I’m not going to get where I want with this. If you go down a rabbit hole, you find a some point a junction, with billions, trillions of outcomes, then you realise it was the same the way in, it wasn’t a single path. It’s too hard in a short piece to cover every angle and every opposite, counter-argument. So, we could ask why write it, I suppose I feel it’s important, relatively important, at least. And it seems a big topic thats growing in the PL this season, and it is affecting the club.

We need culture as humans, and at the moment politic has taken the centre stage and it’s pretty frustrating to watch? Luckily despite all its faults the democracy of the internet meant meeting place and flourishing of all sorts of types of human culture. I hate the term sub-culture as it hierarchical and that’s a lie, as who has the authority to say what is and what is less? The ability to choose can surely only give human life more breadth and depth and find similar-minded people? Footballs a big deal and it seems to be a bigger deal each year. As we know, perhaps since its inception it’s gone way beyond entertainment, certainly way before Shankly articulated it? Like all culture we are effected by our relationship with it, weaving its way in and out of our lives, different elements of the culture meaning different things to different sensibilities? Endless cause and effect?

I wanted to make the argument for a more intelligent brand of football, more harmony, subconscious understanding and a delight to watch (and to play) that is lethal in front of goal, in midfield, in defence. Most of us want that, not just for our team but all teams (even in hatred and jealousy) and I’m sure the tv people want it too, and the more fans the better?

Perhaps one of the overriding elements in our collective memories is the 1970 world cup, Brazil, and the joy of watching genius, it was vision, a vision light years ahead, taking us away from egg and chips b+w football? The beginning of modern football? And in colour. Don’t get me wrong, I like egg and chips, I really do, but there are other combinations that are more advanced than just comfort food, and Brazil showed how it can be cooked up and digested?

I’m not an elitist, I loathe it that the industry I work in constantly talks about people being ordinary, my own experience is that most people I’ve spoken to in life are not ordinary and are complex beyond speculation with endless fascinating narratives about their lives, no matter their vocation or class. But here I’m going to get into the swamp of hypocrisy and inarticulation. I love smart football. I love genius. Not pseudo, forced good, parading as genius, but the real thing. I like it that some people can just go where I can’t ever. It makes me think life is worth living.

Why play intelligent genius- ball? What does it do for players? Are they tortured? I’m not sure if 19^th century genius clichés are so good as a guide, but there are a lot of counter consequences from playing genius ball, jealousy manifested as fouls and endless media-slander, at least for starters, these slings and arrows aren’t always easy to deal with, especially if veracity is your bee-in-the bonnet, and veracity is thwarted as comment by the law-makers and that can be difficult to swallow?

How is it for us to view genius? Somehow, despite the fact some of us might be green-eyed ( and all that emotionally stems from that), we perhaps all like it when a human excels, even if in silence of envy? Could be anything, not just books, films art or music, anything it doesn’t matter from HTML to advanced Vectors to laying bricks or flying a stunt kite. Theres’s people I dislike immensely, who I hope I don’t meet again, but they had some real skills that were amazing to witness and that I could never do, but I won’t demean them for that. Fair is fair?

Observing humans who excel can give us hope, hope in what a human might achieve? Then comes the by-product from the struggle of genius itself; beauty. Now again I realise beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and all things are beautiful/ugly to someone, somewhere. But the beauty that lurks in the language of mathematics might not be for all, a renaissance painting might not be to your own taste but both examples leave us with one thing; we can appreciate the skill, the intelligence that went into the works. And they transcend the time they were created in and became bench marks for humanity. Of course I understand that not only works of genius are important, I like Hallmark films, I know they aren’t great and it makes me a tool but sometimes I feel so without hope that I need to watch something thats wholesome and that doesn’t depict torture and death or suffering, although there is some suffering in Hallmark films. Sometimes I just don’t want to watch Arthaus cinema. And of course, without that which isn’t genius we wouldn’t know genius itself?  It doesn’t thrive in a vacuum for sure. And of course we can’t really say what is genius, is it relative and by which scale are we judging it? These questions are totally fair and important, as in the end our understanding probably is much more relative and abstract? Genius is perhaps a bit like the word narcissism, applied in and out of context more often for bad than good?

Alan Hudson said that football was the ‘woking man’s ballet’. Maybe, you can see his point. Perhaps there’s something else, the ability of humans to work in the up most understanding of physics whilst pushing the human physical ability to it limits and that certainly can be balletic, yet ballet ( from my postage-stamp sized knowledge of it) isn’t freeform and reactionary. Football is. Mind and body in cause-and-effect split-second subconscious intuitive intelligence. And when played to a high level, where does that leave us? Open-mouthed? Is it beyond entertainment? Is it that we can see intelligence manifest without word? Intellectuals might say its not cerebral, well what is it then?

Theres something else; memories. One team I played in could rip apart other sides, because most of the lads in the team were in my class and we played morning ,noon and night and for clubs at weekends and after school. It’s not just talent, it’s the application and push of the talent to work as a whole, everyone knows what everyone else is doing. We didn’t give a dung what the manager said, as we knew we could play already. I still sometimes go through some of the games we played, ok we weren’t geniuses but for little kids we were good for sure. But we felt it in a relative way. Maybe there were glimpses?

But that’s nothing to the finest memories that the Arsenal gave me. How often I’ve shaken my head or held my head in my hands in wonderment? Tears of joy. Utter ecstasy. A pass. A play. A goal. A save. A tackle.

How often do you look at Arsenal clips where it’s pure genius and pure heavenly joy to watch? How do you feel? Press repeat?

I rest my case. 

Anyway, enough of that crap, the Mighty Cannon host a Moyes Everton side that are well rested (11-day break) and looking for a Euro-spot as a reward for this season. Apart from Merino and Odegaard, looks like everyone else is available? If Pickford lets one in it will be PL goal 500 for him. Grealish and Alcaraz are awol and Coleman is a maybe. It would be nice to win this with comfort and give us a boost versus Leverkusen.

The boys at Statto HQ have calculated that the Arsenal have 69.1% chance of winning and Everton 11.3% Next up the aforementioned boys from Leverkusen are in town for part 2 of the CL last 16. So COYG!

Mills

Well, if I was to paraphrase I would say ” We all like good football, it’s just none of us can agree what good football is”?

I’ll tell you this, what we have been watching for months is not my idea of good football, let’s hope we see some this week. I wont hold my breath mind.

Pedantic George.