A rubber match isn’t, as the casual reader might suppose, an extremely poorly designed item for lighting one’s pipe. It is in fact (according to Wiktionary) “A sporting event at the end of a series in which the opponents are tied in terms of events won and lost.”
Hence we have the term ‘dead rubber’ coined to indicate the antithesis of this phenomenon. This, many would argue, is the appropriate term to apply to tonight’s fixture between Bayern Munich and Arsenal.
With the first half of the tie so effectively settled in favour of the German side there appears little point in getting overly excited about the return leg. It’s an argument with which it’s difficult to argue. Especially when one factors in the awful run of form Arsenal is trying its best to overcome.
I’m not going to attempt to sugar coat it, the side is shorn of confidence, making poor decisions all over the pitch and playing as if they expect to lose. It is never a particularly edifying sight watching your favourite team struggling like this, and I’m not interested in any of the excuses I’m sure are being bandied around.
The current malaise is almost certainly temporary, the players are not suddenly incapable merely because collectively they cannot find their feet. The amount of poor decisions on the pitch against Liverpool had me shaking my head and tutting in a manner seldom seen in Wesley Avenue on a match day. I know this comes as a shock to you, but yes, even the most positive among us is capable of sighing heavily from time to time.
I think what upset me most was not so much the hurried wayward passing as the amount of times the poorly executed pass was played directly into the danger zone, precisely where Liverpool would have wanted it, usually to a man heavily marked or on the back foot and without support. This was as much the fault of the players off the ball not moving to decent positions as it was the hapless attempts to find them with a bad pass.
Taken together it added up to a shaky, panicked display from a bunch of bewildered sportsmen struggling to understand why that which they usually find comes as second nature was suddenly so difficult.
How can the squad possibly do the improbable against one of the best teams in Europe? How indeed. Perhaps it would be more realistic to hope they begin to turn the tide. Put in a more coherent display, gradually turn the ship around and get themselves in the frame of mind to make a decent fist of the run in and the remaining FA Cup fixtures.
I had a sense that this was the plan at Anfield. Sit back and defend, draw if necessary but hope to hit on the break. Build a run of unbeaten results to get the engine running smoothly again. That would have made sense but of course team sport is a capricious beast and one cannot always steer it the way one might hope. The opposition, for example, will have a part to play in proceedings.
So what is left? Well, might I suggest that perhaps the only thing left tonight is the only thing that ever really mattered anyway? A game of football. An hour and a half of entertainment for the devotee both in the stadium and on the couch. Strip away the hyperbole and false analogies with armed conflict, remove the ridiculous media fuelled scandal and razzmatazz and what you have left is a football match.
Dead rubber or not if you are genuinely a fan of the sport you ought to able to enjoy the contest, the individual moments of improvisation and skill and the occasion itself. If not, if the match in and of itself isn’t enough for you and results are really all that matters then the final league table is widely published every May, you could spare yourself the weekly anguish and just glance at that.
Positively Arsenal 
Good morning Stew – the great thing about following the Arsenal, especially these days, is that there is a next game just days away in which to brush off any rust and get on with watching the game and enjoying the spectacle.
I approach tonight’s game with the anticipation we shall acquit ourselves well against very good opponents. I am further encouraged by one of the best nights in the stadium for many years against Milan. One certainty is that the Germans know only how to play with total concentration and to win. We shall see no dead rubber.
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Cheers Stew! I wonder if the lads can get dug in, get hard, get in front, get Carter, get the Browns flustered,get a few goals, get some more, and get into the next round. Perhaps the Guns will be the unstoppable force with no sign of the immovable object in their vista?
Thanks again.
And, regardless; COYG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Morning Stew, Andrew.
All I know is that Arsene approaches each game as a fresh start and he will have that drilled into all and sundry.
The problem is that confidence is a fragile beast at the best of times and even if you are at the top of your game, an error or some other game-changing event can shake even the most steadfast of hearts.
To whom a team and its manager turn for reassurance is anyone’s guess but given the noisy state of the poisonous elements of our support, it’s unlikely to be towards the fans.
Not even at home. Or especially not at home.
In this regard, those particular fans have been most helpful to all of our opponents.
That such fans are sufficiently emboldened to behave in such a way has come as a result of years of insufficiently challenged player/manager abuse which itself has come to be seen as perfectly acceptable for some – or, ‘their right’.
As well as rendering the Arsenal fanbase something of a laughing stock in the eyes of other fans, the criticising mindset may now never leave us regardless of who the manager is, or who the players are.
It’s a sad state of affairs, really.
One day we may end up with little more than we deserve.
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“I’ll get you some chocolate for tonight” my dearly beloved said on her way to the shops. “Bugger that. 5 loaves and two fishes will be good and chuck in a Holy Grail if there’s one going cheap,” was the old fart’s reply. I still believe in miracles…just like that night in Italy not all that long ago. That’ll do all of us. Thanks Steww, glad you got the chores finished.
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@AA. “One day we may end up with little more than we deserve” Think that should be ‘they’ instead of ‘we’? “They” emerge like locusts every so often…mid 50s, mid 70s, mid 90s and now recently. Just like locusts, they scoff everything and then die. Hopefully tonight will be the start of employment for the grave-diggers.
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Very interesting perspective gf60.
I remember my Dad talking about a whole train carriage full of football fans returning to base just after the war, critical of ‘another poor showing’ unaware that amongst them was the left back who’s error had led to the goal that led to the defeat.
So maybe it is one of those cyclical things?
We live in perpetual hope.
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Welcome back, Steww, and thank you for the sensible and pragmatic Post.
It is said that nothing is finished until the fat lady sings, and that is probably usually true, but with such a first leg handicap it is hopeful in the extreme to see Arsenal managing to overturn the results to the extent that we could get through, so in this case perhaps the Fat Lass has already sung and buggered off elsewhere.
To remain in a state of perpetual ‘positivity’ is humanly impossible – so, hopeless then? Not at all.
As the inimitable Anicoll has said, football is many layered, and we all want to win every game – knowing that to be impossible; next is to go and unquestionably give your heroes the encouragement and support they need – then there is the one thing that drew most of us to football in the first place – to be entertained by your team – and by putting their best foot forward and striving to make each game an experience for their fans they will make their fans proud of them.
The reward for the players is to be unstintingly forgiven for the inevitable human mistake that occurs, so that at the end of the night they have all, players and fans alike, will have given of their best, and the team can feel they have done all they could do, irrespective of result, and the fans will be gratified that their team have made them proud of their heroes!
Hopeless? Bring it on – can’t wait!
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Great stuff Stew and It brought the big hitters out early .
The thing is, if this was a friendly game that had been arranged with Bayern , everyone would be looking forward to it. So why cant we just enjoy the spectacle of watching the game?
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In the 2nd half vs vs Bayern two weeks ago we simply made too many mistakes and were appropriately punished. Alexis Sanchez did all he could to show up his team-mates going on a one man press; finger-waving and pointy-pointy shouting. No wonder we had our pants pulled down to the ankles. Football is a team sport.
I noticed John Cross is sticking by his story despite all the nice pictures coming out of Colney yesterday. He reports:
“Sanchez really lost it last month, in the defeat at Bayern Munich. He scored the away goal in the 5-1 battering, and yet his performance infuriated Wenger more than that of any other player.
“The 28-year-old got increasingly frustrated in the second half and berated team-mates – including Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, both on the pitch and after the game.
“His anger carried on into the dressing room, he was furious, sulking, throwing strops… and yet his statistics reveal that, despite his very public throwing of his arms up in the air, he actually ran far less than almost all of his team mates.”
There is smoke and there is fire.
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Hope burns eternal Stew!
Playing against one of the best teams in the world could just be what the football doctor ordered.
Leaving it all out there tonight, whether we manage to overcome the 1st leg defeat or not, will restore a lot of what has been chipped away in recent weeks. I got a feeling the Emirates faithful will make a raucous noise to show “Double Thick” and his friends that they are not the boss of us. COYG.
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Great stuff, Stew. Follows my own thoughts exactly.
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“So why cant we just enjoy the spectacle of watching the game?”
George the way I see it is this; its much more complicated but-the major aspects of the mind that these days most people call the ego, has this notion, that its absolute,it is the One,it must be satisfied(which it never can be), and that can only by being the best, “winning” or feeling like its on top. As the PL shows us every year, this is Sisyphus and a great stone. The ego is always paranoid, always needing to be right,better sharper etc-and as human history shows us at any cost to human life and the environment.
However, nature of reality is not absolute,it is relative,all arises together. People think that karma is Newtonian physics in the form of billiards, it isnt its phenomena rising, top and bottom and middle are One, but Two(Many). Of course Newtonian physics exists too,making things even more complex.
People think and some Buddhist do too, that Nirvana/enlightenment is somewhere else, its isnt a place, its relativity,with no duality arising,at least that’s what Ive understood from the teachings with Lamas Ive had.
Its hard for all to grasp as the ego tries to rule out all possibilities, that’s why Satori isn’t enlightenment, but a gap along the way.Ego can only be dissolved not broken,perhaps there are cases but I cant verify them,but self awareness will show anyone how the ego operates.I’m not saying all egoistic thing are bad either, again this gets massively confused over time.Who has the clear understanding of whats or who good and bad?
Too complex to answer, except the question is wrong, and leads us in the wrong direction.Of course I also think this or that are bad or wrong, but Im stuck in duality so what can I expect?Suffering.
Western philosophy was of a really high consciousness but cant cope with the irregularities, paradoxes and dualities of contradiction,and logic gets confused in flux too and its terrified that going beyond the intellect will lead to the answer, non-thinking thinking.See the western minds response? Whats this bizarre idea, Rene Descartes told me I think therefore I am!
A) try to find the thinker, B)the am C)the I…D) the thought as thought.
The Copenhagen declaration of 62 pretty much summed up what the Buddha worked out thousand of years ago: deep reality cant be understood with language or concept, but only experienced. This doesnt seem to me to be about the Buddhas being right, as we have layers of what people call truth, localized or universal, and intertwined.
The opposite of day isn’t night and vice versa, they are part of the same.Once we understand this, we are faced with either the need for compassion and all that leads on to, or the cold assed world of existentialism. In a post war climate, it may have been philosophies lowest point? I dont mean Jazz bars in Paris and black roll neck jumpers, but the hard core early existentialism. I personally dont think Sartre managed to really sneak it in to Marxism, but others do, but then post Marx, how many philosophers tried to re-write Marxism, to assuage their own bourgeois guilt?And where did it lead us?
But Sartre and those on his level of awareness,(Sartre’s Satori?) are stuck in what the Buddhas call” the daemon cave of no self”, this is a strange place, where if you don’t come out the other side people tend to guff out channel no5. This trick of the mind is to think you are at One, but alone. Whats the way out? This equation(perhaps?): first there are mountains, then there are no mountains, then there are mountains. Basically all is phenomena, all dissolves under analysis, and then all arises again.But we fail and go back into the cave if we don’t see and experience all as relative.Sorry, but we are glued to these damn pesky Spuds and vice versa! On an International political scale this is a nightmare as much as our inter-personal social level.Who really is the enemy?Everyone and no-one?
To me ( and I wasted a lot of time on UA rattling on about this) this was the essence of sportsmanship.Whether we like it or not(I don’t) John Fowles summed it up as:the keenest fox hunters preserve foxes.We are relative and need all if we are in duality, to basically be polemically charged by counter forces, this is why the Buddhas go beyond this and just stay in the relative whats called Absolute Relative. See the contradictions in the language from what I stated at the beginning?But language is all frozen anyway and not what it is, any more than anything is.
So is sportsmanship being neutral? Can you support Arsenal and be neutral about the games? How can we be hold the neutral position? If we cant what can we expect from our emotions we we don’t hold a neutral perspective?
As long as we are polemical and support a team, wanting to win, we will suffer.Basically we’re fucked until we decide to no long be polemically charged. But where is the “I” that is fucked..?
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Good luck to the boys this evening.
Unfortunately, more than ever, it is becoming a bit of a battle between those that generally back the team and manager, vs a collection of rabid lunatics, the media fed, and those who care, but believe the club has been hijacked and in a battle for its own existence.
Recent performances do not help the reasonable, hope that changes quickly
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Mills,
I was intrigued and then baffled by your comment to George @ 11:30 am based on the Buddhist religion and philosophy, which to be frank only a small minority would associate with the simplicity of supporting your team, enjoying a game and hoping that they win.
Among a whole host of disparate theories, the one that stood out and particularly caught my eye was in the last paragraph; “As long as we are polemical and support a team, wanting to win, we will suffer.” Now given that ‘polemical’ means ‘involving strongly acerbic or caustic writing’ that does not seem to tie in with supporting a team wanting to win.
I only speak for myself, of course, but I support my team, The Arsenal, because I love them, and it really is as simple as that — where does polemic come into that?
Confused am I — altho not to be confused with the philosophy of the great Confucius – that would be too much, even for a positive football blog. lol
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Thanks, Stew. This was really the cure for what ails me; a piece full of more empathy than I’ve seen round these parts for a while. Players and manager are indeed struggling to understand why that which normally comes so easily has suddenly become so difficult. The last thing they need while trying to do so is advice from the likes of me. What they need from me is support, and that is what they shall have.
As you so eloquently state, these players have not suddenly become incapable. These are the same midfield players (sans Santi, as I think has been previously discussed) we extolled as an embarrassment of riches in the fall; the same attacking force we were excited about, plus a fit Danny and a striker we didn’t know we had yet in Alexis; the same back line (plus a captain who seems to be a rock in the dressing room but gets very little credit for it). These players are not suddenly the worst in the league. All they need is to remember how good they are. I’m hoping today’s game sets them on the way to remembering.
As is usual for midweek, I’ll be working during the game, or at least pretending to. I’ll be happy with a few moments where my co-workers can wonder what the heck I’m cheering about alone in my office. That, and some minutes on the pitch for the club’s 8th best midfielder will do me today, I think.
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re: shotta 10.28
wenger told a journo to watch the Bayern game again if he thought Alexis played well.
and Adrian Clarke in his analysis of that game said it looked like Alexis, with his one man press, was actually ignoring the game plan that the rest of the team was working to. And that on several occasions Ozil and the ox both seemed to be gesturing to Alexis that it was him who was in the wrong, chasing after the ball, and not taking up a position to block the passing lanes.
Wenger once again yesterday pointed out that “Alexis played in all our defeats” recently and that he is as much at fault as any other player for the performance.
we constantly see the malcontents falsely claim Alexis is our hardest worker, as in he runs the most, sprints the most, covers back the most, when in fact he is seldom at the top of our sprints made, sprint speed, km covered, and he is never at the of our passes completed list. But give a man a reputation of rising early, and he can lie in bed till noon.
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Eddie,
I guess you are right – one man cannot be a one man team.
“Defend together, attack together, win or lose together” isn’t that what we say?
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by the way, ozil constantly runs further, and faster, and makes more tackles, and more passes, than alexis, but its lazy cowardly ozil, and no one has the work rate and desire of alexis.
earlier this season on another blog, in a match ratings thread, Ramsey was getting the usual bullshit attacks, “he constantly gave away the ball”, “he can’t pass”, “he plays for himself”, “he is so selfish”, “he is lazy”, and when I pointed out that the stats for the game showed he had the highest % of completed passes, the highest number of passes, created the most chances, and made the most tackles and covered the most ground. More than one person told me that they “knew what they had seen, regardless of any stats”. Can’t remember the game, but Adrian Clarke made Ramsey his key man in his Breakdown analysis. But it shows that for many they enter the watching of a game with their minds already made up on the performance of certain players, and nothing they see will change that stance in any way. My particular favorite was after Giroud scored a hattrick, one knob saying that he was awful and any even average striker would have scored five.
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henryB the point was that it certainly seemed that Alexis was implementing his own tactics, and not going with the set plan. Which meant neither could work, a team plan can not work if one of its main parts does not adhere to it, and a one man press never works.
If I remember correctly Alexis had awful pass stats in the Bayern game, and he lost the ball more than any other player too. But he ran around a lot, so he had a good game for some
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Thanks Steww, welcome back!
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Eddie,
Agreed.
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bein sport correspondent tancerdi palmeri has tweeted
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Anyone with the key to the front door know if the post I made a little bit ago got trapped in moderation, or did it just disappear into the ether?
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AA & Mills, thought you both might enjoy this:
“Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.”
“All war is deception”
Sun Tzu attributed quotes
i think we all know how posterity will judge the “businessmen” at aftv
Mills, I’m guessing the central Asian hordes that were buddist in large non minority places like, um, tiny China and little India, for a time liked to play the odd game of polo (preferably not with people’s heads…), wrestling etc.
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Nottingham Forest FCVerified account @NFFC 16h16 hours ago
🔁 #NFFC can confirm that striker Nicklas Bendtner has left to join Norwegian side Rosenborg for an undisclosed fee. http://www.nottinghamforest.co.uk/news/article/2016-17/nottingham-forest-nicklas-bendtner-rosenborg-transfer-3612286.aspx …
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Alabama Bamalama,
The only helpful comment I can give, is that comments have disappeared occasionally, and usually PG or Anicoll magically release them — neither seem to be about at the mo.
At least you got one comment to work — I suspect there are bloggers stuck in ‘moderation’ who have not got out in years!! lol
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No idea what happened there AG – I am out today so door-keeping is trickier on the phone!
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Wenger is calling for Arsenal to play with “lucid rage” tonight.
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George has probably set the site filters to close down on any inflammatory references to ‘8th best midfielders’ Kelly!
Liked Amanda’s ‘rabid lunatics’ comment, as well.
As I said yesterday re Alexis – glorious footballer though he clearly is, square pegs and round holes, square pegs …
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I think the boys should play like rabid lunatics.
Nothing like pashun unbridled.
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Henry,
This is my second go, as my bloody computer crashed before I could post back to you. The first was a bit more full, but I don’t have the time to go deeper, I stand by what I wrote until an alternative theory dumps mine on the scrap heap.Which I’m happy to see and learn, really I am.
What I meant by polemical, is taking a pole, a position, or a stance. This will always be counteracted by another pole or position, which we can see as support structure, energizing each other and if a counter support isn’t there we see that the original pole splits in order not to internally destroy itself completely. But you’re right to pick me up on it and for not explaining what I meant first time around and confusing it with other terms. Emical is dumped. Pole stands.
If we take a stance or pole then there will be conflict as desire rises. Perhaps I should have written that first time around: no desire, no suffering!
The trouble is that the causes of suffering arent a single pole, they tend to be a chain of events, when we pick up one element of the chain of suffering all the other turds get picked up too .
Im not sure why you were baffled, George asked a question and I wanted to try and answer it, I wasnt trying to be smart arse, its something that was close to my own thinking for many years, and in any-case Im still not sure, just trying to find a way, for 38 years Ive suffered as an Arsenal fan. But what about when we won you ask(?) well the next day I would always start thinking “oh no, we’ve got to do it all again!”.Is there such a thing as victory? Not with the mind.
Buddhism, isnt a religion, if some made it so, then quite simply their way and evolution,but far from the point of dharma, plain and simple, hence how the DL goes out with he ideas of the dharma as a secular person, not a religious one. Tibetan Buddhism is a complex system, but does not stand for all types of Buddhism, any more than the DL speaks for all Buddhism.
Anyway, Buddhism doesn’t even exist, its a Western term. But the West ( no Im not saying you or implying you) thinks Buddhism is about Mung bean sandwiches,laminated floors and being nicey nice. It isnt its hardcore critical thinking with critical reason on the nature of reality. And the West is still behind, but its not a race.
“If only a small minority would associate with the simplicity of supporting your team, enjoying a game and hoping that they win”, is irrelevant, I don’t mean that in a nasty way. I think Fins expanded on that on.
Why are they disparate theories? Im baffled by that.Have you not noticed how close Sartres Existentialism was to many Buddhist ideas? The DL says hes at least part Marxist. Im not too bothered about the cultural side of things, but see the dharma as the science of the mind, and to me it outstrips western psychology as at least it offers some hope, not just to be labelled a type, and adding further problems.
I still am intrigued by how people think anything is itself,and separate, or has an intrinsic “self” or is alone.Its a trick of the mind, and one that plays on us everyday. I tried to cover this in the original post, the mind thinks quite simply its Absolute. Not possible!
Best I can do to cover it now.
Fins-like the quotes!
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ha ha ha, Anthony Taylor has been appointed ref for our cup game v lincoln
“You are dishonest to your federation.”
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Darn, I was proud of it, too. Something about what a great piece this was from Stew, and empathy finally making an appearance here, and about these players being the same ones we gloated were an embarrassment of riches back in the fall and supporting them while they find their feet and blah, blah, blah. But, AA, if an “8th best midfielder” filter exists, then that is indeed why my comment disappeared, as I hoped aloud that the 8th best midfielder at the club would get a little game time today. (If you think I’m going to let that go, you don’t know how petty I can be. I’m gonna trademark that phrase.)
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Alabama,
Was that your 12:47 pm (UL) comment that is residing at …. umm …. 12:47 (UK) above? Or were you double whammied and lost yet another similar comment — or are you just looking for sympathy? lol
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Yep, that’s it Henry. Someone either found the key, or I unlocked it when I posted again from my phone. Who knows?! But, I’ll always take extra sympathy if there’s any lying around.
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Mills,
Thanks for that.
Actually I had not realised you had invented a meaning for ‘polemical’ other than what most of us have understood it to mean.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines polemical as:
1
a : an aggressive attack on or refutation of the opinions or principles of another.
b : the art or practice of disputation or controversy —usually used in plural but singular or plural in construction.
2
: an aggressive controversialist : disputant
The Cambridge Dictionary defines polemical as:
— a piece of writing or a speech in which a person strongly attacks or defends a particular opinion, person, idea, or set of beliefs:
Anyway, it does not matter — I tried to understand you, and failed — we are all winners — you are happy to believe whatever it is you are saying — and I am happy to be a simple fan.
Pax vobiscum.
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From experience, Alabalama,(yeah, I know) when a moderated comment gets released (presumably by the omnipresent Anicoll) it goes back to the ‘correct’ chronological order it would have appeared in.
I can be tediously helpful, and I am not even the Wichita lineman!! But, I hear you singin’ in the wires, I can hear you through the whine, And the Wichita lineman Is still on the line. lol
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Lookit that — I get only 1 like (from you – thank you) and your 12:47 now sprouts 3 likes last time I looked.
You are famous – and I am not jealous, or anything — much. lol
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Gawd I admire your consistency and positivity guys!
I’m left feelin rather apathetic these days. The seasons kinda turnin into a big disappointment. Turns out spending loads doesn’t equate to success, well not when Wenger spends it.
The inevitability of an Arsenal loss last weekend id really concerning, more so than it was before the Chav game. I’ve got no faith in the ma agers ability to turn things round.
I always hoped he would be able to go out on a high. Not like this, its sad.
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HenryB – I think you need a small vacation!
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Maybe “enjoyed” is the wrong word, but I found something valuable in all of this, especially the last two paragraphs.
“Strip away the hyperbole and false analogies with armed conflict….” Hear, hear.
The only problem is that would leave us with a football match and the necessity of original thought about it. It’s too much for some these days, I’m afraid, even several who were heretofore thoughtful.
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Just passed a little gang of Bayern fans waiting for the Piccadilly line North at Kings x
That’s what we lack ysee – organisation and attention to detail.
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Organisation, attention to detail and an annoying ability to turn up hours too early. I wonder if they, like the Russia bound Manure fans of Thursday nights have been given the same advice to avoid wearing their team’s colours?
#difference
(Are we allowed to hashtag?).
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Henry, thanks for the patronising kiss off and the quotes from various dictionaries. I be educated now thanks to thee.
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Woolly hats and scarves on show !
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Wasn’t intended that way, Mills.
I took the bother to read your comment, as a courtesy for the effort you put in to it, and did my best to understand it and took the time to write and chat to you.
Sorry if that was not good enough for you. I will make sure not to bother next time.
Have you had many other responses?
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You have no faith Dex but have retained faith.
As such you may receive charity.
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Pax Offium…
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Nothing like Buddhism to start a ruck on a football blog.
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Arsenal Andrew.
“a small vacation” I like that. lol
I haven’t been back to Wichita for a long time, and as I type this I can see the plains in my mind’s eye (and I don’t mean Boeing’s ‘planes – important tho they are for jobs!) lol
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