This is a comment from Dave on the previous post. I’ve unashamedly stolen it , thanks Dave.
This will probably come out wrong, and its a given that I’m not talking about people here, but having watched the match day show on the AFC website the other day, I was struck by the guest (not Perry G) who seemed so tactically astute ( ok I thought he was a smart alec) and seemed to know everything about the game, that I wondered why he wasn’t actually a professional etc.
Granted Im a tool, for why would I be watching this an complaining, like just cut it out, but I just dont get it.
I recall way back in the beginning of the 90s playing on some Sega Grand Prix racing game, and becoming aware of how to race the cars on certain tracks, which gear to be in at certain times etc. Yet in my own life I dont even have a drivers licence!
A) is the endless armchair expert a destroying the game, ie, how can we go back to bloody well just enjoying the game, its poetry its spectacle? Music is (imo) more enjoyable if you dont know the chords and progressions, what now with the ex professional player pundits, the AFTV media world and their endless media off spring and their dog eat dog competitors all posing as the real thing ( no culture is the real thing).
B) is there something interesting in the top heavy world of analysis, in that it will reach critical mass and people will just walk away.
As I kid I would get into a real kasi of a mood if the Gunners lost, now i can control it, but one thing I miss more and more, is that I used to really just enjoy football, really enjoy it, even if Arsenal lost, it was still magic.I recall as a teenager my mate went to the Spurs once and we had had some thrashing there and I asked him how it was went we got back and he replied “it was still magic”.
One bloke on AFTV media said he went to watch football for the threes points. Naff that. I went for every damn second to be at Highbury the atmosphere, the smell of beer and tobacco, being small in a big boys world, the noise, the hypnotising green of the grass, the glimpse of my best mates, the Arsenal. The rest was the cherry on the top.
Look Im not more righteous than the AFTV bloke but I wished we could enjoy the journey without concentrating on the false ending. Look I know its easy to shoot my arguments down etc, anyone can argue anything if the words flow, but weve lost our respect for the club, the players and its now about some folk, posing as “the peoples voice” and assuming the false authority of being the club and the voice of the team and club itself.
Sometimes silence is more interesting? We are too overdosed and its destroying Xhaka, Mesut and whoever…
Just some thoughts that’s all.
Positively Arsenal 
Correct.
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a guy on aftv at the start of 2016/2017 seaon, when arsenal newly aquired xhaka and was finding it hrd to make the team because of the form of coq and cazorla and the fact we were winning every game, was shouting at the top of his voice that wenger must start xhaka because of the fact that he just scored a screamer 35 yards out. what he was asked who to be dropped for xhaka to start, the muppet said cazorla obviously because he was not winning any tackle and only scored penalties. a few weeks after, santi got injured and we were told it was for a few weeks, which eventually became two seasons. the guy was no where to be found when our form suddenly went down and missed the top four twice. arsenal fans are some of the worst around the world. they are not to be taken seriously.
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your comment is typical of what other fans think of us, we are not AFTV we are AFC. what you get on that show is mugs trying their best to get the most airtime and views because it helps them, it doesn help arsenal. cazorla was one of the best players to play for arsenal and would start every game now still if he didnt get injured a true great player. two wins 8 goals and should have got a result at the bridge i think its not as bad a other fans are making it out to be. remember man city man utd Liverpool and chelsea have spend an absolute fortune on players over the years im ready to give this manager a chance and a few transfer windows.
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Had a little Billy Bragg phase (well, one song, played a hell of a lot) about ten years ago- one verse sprang to mind reading Dave’s post
‘The temptation
To take the precious things we have apart
To see how they work
Must be resisted for they never fit together again’
On the emotion front this season, I’ve not had any big high so far, but the low of defeats hasn’t been half as bad.
Too early to know if that’ll continue or what it means, but overall I suspect it’s healthier for me.
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What a marvellous post, nothing to add, you’ve just said it all really, well done.
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Sir Robert, or he should be;
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Excellent post Dave – I know how you feel I think.
I would however say that the older I get, and it is the inevitable slide, I learn to enjoy things in a different way to when I was younger. Over time I have accepted that the teenage and early buzz of going to the match Saturday is nit coming back, any more than racing downstairs on Christmas morning to see if “He’s been!! “. The realisation does not detract from my find memories but the youthful/childish raw credulity has gone.
Over time I am less worried about watching Arsenal or football and looking at the results or the points or the technical outcomes, but concentrate on the ART of it, the individual effort, the energy, the balance of players and the (occasional) exquisite outcome when it all comes together in a goal. As years go by I give less and less of a fuck about football statistics, or balance sheets, or the “opinion” of pundits as they illuminate nothing in the game that I am interested in, at the moment anyway.
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Many thanks to Pedantic George for putting it up, and to A or B for recommending it and the support and interaction of everyone, it really made me start thinking about what youve written and felt grateful and started not feeling so totally alone.
Anicoll5- what you wrote was fascinating, of whats shuffled around as times go by and whats floated up as vital and what doesnt anymore. I felt myself choking up as I read that, seeing Arsenal suddenly down many years with different emotions/responses at different times. As you wrote the other week: ” I just want to enjoy the games”- I think we can even if we lose, many of us certainly did and still do.
I thought there were some moments on Sunday where we saw a real flash of art. Unai’s art is developing, he had a very tough act to follow, I believe in his art ( I dont know if you guys know but “art” in German also means “way” or “style” whereas fine art is kunst)- its hard to make that job as private with everyone turning up in yer garden and pulling up the flowers youre growing or telling you when to water them.
“get arwf moi laand!” said Unai
Thanks everyone again.
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Excellent just excellent
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The trouble is that Arsenal has an abnormally large number of fine art fans. A bunch of them in fact.
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Arsenal leave Bramall out of 45-man Europa League squad
by jeorge bird
Arsenal have submitted their squad for the Europa League group stages, with defender Cohen Bramall being left out.
Deyan Iliev is named on the senior list along with Matteo Guendouzi and Konstantinos Mavropanos, with the latter pair not eligible for the B list as they haven’t been at the club for two years.
Ainsley Maitland-Niles, meanwhile, is on the B list along with a host of youngsters, including Tyreece John-Jules, Harry Clarke, Daniel Ballard and Tobi Omole, who are named in the squad for the first time.
Zech Medley and Jordan McEneff aren’t eligible for inclusion due to the length of time they have been at the club.
All of the players on loan and on scholarship contracts have also been omitted.
Arsenal’s Europa League squad: 1. Petr Cech, 2. Hector Bellerin, 4. Mohamed Elneny, 5. Sokratis Papastahopoulos, 6. Laurent Koscielny, 7. Henrikh Mkhitaryan, 8. Aaron Ramsey, 9. Alexandre Lacazette, 10. Mesut Ozil, 11. Lucas Torreira, 12. Stephan Lichtsteiner, 14. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, 15. Ainsley Maitland-Niles*, 16. Rob Holding, 17. Alex Iwobi, 18. Nacho Monreal, 19. Bernd Leno, 20. Shkodran Mustafi, 23. Danny Welbeck, 25. Carl Jenkinson, 26. Emiliano Martinez, 27. Konstantinos Mavropanos, 29. Matteo Guendouzi, 31. Sead Kolasinac, 34. Granit Xhaka, 36. Daniel Ballard*, 38. Tolaji Bola*, 40. Robbie Burton*, 43. Charlie Gilmour*, 44. Deyan Iliev, 49. Eddie Nketiah*, 50. Joseph Olowu*, 51. Tobi Omole*, 52. Jordi Osei-Tutu*, 53. Julio Pleguezuelo*, 54. Ben Sheaf*, 55. Emile Smith Rowe*, 56. Dominic Thompson*, 57. Nathan Tormey*, 59. Joe Willock*, 60. Gedion Zelalem*, 65. Xavier Amaechi*, 66. Trae Coyle*, 69. Harry Clarke*, 72. Tyreece John-Jules*
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Tim
The old gaffer who is Alsatian and I guess familiar with the old German romances as well as the Frankish canon chose to describe football as an art, but not a fine art. Heh.
Martial Art is an English terminology to describe what can be translated as style: I.e.: “Tiger style” is a crude and honestly ignorant, (my ignorance!) translation.
For many football lovers the Way of Wenger sits on the bookshelf next to the Art of War.
I see that Unai has lots of notes in the chapter describing the squad built around Fabregas and RVP especially the second half when the F Word moved up to play a tennish role ahead of the two deeper CMs, ahead of a back four. A little bit more passing out the back with UE as expected (except by our blaggers and self declared experts nevermind the irrelevant plundits apart from Adrian Clarke) and a little bit more pressing, though if you were to add some midweek CL fixtures to the roster then even the very subtle variations of the latter would not be apparent to any but some old school stattos (playing with their new computers). it would be unwise to ignore that stats have always been apart of sport since someone measured the distance that some other geezer ran when running towards (or away) from a place called Marathon. The rest is as they say history, unless we’re discussing other ancient sporting styles which also evolved with the aid of statistics and anatomical diagrams (Tiger Style!) etc.
We all look to the league table every week, and that is not an opinion.
Measured analysis has always been a part of sport and always will be, it’s kind of where sport began (at the finish line!). You just won’t find much of it on any of these sports broadcasters.
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New post up
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