Today we discuss what is a reasonable expectation for Arteta and “his” team

So if you have clicked on this site because you want to be a “big twitter account” and influencer, I’m convinced I can give you the equation.

The problem is that if you understand the game, have strong opinions that are not popular opinions, are a logical and critical thinker or want to tweet about social/political/religious subjects, becoming a big account is likely beyond you. However, if you are none of these things, I’ll try to give you a lift.

Step one is very simple and almost fool proof. Follow thousands of other Arsenal twitter accounts. And I mean thousands, 20,000 or so as quickly as possible, usually 50% of these accounts will follow you back. Now don’t worry about the ridiculous amount of tweets on your time line, you don’t have to read them and you can gradually unfollow them as the months go by and thin them right down so latter on it looks like you have a great ratio of follows to followers. This is an important status symbol latter on.

Step 2. Is to either keep a list or have a separate account that follows all the other big accounts , the ITK and all the sports journalists that tweet about Arsenal. You will need these accounts so you can repeat what they are saying to give the impression that you are across everything. Don’t forget to rewrite the tweets slightly so you can deny tweet theft. Make sure you go in hard with any transfer speculation, no matter how unlikely, or even if you’ve just made it up, a good tip is to put these in quotation marks, then you can say it was someone else that said it. Also post pictures of world class players with “bring him to the carpet” or something similar, maybe along the lines of “Messi, Yes or no?”

Step 3. There will always be someone doing a twitter poll on just about everything, keep an eye on these and never ever ever tweet against popular opinion. If opinion is split, stay away from the subject until it’s clear which way the tide is flowing.

Step 4. Always be positive about “the club”. You can tear into unpopular players and the owners, in fact this will help, but be positive about “the club”. Don’t worry that you haven’t a clue what “the club” consists of because neither do the idiots that will follow you.

Step 5. Never be critical of any of the fans. Probably the only exception to this rule is if any fans have racially abused a player, but be careful even then as you are straying into dangerous waters that could lose you more followers than you gain.

Step 6. Always post a tweet celebrating the birthdays and the anniversary of the day that Henry, Bergkamp , Vieira and Pires signed with a comment about them being the greatest whatever position they played in or being the greatest PL player ever. Don’t forget Tony Adams and call him “Mr. Arsenal”, that always goes down well. Never forget to include pictures.

Step 7. Do not be critical of an Arsenal legend, no matter how stupid they have been about the club or current players.

Step 8. Taunt other clubs mercilessly. Obviously Spurs should be your main target, their trophy cabinet is a banker and if you can squeeze our Gold PL trophy all the better.

Step 9. Ignore any people that know what you are up to. Under no circumstances get into a debate/argument with these people, they will be a lot smarter than you and expose you as a fraud. There is no need anyway because loads of your idiot followers will jump to your defence.

Step 10. Your avatar. Keep it simple, the club badge or a photo of a club legend.

Step 11. Do not comment on any social, political or religious goings on. Make every single tweet about Arsenal.

So that’s about it. Follow these rules and in a year or two you will have 50k+ followers and can feel very good about yourself without actually thinking or having a worthwhile opinion about anything. If you don’t believe me, skip through the time line of a big account.

Good luck.

Pedantic George,

Podcast: Personal stories and family recollections by Stephen Mills, a 3-generation Gooner, provide history lessons from  94 years of Arsenal Football Club. According to Mills there were difficult and glorious years but to quote him “It was fantastic to be an Arsenal fan.”

This is the audio version of the Uncensored Arsenal YouTube livestream of July 24th. For a full broadcast link the channel at YouTube_Uncensored Arsenal

In this podcast we try to make some sense out of senseless behaviour.

Good day one and all.

In this podcast we consider how much of a loss Xhaka will be, his strengths, weaknesses and the stupidity of our fanbase.

If you want to watch on youtube , it can be found here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs2tcS42ZPw&ab_channel=UncensoredArsenal

In this podcast we chat about Bould going, White coming and the end of Arsenal values.

Morning all.

Today @shotta_gooner and I look briefly at the Brighton game before discussing where were stand, who and why we are standing 8th. What can be done, what might be done, who is best placed to do it? Despite the dire season Arteta looks safe, why?

Pedantic George.

Good morning all.

The end of the season is nigh. Thank goodness for that. There has been nothing good about this season. The odd good result and the occasional half decent performance sprinkled in among dour games and embarrassing defeats. Personally I’ve found watching the games a chore. Quote frankly it’s been awful. But enough of that, we will look at the season in more depth when the dust settles.

Right, on a positive note, we have the chance of winning 5 games in a row and go into the summer with the hope that there has been an improvement and all will be well next season. Where there’s life there’s hope I suppose?

Brighton play a lovely brand of football, but because they have so few good players, it looks better than the results that it earns. Their strikers are particularly ineffective which always means victories will be few and far between compared to the quality of the build up play. I think Graham Potter would be very good with a better squad of players, like Arsenal for instance, but I better keep that under my hat?

If results go our way today, or against us, depending on how you look at it, we could end up in this joke European competition they have dreamed up for teams not good enough to get into the losers cup we have been competing for for the past 4 seasons. A horrible thought, but on the flip side we would finish above Spurs, which will be a source of great joy and merriment for Arsenal fans given how bad we have been.

We will bid a fond farewell to David Luiz, and that’s a bit sad for me. I like him, think he has done quite well for us and brought some much needed character to the club, let alone the team. Ceballos and Odegaard will also exit the building both having disappointed to varying degrees, but who hasn’t disappointed this season? It makes me wonder if it was them or…………………oh never mind, we’ll leave that for another day as well.

Also I heard that Steve Bould has been sacked, dear me, what next, ask Pat Rice to stop attending games? Steve has been a great servant to us and this will be another link to past greatness that we will lose. F. sake.

Ok, enough for today, enjoy the game and I will see ya all on the other side.

Pedantic George.

Good day one and all.

Tonight at 7pm Arsenal take on Chrystal Palace in a meaningless huge game. We desperately need a win to climb from 10th to the dizzy heights of 8th. Another win and fans can look at the points gained from some random point in the season and claim that’s a clear indication of progress of the process. I kid you not.

Arteta has done is PR interview, sorry I mean press conference, and told us……………………. well actually, I’m so fed up with him that I can’t bring myself to watch or read his waffle anymore. I’m sorry, but the sight of him makes me so mad I could punt a puppy across a motorway. However, from twitter I’ve gleaned that Xhaka and Luiz are likely to miss out. It will be a shame if we don’t see either of them in and Arsenal shirt again, Luiz is deffinately for the off and I think Xhaka will be too, given a glimmer of a chance.

Old uncle Roy has announced he’s stepping back from PL management, so that’s about the most interesting thing about this game.

But look, don’t be put off my my outpourings of misery, Mikel tells us that the owner are hugely ambitious, so that’s ok then. We are going to be grand next season.

Seriously, enjoy the game and stay safe.

Pedantic George.

Good morning all.

Today’s blog isn’t really about last night’s game, more about how we, as fans , the media and social media, look at the results. That said, while I’m here typing it would be rude not too.

We got 3 points away against a team that has dispatched us with little problem over the last 15 years. We defended gallantly and in a controlled way that for the most part was effective and well structured. There were glimpses of attacking flair with ESR standing out well and perhaps even being outstanding. Elneny was efficient and effective and made a nonsense of the perception of him being peddled by some in our fanbase.

On the flip side, we were rather lucky to win. Chelsea gifted us a goal and were dominating us most of the night. They had made 7 changes, it was basically their B team and still were creating chances four times as often as us, hitting the woodwork and Leno together with some desperate last ditch blocks, saved us several times.

And that brings me nicely to the point of this blog, which of the previous two paragraphs is your analysis, and why?

We all have the same information, facts and statistics available to us, but how we interpret these things varies wildly from one extreme to another.

If you are Arteta out, you will dismiss the result and hark back to the real and perceived failings of the last 12 months, if you are Arteta in you will dismiss anything that’s gone before and use a result away at Chelsea as justification for you’re belief. Whatever your position you will look for a vacuum chamber of like minded people and go to war with fans on the other side of this divide. Well at least the loud mouth over opinionated people will, like me. The reality is that most people are somewhere in the centre ground and shift slightly and slowly after every game.

The extremists, like me, will take a stance and look for everything that will confirm their bias.

I have also noticed that when you have set up residence in a particular camp, and decide to cross the floor to the opposite camp, these fans are even more vocal than they were. This is likely because they have to justify to themselves their change in attitude.

Me for instance, I was one of the very first and biggest advocates for Arteta, things happened and I did a complete U-turn and now I find myself struggling to give a fair and balance look at day to day goings on, because I want to justify being set against him and I want to prove myself right. These attempts to prove myself right will be countered by people who disagree and want to prove me wrong and themselves right. And so it goes on, it becomes a battle of egos from rank amateurs like me with absolutely no reason to have an over inflated ego. The vast majority of vocal fans/tweeters/bloggers/podcasters, don’t do it to share our opinions, it’s to show you all how smart we think we are. That’s the problem, the desperation to be seen as smart and right, stops any critical thinking that might show us to be stupid and wrong.

You can’t look at the way we have performed and our position in the league, our early exit from domestic cups and the inglorious exit for the Europa League, and conclude Arteta has been excellent. Similarly you can’t ignore the difficulties he has within the squad, at board level, the clear improvement in our defence, his gaining in managerial experience, the improving patterns of play and conclude that there isn’t a possibility that he could become a good manager.

Most fans want to be happy and enjoy supporting the team, today a lot of fans are happy, that’s has to be a good thing and there’s no need for any of us to go around bursting their bubbles.

Today is a good day, let’s enjoy it.

Pedantic George.