Eventually, just like the invincibles, grudgingly or otherwise, they will have to acknowledge the team at last

Ajax and Arsenal FC have reached agreement about the transfer of Thomas Vermaelen. The transfer has a total worth of 12 million euro, of which 10 million fixed and 2 million variable.
Vermaelen (born 14 November 1985) joined the Ajax youth academy at age 15. He signed his first contract in 2003. Vermaelen joined Ajax from former affiliate Germinal Beerschot. He made his debut in Ajax 1 at age 18 on 15 February 2004 in the match FC Volendam – Ajax (0-2). Vermaelen played 143 official matches for Ajax, in which he scored 10 goals. The defender won the national title with Ajax in 2004, the Johan Cruijff Shield in 2005 and both the Dutch FA Cup and the Johan Cruijff Shield in 2006 and 2007.

Vermaelen playeed on loan for RKC Waalwijk in the 2004-2005 season. He has earned 21 caps for Belgium.

From Finn at Arsenal.dk

I know the joke will wear off in a while, but for now I quite like them.

The traits of journalism as u point out :
a) simplicity
b) repetition
c) instant success
d) a lack of willingness to do any research at all
e) a lack of willingness to stand out from the crowd.
– i see these traits in every walk of life nowadays; be it journalism, movies or your colleagues at work, the people u interact with.
In fact, (b),(d) and (e) are almost the same — spout the same bullsh!t repeatedly, it becomes the truth and u question it/do something different — oh wait u cant everyone else is doing it (there must be a reason they are doing it but i dont care to know or question it), so u should do the same.

journalists get so used to having to spin crap stories that when a real story comes along, they dont recognise it as such, and have to find a spin to put on it.

our start to the season was spectacular enough that any real journalist would be able to fill page after page with just straightforward facts.

Really great article that i feel everyone should read. The one thing I would add as a factor of the media is arrogance/ xenophobia. Anything not British in origin is always looked at as inferior and everything British is often overratted. Feel free to disagree with me but that is my view and keep it in mind and it will begin to become evident I feel. That is why to me Arsenal is much more than a football club. It is a representation of good, in so many ways- fighting against evil. Thanks for a great piece

In general, it is hard to appreciate some of the journalistic opinion, especially when it scorns the beloved arsenal. Taking a step back, you know some of it is true, but quite often the wrong reasons are attributed to arsenal’s lack of success. Injuries and refeering decisions are never mentioned, along with the massive resources of the mancs and the chavs.

You will appreciate I am using a program, and am not the originator of the program, so it doesn’t always do what I want it to do. But, here’s the situation.

The program is set, of necessity, to put into moderation any comment that includes a link. If it were not so set the site would be overwhelmed with junk email adverts.

But I think that part of the way in which the program recognises a link is through the (at) symbol – so if you use that because it is within someone’s screen name or as a form of abbreviation, then you will go into moderation.

I do check the site regularly, but obviously have other things to do. Tonight, in half an hour (for example) I am going to my local jive club, and if this evening is like most jive evenings I will return at about 11.30pm so exhausted that it is all I can do to get out of the car and into the house. I won’t check the site again until about 8am tomorrow.

Actually that reminds me, on Saturday after the Portsmouth game I am driving a few hundred miles to a family reunion and party, which goes on until Monday. I might just find a computer somewhere, but if not, sorry, no Untold Arsenal for a couple of days. The comments will of course remain open.

By the way, Talk Sport (a UK national commercial radio station) was seriously debating this afternoon if the Tiny Totts would win the league this season. It was, I assure you, a SERIOUS debate.

But in a way it gives charm, to be against all others

A standard reporting piece starts out with an anecdotal story before linking that story with the bigger picture – most often statistics that by themselves can be interpreted in different ways. The end product of a good journalistic article is that we, the public, are made aware of a fact and understand the causes and consequences of that fact. Great journalism leads us to respond to new information in actions.

What we most often read on the sport columns are not journalism in this definition. They basically repeat in words what we have heard and seen and try to amplify the sensation. Functionally they are means for us to reflect our emotions and create bonds with other people who are exposed to the same sporting events – something very similar to the celebrity culture.

Sport commentators have almost no desire/time/capacity to make their viewers better at understanding techniques and tactics. Who wants to be “educated” while having fun with his mates at a pub? Commentators instead spend most of air time talking about super-human performances of players on the field as individuals – the most obvious, glossy things everyone can see and opine on (For baseball, this explains the phenomenon “chicks dig the long balls” – everyone can see the ball flying out of the park – while pitching is an arcane art for most fans).

Sport journalists have no access to scouting/recruiting report. But that IS scouting – our private info on Vermaelen allows us but not other teams to confidently bid for him. This information asymmetry, ironically, makes sport journalists averse to the practice of bringing in previously unknown players (“If this guy was so good, why hadn’t we heard of him before?”). They instead dig “news” on players we all see every weekend, further enhance their importance in our cosmos, or brew unfounded transfer rumors to fill up their columns.

At the end of the day, our bashing the tabloids/uncritically buying anything the tabloids say is what tabloids are there for. If you want to improve the quality of your appreciation for the sport by understanding it better, there are other sources.

@Nick in Frankfurt: Isn’t knowledge power? If they do not know much about their subject but are employed because they can write, shouldn’t they research that about which they write?

Anyway, like you Tony, I too am happy in my own small way to be a part of this Arsenal revolution.