I’m in a dilemma this morning. Not the classic Marmite or marmalade dilemma – that was resolved many years ago when I realised that one can simply have both. Not at the same time you understand, I’m not an animal. News from across the pond has reached me of an American ritual of spreading both peanut butter and jam (or jelly as they prefer to call it) upon the same sheet of white sliced but I think we ought to draw a veil over such heathen practises and focus on the football.
It is in fact a football related dilemma to which I refer in my opening salvo this morning. As I lay in my bath, prodding my rubber duck with an idle toe and waiting for my butler to deliver the cup that cheers, I cogitated upon the relative merits of the various teams in the Premier League and how we like to grade or distinguish them from one another.
It is popular to regard the likes of West Bromwich Albion, Hull City or today’s opponents Crystal Palace, to pluck three entirely random examples from the ether, as lesser sides. We use terminology such as weaker and lower, even beatable, sometimes eminently beatable.
While it is unquestionably true that the league table is an infallible barometer for separating sides into the upper tier and the also rans, I wondered as I toyed with my little plastic waterfowl, at the way we segregate teams and whether such distinctions have any real merit. You see, even though, in the beloved if hackneyed phrase, the table never lies, it is really only a transitory measure. Compare Chelsea and Leicester from last season to this. Even in the former’s season horribilis and the latter’s miracle year you wouldn’t have described Chelsea as a lower, or lesser team and Leicester as one of the top crop. Why? Prejudice maybe, snobbery, an habitual approach to different sides?
I would argue that Crystal Palace’s result against the league leaders, and West Brom’s against our own brave boys are not cases of lesser teams winning where they ought to be beaten. We need not to think of other sides in terms of greatness or lack of it but in terms of consistency. All the clubs in the top flight owe their place to merit or to wealth. On any given day any side can triumph over any other. It is consistency that separates the teams not ability.
Think like this and you lose that sense of amazed distraction when Southampton put four past us or Swansea beat us at home. Because a side is less consistent than us doesn’t give us an automatic right to assume we’ll meet them on one of their off days. The chance may be greater but that is all.
So today we face one of the less consistent sides in the league. Given their undoubted ability to beat a top team, just ask Antonio Conte if you don’t believe me, we ought to be cautious in making any wild predictions of a comfortable victory. Please don’t misunderstand me; I am optimistic, positive and confident in my outlook. This stems not from a false perception of the inability of our opponents but rather from the consistency of our greatest ever manager in defying the odds, shaming the nay sayers, and achieving a top four finish year after year after year.
This may be as difficult a season in which to repeat this feat as any he has encountered. It was always going to be so given the strength, wealth and number of teams vying for those hallowed finishing positions. At least two clubs with genuine ambitions for a European place will miss out, and we are far from the driving seat. There are currently five teams more consistent than us and we will have to build on the draw with City, and the hard won points against West Ham to overhaul any of them.
Come eight o’clock this evening Selhurst Park will be a seething cauldron of passionate partisan support and we will need cool, calm heads to quieten the home crowd and take the wind out of the home team. Arsène Wenger has assembled a group of players with the resolve to resist and the guile to overcome but they have no right to victory no matter how inconsistent their opposition may be.
I believe that for all the trophies, the unbeaten season, the famous teams he has built and individuals he has discovered or nurtured, Arsène’s greatest achievement has been the consistency he has managed to achieve. I know there are no medals for it, no cup to place in a glass fronted cabinet, but it is, I think, the hardest thing of all to accomplish and therefore the one for which he ought to receive most praise.
I have to get out and paint my trellis so I’ll leave you with this brief missive and wish you a safe journey if you’re lucky enough to be at the match tonight. For everyone else I’ll see you here at eight.
Positively Arsenal 
despite it being Michael Oliver as ref tonight I still fully expect to see many odd decisions go against us tonight, clear penalty or two not given, couple of wrong offside calls, soft bookings, maybe even a softer red, over the top palace tackles will be ignored, especially after Big fat sams “no tackling in the modern game” comments. Man Utd, Liverpool, Man City and Arsenal are fighting it out for 2 cl spots and we all know where Arsenal stand in that lot with the media and of course the PGMOL. We know the agenda, we know which manager they want gone, which team they want out of the CL, which club is deemed in constant crisis. After Atkinson’s bare face bias midweek, and not as much as a single peep out of the media, and no punishment from the PGMOL, its clear to me, and I’m sure to Michael Oliver, what they want and expect from refs in Arsenal games.
We can but hope that our performance tonight is good enough to win despite the unlevel playing field.
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odd comments from Wenger regarding the “British core” and their contract situation this summer. Him saying it would cause “big damage” if any of Ox, Ramsey, Wilshere or Gibbs were to not sign new contracts this summer. I bet all their agents are delighted, and that Ivan is pissed off, Wenger’s comments has added tens of thousands to their wage demands.
Wenger’s words also make it look like he is more concerned about losing the homegrown crew than he is of losing Ozil and Alexis.
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I think I need to get myself a Duck !
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Wise words Stew and what a sensible way of looking at it. Good to hear about your marmalite solution too. As a chap who’s always tended towards Dr Spooner I’ve never been entirely confident ordering PB and J. My loss no doubt.
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Morning all.
Food for thought (literally) but marmalade:Marmite dichotomies aside, one also wonders for how long Leicester would have needed to remain in the top 4 to eventually become considered a ‘big’ club and how long Chelsea would have needed to stay at their more recent Mourhino-engineered depths to have rejoined the minnows.
Possibly it’s much to do with personal perspective.
My Dad, still to this day, maintains Liverpool are a jumped up outfit who were ‘nowhere’ for most of his life. Their domination of the 70’s and 80’s might understandably be seen as a blip for someone who has followed football since the 1930’s, whilst being a little laughable for the rest of us (Dad’s perspective, not LFC).
And for most of us, Chelsea were manufactured circa 2004 which is not exactly Roman times whilst being precisely that, of course.
The greatest irony for me is that Arsenal delayed their first cup acquisition until 1930. That’s 44 years without a trophy by my calculation. So that’s everyone-connected-with-Arsenal OUT then.
They then morphed seamlessly into big club status for the remainder of the decade before enduring the hiatus of most of the 50’s and 60’s. I’m never entirely certain which ‘old Arsenal’ is the Arsenal the discontented desire back but it’s certainly a case of being mightily careful of what you wish for.
Arsenal’s very own chequered history is evidence of that.
See you all at 8!
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I need to get myself a butler.
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Useful chaps butlers. They buttle you know.
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Thanks Steww. I can add one more advantage to a bath versus a shower. Showering still wins 5-3. Sounds like a good score for our ‘shower’ tonight.
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Thank you, Steww, for a Post that shows the workings of a flexible mind in wrestling with something that defies logic or science, but just is.
The truism that ‘any team can beat another on it’s day’ is a simple statement of fact, and does not require an explanation, but ‘pride comes before a fall’ is also another truism, so footballing arrogance can lead to ‘shock’ results as that can goad the underdogs into a – we’ll show those bastards’ mind set.
That in my opinion is the crux of the matter – human nature in all its many shades – pernickety, wonderful, hopeless, irrepressible.
Peanut butter and jello is not news, by the way, it has long been a favourite of millions of kids — not so different from butter and jam, or marmalade, spread on bread or toast.
Marmite, the devil’s concoction, made from rancid football socks, sucks! lol
Prodding your rubber duck with an idle toe is an image I am trying hard to erase from my mind — and watch you do not get said toe stuck up the faucet. lol
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@HenryB Best you read http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/healthy-living/mental-health/news/a27968/marmite-affects-your-brain-function-suggests-study/
My brain still functions despite all my youthful excesses.
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Thanks for that gf60 — and altho I am pretty dozy, in truth, I could never use marmite after the one and only taste I had, because it is truly ……… yuk! lol
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Love marmite on hot buttered toast – yum! Also love stew’s post and hope Arsenal can overcome the referee and Crystal Palace to bank those 3 points – COYG’s
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I honestly never imagined just mentioning Marmite would divide us like this. So unlike Arsenal fans to express anything less than total unity.
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I just don’t understand how the poor traumatised Duck is being overlooked !
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Butler’s not had it exactly easy.
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Great article. Thanks.
I think consistency in any top level sport is really tough to achieve, and is very much acknowledged and cherished as such. Except at Arsenal I guess. Which is weird because I think football is maybe the toughest sport to maintain consistency in.
In tennis for example, you can start really poorly, and lose the first set. But you start the second set on an equal footing. The game doesn’t really change. In football, if you start poorly and go down 2 goals early, you’re playing a different game at that point. In basketball, the number of scoring actions are much higher, so on average, you are more likely to have the better players coming out on top, rather than in football where one penalty, or red card can make a much bigger difference.
It’s a great point to make that the difference is consistency, because even though Andy Carroll can score a scissor kick, he can’t be a consistently good and efficient striker, which, despite the hate he gets, Giroud can (in addition to scoring some beautiful goals)
That said, I think every team in the league tends to think that playing Arsenal provides them an opportunity to level that gap in talent and application through increased physicality and bending of the rules. Must be because of our soft centre and lack of leadership, rather than the men in black who seem to have some kind of mind altering glow stick to make people forget what they saw.
In that regard Sam Allardyce’s teams are always dangerous. I’ll never forget that Bolton game where he sent his players out to injure ours. Crystal Palace will be more dangerous in that they also have some talented players who can play with the ball at their feet. I just want a good game of football, not to be ruined by bad tackles and bad refereeing. Beyond that, I can live with any result while obviously wanting Arsenal to win.
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eduardo
Regarding those contracts. While you are right that their agents will demand more money on the basis of Wenger’s comments, I think a) Wenger will know the club’s real budget vs their proposed contract offer, and b) It won’t affect what the club does.
But…maybe the Ox’s contract holdup is not due to money, but due to his perceived role in the team, and this sort of statement makes him more likely to sign the contract. Similarly with other players.
Of course another possibility is that the club are actually open to selling them and this is a signal to other clubs that they are important and won’t come at a discount.
Wheels within wheels I tells ya.
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Peanut butter and jam isn’t as bad as you’d think it might be.
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A long list of England managers have gone out of their way to undermine several young talented Arsenal players confidence, by picking absolute spanners in comparison from more media favourited clubs.
Cunts.
Cunts FA
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Great post
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Arsenal u23’s earlier today came from 2-0 down to beat Reading u23’s 5-2
Debuchy, a Sanogo hattrick, and a first Arsenal goal for Bramall done the job
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http://www.arsenal.com/match/report/1617/post/under-21/u-23s-reading-2-5-arsenal-report
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Iwobi played for the u23’s today as did Jenkinson, Debuchy, Holding and Jeff and AMN
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afcstuff @afcstuff
Arsenal have offered a permanent deal to Chilean youngster Marcelo Allende following a successful trial in North London. [@johncrossmirror]
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Disappointed not to see Giroud start. Not because I have anything against DW just love OG.
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Sanogo’s hattrick today was the perfect hattrick, – header, right foot, left foot.
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https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C9Edee-XgAAtr0u.jpg:large
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Tougher tests for Steady Elneney today, looking forward to the contest
(not including the ‘contest’ with the pgMOB)
COYG
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Cheers Stew.
Glad to see Mo and the Xhak selected together again. Could be interesting if it starts to click and they start to run things? They did well against The Spam.
The Smeagles can be a bit tricky at their Nest, but I reckon the Guns will be up for this one, what with the Chickens clucking about how great they are and playing their Chas and Dave collection too loud over at the Coop.
Remember what Sidney Presley, yes him,old flybynight at No42 Acme Road always said at Easter: a cannon is always better than a chicken.
COYG! FOYE!
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http://www.bilasport.com/livenow/42&live=1
Working at the moment
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Thought that was Mustafi booked for sure.
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Shot from Mo!
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Palace getting through a hell of a lot of work. Going to be knackered later in this game.
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Disappointing.
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poor defending and palace take the lead through townsend
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HT: Crystal Palace 1-0 Arsenal
Arsenal team bus half an hour late arriving for the game,
The Arsenal team half an hour late getting into the game.
Monreal has been outstanding, Bellerin has been woeful.
Not enough of an impact from Welbeck and Walcott. Ozil and Alexis need to step it up. Xhaka been good.
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JB™ @gunnerpunner 28m28 minutes ago
Identical goal to the ones against Liverpool and City. Monreal dragged across to cover for the left CB. Right winger left unmarked.
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Looks like they are in a bit of a funk again.
Need to get out of it very fast, especially with every single rival winning this weekend.
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Paul BrownVerified account @pbsportswriter 6m6 minutes ago
Blimey – Arsenal haven’t come back to win a Premier League away game since a 5-2 victory at Leicester in September 2015 #CRYARS
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I thought Gabriel was fouled in the build up. Any other team and the player would be wriggling on the ground catching his head from that elbow.
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Welbeck for me isn’t doing enough. Need more from Walcott too. All the danger is coming from the left. Mainly via Monreal.
Might see Giroud come on soon.
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this is painful
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Ramsey, ox and giroud needed and needed now
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what the fuck has happened Bellerin, he has gone to pot.
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Ramsey on Elnent off
Giroud on Welbeck off
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an hour gone and the palace keeper has not had a save to make. awful stuff
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our defending is a shambles, and Cabaye makes it 2-0 with a fine strike.
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JB™ @gunnerpunner 6m6 minutes ago
General lack of ‘good’ passes in this team. Everything’s either too safe or too risky.
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