It’s hard being a contrarian on Arsenal Twitter these days. Like any strict, self-regulated community, there is a stridency among a majority of posters that demands and enforces conformity. It punishes dissent via the block, unfollow and mute buttons for committing any of the following heresies:
- Not vocally supporting the new manager
- Criticizing any of the mooted new signings
Instead of summer hostilities between the former WOBs and AKBs, which usually reach boiling point during transfer season, both sides for their own reasons are currently wishing and hoping for the new manager, Unai Emery, to succeed, bigly. Obviously the ex-WOBs are delighted that their bête noir, the cheapskate, deluded, out of touch, omnipotent (choose your epithet) Arsene Wenger is now gone. Should Emery succeed, it will be a ringing endorsement of their long-held claim that the club was being held back by the former manager.
On the other hand, it seems to me, the so-called AKBs are on the defensive, not wanting to be seen as mindless acolytes of the old gaffer, fearing they will give credence to the years of repeated taunts by the anti-Wenger crowd that they support Arsene FC rather than Arsenal FC. They too are just as wishful and hopeful that the new manager, who seems to be as modern and progressive as the old, will be able to overcome all the external and internal obstacles that held the club back.
WOBs, AKBs and the Middle-Of-the-Roaders
Strange and as incongruous as it may seem, former WOBs and AKBs are now locked together, singing the same tune; leave Emery alone and he will succeed.
Let us not fool ourselves. While there appears to be two extremist camps in the Arsenal fanbase, there is definitely a large, if not larger, middle-of-the-road contingent which often takes one side or the other depending on results. It wasn’t that long ago, for example, we had the experience on the opening day of a new season at the Arsenal stadium, with the transfer window still open, that a majority were in uproar demanding the club spend some “facking” money as the club was losing to Aston Villa. The fact that Arsenal eventually came 3rd or 4th that year, qualifying for the Champion’s League, at a time when it was still struggling under the stadium-related austerity, stands in sharp contrast to the £200 million spent on transfers these past two years while coming 5th and lately 6th in the Premier League.
So conventional thinking has concluded that leaving Emery alone, rather than the relentless attention to the every move and statement made by Arsene Wenger, is now a guarantor of success. The underlying assumption is the belief that the Wenger years, particularly the most recent, were a failure which Emery must avoid. The problem is this hypothesis is not fully supported by the facts.
Note the “unbiased data”, on which we should rely, is diligently avoided by the mainstream media and most of its cohorts on twitter and in the blogsphere, who are now bloviating with optimism and goodwill towards Emery.
Take a gander, below, on some key performance metrics for the last 11 years of the Wenger era.
| Year | Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | GF | GA | Win % | Loss % |
| 07/08 | 58 | 36 | 15 | 7 | 113 | 52 | 62.1% | 12% |
| 08/09 | 61 | 33 | 16 | 12 | 113 | 55 | 54.1% | 20% |
| 09/10 | 55 | 33 | 8 | 14 | 116 | 63 | 60.0% | 25% |
| 10/11 | 58 | 31 | 13 | 14 | 113 | 55 | 53.5% | 24% |
| 11/12 | 54 | 31 | 9 | 14 | 96 | 67 | 57.4% | 26% |
| 12/13 | 53 | 29 | 12 | 12 | 105 | 60 | 54.7% | 23% |
| 13/14 | 56 | 37 | 8 | 11 | 99 | 57 | 66.1% | 20% |
| 14/15 | 56 | 35 | 11 | 10 | 109 | 53 | 62.5% | 18% |
| 15/16 | 54 | 28 | 12 | 14 | 91 | 59 | 51.9% | 26% |
| 16/17 | 55 | 35 | 8 | 12 | 121 | 65 | 63.4% | 22% |
| 17/18 | 57 | 30 | 10 | 17 | 108 | 70 | 52.6% | 30% |
| Mean | 56 | 33 | 11 | 12 | 108 | 60 | 58.0% | 22% |
Main points:
- Wenger achieved an average win percentage of 58% across all competitions never falling below 51.9% and going as high as 66.1%.
- 52% was good enough to qualify for the champions league up to 15/16. But in 16-17 a 63.4% win rate and a FA cup was apparently not good enough for some in the club hierarchy as evident in Wenger’s 2-year contract, which in retrospect was putting him on notice.
- In 17-18, the win percentage was 52.6, not the lowest historically, but it was marked by the highest ever GA, a total of 70, compared to an average of 60 GA over the 11-year period.
- Wenger’s loss percentage while averaging 22% increased by a dramatic 8 percentage points between 16-17 and 17-18 coinciding with the highest ever GA of 70 in the latter year.
The GA seems to be the key. As Finsbury, a long-standing and frequent contributor to Positively Arsenal has repeatedly argued, Wenger’s biggest challenge in 17/18 was maintaining or recreating the defensive stability he had achieved during the four year reign of Mertsacker-Koscielny, which was one of the premier central defensive partnerships in club football. The 2016-17 season-long loss of the BFG and his subsequent relegation in 17-18 to a mere squad player combined with Koscielny’s well publicized chronic Achilles injury coincided with a growth in GAs from 59 in 15-16 to an unheard of 70 last season and the dramatic increase in losses from the average of 22% to 30% over the last two seasons.
Based on the facts as presented, surely it is reasonable and necessary for us to ask Mr. Gazidis and his rising number of busy-bodies (Mislintat, Sanllehi and a Marcel Lucassen who is to become Director of Football Operations on August 1st) the following questions:
- How will the signing of Lichsteiner, a 34 year-old injury-prone right back, improve and stabilize Arsenal’s central defensive partnership?
- In a world where a Virgil Van Dijk costs £70 million, how do Arsenal plan to replace the retired Mertsacker and an ageing injury-prone Koscielny?
At a time when mainstream media, Twitter, Facebook and Google are doing their best to censor and block non-conforming points of view, it is frightening the level to which Arsenal-twitter has engaged in self-censorship to not rock the boat during this transition to new management. Apparently Ivan and his team are now omniscient and omnipotent. They have free reign, without any challenge by fans, to give Emery any players they deem necessary, because, to paraphrase managerial genius Tony Adams, coaching is over-rated, what matters is the director of football and those who do player recruitment.
So “keep schtum”. Don’t rock the boat. It will all work out in the end. Hmm.
Positively Arsenal 
5 minutes exactly
I’m here all week
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Real chance for the player not held back by Vegargh to have some impact in this group.
Not an exaggeration to say Argentina have no midfield with this line up (you can quote me on that whole sentence, even though i don’t know who’s on their bench!).
Nigeria will have a chance agains them too.
This group is a good advert for the expanded competition.
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Good effort even if it got a bit hairy at the end. A slooowww start by Argentina again. Four teams still in this group.
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The kids are Ronaldo fans this weekend!
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https://youtu.be/98aYwBTBsRI
To avoid any u fortunate confusion the Icelandic long throw, a known tactic of their previous squad, is at about 0.50 seconds.
Gary Neville, who’s currently on the ITV couch, was England’s deeeefensive coach (one would hope everyone could objectively agree that coaching is key to defending king throws).
Aunty Bleeb and ITV have gone for the full Neville Neville here. Not a pretty spectacle!
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The Nevilles bring on a bad tourettes attack just seeing their ugly boats. When they open their gobs it’s even worse.
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It’s all happening in this game.
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Peru only have themselves to blame for that one.
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I have a fondness for Peru since Teófilo Cubillas in 1970
The shirt
The style of play
The videos
Nunca se cambia Peru.
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I really wanted them to win, but once that penalty was missed, I had a bad feeling!
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8 weeks till the start of the 2018/19 BPL season
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passenal
Football will always be about the Moments
The ‘Back-Heel by Paolo Guerrero had me screaming like a 13 year old boy-band fan
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moses is a diving cheat
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iwobe subbed off with half an hour to go
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Ally McCoist is a shit cunt
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Disappointing from Nigeria. I had high hopes. but Croatia’s greater experience and quality was the difference in the end.
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Richard Dunne on RTE just revealed that at the Euro’s he did a game with Howard Webb, where Italy’s Chiellini done the same as the Nigerian defender did tonight for the penalty, and Webb said no penalty, it was good defending, Dunne asked how he came to that conclusion and Webb said its what Chiellini does. So is it any wonder we get the poor standard of reffing in the BPL, when one of the most vaunted ref of recent years has a mind set like that. Never mind the rules, if a big name defender is breaking the rules game on game, then that rule don’t apply to him. More of the game management the pgmol like so much.
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on the penalty tonight, Moses too could very well have been called for dragging during the same set piece, in fact when I seen the replay I thought it was his foul that had been called
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Nigeria have the ability. I think in 4 years they could be a threat to the big sides. But they lack the know-how. Also I’m not one to disagree with coaches normally, but man, why would you remove Iwobi when Moses’ only contribution was to either fall to the floor or cross the ball out of play or straight into the goalkeeper’s hands? Embarrassing and though the ref didn’t fall for his falling, why no yellow card?
That said, the standard of refereeing so far in the World Cup is surprisingly good.
Also I am muy triste about Peru. They played so well, but didn’t take their chances. Definitely a fun side to watch. Hope they can go through, but it’s unlikely now.
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Webb didn’t see anything wrong with Kung fu kicks. Why would he think a little aggressive hugging is a foul? I mean why would we expect a former policeman to care about the law?
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shard the nigerian manager said on friday that Iwobi took a knock in training and although he was fit to start he was unlikely to be fit for a full game.
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reports in the Newcastle Chronicle say that Arsenal have signed up Newcastle’s goalkeeping coach Chris Terpcou to be part of Emery’s coaching staff, its the second Newcastle keeper coach to join AFC after Woodman joined last year.
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Tough game for Iwobi and Nigeria. Think it’s fair to say they aren’t a team drilled mostly for defence, like Iran, Egypt, Iceland,etc.
Harder to pinpoint what they are exactly or what the particular plan was yesterday. Quality of Modric and Rakitic, short or pinging it long, may have undone whatever it was though.
Meant for the most part Iwobi had to continually chase back into defensive positions, didn’t see the ball very often and the team weren’t in good shape to do anything when he did.
Not many wide men/attacking mid/tennish players I can think of who’d excel in those circumstances, but one accustomed to playing with lots of defensive responsibility would stand a better chance.
Was rooting for him to excel so just have to hope next two games are more suited to him.
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How is everyone feeling about his World Cup so far less than a week into it?
Has it been better than expected or worse?
What about The Refs?
VAR?
General Play?
Individual players and Teams?
Which games ,Teams or players are you looking forward to seeing?
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Thanks ed. I saw that he might be carrying an injury after I left my comment about Iwobi. That would explain it. It didn’t lead to anything but Iwobi had a few moments which seemed to me the best chance for Nigeria to unlock Croatia’s defense. One of those was a shimmy and shake in the box to get clear of two defenders on him near the goal line. Great skill. Needs more end product but that will come. What a talent Iwobi is.
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on the topic of this thread, isn’t it strange how quite the blogs and twitter is about Arsenal, yes we are all waiting to see who stays, who goes, who joins, who will be Emery’s coaching staff, who will sign new contracts, who will be surprise exits, what the formation will be, what the team will be, but normally with only 2 weeks to the start of pre season training, and 8 weeks till BPL starts, if we had so many questions about AFC to get answers to, there would be non stop chatter from the malcontents, after all
we only know Emery is head coach, we don’t know his staff, who he will bring in, who is actually leaving, despite all the rumors, no official word from the club, Payton, Colbert, Lewin etc are all still listed on the official website,
Gatting and Laramar are not, and Freddie has been officially appointed U23 head coach
the only signing we have made is a 34 year old right back
Wilshere is out of contract in two weeks, little positive on him staying is being reported
Cech, Ramsey and Welbeck and others only have one year left on their contracts, again no reports of new deals being close.
We have loads of rumors about new signings being done, but the swiss RB remains the only confirmed deal, Torreira, Leno, Sokratis, Soyuncu are all reported to be done deals, but as they say, till they are on Arsenal.com, wearing the shirt, then they remain rumors, and more importantly unsigned.
Cazorla and Mertesacker are gone, as stated above major doubts about Wilshere, and we know Koscielny will miss at least the first half of the season with his injury.
we have 9 players at the world cup, all 9 regardless of how soon they exit the World Cup will miss start of pre season, as they are entitled to 4 weeks off after it, and any of them that go to final stages of it will miss the start of the league season.
catalyst for change, a new Arsenal, what above suggest any such thing. We’ve always had rumors about players being signed or done deals, what I find the oddest is the lack of news on the back room staff, who is staying and who is joining, Unai, Ivan, Raul, Sven and Fahmy, seem no quicker in their dealings than Wenger, Law, Rowley and co
I will be happier when the club start to confirm staff, signings and contracts, till then it appears little if anything has changed, other than we have more questions that need answering than usual.
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WwwB the only thing on VAR for me is that there has been a couple of incidents that Ref really should have used it but for some reason did not, like the Pavon penalty appeal in the Uruguay game, I thought it was a penalty, but it seems VAR did not feel need to refer it to the Ref.
So for me, so far VAR has been good, but I feel there is a reluctance to fully use it, there is still the fear of getting the right decisions more of the time. Odd that.
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VAR has been good for me too
I think the need for debate for the relevance of the studio pundit is the annoying thing.
The Pen for Grizeman I thought was clear, but the studio battle was boring.
The Pen for Cueva was clear in ‘Real-Time’ I thought , but thanks to VAR it was fixed quickly .
Why can’t be done like that in the Prem?
I think that calls they are trying to stay away from are a little closer to the subjective, which is ok with me as long as the rules are applied to all teams the same.
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VAR use has been fascinating for me so far. Think it’s generally been good, and that the standard of reffing has been very solid all around.
Meanwhile i think the attitude towards VAR from our commentary lot here was best summed up in one of the early games when, towards end in summing up, they said, as a positive of game , ‘and we’ve got through it without using VAR once’
There’s little doubt the majority of our pundits feel this way, that it’s an onerous thing which can potentially spoil any game. Everything is interpreted from that mistrustful or downright hostile viewpoint.
The question of whether that risk- of VAR getting a key (subjective) decision wrong, for them or truly (or near enough)- is an improvement on non-VAR games, where there will be more subjective mistakes, and some objective ones is one that none of them show evidence of thinking properly about.
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well Rich the pundits and commentators don’t want VAR cos its full use and success would mean they actually have to talk about the skills and tactics of the game, and not some manufactured outrage or incident. The standard of pundit is so poor that many of them are unable to actually talk about the skills or tactics of the game and so fear losing their highly paid gig, so the are anti VAR and want to keep the game as dumbed down as possible. No wonder we seen the BBC panel snigger and laugh at their clip showing how fellow panelist Phil Neville stopped Rondaldo, by kicking lumps out of him, and found it oh so funny when Neville explained that with Alan Wiley as Ref he knew he would not be sent off for kicking Ronaldo. No one on the panel thought it worth while delving deeper into this and asking what the fuck is up with our refs in England and why is it going on so long. No snigger and laugh at a fellow pro getting kicked to bits, you know these foreign lads don’t like to be kicked, odd soundbite as I know no English player that likes to be kicked either, in fact what sort of idiot likes to be kicked.
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AFC third kit or cup kit
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On a practical point VAR has thrown up tons of interesting little points as well. Yesterday a ref decided no pen and awarded a corner in one incident. This would have been checked at same time we were watching replays.
Said replay showed it very clearly came off attacker last and wasn’t close to a corner . Hmmm? By rules are they allowed to overturn that element of decision?
Don’t think so. How badly would you react if your team conceded in those circumstances. The offside thing could throw that up quite a lot. Linesman keeps flag down if it’s fairly close (in circumstances where previously they would have flagged and stopped play)- do they then have a look and go back to offside if it’s immediately cleared for corner? Or 20 secs later? I don’t even know if they can.
Similar theme but how will you feel if flag stays down when it’s almost certainly offside, cross comes in and a player gets injured in a collision? That will certainly feel wrong but is an inevitability in time.
My support of VAR hasn’t wavered but it’s been seriously interesting finding out the ways in which something i knew couldn’t be a panacea certainly isn’t.
The battle against it will go on for a long time, maybe decades (in terms of pundits etc moaning about good old days), but fingers crossed nothing can stop it. There will surely be less big game-changing errors or things missed with it in place.
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The timing of announcements of new signings (players or support staff) is dependent on two things – their current contract restrictions and the World Cup dominating headlines. Sponsors demand headlines and they are not going to be anything like as big during a World Cup where there are games every day. The beginning of next month is the time to announce things.
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a AFC player might be about to get a very late call up to the World Cup, reports say that Japan’s Okazaki has picked up an injury and will drop out of the squad and be replaced by Asano
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insiderigth, the start of next month is the start of preseason and in fact the world cup will still be on going, the World Cup final is not till 15th of July, our non world cup players will be 2 weeks into preseason at that time,
also what has delay in announcement of coaching staff got to do with world cup, unless they are part of coaching staff of countries at WC.
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I would like to add the option of appeal to the VAR. That will also need some thought as to how to implement, but a team should have the option of forcing the ref to take a look at the replay for certain incidents, like penalties, red cards or offside otherwise missed by both the ref and the replay ref..
And yes, some teams will use this to break the flow of the game. But fundamentally VAR like any tool, depends on how it is used. So far, the refs are using it the right way. The Pavon incident notwithstanding.
I think he decided against its use because of the way Pavon went down, exaggerating the contact. I’d like to see such acts forego the foul call being given in your favour. Get players out of the habit that they need to dive to get a foul, while simultaneously checking for fouls and punishing them.
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Ed
I’ve missed delights of Phil and others thanks to avoiding all but a minute here and there of studio chat, but it’s easy to imagine scene you describe there.
Funny enough that makes three ex refs I’ve heard of recently who admit, or are described as, not doing job properly vs Utd.
Clattenburg happily shared tale of being so scared of Keane he let him have a corner which wasn’t after being shouted at; Poll said something about how hard it was to do job against them. Now you say Neville mentions another he knew wouldn’t deal with him properly. Think Webb may have mentioned in his book how hard they could be to ref as well.
Actually relates to something this world cup has made me think of. On a human level, I think it is much harder to disallow that Costa first goal than it would be in a game between two smaller nations. Likewise easier to disallow it early in game than late. Likewise would be more pressure on the call if it was in quarter final rather than group, and then…if it were in final, late on…
Largest factor in that is that refs, being human and immersed in game, have a good understanding of which games are scrutinised more, which ones will get them more stick, from media, public, their bosses, if they get wrong.
We might not like it and might think they have a duty to battle successfully against it and treat every moment of every game the same but I don’t think that’s humanly possible. Though they can keep striving to do better, keep working on best practice and most importantly constantly work on awareness of how these pressures impact on them (they should also be studying bias, an unavoidable part of human experience) as part of the job.
Finally, back to us. It’s one way of explaining how badly we do from refs. Somehow it is easy for them to give a big call against us and hard to give us a big call. The exact reverse of what Utd benefitted so extensively from in Ferguson’s time. Though that still leaves questions of why the fuck is it like that?
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The supposed issue with announcing signings, or at least the signing of Sokratis, is that they’d like to conclude the deal in the next year (July) than in the current one. AFC are supposedly true to their word about such things. I can only presume we believe Dortmund are too.
So far, we’re getting the benefit of the doubt from the media and the fans regarding our transfers. A 34 year old RB on a free. Delays in announcing Sokratis. Refusal to meet the buyout clause of Torreira. No further word on Soyuncu or Nzonzi – the sort of DM we REALLY need according to the experts. (I really like N’Zonzi by the way) All of this would have led to us being ‘killed’ normally.
But I am happy to take this respite from the constant moaning and I trust, as always, that the people at the club will do what is right for the club. Even as I keep vigilant about our values now that Wenger isn’t there. Maybe that ‘vigilance’ in the opposite sense is also why we are getting some respite from the media. That and the World Cup of course.
Oh, and on the fixture list. The PL even chose to troll Unai Emery about the start by linking it to him and saying ‘Welcome to the PL’. He replied as if he didn’t notice the sarcasm, but whether he really did or not, who knows? We’ll know soon enough how the PL, Pgmol, and the media react to the Emery era, and how this corresponds with the Wenger era.
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Rich
I agree with the sentiment about the refs. Always have and I’ve been one of the worst at blaming them. However, I’ve always maintained that it is the system that lets them down, and the system that promotes their actions. Doesn’t absolve them of blame.
But moving away from that, I think it is entirely unfair to demand perfection from a referee. Just like I think it is a farce to demand perfection from a technology before it is introduced. Perfection does not exist, and the costs (money or otherwise) of approaching it get prohibitively higher as you move towards it.
I do not want perfection from refs. I want a system that doesn’t treat themselves as our overlords and masters of a game that they deign to provide us with. Make it more transparent, do what you can to improve the game like VAR, and let the refs have more direct contact with the public, and you make the refs job easier while building trust. Which is all the more reason it is suspicious that they don’t do it. They hide behind the refs and their pressures, while adding to it. Because they’ve got something else to hide?
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rich the incident that Phil Neville was talking about was when he was playing for Everton v Man Utd, and he kicked lumps out of Ronaldo, knowing that good old boy Alan Wiley would not send him off for such actions. So nothing pro utd, just pro thugish football from the ref.
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I agree that so far the refs have been solid and consistent and VAR has had a positive rather than negative impact. I just hope the refs and the decision makers in the PL are watching how to referee rather than ‘manage’ a game of football.
As for the games themselves, they’ve actually been better than I was expecting. I think I might be coming down with World cup fever again!
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Shard – If you had been able to read the Atkinson interview it also had a contribution from Webb who said he did regret not taking different action in the WC final and had VAR been available he probably would have. At the time however he called it as he saw it, as you say, didn’t see anything wrong with Kung fu kicks.
I will cut and paste the paragraph when I get to my desk tomorrow.
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Good interview with Granit Xhaka on the Guardian website for those who fancy a little aperitif before the Brazil Swiss contest – I think our boy is in the groove.
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I wonder if Joel Campbell has a future with Arsenal now that there is a new man at the helm? Despite a season disrupted by injury he has shown some good touches since coming on.
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campbell still looks unfit, a bit chubby,
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andy,
Kung Fu KickS (plural) He was also the ref when Rio Ferdinand jumped and raked his studs across Sagna’s abdomen, leaving him doubled over and his shirt shredded. Not even a yellow card and I can’t recall if it was even a foul.. (That season Rio Ferdinand played some 34 PL games and had only 1 yellow card)
About the world cup final, didn’t he say he didn’t want to ruin the game and that’s why he decided to be lenient to the Dutch? I think he did but I’m not sure. The Dutch kept testing the limits of his leniency and that’s what led to the kung fu kick. His failing was not just in not issuing a sending off for that (and his pattern of doing so) but everything leading up to it. And that came about because he’s been trained to prioritise managing games rather than refereeing them. It’s a systemic issue with Pgmol and Webb gained promotion because he fit into this system.
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Joel Campbell is not the player that Arsenal need
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Jérôme Boateng
Is on a Free
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Could we not get Jon Gregory to shoot Phil Neville?
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I’ve has to put the BBC commentary on mute
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