They broke the news today, oh boy …

Another day, another sporting dollar and so the week begins with many column inches in newspapers filled with a certain kind of journalistic copy.

Whatever is written in one outlet is rarely too far removed from what will appear elsewhere. The fear of being separated from the media herd is a great motivator for all but the bravest and most established writers to avoid delving too deeply into what may actually be going on in the lives of the players, their managers and our clubs. Instead, we tend to get a perpetual rehashing of last week’s news with new added ingredients intended merely to support the existing ‘wisdom’ rather than challenge anything too seriously.

Unlike, for example, the financial media, whose journalists’ entire raison d’etre is to seek out and identify development, trend and change, the sporting pack is an altogether different beast.

The football media in particular is largely dominated by simpletons writing for, dare I suggest it, simpletons.

There are worthy journalistic exceptions to this observation, just as not all football fans are thick and/or illiterate. The hallmark of any simpleton is the degree to which they are comfortable with the realities of their world (or sporting) view being represented in black and white terms.

As we know from too many of our own agenda-fed fans, players are either ‘rubbish’ or ‘brilliant’. Yet the reality is prone to impact from all manner of variables I don’t need to list here.

So at the moment, it’s Martial Awe time and the fall guy is Giroud.

But the crowd-following mentality is no respecter of reputation, form or even history, no matter how recent. One of the most shaming media moments was the scandal of Mesut Ozil, whom we were most unreliably informed was one caught bang-to-rights not earning a living. According to the headline above Neil Ashton’s low-point Daily Mail article back in March 2014:

“Lost and lazy Ozil might have cost Arsenal £42.5m but he isn’t worth two-bob … and he’s nicking a living.”

So there you have it, one of the finest footballers of his generation, with almost 100 caps for Germany at all levels, 105 caps for Real Madrid and the small matter of a World Cup winners’ medal, is (at at least in 2014) not worth “two-bob”.

Theo Walcott, miraculously playing at the highest levels despite, according to Alan Hansen, doing so without a football brain, is also one who effortlessly decries the reputation of sections of our sports media, themselves widely guilty of multiple write-offs of the player over the years, simply by his very presence in the current Arsenal and England sides.

The kids that you supposedly could never win anything with, went on to win a European Cup-led treble, defying the hapless Hansen defined odds and providing the former Liverpool defender with little to defend his somewhat shredded reputation. The only surprise was how long Alan’s media career managed to continue; ironically, maybe that might be considered a heist of sorts.

But when someone with a media profile like Hansen could condemn players largely on a whim and without troubling themselves with detail such as ‘evidence’, then it is far easier for lesser lights like Ashton, Durham and others to come out with unsupported, unsubstantiated judgements which has the potential to do real and lasting damage to the careers of their chosen targets. This becomes especially true as their myth-making gets picked up by those of a less critical disposition and repeated over and over until they either become ‘true’ or, as in Ashton and Hansen’s cases, are shown up for the short-sighted and, frankly malicious comments they originally were.

Where it gets marginally more entertaining is when players are appearing to move from being ‘brilliant’ back to (relative) ‘shit’ as currently appears to be the case with Rooney and last season Spud-wonder Kane. There is that delicious opening up of a journalistic no-man’s land as the media shy away from the evidence of their own eyes of Rooney’s decline (legs’ gone?) and Kane’s apparent loss of confidence (head’s gone?).

The reality?

Probably neither have turned to ‘shit’ overnight but Wayne’s decline is likely matched by his struggles to motivate himself in the twilight of a patchy career that saw his international form in tournaments never truly replicate his club contribution. Kane is young enough to bounce back to form though he could help himself by finding a decent club to play for.

But the media, in the meantime, struggle to digest and assess what is in front of them. To the extent that you have to wonder if they are really trying.

We are unlikely to find a non-headline grabbing assessment of where Wayne and Harry really are anywhere in today’s media outlets. Maybe the credibility of this small army of paid observers would be salvaged were they better able to provide a more measured response to the vagaries of player form and development. Then, at least, the state of Theo’s footballing brain may never have become ‘a thing’, to Hansen’s enduring embarrassment.

Brilliant or rubbish. Rubbish or brilliant.

The disservice done by this linear approach to describing and understanding players who are seeing out their careers in one of the most competitive sports environment on the planet is as shaming as it is impossible to justify.

One can only wonder how many players were casualties of the burden of being (mis)judged in this manner. As the press play out their agenda and the crowd, instead of getting behind players get on their backs instead, we are left to wonder whether the likes of Denilson, Eboue, Arshavin, Bendtner and Gervinho, might have seen careers thrive rather than dive. Flapihanskii and Sanogoals provided cheap headlines at one time or another and it was hard at the time to imagine their careers surviving this kind of ridicule. Maybe they weren’t ‘good enough’ but we will never know for sure how far these players might have gone with a more sophisticated appraisal of their contributions.

Back to the future and at some point the current media generation will twig Wayne’s game may finally be up and possibly Kane’s development has stalled or even gone backwards.

But all the while legions of football fans rely on mainstream media for their footballing verdicts, we shouldn’t be too surprised at the quality of the arguments of those same fans, or be too puzzled by the limits of their understanding of the game.

We should remain unsurprised, too, at continuing reports of the declining numbers of readers, viewers and listeners of the perpetrators of football’s black and white world.

Slowly and surely, possibly helped by social media, more and more are waking up to the limitations of the writers of the headlines and the weasel words underneath them.

Apparently, now is the time for change …

Just prior to kick off, the above scene presented itself to thousands of fans arriving from the south east of England ahead of the crucial Manchester United encounter.  This was a game that had United won, would have seen one of our greatest rivals consolidate their unlikely position at the pinnacle of the Premier League, one point ahead of Citeh, six points ahead of Arsenal and eleven points ahead of the Champions of England.

The timing of the protest left everything to be desired, not least some support, and even managed to clash with the nationwide “£20’s Plenty” campaign to reduce ticket prices for fans of visiting teams.

Positively Arsenal would like to take the opportunity to apologise for the size of the photograph illustrating this article.  As you can see, it is a very small banner with an even smaller turnout from the supposedly seething anti-Wenger ‘masses’. Forensic examination of the image reveals as many as nine gathered around the bannerette which reads:

“ARSENE Thanks for the memories but it’s time to say goodbye”.

The image was tweeted just before kick-off, supposedly a contemporaneous scene set above the Armoury Superstore. It’s as laughable as it is inconsequential but it did lead this writer to wonder: just how many people really do want to say goodbye to Arsene Wenger?

Naturally there are many of us not backward at coming forward to express disappointment at the occasional under-whelming performance/near total disaster in Europe. One of Wenger’s greatest achievements is that few of us can actually quite believe our eyes when our boys lose the occasional game. But reading Twitter from a safe distance suggests that there are followers of the club who think it’s time for Arsene to hang up his zip-unfriendly coat and say farewell. After match-day setbacks, the numbers of these fans seem to quell exponentially, as shrilly hysterical on Twitter, blogs and radio shows as their incoherent, and generally random, blunt barbs are hot-headedly inconsistent.

Yet when the team is doing well, these ‘contributors’ to the Gooniverse are largely silent.  At such times, the phrase ’empty vessels’ springs to mind and the quieter majority bask in the golden sunshine of an Arsenal era quite unlike any other.

So just how large is their number?

Well, in the aftermath of the Olympiakos defeat, an online petition was launched to have the evil dictator, I mean Arsene Wenger, removed from office once and for all.

“Now is the time for change, do the right thing Arsene Wenger and GO!” exhorts the internet petition, replete with its own little red logo of a cannon and the words ‘ENOUGH IS ENOUGH WENGER OUT!

Ah-ha, at last, a handy metric for calculating the true scale of this pluckily determined protest group seeking to mobilise the views of the dispossessed, the disheartened and the disbelieving. And, at the time of writing, some seven whole days after the launch of the petition, the numbers signing it have risen to the heady heights of almost 1,300. Numbers seem stuck on 1,265 today and if the instigator of this petition and the carriers of the banner, above, were hoping for support to match the recent Mike Dean petition (106,445 signatories and still rising), then they have been badly misled.

However, all is not lost for the would-be revolutionaries, as there have been at least four other ‘Wenger Out’ petitions in the last year alone and support for some of them have even reached double figures. No fewer than forty end-of-their-tether types have pitched up to sign up to see off Arsene. So the latest petition, with nearly 1270 names has actually done comparatively well.

However, when you consider the official Arsenal Twitter account (@arsenal) has 6.3 million followers and Arsenal Facebook has 33.5 million ‘likes’, then it looks as though the petition has a fair way to go yet.  As a percentage of Arsenal’s Facebook following, the petition has attracted almost 0.0037% of the fanbase. By comparison, the organisers of the banner-led mass-protest achieved a far superior result, attracting nearly 0.016% of the estimated 57,000 Arsenal supporters swirling around the Emirates Stadium on Sunday.

Cleverer statisticians than me (that’s most readers) will point out that even if all 57,000 had joined the banner protest, this would still have been a small percentage of the club’s total global following.  But the fact remains that online, there are (virtually) no geographical boundaries, so a petition conducted in cyber-space really should be doing a little better.  Indeed, to achieve parity with the laughably slim turn-out at the Emirates, the petition should by now have reached an absolute minimum of 3,500, which would of course, give it 0.016% of Arsenal’s Facebook following.

Yep, all of us hate losing games and most are fed up when the team doesn’t appear to fulfil its potential.  A fair number will make a fair racket on Twitter.  But very, very few, actually want Arsene Out, it would seem.

So maybe, as far as the Wenger Out Brigade is concerned, enough really is enough?

Good morning,

I am almost embarrassed to write a review of yesterday’s game as it was one which every reader will have watched, re-watched, read what the media have to say and for those of a robust constitution have probed the deep recesses of social media, Twitter and blog wise. I can tell you little more than you eyes saw and your ears heard. But I shall try.

I had hoped to inset a 13 second clip of my view  during the game above but technology has robbed me of that pleasure, for the moment.   My back row spot perhaps in visual terms less was less than than perfect and we had to bend double to see the replays of the first two goals on the screens before we could settle on who had put the ball in the back of the net. There was no doubt about the third though, we were right in line, the finger was raised, pandemonium X3 and a formidable sense of relief that we were going to crush the Northern monkeys. I have two new best friends, Steve and Steve. Neither had an actual seat and they just bowled up to stand in a convenient gap between the rows. As everyone stood up all game it was no inconvenience. I had the opportunity to see the goals again on the box last night properly and they were superb, the first two the root of the title. I see LvG appears to blame his defenders for those goals. Listen son, no team anywhere will resist the accurate passing, quick player movement and exact finishing that we saw in those 74 seconds. Don’t beat yourself or your players up about it Louis. Move on.

My substantial advantage of watching from the North Bank in the first half is that I was able to see close up how much good work, invaluable exertion, that Gabriel and Per put in to keep the visitors at bay. Santi put in a remarkable shift in front of the back four and alongside Coquelin. That save from Cech from Martial just before half time was important. I see the young Frenchman’s shot hit Petr’s legs and could have gone anywhere. As important a moment in the game as any goal though, in my opinion. Cech was in command all afternoon, a man thoroughly at ease with his responsibilities.

I have no intention of naming names among our attacking and other midfield players. A magnificent team performance from every man. The most satisfactory way to move into the international break and, for Arsene at least, to plan for Watford in a fortnight. I have not consulted the history books but a very long time since we lost to the Hertfordshire Hornets. It serves no purpose in hammering the red side of Manchester only to trip up at Vicarage Road so I imagine our manager’s brow will be carefully furrowed over the next ten days.

As I mentioned yesterday the next two rounds of round of games brings the Manchester derby, the Red Mancs travel to Goodison, and among our chasing pack Palace play Leicester and the ‘Ammers, the ‘Ammers are at home to Chelsea etcetera. If the cards fall right it could be a very important two weekends after the international break.

A word for the Mancs ? In spite of myself I was impressed with Martial, very strong and confident for a youngster. We shall have to watch him.

A final off topic observation about yesterday. I have been going to Mancs games at Highbury and the Ems for six decades, a high spot of the calendar and I can remember 63,000 in the ground back when safety regulations did not apply to football. Yesterday is the first time I can ever remember that there were no police anywhere in attendance I could see, no banks of plod massed around the tube or railway stations or packed in carriers in side streets, visors up and shields at the ready, no police horses traipsing backwards and forward, up and down Hornsey Road or the helicopter hovering beady-eyed over proceedings. I From what I read Ken Bates (of all people) won a case against West Yorkshire Police that clubs only have to pay for Police inside their grounds or on their land. If the police want to impose martial law and draft hundreds of officers into an area then they can pick up the tab themselves. Oddly enough they don’t. A significant improvement I think.

And with that I shall leave you to glow through Monday and into a promising week.

Today a post by regular contributor Eduardo which originally appeared in yesterday’s Comments section of PA.

Those with an agenda against Ramsey like to parrot the pundits and commentators who spout rubbish such as:

“Ramsey unbalances the team ‘cos he moves central and [amazingly] to the left, during games.”

This one “soundbite” suggests that many don’t actually know:

1. What ‘team balance’ actually is.

2. What Wenger’s tactics are (despite AW actually having explained his exact thinking in playing Ramsey on the right of midfield).

3. That this is not something new from Wenger.

So let’s shed some light on all of this, starting with team balance.

The Ramsey haters, it seems, only do simplistic thinking. In their world, to have a balanced team you have to have the same sort of player on each side, doing the same things. Of course, this is only true from them when it actually suits their argument. They will therefore tell you we need one attacking fullback and one who stays back. One ball playing CB and one brute. One ball winning CM and one passer. And finally, up front, a big one and a little skilled one. But, for some unexplained reason, we need two line-hugging wide men, who only cut in to have a shot or get in to score. Thus the wide role is the only one where it’s yin and yin – no yang to be seen anywhere! I always knew they hadn’t a brain cell between them, but now I realize they don’t have a yang, either (explains a lot about their —– envy).

This brings me on to point number two – ignorance of Wenger’s tactics.

Well, in thinking about why the Ramsey Haters don’t actually know what Wenger’s tactics are, I would actually suggest that this is a deliberate act. This disingenuity reveals itself when you match up the Ramsey Haters with the Wenger Haters – it seems there is a massive overlap.

So Ramsey, it would appear, is merely collateral damage in the ongoing agenda they have against Arsene Wenger.

Anyway, back to what they fail to understand about Ramsey’s role and the tactics behind it. As stated in point 1, they think we need the same on the left and right of midfield, but that little tactic died a tragic death when 4-2-4 outgrew its usefulness. It was only a bit-part tactic when 4-4-2 was the norm. I don’t see any of the successful teams who use 4-2-3-1, actually using their wide midfielders in a rigid role. I don’t see any of them having similar players on opposite sides, either.

As I said earlier, it is a conscious act to seemingly not know what Wenger’s tactics are with Ramsey wide midfield. Its deliberate nature exposed by Wenger having, on multiple occasions explained the thinking behind it. And believe it or not, it’s all about team balance.

Wenger has explained that the reasons for selecting Ramsey wide midfield has many aspects, including:

a) Wanting someone who brings a different kind of game than Sanchez. Alexis takes on players, dribbles a lot, is more of a striker kind of wide man, whereas Aaron is more of a midfielder type – someone who will help support our central midfielders, especially when opponents put three players in there against our two.

b) Bellerin is a very attack minded fullback, and Ramsey’s game complements Hector’s game in two critical ways. Firstly, Ramsey has the discipline to track back and/or block opponents’ attacking lanes when Hector charges forward. Secondly, the fact that Ramsey moves infield also leaves the space for Hector to run into – that space is not only there because Ramsey is not, but often because opponents have also followed Ramsey infield.

c) Wenger has also explained that it’s a deliberate ploy to have Ramsey pop up on the left. AW wants to “overload” on that side. Opponents already have their hands full trying to plug the holes caused by Alexis and Ozil (and even Santi drifts that side), so in a way Ramsey going there too, is to ‘bust the dam’. Acknowledgement of Wenger’s explanation of Ramsey’s role by these critics has so far failed to materialise, as to do so would be tantamount to accepting that Arsene does, after all, do tactics!  And that would never do, now would it?

Finally, point number three – it’s not something new from Wenger.

And no I do not mean, as some like to claim, playing people out of position.

In fact, in his 19 years in charge, Wenger has by and large had different types of player on either side of midfield.

Consider who was on the right when we had Overmars on the left. He was STILL on the right when Pires showed up on our left. I’m talking about the type of player whom many of the AAA/WOB say we should have bought in the summer – a player that for me, Ramsey is most like in so many ways.

Of course, I’m talking about The Romford Pele himself, Ray Parlour.

Was there ever a more opposite player to both Overmars or Pires. Didn’t Parlour, just like Ramsey, drift infield, go box-to-box, but from a wide base?

Parlour was replaced on the right by Ljunberg. Although Freddie, as a player was dissimilar from Parlour, he still played a different role to Pires. He was the off-the-ball runner; he was the guy to get on the end of God’s and Pires passes.

Freddie, just like Ramsey, would pop up all over the place.

Pires and Ljunberg were replaced by Nasri and Hleb. I don’t think anyone would suggest that Nasri and Hleb had similar types of game or roles. Then Theo became our wide right player. Again we never had anyone similar to Theo on our left playing in games at the same time.

And the reason for that, just as it is now for having Ramsey on the right and Alexis on the left, is team balance, and of course tactics.

But don’t shout it too loudly, it might upset the moaners.

Good morning ++++ers,

And a fine one it is.

If last Sunday morning’s blank screen presented me with something akin to rolling large rock up a steep hill yesterday’s events in Leicester offer not even a vaguely similar challenge. I have had to search deep in my superlative drawer however to do the game justice.

An exceptionally enjoyable game of football played by two sides who set out to play fast and inventive football and maintained that approach to the 93^rd minute. They treated each other with respect, no diving, hard challenges but no malice, and who gave referee Pawson very little to whistle about. The final score could have been 7-12. Even at 1-4 the home side were hurling themselves at Cech’s goal as if their lives depended on it. 22 shots for us from inside the box, 4 from outside – 92% on target – ridiculous !

Our lot ?

The headlines go to the goal scorers and to Alexis’ return to net stretching proficiency. If the Chilean has not been back to 100% efficiency then the Foxes offered him the stage to show what he does best. An extra half yard of space or split second allowed him to shine. His second and third goals were super strikes. I say the second was the standout, made by the perfect chip from Ozil, but Sanchez’s leap above the tall defender was masterful.

Theo made further progress, more confident, a little sharper and proactive in his movement than where six weeks ago he was not there. His craft is coming, incrementally, a game and a goal at a time. Next Sunday will be an important test to see if he can spring what is, surprisingly, quite an efficient ManYoo defence.

The relatively unsung heroes of the afternoon I would pick three; Cech and Kosc for withstanding an opening 15 minute battering with just a one goal deficit. And third Hector Bellerin who I thought again had outstanding game. Young Hector was pressed hard by Danny Drinkwater in the opening but gradually tamed the brute. His flank play going forward was brilliant yesterday. That young man is going to be HUGE.

Them ?

That Jamie Vardy did not earn the game’s second hat trick is a bit of a mystery. The goal frame was badly bruised. He is about as far from the “world class” goal scorer model as I can imagine. His touch is a bit scruffy, his movement and running is untidy, he is all ‘rough edges’ including his haircut, but what he has got he uses to the nth degree. Playing non league until he was 25 and joined Leicester so his chance in the top flight came late on. I hope that Leicester are able to hold on to him as anyone who scores goals these days is prone to be lured for big money. Stay where you are son. They love you.

Robert Hoof and Wes Morgan deserve an honourable mention in despatches. I doubted either would last on a hot afternoon and chasing Sanchez and Theo up and down. At the end I suspect both were on their proverbial knees but they kept throwing themselves about.

One mild shadow on an otherwise perfect afternoon was the injury to Flamini – after weeks of waiting quietly he steps up to his triumph at the Lane, followed by a second chance to perform against a side who I think would suit Matty’s style. Then his hamstring pops 20 minutes in. How unlucky is that ?

Onward to Olympiakos on Tuesday evening and a little more pressure for a good result than is ideal. And unlike yesterday Tuesday is about the result, not the quality.

Enjoy your Day of Rest.

* And thank you to Claudio Ranieri for the Italian term for yesterday’s contribution from Alexis