This blog was written 24 hours before Arsenal’s loss to Stoke. Everything football and media-wise from that game reinforces my findings and conclusions.
Positivistas: This is not a blog about me per se but am using my experience to explain to our audience the meaning of a contrarian world view and how it applies to the football club we so love and support. After all so much is written and said about this club on a daily basis which, to me at least, is confusing and contradictory and makes absolutely no sense. Hopefully this essay may be helpful in providing a rational and logical perspective.
A contrarian according to the Webster on-line dictionary is defined as:
“One who takes a contrary view or action, especially an investor who makes decisions that contradict prevailing wisdom, as in buying securities that are unpopular at the time.”
Contrarian investors are usually successfully because they buy stocks when they are cheap due to their unpopularity and profit from them when their value rises over time.
Contrarians Rely on the Unbiased Data
As a self-described contrarian I will therefore typically disagree with or proceed against current opinion or established practice. But contrarians do not disagree simply to be disagreeable. Any successful contrarian investor, will base their opinions and findings entirely on the unbiased data, meaning it is subject to robust statistical analysis and not stitched up to suit a particular viewpoint.
Thus, for example, in my last blog I did not prescribe either an attack or defense oriented approach this season after analyzing 21 years of data demonstrating a widening gap in Goals-Against between Arsenal and the winning teams in the premier league. The data was clearly suggesting a more balanced approach where the club not only aims to score more goals but also concentrate on conceding less.
It may interest you how I arrived at this outlook. Twenty years ago I became one of the increasing millions of Americans whose employer no longer offer standard pensions, the alternative was a defined savings plans, in my case it being the very popular 401(k) retirement plan. Initially I was one of those passive investors who followed the conventional rules proclaimed by brokers, investment advisers and the mainstream media, i.e. always fully invested in the market regardless of highs and lows. Despite repeated evidence that the stock market is a dangerous place for uninformed amateurs I was like a lamb to the slaughter buying high and sell low.
My “Damascene” moment was the 2008-2009 crisis when, like almost all my American cohorts, my retirement nest-egg was almost totally wiped out by the stock market crash. I then learnt, like millions, how the big investment houses and banks such as Goldman, Merrill-Lynch, Deutsche, Barclays, etc., engineered the bubble arm-in-arm with the mainstream media, conveniently bailing out before the shit-hit-the-fan.
Public Sentiment Is A Contrarian Indicator
It is well known among all academic studies that when it comes to market performance public sentiment is a contrarian indicator. The public is inclined to buy on good news when prices are high and sell on bad news when prices are low; clearly a losing proposition.
Contrarians partially attribute this to Freud’s theory that unconsciously we human beings are often motivated by our primal instincts of fear and despair. Thus, for example, I was one of millions in 2007 who feared missing out on the rising market, refusing to sell when the market was topping out. Similarly, when the market hit rock bottom in 2009-2010 and the Feds were pumping trillions in the market most of us missed the monumental increase in stock prices out of despair that the market would ever recover again.
Similarly, how many times have Arsenal fans acted irrationally based on fear sown by the mainstream media that the club is on the edge of disaster because of a run of bad results. Despite 21 years of history showing Arsene Wenger is the most knowledgeable, most accomplished and most consistent manager in the league, fans have been frequently stirred and motivated to drive their greatest ever manager out of the club. At the very moment they are acting most irrationally the club is usually digging itself out of a hole. Last year was no exception. While the mainstream media was rushing to wager bets as to how soon Arsene Wenger would get his pink-slip, between April and May the club won 10 out of 11 matches to not only move from 8th to 5th in the league but to also secure its 3rd FA cup title in four years.
Mainstream Media Can Never Be Neutral
Much related and connected to public sentiment is the role of the mainstream media which is often the purveyors of public opinion. Contrary to conventional wisdom that the media has a neutral, unbiased interest in reporting facts, when it comes to money and investing they have a commercial interest in propagating fear and despair. Fear sells. It generates newspaper sales, listeners/viewers in radio/television and clicks on-line.
No commercially-oriented media company benefits from the boring up and down behavior of the market. To the contrary, if a media company is commercially dependent on investment banks, brokers, mutual funds etc., it is in their objective interest to hype a rise and fall of the market. At the very least, there are commissions to be made by market insiders when stocks are heavily traded.
Oftentimes a media representative, like a broker, may be professionally aware that the market is set for a fall, but because his or her commission is tied to generating new sales, he/she continue to induce more lemmings to invest, leading them like little lambs to the slaughter. No wonder so many of us were fully invested in worthless mortgage-related stocks during the last crash.
No Interest In Boring Arsenal
Similarly no commercial media house has an interest in “boring, boring” Arsenal. Just in terms of sheer numbers, supporters of the football club are clearly a fertile market for media exploitation. For example, from the reports I have read, Arsenal has the biggest online presence among football clubs worldwide. Since Wenger transformed the club into one of the biggest in England, there are now huge expectations by fans season after season. Correspondingly among these fans is chronic anxiety that the club may be falling behind its better financed rivals, not only to the traditional commercial giant Manchester United but the nouveau rich externally financed clubs, Chelsea and City.
It is no surprise that not a day passes without an alarming story in the mainstream media portending disaster at Arsenal football Club. Take for example, this week’s headlines from a Google search:
Liverpool join Arsenal in race for Jean Michael Seri: Reds in talks with Nice – Daily Express
Liverpool on brink of signing Arsenal target Jean Michael Seri – Daily Star
Liverpool Set to Sign Ligue 1 Midfield Star Seri Ahead of Arsenal, Tottenham – Sports Illustrated
It begs the question has Arsenal ever publicly disclosed an interest in signing Seri? Does the club ever get into a bidding war for any player? Any informed fan should have the answer to both questions.
Public Sentiment Is Against Arsenal
What of the current predictions by the media for Arsenal this season? As evident below is all doom and gloom:
- 6th Place – Guardian (Writers predictions)
- 6th Place – BBC (Writers predictions)
- 4th Place – ESPN (Writers predictions)
One wonders what are the factual bases for these predictions. We have had 21 years of Arsenal averaging 3rd position in the premier league and never falling out of the top-4 except last season. This new campaign the club has kept all of its top players from the previous season and furthermore strengthened the squad with: (1) the second highest goal-scorer from the French league, and (2) a left-back who made the Budesliga best XI for the last season.
The fundamental data is therefore indicating the current squad is deeper and better qualitatively than it was last year and, arguably, better than it has ever been since 2005. It seems to me a clear case of the mainstream media once again discounting the facts and data and simply emphasizing current negative public sentiment. What a surprise!
Contrarians are usually in a small minority, at least initially. I am therefore amongst a precious few who will confidently wager on a title challenge. In fact I will go further and predict Arsenal will most certainly regain its top-3 position. Only a total injury disaster will prevent this achievement and, if they are allowed to get away with it, undue referee bias.
For the sake of irony, I will conclude with the following disclosure: Information in this essay is not investment advice. Please consult a financial professional to help make decisions suitable to your particular situation and risk tolerance. That should take care of the bleeding football “experts” writing blogs, tweeting and doing podcasts.
Postscript:
Arsenal this season may well suffer from undue referee bias and another penalty embargo but vs Stoke they were statistically dominant despite being denied two penalties and a good goal ruled offside. The following summary was obtained from Whoscored.com:
| Stoke | Key Metric | Arsenal |
| 11 | Shots | 18 |
| 4 | Shots on target | 6 |
| 63% | Pass Success % | 88% |
| 64% | Aerial Duel Success | 36% |
| 7 | Dribbles won | 13 |
| 19 | Tackles | 16 |
| 23% | Possession | 77% |
I rest my case.
Positively Arsenal 
Draw for the third round of the Carabao Cup will take place in Beijing on Thursday at 4:15am UK time.
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Nelson with a great goal puts AFC 1-0 up. He beat a couple of city players, played a one two with DaSilva and from the edge of the area he fired into the bottom near corner
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great run from AMN and he rolls the ball along the six yard box to Nketiah who fires home, 2-0
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city back in it score with a free header six yards out
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Wilshere to Nketiah who fires home to make it 3-1
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HT: 3-1
Arsenal on top most of the game, Nelson and Nketiah x 2 with our goals.
Wilshere been sharp.
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Eduardo – I didn’t say VAR would make the officials do their job “without bias or corruption” per se (although it might have been implied); the main point is that as in cricket when the VAR guys occasionally get it wrong (which is pretty rare these days), the ridicule heaped on them is almost career-threatening and I’m pretty sure that only in an ambiguous situation would they still be inclined to basically do what they want. But I guess we’ll see …
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Wilshere plays in DaSilva to the byline and he pulls it back to Nelson who fires home to make it 4-1
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but AA who is going to ridicule them, not the PGMOL, not SKY or BT or anyone in the media, our own fanbase won’t do it as it don’t suit their agenda, you only have to see the reaction to our first two games to see all of that shown.
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Shotts
Hope you enjoyed the eclipse. We only a very partial eclipse here in London, which was obscured by clouds heh! Still, eerie and dark light at this time.
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Spheres and footballs eh?
Everywhere you look you can’t escape the blighters!
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Wilshere sent off, he was taken out of it, and he pushed the lad who did it, and he got straight red.
Think Wilson of city sent off too for charging in and grabbing Jack
the guy who done the bad tackle got a yellow
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That’s a fair point Eduardo but eventually even the flat-earthers get it; those arguing black is white will be finally forced by the absurdity of their arguments to fall into line. Part of the problem will be the graphic nature of their errors and the permanence of the evidence.
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city cut our defense open down the left and make it 4-2
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AA they have been denying it for ten or twenty years or more as it is, why would they change now, that would be for them to admit they have been wrong all along, and that is something that they will never accept.
and once media and big blogs side with the wrong decisions then the notion that refs are even handed with AFC will be reinforced.
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Arsenal been all over the place at the back since the sending off, and now Bielik gives away a penalty and city make it 4-3
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ten minutes to go,
malen and willock off, mcguane and dragomir on
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FT: Arsenal U23’s 4-3 Man City U23’s
Nelson x 2, Nketiah x 2 with our goals. Wilshere sent off for a bit of handbags after he had been taken out of it. I think that means he is now suspended for first team games,
Arsenal very good going forward, a bit too open at the back.
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must say the ref tonight was awful, he constantly stopped Arsenal breakaways by blowing for fouls after our player had got past the fouling player. Also thought a yellow for jack would have been enough, but I only seen one view of the incident, maybe jack done more than push the guy, not sure if he also done something to the city player who ran in and grabbed him
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Excellent piece master Shotta, very enjoyable and inspirational.
Wilshere played some sumptuous passes in the U23s v City. Then got sent off. Silly boy.
Mainland-Niles seems to have at least 4-5 sloppy passes per game that place his team under pressure.
Nketia looks like an instinctive finisher.
Now for the second half of the City v Everton game. I’ve yet to detect the evidence of a City charge to the title as some predict.
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Very bad challenge on Wilshere, should have seen red. Think a push was the least the twat deserved. Went down easy too.
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That could have broken ribs that challenge on Jack. Disgusting he stayed on the pitch. Ref looking for promotion.
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There was a clear push on Nelson a bit later on which he chose to ignore too when he could have been clear through. Clear yellow.
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yes GP, AMN had several very sloppy passes, all when not under any pressure, just seem far too casual, it spoilt what could have been a very good game for him without them.
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I’ve stated it before, an ex ref years ago told me he used to beat teams by actually giving them free kicks, stop quick breakaways, stop shots on goal, by bringing play back for a freekick. Stats would show he had given bucket load of frees to the team, and in fact he said he often had complaints against him from the team he had helped win, due to the amount of freekicks to the team he wanted to lose.
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What was Walker thinking with his challenge tonight, did he forget he no longer plays for spurs, he is no longer immune to being sent off.
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Bellerin and Lacazette were at the U23 game tonight
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some reports that Wilshere had a row with a city player in the tunnel after his sending off.
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Nice one Shotta, makes a lot of sense.
Lots judging the team on the Stoke game, a game I would say we were extremely unlucky to lose with the possession and forward play.
The club is being run down at every opportunity, nobody gives a prayer of even the top four, but we shall see.
Third place, could see a chance of that. Beating both Manc clubs and Chelsea would be punching above our weight with their resources , we shall see.
Lots of imponderables, ref bias, the lack of a Cazorla should it come to pass would worry me. Also, not all supporters are of the positively arsenal mindset, a couple bad results could turn the atmosphere. Defence, not great in the first two games, but things should soon settle down on that front, especially with Kos returning.
But all that aside,I would back Wenger to give us a far more decent season than most seem to be predicting.
On another note, Xhaka getting slated, no mention of the Tottenham MF who gave the ball away for Chelsea’s winning goal, but that’s the media for you.
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Sure got our money’s worth with that youth game! Nelson. Nketiah. Lots of other positives. Da Silva has come on a lot and looks proper prospect now.
On AMN. Never seen him do that in the few games I saw of Ipswich spell nor 5-10 more for Eng youth teams.
On one hand that could be good news- i.e might be able to raise focus at will depending on game- on other not so good, as you’d hope he understands he really is close now but his attitude needs to be spot on.
Saw him once play a very strange youth game at Emirates, when he looked nothing like player I’d previously seen, made endless mistakes and head clearly wasn’t in it. Gave him a complete pass, as it was revealed there’d been mother trouble at time.
Thought he had moved on, but there were some poor signs tonight. Lost the ball once on a run just before halfway line and literally stopped dead with head down as City raced towards our goal. Not good.
I love his skill set and hope what he needs to do will click fully soon. Still time but probably not that much, as we rarely keep youngsters past 20-21 unless we really think they will get in team.
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I luv Jacky Wilshere I do.
The best English AM receives even less protection then the best British AM/CM (‘bama knows who that is!). From English referees. Even in a reserve game! What. The. Fuck?
He must play for The Arsenal. That is all you need to know in order to understand why this has happened – I am not a top top physios but I’m happy to guess that broken legs are no a signal that he is or was injury prone, he might be going forwards after so much time lost and the hacks and genuine non-impact induced injuries.
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Fins
Thought I’d discovered in first half the limits of disrespect and different rules towards our players- hurrah, it didn’t extend below booting an immensely talented senior English international, playing reserve football against youngsters as he comes back from the latest in a catalogue of injuries.
They tried hard to stop him, but they held off from any heavy challenges/fouls. Either they knew the score, their youngsters, or their coach had told them to behave. Not much, but it’s something.
Then the second half and they seriously upped their aggression around the pitch and started clattering into Jack after he had released ball. So much for those limits! So much for an opposition coach doing the simple right thing.
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Rich going by comments from Eds and others Jacky Wilshere was having a productive first half as he found more fitness relative to his previous outing.
Solution: Kick him.
Not like we haven’t seen that from part-time cloggers in N5 who more oftern then not are or were formerly in the employ of Utd. Which is a statistical quirk? A coincidental observation of consistent and repetitive data that we should ignore?
Why does the most talented English footballer (midfielder) receive less then zero protection from the officials. This is a fair and very reasonable question. I know the answer and so do all of you! JW says as much when he gives interviews;’ When you play for the Arsenal, you get kicked’ he’s said on more then one occasion.
Perhaps he just needs to change his style of play? To match Scudamore’s favourite football club the one that churns out carthorse cloggers like Shawcross and McNair etc. That must be the answer!
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Well, Well, Well. I just finished listening to our top blogger in his post Stoke podcast. Not surprisingly, he and his pal perfectly reflect public sentiment. Unlike Leicester, when Arsenal snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, they are now pessimistic about the club’s prospects after losing one game by one goal. Note how sentiment goes up and down based on results week-to-week. This mentality is so typical of the mass of amateur investors, something which I highlighted in my blog, a behavior which contrarians and professionals exploit to great profit.
To cap it off, both podcasters, who are self-appointed experts, then declared that talk of a serious title challenge was unrealistic. Such a prospect was unlikely and remote in their opinion. It was as if they had read this blog which I doubt. Quite frankly such a divergence in views is welcome. Over time readers will learn for themselves the dangers of conventional group-think and the strength of a contrarian viewpoint which is based on facts and data.
One thing that struck me in that podcast is how insuferable arrogant these podcasters are. Part I of the podcast was dedicated to showing how much they could criticize the manager in team selection and tactics for the Stoke game. They did this while pandering to the well known fears of the fan-base. Imagine a bunch of amateurs who have no experience in managing at a professional level, thinking they have the expertise to validly criticize a manager with 30 years at the highest level, currently the most knowledgeable, longest serving and most successful in the Premier League. I have friends who are physicians and I have never known theim to openly criticize anyone who is a specialist in their field. Only in football.
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yes fins, jack had an assist, and was involved in two more of our goals, as well as creating a few more good attacks. He was doing a good impression of Santi, dribbling his way into space from deep positions despite being surrounded by city players. His little burst of pace was back, his vision and passing was there, and even though he playing well within himself City just could not handle him.
So no surprise that they targeted him in the second half, probably after their manager had a go at them at half time for allowing jack to run the show.
I’m glad to see Charlie Nicholas defend jacks reaction, and ask why the city player who tried to injure him had only received a yellow card and not a red.
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We are going to need Jack, especially with Cazorla out. hope he comes back fit and ready
Apparently the ban from this red wont affect the first team, or so they saying on the radio this morning?
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Shotts(@1.43pm), and they have the beauty of hindsight, of course with hindsight anyone can pick things apart in private, cool,calm luxury. Were they feeling so negative before the game? I think the general feeling was ” this is gong to happen, we are going to win” and now the conclusion is its going to be a disaster.
Studying things in hindsight=the illusion of being knowledgeable?
I saw a guy from the closed circuit TV complaining that we played a lot of sideways football against Stoke. Stoke had ten players (plus the Butland) behind the ball from about 58 mins onwards. What was anyone supposed to do? Do a George Best meets Roy Race meets Jedi Thierry and take them all on?
Well Bestie mostly did his most def work on the counter. Its hard to open up space facing 11 men in their half.
Whats bugs me is that this is game no2. Lose against the Pool and we’ve got the break for this lot to fester away.
If this is going to be the whole season of up and joy and then down and extremism, then its going to be pretty tedious! Some Arsenal fans are like junkies? Get the fix and they are ok and can function, then we they dont…
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‘Apparently the ban from this red wont affect the first team, or so they saying on the radio this morning?’
Cue concerted campaign to have him banned from all football
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Mass brawl in the tunnel ?
I’ve got my Arsenal back
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And my apologies for not saying how much I enjoyed the blog yesterday Shotta – hands full and all that
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no the supposed mass brawl, how do these muppets get away with describing that as a mass brawl, four or five lads from each team pulling a city player and jack apart, that was the mass brawl.
seen video from other side of the pitch and as jack and the city player walked off, they had some verbals, and then jack seems to shove him when they get in the tunnel.
As for the ban, yes 3 games, and it seem just for the u23’s, but without more games is jack ready for first team action. the club had been planning on using him in Friday’s u23 game, but now it will be weeks before he can play for them again. And we have just LFC on sunday before a two week international break. so jack can improve his fitness but not his match fitness.
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3 game ban for u23’s could take well over a month if fixtures fall wrong.
Anyway, after break I’m assuming Carling Cup (Caraboo cup, Karembeu cup, whatever it is now) and Europa League fixtures arrive quickly, so they could be good games for Wilshere to play in.
Bloody break, as always feels far too soon for me.
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our first u23 fixture for jack after his 3 game ban will no be till Monday September 25th
first EL game is Thursday September 14th
first league cup game is Wednesday September 20th
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I see that laughable outfit at AFTV are trying to stir shit again – Their “Sources” – are telling them all kinds of stuff.(of course none of it good) And the idiot mob on twitter are lapping it up as gospel.
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Mills
Great point about complaints of sideways passing. Mind-boggling that amateurs let alone professionals apparently don’t understand the nature of playing ten men in their own half, nor by extension that football is very nearly a different sport when the game is open and there are spaces to exploit.
I think our balance was again generally quite good in trying to mix it up with more difficult, lower percentage, long passes; runs; long range shots; and retaining the ball for longer periods to move them around and seek openings.
One things sure, the same people who perceive in all that only boring pointless possession- sideways and back- will have zero tolerance and endless ‘ffsakes’ for any difficult passes which don’t work, missed shots, failed dribbles, etc.
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Young midfielder Savvas Mourgos has signed for Norwich City in a permanent deal for an undisclosed fee.
Read more at https://www.arsenal.com/news/savvas-mourgos-signs-norwich#wzF3ArBrXBBIXhJJ.99
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well Rich, that would depend on which player has the failed pass/shot/dribble, its its alexis then “at least he is trying to make things happen”, if its Ramsey then its “glory hunting cunt, who can’t pass and is vacating midfield”
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Per Mertesacker may be fully focused on his final year as a player, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t put plenty of thought into how he can help our rising stars.
The World Cup winner will take over as our new academy manager next summer, and he has a clear philosophy for how he can help those youngsters who are nearing a breakthrough.
Read the full interview in the Arsenal Magazine. Click here to subscribe
“It’s good for me to see these youngsters on a daily basis. Some went with us on tour and now they’ll keep training with us, which is really important,” Mertesacker told the Arsenal Magazine.
“It’s not only one or two weeks where you show up and show your skills, or in one or two games. If there’s anything I can help with, they need to understand that they can talk, there is no need to hide. If you don’t know when training is or the communication’s not right, they need to let us know because there is a gap sometimes.
Read more at https://www.arsenal.com/news/talent-means-nothing-its-about-hard-work#cfTw6UIPL3FCHaz4.99
Read more at https://www.arsenal.com/news/talent-means-nothing-its-about-hard-work#WwBZ6vVuxg4bWKJg.99
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you know the most worrying thing about the contract situations of Alexis, Ozil, Ox, is that Ramsey has not signed a new deal yet, we are facing the same situation with him this time next year if we are not careful.
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Ed-just watched the closed circuit TV “poll” on Mesut. Why has he done that? Sowing the seeds of discontent, for no good reason at all, certainly not for the enhancement of AFC (imo).
So closed circuit TV asks “should we get rid of him and get someone better?”. Like who? What about getting Jeff Bogey(aged 47), the man from No16 who kept all the free bubble gum from the soccer swap cards in the early 80s and made a sculpture of his pet dog Rover,who became so famous, that the dog changed its name from Rover to Serge Rhubarb? Trouble was the local kids ate all the sculpture and now most of it is stuck the pavement outside the news agents of that area, although much has been spread on the bottom of peoples shoes around the town. Jeff played for the Fish-Knife-Pffred Athletic under 12s and was pretty good as a number 10. Are we in for him?
Why do these people think that transfers are a supermarket sweep? A: because thats the way its presented to them!
Of course its like all those in the public eye, who want to stay in it ,say anything to keep them clicks comin’ in! And hence the poll. Theres a rumour going around that the only people who actually voted were the “pundits” of Closed Circuit TV themselves…
Fame is obscurity waiting(noted Carrie Fischer)…
Anyway its all bs. Until it affects the team..
Rich-I suppose their answer would be that more balls should have been pumped in from the flanks, but that means a 50-50 chance in losing possession, and potentially inviting poop back on ourselves. Once Stoke grabbed their goal that was it they had no intention of playing football, because they can’t to the standard of the Arsenal, so they built the human wall . Can anyone recall the last time a team had 82% poss. in a half? Bayern v Chelsea in the CL Final? Chelsea took on the Stoke role in that game. Sterile football?
Q: would it be better to have the Intersweational games first and then the get the league going, to get a good run at it? Stop -starts seem pretty vix.
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