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Bad Decade At The Office

Posted by ArsenalAndrew on July 1, 2013 in All Posts

bad day at office cartoon

On Sunday, Johnny Greenwood (@Johnny_G86) wrote a tremendous article for PA, describing how his views on Arsenal have changed over the last year.   I thought it was quite a brave article as it always takes guts to ‘fess up to this kind of sea-change in one’s outlook.

I went through something similar in the first year or so at the Emirates as we, despite being told by the club that we had funds available, were seemingly unable to replace the likes of Patrick Viera, in particular, and in reality, the bulk of not just one of the best team’s Arsenal had assembled, but, as history may yet judge, one of the best teams ANY club has put together.  Ever.

For my own part, I’d finally got my first season ticket when the Emirates opened, having been in a 7 year long queue prior to that.  What rotten, miserable timing that the squad appeared to start its relative decline at that exact point!  2006-07 was, of course, pre-Twitter, so my main source of information back then was chat amongst other fans and articles in newspapers and other media.

Strangely, the global credit crunch towards the end of the decade helped me to better appreciate the club’s predicament though by this time I was routinely reading A Cultured Left Foot (though not commenting until later).  But ACLF had two great strengths when it came to challenging my own temporary frustrations with the club.  Yogi’s extraordinary, well-informed and brilliantly crafted, daily posts were supplemented by comments from a really knowledgeable ‘crew’ who’s passion for the club was matched by the quality of their written insights.  Many of those ‘greats’ are, happily, still today posting here on PA and ACLF.

The impact on waverers such as myself – and more recently Johnny – are one reason I still read blogs and follow Twitter.  My own use of Twitter is highly selective – I don’t follow many and I’m not followed by many but the quality of those I do interact with makes it a worthwhile ‘exercise’, both entertaining and generally just good fun.  I don’t have a huge amount of spare time to contribute to PA or other blogs – but, deep down, I think there are plenty around who do a better job than I could, in any case.  Actually, not that deep down!

Social Media is often cited as being the platform for much negativity and ignorance towards the club which, of course, it is.  But it doesn’t HAVE to be.  When stalwarts like George fight the good fight on Twitter, set up their own blog sites and provide an alternative perspective – a challenge, even – to people like myself and Jonny then the activities of all us looking to support the club in this way can be seen to be anything but a lost cause.

Time and again I hear of new fans being drawn to the club in the last 8 years despite the absence of silverware.  Quelle surprise! What’s that all about?!  It’s happening because they are being exposed to an alternative to the shameful negative media narrative and ignorance of some fans and coming to their own conclusions.

On Twitter I deliberately follow a couple of out-and-out ‘doomer’ accounts just to read what’s going through the minds of such people.  Of course, not all those critical of the club are foul-mouthed half-wits and whilst I can’t say, definitively, such people are always ‘wrong’ in what they write, it’s interesting how often their views – often, their bile – is finding expression through the regurgitation of half-truths and myths.  When challenged, some are surprisingly fragile and choose to ‘block’ or ‘unfollow’ you.  Others punctuate their exchanges with the use of appalling language and surprising levels of aggression which make one wonder if there is something else affecting them in their lives which is finding expression in their anti-Arsenal commentary.

They are universally claiming to be ‘real’ fans but they sound anything but.

What’s THAT all about?!!  I have no idea for sure, I suspect it could be several things. I wonder if there is a degree of disenfranchisement amongst some who are now priced out of the game and were never able to replicate that sense of belonging to the club which they enjoyed during the Highbury years.  Others, doubtless are simply shallow glory-hunters.  Some, I suspect, are very angry indeed that despite their very best and noisiest predictions, the club has simply failed to collapse and, in fact, appears if anything  alarmingly close to actually thriving, once again.

The ultimate bad decade at the office, for such followers.

I think the majority of these now dwindling bands of critical fans will fade away and ultimately rediscover the faith now the club is finally better able to compete with the biggest clubs on the world stage.  As the evidence reveals itself as to the reasons behind the club’s actions over the last ten years or so, more and more observers  are beginning to recognise the scale of the achievement of the club and this is very much a chapter in our history that is finally drawing to a close.

The reconciliation of the fan base is just one very welcome aspect of the next chapter that awaits us over the coming months and years.

I for one look forward to the day when my footballing ‘arguments’ are once again with fans of other clubs rather than with those occupying the polar opposites of my own.  Sure, they’ll always be debate about football and different blogs will cater for those different ways of following the club.

But the almost ‘existential’ nature of the debate surrounding Arsenal will, eventually, be a thing of the past and, for this observer and lifelong fan, can’t come a day too soon.

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I Once Was A Lost Little Gooner.

Posted by pedantic George @arseblagger on June 30, 2013 in All Posts

When I first joined twitter just over a year ago you could have described me as a doomer. I spent my days moaning at no one and everyone for Arsene Wenger to ‘spend some f@!?ing money’. I’d criticise team selections and substitutes despite never having been in the position to have to make one myself. I’d write off supposed players Arsene was interested in, the assumption that they weren’t any good because he’d recently made the odd duff signing. I’d criticise the tactics we adopted like I was some kind of top-flight football manager despite not even managing a junior team. I thought I knew best and that my opinion was the only one that counted.

What a difference a year makes! After many a squabble on twitter with various people I used to automatically label AKB’s for daring to have a different opinion to mine, I came to realise that my opinion wasn’t based on any kind of fact. It was based merely on a series of assumptions. I looked around at some of the various blogs I’d read and conversations I’d had to see how I came to those conclusions and found that it was mostly based upon someone else’s opinions or others who claimed to have well placed sources who just happened to know everything about the way the club was run, rather than my own.

I decided I didn’t want to be a moody doom merchant who always looked for a negative in a room full of positives. I wanted to know actual facts and not some random bloke’s (who I’d never met) opinion. What I found was a bit of an eye-opener. Most of the things I was passing off to others as fact was merely someone else’s opinion and there was no proof to back up the majority of what I read on twitter either. I realised that by trying to convince others of what I’d mistakenly believed I was merely spreading their agenda.

It wasn’t until recently that it all clicked for me. Ivan Gazidis, in just a few short sentences shattered around 80% of the majority of people’s opinions (passed off as facts) of Arsene Wenger’s last few years. Until then I hadn’t really thought to look at the bigger picture, at what’s been achieved over the years since it was announced we were leaving Highbury for a new stadium. Granted there’s been things I might not have done if I was the boss, things I haven’t always agreed with – but really, who did I think I was? Did I really think I could have done better in the same situation and under the same conditions? No of course not.

Arsene has been under some incredibly tight financial restrictions which has meant we couldn’t strengthen the team with what was needed to keep pace with the big spenders of the EPL. With that then came players who weren’t happy at the prospect of not winning titles and instead of trying to defy the odds and pull of a miracle decided they’d rather go play somewhere else. Others went for money, and some went because of loyalties to another club, a couple were sold despite the manager wanting to keep them. What’s clear though is that Arsene had done an incredible job just keeping us in the top 4, all the while shouldering the brunt of fan frustration and expectation. Credit where credit’s due – that’s pretty amazeballs. He might not make the right decisions 100% of the time but if anyone deserves to lead us to success – or at least to try to – now we’re more financially able to compete after the last few years of struggle it’s Arsene Wenger.

Johnny Greenwood
@Johnny_G86

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In A Man’s World

Posted by steww on June 29, 2013 in All Posts

Jane never spoke more than a few words to the players at this stage. Her coaching staff knew who needed a kick up the backside and who responded to an arm around the shoulder. She let her team do its job. She’d been through the tactical stuff during training that week and in any event she knew and trusted this team.  Routine was important to her, ingrained in her approach to the game and even on the evening of a cup final she insisted on the same routines with which everyone was so familiar. Just another game was her mantra and (when she was safely out of earshot) they’d often call her  ‘Just another game Jane’. She’d been called worse.

She knew what they called her. She knew all the nicknames and who liked her and who envied her and who tolerated her and who loved her but frankly, when it came down to it she simply didn’t care. She wasn’t a hard woman. No matter what the papers said she wasn’t the ice queen, not the cold, emotionless, driven caricature of the sports pages.  She was capable of deep warmth and affection. She loved her husband, her children and as much (on occasions she had to admit possibly more) her chocolate brown labradors who were probably the only creatures alive to ever hear her deepest secrets. The long walks with those dogs were more than just relaxation for Jane, it was when she got the whole obsessive business of football out of her system. The dogs knew more about her hopes and private fears than any human would ever hope to.

She didn’t care about the opinions of others nor the esteem with which they held her because there simply wasn’t room for such emotional distractions. She’d learned the hard way what focus really meant. She cared about two things; loyalty to the club and winning. By keeping her objectives so blinkered, so narrow she had been able to close out the prejudice, the snide, sneering playground politics with which her career had been beset from the day she had made the historic shift to the first team. In fact it had started way before that. Her talent had been recognised at a very young age and she’d trained with the boys right from the start. There had long been talk of women breaking through into the men’s game but professional football was one of the last relics (or bastions if you preferred, depending upon your standpoint) of the male domination which had been so ingrained in British society.

Arsenal had always been a forward thinking club and the integration of the youth structure had been a hugely important step but one which had failed to excite much attention at the time. However, despite appearing alongside the boys at every level right up to the under twenty ones it was Jane’s inclusion on the first team sheet for the FA Cup replay against Bristol City which had really started the shitstorm. The British press had a long and proud tradition of bigotry, small minded and above all lazy stereotyping and the sports pages took this to Olympian heights. There had been a tabloid feeding frenzy. And she’d only been named amongst the substitutes. In the event her goal against a hapless west country team on the way to relegation from the league and eventual bankruptcy and dissolution at least gave the hacks something else to write about other than her gender, but in the context of that match, with the Arsenal already eight nil up before she came on for her nine minute cameo, she’d made little real impact.

In truth apart from being the first woman to play a competitive first team match her playing career had been undistinguished. She’d been a useful squad player, a midfielder who could pick out a pass and pick her opponents pocket turning defence into attack in the blink of an eye. Of course she’d learned from the best. Arsenal had long been credited with changing the way the defensive game was played. Dangerous, lumpish, brutal tackling was a thing of the past. It had started way back when Mikel Arteta had played for the club. He’d been the first defensive midfielder to show that interceptions or nicking the ball from the toes of an opponent was far more effective than hitting them like a rugby union fullback and sending the ball and man flying over the turf to destinations unknown. He’d been one of the senior coaches at the club when she was a girl and she was as grateful for his influence  than almost any other. However, it was a simple fact that, no matter how good she was, being one of the best in the country didn’t amount to that much at Arsenal where the quality of the players was so high throughout the squad. She could of course have walked into virtually any other side in the league. She would have transformed one of the lower division London teams like Spurs or Chelsea and could probably have captained a premier league mid table team with some distinction. But her creed was loyalty and winning. Loyalty to the club that made her who she was came first then and always. She’d never once  considered a transfer, the ‘big fish small pond’ idea left her cold.

If she’d had an indifferent playing career it was as a coach and then, manager that she had truly realised her potential. She’d gone abroad to learn her trade in Holland, following in the footsteps of the club’s second most successful manager of all time. The Ajax/Arsenal connection was of course well established and had allowed her to learn her trade  away from the slavering idiocy of the English media. When Dennis had announced his retirement, a day on which men and woman had openly wept at the news, the speculation as to his successor hadn’t included Jane. No one saw her coming. She smiled at the memory. Years before, nobody had wanted Arsene to retire, of course not, but after his historic hat trick of European and domestic doubles the old man had finally decided the time was right to call it a day. No one imagined that even Dennis could emulate his success but such had been the care with which Arsene had considered his legacy that in truth, almost any manager would have found success. The players, ethos, facilities and traditions of the club passed seamlessly to the Dutchman and in time to the country’s first ever female manager.

It was ridiculous she thought. Even way back in the reactionary strife torn nineteen seventies the country’s most hidebound backward looking political institution had been able to choose a woman for its leader and the small minded lazy British electorate had seen fit to make her prime minister a few years later. Yet it had taken well over half a century for a football club to appoint a female as head coach. But when, in your professional life at least,  you only cared about two things, ignoring the hullabaloo and entrenched views of the idiot brigade was actually a doddle. It was like scoring an important goal in a cup final. If all you saw was the huge empty net waiting for the ball, if the other players, the crowd, even the occasion itself dissolved into nothing then passing the ball into that net was the simplest thing in the world. It was distraction that prevented people from making the all important contribution on the football pitch. Fear of failure, worrying about what your opponent might do, the barracking of the crowd all had to be put from your mind. Her players often said that it was the work she did with them off the pitch which helped them achieve such phenomenal success on it. As much as the tactics and training with the ball she knew how to get them to think straight, to shuck off the pointless, debilitating distractions of the game and see clearly what they needed to do and how to do it.

And now here she was. Wembley stadium. About to send her team out in her first cup final as Arsenal manager. Here was the greatest club side in the history of professional football making another cup final appearance but not under the guidance of Arsene or Dennis, these were her players and this would be her victory. She’d never even considered the possibility of defeat, never talked about the opposition, she had simply told her team how they were going to win. Just as she did week in week out as they’d climbed and then headed the league table.

After all, when you got right down to it, this was just another game.

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The Unforgiving

Posted by steww on June 27, 2013 in All Posts

The sun was a hard white nail in the limitless bleached denim of the desert sky. George looked up through slitted lids at the circling birds, wing tips spread like fingers as their silhouettes described lazy curves through the burning light of mid day. He leaned slightly forward and to his left and squirted a noxious black  purple jet of tobacco juice and spit into the dust. He judged it to be  just past noon and knew they would be here before the evening sun burst against the jagged mountain peaks on the far horizon and spread it’s deep red and orange yolk across the rim of the world.

Well, he would be ready for them. And whatever hand they dealt, he would play. He didn’t enjoy violence. What sane man would? But he knew it to be a necessary evil in this hard and unforgiving land. He had little time for those who held beliefs and strong opinions which they had not tested in the real world. He abhorred the violence he saw and in which he took part but he reasoned, to truly abhor it he had to have experienced it. In the small half dead and dying town behind him there was a slight raised area which men had dignified with the name Hill. Cemetery Hill, to give it its full due. In the meagre soil atop this sorry rise more than a few men had found their final place of repose, and beneath the mounds of earth with their rough wooden crosses there were the bullet torn remnants of men on whom George had tested his hatred of violence to its logical and ultimate conclusion.

He shrugged at the memories, tilted his hat lower for the shade it afforded his eyes and reminded himself that he never shot a man who didn’t deserve it.  Or at least he never had killed a man who would not in the fullness of time have killed him, had he allowed the poor fellow to live long enough to fulfil his natural inclinations. The town had boomed and busted itself like so many others in that part of the West. Shabby, peeling monuments to men’s greed. George hadn’t come out here to get rich, but he certainly hadn’t imagined he would end up as the only law for hundreds of miles in any direction, miles of heartless dessicated miserable land stretching through shimmering haze to the broken teeth of the distant mountains.

Badlands. That was about right he thought. And bad men had come and they had brought the badness festering inside them, carried it with them and tried to infect the whole of the town. His town. Well, there were a few more low mounds inside the picket fence on the top of his town’s only hill now. They’d either drawn on him first or at the very least upon one of his friends and he hadn’t lived so long by waiting to see how such situations might unfold. He had achieved what was in these times and in these places a great age by letting the other fellow find out how such situations unfolded. And now they were coming for him. Not the ghosts of the men in the Hill, he wasn’t a superstitious man. Dead was dead. And once he’d perforated them with his single action colt, they were good and dead and so far at least they had tended to stay that way.

No, the men coming for him today were very much alive. For now, he thought and smiled a cold, humourless smile. He turned on his heel and walked slowly back toward the town. They had revenge on their minds and death in their hearts and like others before them they were coming to bring both to him. Although George sometimes saw his town as nothing more than a small backwater clinging with wavering resolution to the meanest of all the mean soil this world had to offer, it was still his home and he loved the people who had chosen to make it their home too and as long as he could hold the weight of his firearm and still point it in the general direction of those who would visit harm upon him and upon those he loved, well, he reckoned he would keep on pointing it and woe betide any man fool enough to stand facing the open end of it.

He heard the hoof-beats behind him as he came alongside the sign which welcomed visitors to his town. It was hand painted, faded and leant away from him casting a slanting shadow over his dusty boots. He turned slowly and saw the plume  rising , spinning and falling in a thin mist to cling to the surface of the ground marking a faint line where the horses shoes had disturbed the crust of the earth with their passing. They had come sooner than he had expected. He never ceased to be amazed at the sheer stupidity of his fellow man. Had they arrived at the end of the day he would still have been ready for them, and outlined against the lowering sun they would have been easy targets, but they would have had shadows in which to hide and with a little thought their weight of numbers and greater fire power could have been brought to bear. He shook his head as if disappointed at the folly of these men who would do him harm and yet promised him so little sport. Men who rode, tight bunched towards an armed and dangerous foe with the sun high in the sky and blinding their view, men who threw themselves at  their doom without thought, nor it seemed, any grasp of the brutal realities of the world which were about to confront them.

They had slowed their horses as they closed with him. He sighed at the futility of what must happen, at the waste of men’s futures and the scars he would bear on his soul for each life he must now take. But then a change came upon him as if a cold, hard hand had closed about his heart. His mouth tightened to a dry crease in a set and motionless face. A face suddenly drained of all humanity. If these idiots had tired of life and were so filled with the desire to gaze upon the face of their creator and if it fell to him to help usher them through the doors of this world and into the next, then so be it. He had seen many a fool unable to articulate his final thoughts for the blood bubbling in his throat as he stared uncomprehending at the cobalt blue cloudless sky until he saw it no more. These fools would be just like those fools. For they were riding on a fools errand and it would surely be their last because the man who loosened the ties on his holster and eased his hat back from his forehead was not a man to suffer them. Not gladly. Not at all.

They reined in a few yards from where he stood and he could see they’d treated their horses cruelly to get here so soon. Were they in such a hurry to depart this vale of tears, he wondered? He hadn’t moved. His arms hung loosely by his sides and he stared at the prancing, blowing horses they trembled, eyes rolling, foam glazing their heaving flanks. He needed to be certain that these were the men. He ought to let them speak.

“Say your piece” He said, his voice firm and clear in the exsiccated air.

The leader, a brute of a man on a dun coloured mare leaned forward, hands resting on the pommel of his saddle, reins loosely hung around the horn. He walked his horse forward a pace, his two companions each stepping once sideways keeping George in plain sight.

“You know why we’re here?” the brute asked, his voice muffled behind the torn cloth he’d worn to keep the dust from his throat on their long ride.

“I reckon I do. But I’m wondering whether you three know it your own selves”

At this the brute frowned as if he had known the answer to his question all along and was unprepared for this deviation from a prepared dialogue. He began to turn to throw a quizzical glance at one of his associates and in one swift, fluid movement George drew his pistol, cocked and fired. A small hole appeared instantly in the cloth of the neckerchief where it flapped against the man’s throat and the upward trajectory of the bullet caused the opposite side of his head to dissolve into a pink mist. This in turn occasioned the man behind and to his right to close his eyes and turn away as first blood and brain matter then fragments of bone sprayed across his face. George used this opportunity to shoot the third man in his thigh. He regretted the possibility of injury to the horse should the bullet pass through the man and into the beast but the flattened slug tore through the would-be assassin’s  femoral artery and really at that moment in time the fact that his enemy would very soon bleed to death was the salient fact and George’s fears for the well being of the horse had to be relegated to a list of concerns for future consideration.

The second man in trying to wipe his leader’s brains from his face had succeeded only in rubbing in dust from his leather gloves. This had created an abrasive paste which burned and scratched his eyes. His ears were however unaffected and the two pistol shots, so close together that his last thoughts in this world were that there must be a second gunmen they had not seen, had alerted him to the danger in which he now found himself. Or at least the fact that there had been no answering volley of fire from his erstwhile compadres suggested that he would be wise to at least attempt to get down from his horse and try to draw his weapon. George was at heart a compassionate man but this blinded, terrified and hapless creature, clawing at his holster and snivelling snot clotted curses had chosen his own path. And this was where his path had led him.  He cocked his pistol but as the man slipped from his saddle one foot caught in the stirrup and he swung to earth in a swift parabola, savagely truncated when his head struck the rocky ground, his neck breaking with a crack which echoed up the suddenly silent street.

George slowly shook his head, let out his breath and wondered at the stubborn hopeless stupidity afflicting so much of the human race. He holstered his weapon, spat, turned on his heel and headed back into town.

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Fair Play And All That Malarkey By Sensational Arsenal

Posted by pedantic George @arseblagger on June 25, 2013 in All Posts

Why do I care for a football team thousands of miles away? Why do I do a fist pump when we score, especially after giving everything? Why do I say “we”?

I just do. It is not just the characteristics of the club that has me in love with the club. There are other clubs like us, Dortmund being a prime a example. While I admire and respect Dortmund, there is something special about Arsenal that I cannot describe. Having said that, the character of a club is the identity of a club. If tomorrow, our club were to become Chelsea-3, I would love the new Arsenal no more. Damn! That sounds like the story with my ex-girlfriend.

In this post, I want to talk about how at Arsenal, we do fair play (generally).

On the pitch, I have seen opponents not playing fair and within the spirit of the game. I have seen referees pouncing on chances to give us a disadvantage. This list is big and I wont say more. If the opponent plays clean and beat us well, I could possibly, maybe, begrudgingly accept that they just played better. However, when they shove and kick us out of the game, it is a shame for fair play in sport. Different styles of play are needed in football, but you cannot call rugby a style of playing football. What happened to Diaby, Eduardo and Ramsey was horrific beyond words. That is not football. Teams like Stoke are needed though, to play the part of thugs. To be the guys Arsenal run rings around. Even such thugs should be limited though. They should not have been allowed to hurt Ramsey like that and get away with it. After the wobbles against stoke and the media glee that their “no-nonsense” style of play was spoiling our triangles, we have come to own their asses in the past couple of seasons. I hear that Cardiff city are joining the ranks of the football-dead. Bring it on bitches!

When our players are roughly tackled, given the short end of the stick, it is nice to see them rise above it while also not accepting being bullied. It is especially heartening to see players fighting for each other. That is one reason I really liked Fabregas. If a team-mate was being harassed, he would get stuck into the opponent and then ask what the problem was. I would like to reuse the Rocky quote used by Mel here: “At Arsenal we never started fights-we just finished them”.

The reason I hate Barcelona is the amount of cheating they do to win games and the amount that goes unpunished. You are one of the best teams in the world for God’s sake! You dont have to resort to diving and the assistance of the referees to make sure you win at all costs. That is why their records dont mean that much to me, which does belittle them, considering the incredible amount of hardwork they put in behind the scenes, but that is what a negative view can do. People, including me would respect Barcelona if they lost a few more games but fought valiantly and with honour.

I am proud in seeing our players not resorting to such tactics. There have been times when our players have dived to win matches, hugged a guy to death (yeah, you Koscielny) or shouted at the official. It spoils the experience of the game and I feel sorry if the opponent is a lower ranked team (minus Tottenham, Stoke, etc. obviously) and did not deserve to lose. Credit to Arsenal for making such incidents few and far in between. Special mention should go to Walcott who has only dived once, as far as i remember and duly apologised for it. What the hell? When was the last time a player apologised for diving? We are being told that it is ok for Suarez to dive and be racist because that is how they roll in Uruguay.  Ah Suarez! Eventhough he is in the mould of a creative centre forward and even if he was offered for a tenner, I wouldnt want him anywhere near London Colney. I would like to think that Arsene would agree.

Off the pitch, the club has always conducted itself with dignity and fair play. Any transfer or even enquiry is done discreetly and by following the rules. True, the players we get seem like steals, but it more to do with us spotting potential rather than actually fleecing a club. I am sure that if we enquire about a player and if the other club says that the player is not for sale or they value the player quite a bit over our estimation, we move on. Eventhough Arsene these days answers questions about transfers more openly, he never says shit like “The boy wanted to come, but the club are being complete tossers and not letting him go. I dont get why they wont let him go. He wants to come, we want him, what else matters? It is not like he has a contract with them or something!”

We stay quiet until a particular player has signed for Arsenal. We do not tap up. Thank god we dont talk about DNA and force a shirt on a player. Hang on….maybe Fabregas has actually gone undercover, feeding Messi stories of glorious Arsenal and after we sign Higuain, he will force the Arsenal shirt on him at next year’s world cup. So by my calculations, Messi will sign in 2014 and Fabregas will re-join in 2015 (so as to not raise suspicion). To the rest of the world, it will look like sweet revenge, but the whole thing would have been Arsene’s master plan all along. We dont do evil, but if we do, even that will be classy.

Stay classy Arsenal!

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Editors note-Arsnal won the Fair Play thingamabob last year,despite being bottom after 2 months

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First Contract

Posted by pedantic George @arseblagger on June 24, 2013 in All Posts

The summer is here and, not unlike the rest of the season, transfer targets are at the forefront of many a football fan’s mind. The difference now being that there is no football to dilute the true joy that gossip and lies bring to the party. While this summer promises to be a massive departure from the more austere windows gone by, the issue of the day, for me anyway, is the contract of one Arsene Wenger.

The greatest manager in our fine club’s history takes great pride in always honouring his contract, but that will be little comfort to those who would like Arsenal to continue on its current path towards domination. With just over a year to run on his current deal, the intelligent Arsenal supporter is praying like there’s a god that Arsene will grace us with his managerial magnificence for another few years. Having endured years of austerity and the abuse of simpletons, Arsene has guided the club to where it can demand huge sponsorship deals and, in turn, sign the players on whom we’ve been missing out all this time. The idea of selling a top player just to maintain is a thing of the past as a new dawn is broken over North London. Arsenal are now in a position to compete on a financial level and, with the team gelling so well at the end of last season, should be able to compete for top honours once more.

Unlike many of our rivals, the position of strength in which we now find ourselves has not come about by chance. It took meticulous planning and absolute faith in the manager to mould the club into its current form. It is only with a manager of Wenger’s nous can a club really commit to a plan of such magnitude. I would like to know whether the board convinced Wenger or the other way around but some visionary devised a plan and Arsene Wenger was, and remains, the keystone. Even with huge set-backs like player departures and severe injuries to some vital players, Arsene Wenger has managed to keep the team in Europe’s top elite competition without fail. Of course, player departures were a direct result of a lack of silverware and financial power but there were some whose lack of loyalty must have hurt the boss personally and definitely impacted negatively on the plan. The casualties of this period would be the weak, the impatient and the greedy.

Why am I telling you what you already know? Well, I am just imagining how comfortable life would be if I were Arsene Wenger’s agent. We know that the boss is wanted by other clubs with almost guaranteed success for a man of his talents. We can assume that without Arsene Wenger, Arsenal would have at least once fallen out of the top four. We know that Arsene Wenger is the keystone. We know it and the Arsenal board know it. Has an agent in football ever had such leverage with which to bargain? With the exception of a few who lack the mental fortitude to see it, and a few who appear to be too stubborn to accept it, everybody knows what an incredible job Arsene Wenger has done and continues to do. The Arsenal board should, and in my opinion will, offer Arsene Wenger whatever it is he deems to be fair.

While I believe that the boss will simply renew his contract and continue his work, the little, anxious wreck inside me won’t be happy until it has been confirmed. Fears can overshadow logic like a cannon does a cock and we all need reminding of how good we have it, from time to time. I usually try to come up with my own lines but when I was planning this post, I read a tweet from Ricky (@GeezyPeas) that seemed to be more pertinent than anything I could muster. Rather than trying to reword it and pass it off as my own, he said, “Sad that some are genuinely concerned about losing Arsene to PSG. It’s as if you know nothing about the man.” A fine endorsement of Mr. Wenger’s integrity, I’m sure you’ll agree.

That’s all for this week, thanks for reading.

Up the Arsenal!

@Bradyesque7

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Ignorance and Stupidity.Yet Again.

Posted by pedantic George @arseblagger on June 23, 2013 in All Posts

Is it just me or are others infuriated by ignorance and stupidity?

Now I don’t blame people who are stupid, simply because they are.  I mean they are born stupid.  Nobody chooses to be an idiot.  Mostly they can’t help it.  Such is life.

No, what annoys me is that some stupid people insist on thinking they are smart.  And smart to the extent that they know more about a given subject than a top professional.

Of course this likely happens in all manner of activities, but I want to talk about football – and Arsenal in particular.

I am told all the time “I am entitled to an opinion”.

Of course when I claim that in that case, I am entitled to hold the opinion that they are idiots, that same ‘entitlement’ doesn’t appear to hold true for me.

If an opinion is formed from a position of almost total ignorance or built on falsehoods and misinformation, what is it worth?  It is in fact worth less than nothing.  I would prefer to hold no opinion on matters, rather than one which proves I am a foolish halfwit.

If I have a heart complaint I’d go to see a specialist heart Consultant.  If he tells me I am in decent health and half an Aspirin per day and some light exercise will see me well would I then insist that I need a quadruple bypass simply because my plumber mate down the pub says that’s what I need?

Or if I read a blog by an accountant in which he insists he has strong opinions on the matter, and I should therefore accept what he is saying, would I?

No!

Well why does anyone who watches a football match and follows Piers Morgan on twitter think that they know better than Arsene Wenger?  The reality is that in all likelihood, Doris the Tea Lady knows more about football and Arsenal than them.  I get told “I am a season ticket holder, 30 years of watching Arsenal, that entitles me to an opinion.”  Well I have been watching Westerns for 50 years but I would not presume to tell John Ford how to direct one.  (I know he is dead by the way.)

Buying a ticket entitles you to nothing more than a seat and a game to watch.  It does not buy you the right to pick the team, choose formations or set tactics.

If someone tells me the world is flat, I don’t feel the need to debate the subject with them.  There could be only two reasons they believe that.

Complete stupidity.  Or ignorance.

Ignorance can be excused.  But if they have been told the facts and shown the evidence, ignorance can be excluded and stupidity is all that is left.  So when someone says something like “Wenger does not understand defence” they immediately fall into the stupid category.  And they should not complain when I tell them that they are a moron.

Or when people insist that Arsene has refused to spend money.

Again, idiot.

The annual accounts over the past 10 years prove there has been no money.  Arsene has said there has been no money.  So if they are going to ignore the facts then they can only be stupid. There is no alternative.

The biggest problem is not people like bloggers claiming to understand things that they clearly don’t.  There will always be people who hugely overestimate their knowledge and intellect.  No, the problem is the masses of ill-informed halfwits that accept and repeat as fact, the opinions of these leaders of opinion.  Hitler was not the problem.  It was the millions of followers he attracted that was the problem.

Some want-to-be manager writing a blog about Arsenal is not the problem.  It’s the pathetic halfwits that believe that what he is saying has some real value, who are the problem.

People claim to know why Mata did not sign for Arsenal, for example. When in fact they have no idea at all the reasons for him going to Chelsea.

Here is the thing.

I have opinions about players, formations and tactics.  Ask me on a Saturday morning to pick the team and I will have a go.  But the difference is that by Saturday teatime, if we have lost I won’t claim it was because the manager was too stupid to pick the team that I did.

Pointing to an outcome and claiming it would have been better if your advice had been heeded Is nothing but evidence of your own arrogance and stupidity.

I really can’t understand why so many people believe that their one field of excellence is football and Arsenal.

But I can understand why they infuriate me with their ignorance and stupidity.

You can railroad George on Twitter @blackburngeorge

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The Final Front Ear

Posted by steww on June 22, 2013 in All Posts

Behind them the inky black emptiness of space stretched away, an infinite void punctured by the pinprick of distant, long dead stars. Except of course that it didn’t. It didn’t stretch away behind them, or in front of them or to the side. When something is everywhere and all at once, direction and distance become meaningless concepts. On board the ship there was no sense of movement, their serene passage through the limitless nothing impossible to detect in the soundless artificial atmosphere generated by the enormous bio-hub machine, or the heart as the engineers referred to it. Some saw the true beating heart of the ship as  its vast engines, supplying the movement without which the crew, surprisingly small in number for such a huge and complex vessel, would be cast away, stranded for ever without hope of rescue, a speck so vanishingly tiny as to render the rustic hiding place of the fabled needle child’s play to uncover by comparison.

The apparently sublime transit of the ship belied the activity on board.  It was true that things were relatively peaceful now. If you compared the situation with the chaos in which the crew had found themselves just the day before, the atmosphere was positively laid back. But only if you made that comparison. There was still damage to be assessed, repair droids to be directed and overseen and of course the human wounded to be patched up, knocked out or consoled. The commodore smiled to himself. When he considered the technological wizardry which made their precarious existence here even remotely possible , and when one added to that the trauma and extreme danger through which they had just passed, it was fairly amusing that a cup of tea and a warm smile were still the medicine most appreciated by those injured in the high tech melee in which they had so recently been engulfed.

He sent a tele-P message to Lieutenant Koscielny, requesting an entirely unnecessary status update. He knew the young man was perfectly capable of carrying out his duties. He had stepped in when the skipper had been taken out, and performed with a calm assuredness belying his youth and relative inexperience. In any event he had Flight Officers Mertesacker and Arteta alongside him on the holo-bridge and the commodore was supremely confident that they could guide almost anybody through any situation, even an ambush from the most notorious  pirates this arm of the Galaxy had ever known. Things had changed so much since he’d first taken command of an Interplanetary Exploration Starliner. The fall of the old system and the rise of the pirates had altered the life of a space-farer for ever. Even a craft as well managed and run as the IES Ashburton Grove had suffered from the spate of defections and desertions which had decimated much of the fleet. The problem was that these anarchic buccaneer crews could earn such fortunes. Never mind that men who deserted to the rogue ships often found themselves arbitrarily confined to the brig, sometimes for months at a time or that former captains could be forced into airlocks and jettisoned into space after only one brief voyage, feeble greedy men were the same the universe over. The pirate fleets paid no heed to the lack of any moral or defensible basis for their entire rotten existence, still they found many weak willed and willing recruits.

The commodore had lost at least two captains and many lower ranks to them in the past few years, but this crew, carefully nurtured over the last couple of Earth years had shown a unity and strength of purpose, even during the attacks which had nearly ended their voyage on many occasions in these past few months. There were a few hot heads he’d needed to calm, some, daunted by their situation and the apparently overwhelming odds they often faced needed an arm around the shoulder and patient encouragement, but in the main this disparate group of individuals assembled and forged into a fighting unit by one of the most decorated and respected men in the star fleet had, when it mattered, shown they could fight not only for themselves but more importantly for each other together.

Lieutenant Koscielny received the message via his neural implant. Blinked rapidly four times to acknowledge receipt and ran through the familiar check list before transmitting his response. He turned to Per and, employing plain speech, said to the tall blond man apparently seated next to him on the holo bridge,

“Arsene. Checking up on us”

But he was smiling. Per had said to him not to be surprised if he was contacted directly. The commodore always knew how to instil confidence in his younger officers and the tele-P message was a simple and immediate way of letting the young man know he was there, thinking of him, available to help if he needed support. Of course they weren’t actually sat next to one another. Ever since the recent attack which had damaged the outer deflector shields and nearly penetrated the hull, the crew had all been in their cabins. These doubled as escape pods or ‘coffins’ as they were known throughout the fleet. The crew manned the virtual bridge via the hologram simgen hub which gave piloting the giant starliner  a pleasing old fashioned feel. The ship was of course doing all the essential work of maintaining the engines, keeping the human crew in oxygen and ensuring they were on the appropriate trajectory, but mankind was a stubborn race and the illusion of being in control remained important.

The psyche injury suffered by Captain Tommy V hadn’t been serious but the position he held was sufficiently high profile that the Commodore couldn’t take any chances. They’d taken a few hits from smaller pirate vessels earlier in the voyage and the leadership the crew needed to keep them strong through the difficult part of their voyage simply hadn’t been there. The commodore knew his captain was still a very capable officer and felt sure that his time on the recuperation deck would see him come back stronger than ever. Flight Officer Vassiriki Skullcrusher Diaby who had famously killed one of the galaxy’s most notorious and evil pirate captains in hand to hand combat (or rather foot to head combat) was recovering from wounds he’d received on a previous flight and the two were discussing their hopes for the next stage of the voyage.

“It’s strange to think that my injury would once have been seen and treated so differently from yours” the Captain was saying

Skullcrusher shook his elegant, shaven head, rueful as he contemplated the folly of their antecedents “I know, it’s crazy. A tiny bone in your foot snapped when someone dropped something on it and everyone agreed you had an injury, a wound which deserved sympathy and care. However, a tiny part of your self confidence or motivation snaps under pressure of life and work and you were weak and no good, washed up. Thank the stars we live in more enlightened times.”

Tommy V laughed out loud at this. Of course it was true that back in the dark ages psyche injuries were not accepted as a perfectly normal medical phenomena, but Skullcrusher’s ironic and quasi religious call to thank balls of gas floating in space for their deliverance from such barbarism amused him. He drew a lot of strength from the taller man. His injuries had been horrific and yet he maintained his dignity and optimism and a strong belief that one day he would return to the fray. A natural warrior he would be in the midst of any fight should they be attacked again. Tommy shuddered as he remembered the time when a particularly nasty group of renegade star troopers known as the Barcodes for their unusual mode of dress had telelocated aboard in an audacious attempt to take over the ship. Vassiriki Skullcrusher had lifted the most violent and odious of the pirates from the deck by his neck and literally torn him in two flinging the black and white striped body parts to the deck with an exaggerated disdain which had terrified even his fellow crew members. Only the  furious determination of the corrupt ex government official Fatman Dowd who protected the retreating barcodes until they escaped the bridge back to the telelocation deck had prevented a massacre.

“Skullcrusher”

“Hmm”

“Do you think it’s true what some people say?”

“What’s that Skipper?”

“Well I heard this theory that there are infinite universes parallel to our own where all possible lives are lived in similar and yet subtly different ways.”

“Sounds like sci-fi bullshit to me Skip”

“Yes but, imagine if it were true. Imagine if somewhere out there in another time, another place there could be another you another me, heck maybe even another Ashburton Grove with all of us in it just living somehow subtly different lives. I don’t know maybe you are the skipper there and I have the blood wounds, or maybe we aren’t starliner crewmen at all maybe we’re a different kind of team all together. Wouldn’t that be cool? ”

“Keep taking the tablets Skipper” Skullcrusher laughed, “you and your crazy ideas. ”

Alone in the dark the giant ship slid inexorably onwards, leaving behind no ripples in the emptiness it’s crew confident in themselves and their leader, their mission seemed unending, yet their faith in the ultimate reward was never in doubt.

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In Depth Fixture Analysis.

Posted by pedantic George @arseblagger on June 19, 2013 in All Posts

Well the fixtures are out.

I have spent all morning studying them very closely and have noticed we play each team twice .

Not only that but the FA seem to have fixed it that we don’t play ANY of our rivals twice at home.SMH.

Despite this clear bias against us I think if we win most games,draw a few and lose hardly any,we could have a good season.

 

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Assembling Champions By Bradyesque7

Posted by pedantic George @arseblagger on June 16, 2013 in All Posts

Good day, Gooners of the positive variety.

So we got a new chairman with a funny name but, other than that, there is relatively little news to bring to you fine folk. With that in mind, I’m going to take this opportunity to talk about the team and where additions may be needed. This is not a tabloid newspaper or the blog of a man with an intimate knowledge of crystal balls. There will be no names, there will be no figures.

While the list of players linked with Arsenal grows, the actual squad of players at the club has begin to to shrink. In previous years this meant that we were losing vital team members but this time it’s different. The players who are leaving the club, some loved and some not-so-much, are doing so at the behest of Arsenal and nobody else. The team which was the best one in Britain for the second half of the season will stay together and welcome new players into an already defined system. So what do we need?

Any player joining the team will have to be strong of character and selfless enough to give themselves to our way of defending as a team. They will have to, regardless of price-tag or wages, join the effort to bring The Arsenal back to the top; an effort which is built on hard work and commitment. Most of all, I believe that they will have to bring what we lacked for a big part of last season, and that is confidence. Many times last season, (particularly in the first half) the team looked like it was out of ideas and short of belief. They subsequently went on to prove that they were good enough but as Arséne Wenger says, “If you don’t believe you have no chance at all”. Some new arrivals will be young and will fill out a depleted squad but the ones who join with a view to immediately breaking into the team will have to be the type of player who can be turned to when the new chairman is down.

Goalkeeper – It seems as though the club would like to add a goalkeeper to the party as Fabianski is out of contract this year. Having come back from being dropped, Szczesny proved to most that he’s got the quality to be our number one but there are signs that a new goalkeeper will be added to provide experience and competition.

Defenders – The situation at left-back is about the healthiest one at the club, with two of Europe’s elite battling it out for the spot. At right-back there has been some speculation about Bacary Sagna leaving to return to France. Should he go, Carl Jenkinson will step into the role reasonably seamlessly but there will have to be a player signed to cover. At centre-back, we have the interesting situation of our club captain being unable to break into the side as Mertesacker and Koscielny have forged an awesome partnership. Vermaelen has been linked with a move away but he was very quick to come out and say that he’s happy with us and wants to fight for his place. We currently have three top, top, top quality players in that position and a possible addition would give us a back-eight about which we could all feel extremely secure.

Midfield – Now I don’t know which hip terms we’re using for midfielders this week but with Arteta and Ramsey forming our double-hinge-swivel, we’ve got a partnership that has composure, creativity, industry and guile. This partnership is so strong that one would struggle to find a place for Jack Wilshere. There are a lot of games to be played over the season so a player coming in to make that very impressive three a four would seem to make sense. Last season, on several occasions, Wilshere was played in the most advanced role in the midfield. With Rosicky’s injury record, and Santi’s move to the left, either a creative player must come in to add to our attacking threat or Jack will continue his progression forward and two deeper midfielders would have to come in. It’s a bit of a quandary in the middle but it is one filled with quality players and exciting opportunities.

Wingers (Or whatever you want to call them) – Theo Walcott has had another good season. His new contract and continued progress means that our right side is nailed down for another year. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has been mooted as a central player for the future but this season will probably see him play a more active role in deputising for Theo. The left side has been occupied by Santi Cazorla which has pushed Lukas Podolski to the bench. There was talk about the German leaving but after a strong first season, the happiest man in London will most likely stay.

Strikers – Olivier Giroud has had a very impressive first season. There are elements of his game upon which he could improve but his link play, his power in the air, and often his finishing have shown him to be an excellent acquisition. He needs help and help is coming. Walcott and Gervinho have played there with some success but neither look to be the player to ‘lead the line’, as they say. A new forward to share the burden with Giroud is probably where a good chunk of our new-found wealth will go.

The point of this post is to highlight the fact that the team is already very strong. The overhaul had begun long before the budget exploded and the nucleus of a winning machine is already in place. This is not only a huge compliment to the manager who assembled such a fine squad on a limited budget, but it also tells us that, should we achieve success in the coming season, we will do it with a squad with whom we had the chance to fall in love. New additions will be supplementary and we will not have bought a title. We will do it the Arsenal Way.

Thanks for reading,

Up the Arsenal!

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