There is a cry-baby culture developing in the wider society that seems to have pervaded the supporters of our great football club, at least among those who frequent Arsenal-twitter.
On a societal level, very recently we have had the pathetic, hilarious spectacle of colleges and universities in my country (the good old USA) setting up cry-rooms, healing spaces, petting zones, handing out Play-Doh, postponing exams, because young adults (our future leaders in government, industry and commerce) were upset by election results. See this, and then here and there.
Note there was no coup, no burning of the Reichstag (Congress), no night of the long knives, no assassination of opponents of the new regime, no turfing-out of academics from the universities, no purging of the Judiciary; (not yet Ed.) it was a plain old election, as has been the wont of the US republic for over 200 years.
There is nothing wrong with getting upset when results go against us as individuals in an election, referendum or football match. It is our indivisible right as human beings. But as adults, it is a dangerously narcissistic to expect our needs and desires to be always satisfied, to not expect disappointments, to not expect other individuals and groups to have diametrically opposing objectives and to actively work to frustrate ours. In life you win and you lose. To have university and college administrators and their academics encouraging the millennial generation to believe that being like cry-babies will change reality and that Mummy and Daddy will make things right is doing them a terrible disservice.
A similar mentality is evident in many supporters of our football club. Take Saturday’s game against United for example. Apparently it is not good enough to struggle against a club whose squad is valued by transfermarkt.com at £578 million vs £323 million for Arsenal’s. Even worse is to fall behind and then to successfully struggle and fightback to earn a draw. Apparently Jose Mourinho with his four (4 )Premier League titles is simply a fraud who doesn’t have a successful history of setting-up his team to frustrate and throttle the Gunners in midfield and to eventually sneak a goal on the counter-attack or take advantage of a mistake by a beleaguered defender.
Again, let me stress, every supporter has the right to be disappointed that the team was not at its best and was unable to outplay United. But it is delusional to not give the opposing team any credit or to not give your own club credit for their achievements, limited as they may be.
To conclude that Arsenal was simply lucky to earn a point is simply being in denial. Unlike actual reality on the field of play, the players earn no credit for responding to the challenge of falling behind and never giving up. Similarly the manager is seen by some as literally being asleep at the wheel and out of touch with the ebb and flow of the game when he made his substitutions; Giroud on the 73rd minute mark and Oxlade-Chamberlain after 83 minutes, i.e. the duo who directly assisted and scored the goal. The narcissist inside us is cursing Daddy Wenger because he was unable to give us the victory we felt entitled, a draw is not good enough. Predictably it is cause for more squawking by the little babies.
This nicely segues to the data which is at the core of today’s blog. It is a fact the club has had a long history of poor results during the month of November. I wonder how our cry-babies and tender snowflakes would/will cope with this continuing trend.
So far, this November, the club has had two points from two games or .67 points per game (ppg). With two more matches in November this could be improved. Last year was brutal, as the club was ranked 16th in points accrued during the month of November at 0.67 ppg. The raw data is presented in the table below.
| YEAR | PPG (NOV) | POS (NOV) | FINAL PPG | FINAL POS |
| 2015/16 | 0.67 | 16 | 2.13 | 2 |
| 2014-15 | 1.50 | 8 | 2.29 | 3 |
| 2013-14 | 2.25 | 2 | 2.26 | 4 |
| 2012-13 | 1.20 | 9 | 2.34 | 4 |
| 2011-12 | 2.33 | 2 | 2.11 | 3 |
| 2010-11 | 1.80 | 6 | 2.26 | 4 |
| 2009-10 | 1.00 | 14 | 2.37 | 3 |
| 2008-09 | 1.20 | 13 | 2.29 | 4 |
| 2007-08 | 2.33 | 5 | 2.34 | 3 |
| 2006-07 | 0.80 | 15 | 2.39 | 4 |
| 2005-06 | 3.00 | 2 | 2.50 | 4 |
| 2004-05 | 1.25 | 11 | 2.37 | 2 |
| 2003-04 | 2.50 | 2 | 2.18 | 1 |
| 2002-03 | 2.40 | 1 | 2.29 | 2 |
| 2001-02 | 1.50 | 10 | 2.11 | 1 |
| 2000-01 | 1.00 | 14 | 2.39 | 2 |
| 1999-00 | 2.00 | 3 | 2.08 | 2 |
| 1998-99 | 1.25 | 15 | 2.05 | 2 |
| 1997-98 | 0.75 | 19 | 1.97 | 1 |
| 1996-97 | 1.75 | 6 | 2.16 | 3 |
From the data I wish to emphasize the following :
- Over the last 20 years the club averaged 1.62 ppg in November, compared to 2.24 ppg per season, a 38% difference.
- In the Highbury era the club did slightly better at 1.74 ppg compared to an average season of 2.21 ppg, a 27% difference.
- During the Emirates era, the November average hit a low of 1.51 ppg, but the season average of 2.28 ppg is higher than at Highbury.
Fortunately for the club the November points haul has little correlation with the club’s final league position. In fact, there was the remarkable situation in 1997-98 when the club was 19th rank in points that November and finished the league in 2nd place.
- Over the past 20 years the club averaged 9th in the league in terms points accrued in November, compared to an average end-of-season league position of 3rd , a 6 places difference.
- In the Highbury era the club average league ranking for points in November was 8th but averaged a season-ending position of 2nd in the league, also an improvement of 6 places.
- Since moving to the Emirates, the club’s average ranking for points accrued in November was 8th place but averaged 3rd at season-end, in the league, an improvement of only 5 places, i.e. less than at Highbury.
I am fully aware that data has little persuasive influence on the majority of our fan base. Sigmund Freud long discovered that behaviors are changed by triggering deep primal emotions in the unconscious particularly instincts like fear and greed. Let me remind you that the elites of our countries, those who control the economy and power structures, have well developed systems and institutions, primarily the media, to manipulate and influence us as a group to adopt behaviors that are counter to our interest. Along those lines I fully expect a run of poor results in November will no doubt bring all the fear-mongers and WOBs to the fore. Expect those who hate the self-sufficient model and Arsene’s artistic, aesthetic approach to the game to whip our little cry-babies into a frenzy, doubting our title potential. The data is clear; points in November have little bearing on our final league position. Hoping my research will give you the tools to stop them dead in their tracks.
No club for cry babies. Up the Arsenal!
PS: For a greater understanding of how our behaviors are manipulated by the powers that be check out this piece: We’re Being Played. The youtube video is a must watch.
Positively Arsenal 
A somewhat political opening – stay with it though
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Hector – you little beauty
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I am off to Coventry to my daughter’s graduation ceremony tomorrow. I am sure I can rely on you all to play nicely and be kind to one another.
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Take care Andy: remember that nothing, like something, happens anywhere. But congratulations to your Daughter and I hope its a great day for you all.
And thanks to to Shotta for yet another statistical masterclass and for the reminder to me that one of the appeals of supporting The Arsenal is the broad church it allows me access to.
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HECTOR BELLERIN SIGNS NEW CONTRACT
Hector Bellerin has signed a new long-term contract.
The 21-year-old has developed into one of the Premier League’s outstanding full-backs since breaking into the first team in 2014/15.
Last season he firmly established his place in our back four, making 44 appearances in all competitions and creating nine goals – third only to Mesut Ozil and Alexis.
Hector’s displays earned him a place in the 2015/16 PFA Team of the Year and a call up to the Spain national team for Euro 2016.
Having previously played for Barcelona, Hector joined us as a scholar in 2011. He impressed at youth level before making his first-team debut in the League Cup in September 2014.
We look forward to Hector’s continued progress with the club in the years to come.
The deal is subject to the completion of regulatory process.
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/20161121/hector-bellerin-signs-new-contract#sbDEjtVypCKU3ehd.99
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Well, that is like a hot poker applied to the nether regions of those souls who allow their emotions to get the better of them, Shotta, and brings a tear to my eye! Oops. lol
At first I was a little surprised that you say the poor November results have little bearing on our final position in the Premiership, and then I recall a comment I have often felt the need to make — that we will not lose the League title in November, but neither will we win it, or to paraphrase, there is no need to whinge at the prospect of failure, because of a poor return of points in November, but neither should one start buying polish to spruce up the trophy when we get it in May, as your excellent data indicates.
On the other hand – there is another way of interpreting the data. Starting from the final positions in your table [now there is an awkward sentence – starting from the final …. ] one might argue that a better November points haul could have hurled us into a Premiership winning season in a number of seasons.
Either way, there is no need for the ‘cry-babies’ in your analogy. lol
Well done again, sir.
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Hi Anicoll,
My compliments to your daughter for her imminent graduating, and I know it makes you a very proud man – so well done to you for siring such a clever and no doubt beautiful young lady! [Tho’ Mrs Anicoll probably has more claim to at least the latter!!!!] lol
As for playing nicely – I have already started. I resisted the urge to pull Shotta’s leg for making me laugh when saying, “behaviors are changed by triggering deep primal emotions in the unconscious” which would account for many of us during our alcohol soaked Uni days! (lol) I suspect the key word was ‘subconscious’ but Shotta’s was much better! (lol)
P.S. I am addicted to smiley emoji symbols, but as they are banned for reasons I know not – the odd ‘lol’ keeps popping out despite my best intentions. lol
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on the cry baby theme, i was talking to a trainee teacher friend of mine the other day, and she told me that now its gone from teachers having to be non critical in any way of a pupil, but they are now not to give anything more than passing praise regardless of how well a pupil does, just in case that it may upset a pupil who is not doing as good. Also that they have to be careful that praising one child more than another, even if they are doing better, may upset not only a child who is not achieving as much, but it may also upset their parents. So not only are we at a cry baby society, we are taking steps to make it even more ingrained.
The trainee teacher also told me that for sports in the schools, they have been told not to count any winning margin that is more than 2 pts. So that the little darlings that lose don’t get upset. This is now spreading outside of primary schools. I have noticed a trend here in Ireland in sport, in GAA the biggest sports in Ireland, have copied along the lines of what has been seen in childrens sports in the USA, where childrens – U13, u14, u15, – the league divisions have had their names changed from say Div 1, Div 2, Div 3, or the such like, that clearly defines the level the teams are, to the Purple group, Red Group, Yellow group, blue group, pink group and the like. So that no child on a team that would have been lets say Div 5, can have a child playing in one of the higher divisions upset the Div 5 player by saying we play in a higher division than you. Now the best they can do is say well we are in a different color group than you. Its fucking stupidity of the highest order.
And this cry baby society is not confined to children, or college goers like in the article, but is now in the work place. Recently a friend told me of a new policy introduced at the factory he works at. No one can any longer partake in any form of banter, such as no Man Utd or Arsenal fan could say the other team is shit, or blew the game, because the worker who comes out on the wrong side of any banter can now report the other worker for upsetting them, and this means the reported worker will get an official warning, and will have to do sensitivity training. If it happens a second time, the worker would have it put on their permanent record, and it would go down as “bullying”, a third offence would mean sacking. A first offence could hinder any promotion prospects, a second would kill promotion totally, it would also mean it could stop them getting a job elsewhere, as they would have “bullying” listed against them. What chance if they got sacked for bullying.
So now at the factory no one partakes in anything other than small talk with each other. No craic as we irish would call it, no banter, no slagging, in fact nothing of substance can be discussed, no one is allowed an opinion on anything now, just in case someone else has decided to take offence. PC has gone mad.
A couple of years ago at my place of work a whole group of us had to do sensitivity training, cos someone heard one of the group telling jokes, and decided to be offended. Even though the person who took offence actually had been eavesdropping on the groups break time chat. I can also tell you the jokes being told were nothing more than what you would have seen on UK tv in the 80’s or 90’s. There was far more offensive jokes told during the sensitivity training session.
I do believe that its gone too far, and that many are only looking for an excuse to take offence. A mate of mine had a woman go mental at him for holding a door open for her as she followed him into a conference. You know the sort of thing, “male chauvinist” etc etc, my mate told her he had been raised to have good manners and to hold a door open for anyone, man, woman or child, than manners don’t have a gender. it did not go down well.
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adrian clarkes the breakdown
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20161121/the-breakdown-manchester-united-a-
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Hector Bellerin in his spare time is doing an online course after enrolling at the University of Pennsylvania to study a marketing diploma. He is said to be getting marks of over 90% on his twice monthly assignments, take into account that he is doing the course in English, his second language, and it shows Hector is one smart bunny, but after signing a new six and a half year contract with Arsenal, we already knew that.
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Thank you Shotta,
Someone needs to take that Tommy Gun away from you haha just kidding; line ’em up, fire at will!
& have a great day tomorrow AndyNic
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Wouldn’t surprise me if Hector Bellerin goes on to become an arsenal captain.
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Holy fuck, AST still talking about the Suarez transfer bid.
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Zito @_Zeets 8h8 hours ago
It’s so weird now, with how much Mourinho talks and obsesses about Wenger, to remember that he was the one that called Arsene a voyeur
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Mkhitaryan must be delighted at how Mourinho is throwing him under the bus, jose says Mkhitaryan was left out of AFC game cos it would have been too much pressure for him to handle.
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The WOB…..let em keep crying, as what really upsets them is this team doing well.
And our little blips do seem to get them excited, but these blips don’t usually last long.
Still,at least the WOB had tottenhams slightly fortuitous comeback to cheer them up.
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As someone too emotionally unstable at the moment to cope with disappointment of any sort I am not the best to comment on the thrust of this excellent piece. But I am glad there are others out there with calm heads and a sense of perspective.
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Jan Aage Fjortoft @JanAageFjortoft 22m22 minutes ago
When you’re 9 points after Chelsea. 1 point ahead of Watford. You should use your energy on the training ground. Not on Wenger
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The China cup is being played in January, and the four teams taking part are China, Iceland, Croatia and Chile, I really hope this does not mean Alexis taking part in it
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Blimey, typically, another excellent article.
And when I finished reading this and the comments I realised I’d missed Kelly’s article. Thanks for all 3, inc: A5’s review.
You spoil me. (Multiple banned emoti-thingys).
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“Them” done well with enticing Hector to Barfa/$ity, innit?
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Ramsey and Walcott did not train today but Wenger says they should be ok for tomorrow
Debuchy stills needs another week or two to be completely ready.
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Wenger on Bellerin: “It just sends out the message that the media have to find a different name of somebody who wants to leave the club.”
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Great piece master Shotta
If Pep Guardiola and Barcelona are truly disappointed that Hector chose to stay at Arsenal then the WOBs really ought to ask why. Arsenal now must be a club that can compete with the best for the best…that’s how I see it….
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TEAM NEWS: WALCOTT, RAMSEY, SANTI, LUCAS
Arsène Wenger has revealed the latest team news ahead of the visit of Paris Saint-Germain to Emirates Stadium on Wednesday night.
He faced questions on the availability of Santi Cazorla, Mathieu Debuchy and Lucas and this is what he had to say:
on the latest team news…
Basically everybody is recovered from Saturday. We left Walcott and Ramsey on recovery but they should be alright for tomorrow.
on Lucas…
He’s back in training already, but not with the squad. He’s ahead of schedule, yes.
on Santi Cazorla…
At the moment I’ve given a little bit up on that, I don’t know how far he is. It looks to me that he’s making progress but as long as a player is not in full-time training with the squad, it’s very difficult to set targets. It’s not a big injury that will harm his future but it’s an inflammation at the back of his Achilles and it’s always very difficult on inflammations to give a set time.
on Mathieu Debuchy…
He is close now. He played only 70 minutes in the under-23s, I was hesitating to include him tomorrow. But for me, still, it is not enough competition to say I can throw him in in a Champions League game with the intensity of one of those games, and that he will be comfortable. I think he still needs one or two weeks. If he gets through this week well, I think he will come back into the group.
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/20161122/team-news-walcott-ramsey-santi-lucas#5KQL8gZ2oGKSDYPG.99
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PSG right back Serge Aurier banned from entering the UK following his recent court case and he will not feature vs Arsenal
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FT: CSKA Moscow 1 – 1 Bayer Leverkusen
if spurs lose to monaco tonight they are out of cl, if they draw then leverkusen would need a draw v monaco in the last game to put spurs out.
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falcao has a penalty saved by lloris, it was an awful effort, he seemed to scuff it.
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spurs are a dirty shower of cunts
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Spurs are getting rather a lot of penalties these days
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spurs out of the cl with a game to spare, ha ha ha
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mandy is it true spurs have got 10 penalties in their last 11 games
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Well that is a fair start to the football week – a superior Monaco swept Tottingham aside.
All together now;
“Thursday night is ………………. night”
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I went to a petting room after the election, it’s called Diamond Dolls and a nice lady named Champagne helped me through my grieving process.
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Interesting to hear the arselicking BT turning on the neighbours.
Anything Delle Ali or Kane does was “brilliant” or words to that effect. In reality both were shite all evening.
Classen and Eriksen, each time they touched the ball, according to Jenas and the Hod were shite.
It’s an England thing – dyasee?!?
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Glad to hear you are standing up despite the current maelstrom Gains
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Arry and Wio now chipping in with further arselicking nonsense- but for Lloris it could have been 8
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The navel gazing and hand wringing on BT right now is so sad to see. But in a weird way, I am really enjoying it.
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Here is a fascinating notion Glenn, Jermaine, Arry, Gary (and you too Wio)
You were turned over by a better team tonight in the CL. Not “oh we were awful”
You were stuffed
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Ed 9.38, not sure on that, if so, that is staggering.
But pretty sure they have had five in the last six or so games.
We got a few at the start of the season as well, but seems to have tailed off.
Spurs seem very good at drawing fouls in the area, going down very easily , wrapping their feet around defenders legs, and at times, fooling the officials.
But, all’s well that ends well.
Can you imagine the grief Wenger would get if he failed to negotiate that group?
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The spuds made tits of themselves yet again when there isn’t a PGMOL ref to help them. Then they revert to nastiness when the chips are down.
Cockwombles.
Alli’s ‘Foul’ for the penalty was very clever, look close at how he locks his arm around the defender to drag him and make it look like its the defender at fault.
Falco can go and do one.
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Teams in currently second place we might end up with in R16
Benfica.
Leverkusen. Ha-ha-ha.
Sevilla.
Porto.
However Bayern Munich and Real Madrid both are in 2nd place at The moment. So guess what happens next.
Let’s not count the chickens until tomorrow.
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Thank you, Andrew. I’m in my safe space at the moment. I’ll be ok.
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Arsene got us to the second round 16 out of 20 years. Come talk shit about fourth place trophy beyotch.
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Fortunately, we can discount the chickens today, after some abject performances
And yes, they are rather adept at fooling our EPL referees. A dirty team these days, regularly at or near top of the fouls league, but not a single red card, this season or last. Which may surprise some, who watched their game at Chelsea at the end of last season, or at Bournemouth this season, or who may have witnessed Dier drag one of ours down at when already on a yellow….right in front of the ref….last season at WHL.
Dembele , Wanyama, Rose , Walker, Verthongen have been known to get away with rather a lot , and it seems Alli and Sissoko only get punished retrospectively.
Stand to be corrected, but believe that Santi Cazorla has more red cards than the entire Tottenham team since Pochettino arrived.
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Positively Arsenal @Blackburngeorge 6m6 minutes ago Blackburn, England
Spurs seem to be getting the same penalty lgg-ups, that LCFC got last year. And the same ignoring of brutality and diving.
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DC I spotted delli alli getting a penalty while it was him that held the defender. Dembele got booked and then was allowed to keep on fouling with no yellow, rose dived and fouled in equal measure. Spurs are a nasty outfit, and yet the media turn a complete blind eye to it.
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Good referee tonight I thought, considering both sets of players were determined to cheat to the nth degree. No doubt the perfect analysts having reviewed every decision in slow motion from three angles four times will point out his shocking errors.
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