couple of games I have watched Costa he has concentrated on playing football (which he is actually quite good at) and cut out the theatrical bollocks and aggro that seemed to use up all his energy.
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Andy – that transcript reads like something from Monty Python. Do you recall their ‘Radio Four’ style play called “A Minute Passed”?
“A Minute Passed”
A minute passed
Then, another minute passed.
This was followed by another minute and, in what felt like ages but was in fact a further minute; a minute, passed.
Another minute passed.”
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You’re not suggesting Jose wound him up to play like a cheating thug?
But yes, like Suarez before him, take the teeth out of his game and you’ve got a half-decent centre forward on your hands.
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as someone mentioned earlier, if Jose does get sacked by utd, what BPL club is left for him, or where would he go.
well I assume Arsenal would not touch him with even someone else’s barge pole, so that only leaves 2 choices either back to Chelsea, would they really take him on for a third time, and then there is our neighbors, for me that is the most likely, poch to utd, and jose would be the sort of choice levy would make to appease the fans. Only stumbling block would be they would not have the sort of spending power jose would demand.
Back to Inter might be the best bet, PSG another good shout. Maybe we could see him actually become England manger, they could dupe him into it by telling him Wenger wants it.
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It was a surreal exchange, even Kelly’s usual demented cheerfulness wilting to sarcasm under Jose’s stonewalling.
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Eddy – You will recall my prediction many, many months ago as to which manager would lead the Russian national side at the World Cup in 2018 (banned winkey thing)
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seen some analysis on Irish TV of our neighbors, and it basically stated that their game plan is built on a high press, and when it works like it did v man city, it is very good, but if teams play around the press it puts them on the back foot. Also their midfield lacks creative players, so this is part of the reason for the high press, they need to win the ball close to opponents goal, as a means to create scoring chances. When teams let them have the ball they don’t know what to do with it. Their main attacking plan when having lots of possession is getting Rose and Walker to attack at speed out wide and get crosses in. The analysis also mentioned how they use rotational fouling to stop opponents, and if refs stop it, they can be opened up. Their diving was mentioned too.
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I too cannot see anything to like or admire in Mourhino, despite realising that there are much more rounded, fair-minded people than me who have recognised he is a good manager – for a while.
To that I always think – but do not always say – that if he is given a Ferrari by his boss, he is likely to attract more attention, glamour and success than the guy whose boss gives him a Ford Focus (nice car tho’ I am sure it is) lol.
Mourhino has spent huge piles of the owners money at each club he has gone too, and in the transfer windows has hoovered up as many of the top players (the Ferraris) as he could, while those with less money to spend have had to make do with second and third tier players (the Ford Focuses of the football world).
Surprise, surprise his teams have usually won him a trophy or two, until other managers suss him out, and the club owners get pissed off with his melodramatic and maudling ways and invite him to depart. (Chelsea, Real, Inter Milan spring to mind), with Manure possibly likely to follow. And maybe a short stint at PSG would give him a nap-hand.
Begone foul spot, and take your shitty, self aggrandising temperament with you.
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Apologies if the above did not sound too positive — and it was not. lol
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It is turning a bit “Positively Jose’ on here Henry. We must stop or BG will sling us out.
The problem is with Jose, and despite the fact that I and every sane football supporter loathes him, is that with Porto and Inter he managed to drag two less than top, top quality clubs to the CL peak. Inside that rambling self obsessed lunatic is a fine football brain.
It is just as a human being he is so deficient in any redeeming characteristic.
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It’s a shame his tactics are out of date, he’s rooted in the past, the game has moved on and more modern managers have brought the game to higher levels.
ta ra Jose.
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Shut the door on the way out.
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“his melodramatic and maudling ways”
someone is trying to compete with stew’s prose!
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“maureeen now you gave me a tenner” he hasnt pissed off the US, China or Russia yet so maybe somewhere a long way away.
The spuds do defend well so we cant afford errors in silly areas either in midfield or at the back. First goal obviously important again as is a fast start, But play well with a good ref and we are the better team.
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No one competes with steww, dc, and certainly not me — it’s just the way I express myself. lol
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