By Tony Attwood
I wrote a brief piece today on the Arsenal History site (link below) concerning Dennis Bergkamp, in recognition of his appointment as assistant manager at Ajax.
The article got me thinking about two things:
First, how many other ex-Arsenal men are working in senior management at clubs? Remi Garde has just got the job as manager at Lyon, and Martin Hayes is at Dover Athletic. Pat Rice is at Arsenal, of course.
But who else? My mind has gone blank and I need your help. Can you tell me any others? I’d like to do a series on these players turned coaches, and I’d like to follow their exploits this coming season.
Second, writing about Dennis brought back the memories of the way in which Inter fans attempted to destroy him with their remorseless criticism. Indeed it is fair to say that had they not turned on Dennis as they did we would never have been able to sign him and have the benefit of the man who has been voted the second greatest Arsenal player ever.
With the under 10s division of the supporters clubs now going out to destroy most of the current Arsenal squad, I was also thinking of doing a piece or two on other players who have been destroyed by club’s resident moron community.
Again, can you help? Before the growth of what I used to call the Anti-Arsenal Arsenal (which started in 2000 – as the current series of articles on the History site shows) we had one or two such, but I can’t recall many. If you can help with information about players who have been vilified in the past that would be helpful.
If you are a regular reader you will know that I personally don’t agree with such behaviour of players, so my resultant article will be very much against such vilification. I think the fact that such behaviour lost Inter a man who could have been one of their greatest players ever says it all.
I know the under 10s will snigger at this, and I have already heard statements to the effect that “are you trying to say that Denilson is another Bergkamp”. These people are of course under 10s, so it is very hard for them to get even the slightest grasp of a simple idea, but to spell it out: to the Inter fans at the time, Dennis was a truly awful player. So bad that they got the media to run the Bergkamp of the Week award, for the worst player in the top division that weekend. The quality of the player is not the issue – it is the treatment of the player that then destroys the potential quality in the player. To the Inter fans of the time Dennis was a fourth division player. He wasn’t of course, but they so undermined his self-belief, that his performances dropped off, and they then were not treated to the performances that we later had the honour of watching.
Just as their loss was our gain, because of the way in which these “supporters” have allied themselves with the media (always ready to knock anyone) we are likely now not only to lose some good players we are also likely not to be able to sign certain players because they don’t want to suffer the abuse either.
Do let me have your thoughts on Arsenal players turned senior management, and Arsenal players who have suffered abuse from people who call themselves Arsenal fans.
Dennis Bergkamp: a brief celebration
Hi DP
Even I like your views here sometimes just to ensure that we dont become blind followers and stop crticising ourself.
But sometimes you realy tend to ignore anything in favour of Arsenal. Like if we lost 10 points due to bad defence and 15 points due to bad referees, you would still point out the defensive mistakes but ignore the bad referring. Thats where I would like to see a more balanced approach.
@DP – we could be here all day, I’m gonna just agree to disagree
@Abhishek Kumar- being overly optimistic and positive too is also genuinely wrong. So thats why i try to balance out.
As i’ve said b4, i only comment on sites which i respect. I’ve commented in Desi Gunner’s site and maybe a few other relatively new sites as well. Other than that, i treat the rest sites as tabloid sites. I’ve no interest in commenting in the rest.
@Woolwich Peripatetic- agree with your point. And appreciate your comment as well!!
@Abhishek Kumar- i think the ref issue is something which needs a bit more investigation/analysis b4 we can make any judgement. I believe the Untold representatives are, as we speak, trying to go further into this topic.
But i’ve never denied any the influence of refs in our games. I have stated before that the refs have made bad decisions which have cost us points, maybe even more than anyother team, but to conclude that there is an ‘Arsenal bias’ is a bit too premature. But i do agree that there is an English bias in Epl, and maybe that could be a reason for the Arsenal-bias we talk about. But still it wil take a lot more investigation to prove something, a lot more.
Plus, in this ref issue, i tend play the Devil’s advocate. Its jus to try to show how other fans or the refs or the FA might view it. Maybe it can discourage some here, maybe it can encourage to investigate further to prove it. But i hope people choose the latter.
But as i said b4, its nothing against Arsenal.
@Stevie E- atleast we can agree to disagree
Dogface, I have seen another multiple poster with uncannily similar tones to threads on several other arsenal sites, this dude is especially prevalent on online gooner. Amazing anyone has the time!
Trolls, media, fans all have it in for arsenal at the moment, talkshite are in the middle of a talk about nothing except slagging arsenal off day.
As for the player abuse, it seems to be getting worse every where, witness utd players removing themselves from twitter.
I seem to remember lee Dixon getting it for a while when he arrived
@ Tony, it has been quite disheartening that some sections claiming to be Arsenal fans would rather read and regurgitate rubbish about our players that support them.
Last year there was a sustained attack on Fabianski, Theo and Arsharvin by these people who claim to be supporters rather than an embarassing oxygen sapping baying mob.
Not once did any of these players come out and say that their audible groans, boo’s and general negavity was a motivator to improve or boosted their confidence. Instead their performances got worse, but the strange cod pyschology spouted by some ‘supporters’ would then have them blaming Wenger for being a bad manager as he was failing to motivate his players. And/or in addition to this, call the players in question weak mentally because they couldn’t rise above the sustained weekly torrant of abuse by the media and their own fans.
Conversely I have heard many players come out and thank fans for lending their voice and getting behind the team and them. Obviously it made a difference to them whilst they were playing or they would’nt of mentioned it.
It is still suprising to me that some people are expertly able to dissect an Arsenal player to highlight his failings but without much thought or examination replace the discarded player with one ranging from mediocre to completely rubbish.
Luckily for us Fabianski, Theo and Arshavin haven’t been driven out of the club (yet) like Bergkamp and Henry were, but I sense that the mob may of got their wish with Denilson, which is a shame really.
@ Dogface, keep up the good detective work.
Some of those names ring a bell as I recall wasting my time talking to Snehal, Dan Green, Vretou, Plain and Sharad. What is so suprising is the amount of time and effort he/she put into posting rubbish on here daily. It’s almost a desparate cry for help really as they just want to talk someone. Maybe the Samaritans barred their number or something…
Just thought i’d weigh in with my tuppences worth and say i for one one am absolutely pissed off about dennis bergkamps appointment at ajax!
the silly sausage should be giving bould the elbow at arsenal or even bo primorac- there is a constant clamour here for the enlistment of adams et al to teach defense at arsenal and to those i merely say Pah! return to talkshite radio and the Sun-
So Dennis bergkamp may have ajax “DNA” but he is assembled the arsenal way.
I used to watch the reserves in the 90s. Whenever Jimmy Carter played a group of 3 or 4 pensioners would turn up and give him a hard time. After a while we found out that it was his dad and his dad’s mates!
First of all, i forgot the name i’ve used before, but it should be something like that. I think that’s my 3rd comment on the site.
I think that’s happening right now with Clichy. Our Fans have never forgiven him the one mistake he did in 2008. Since that mistake, every other mistake was twice as bad, as it actually was. And we’ve seen it with the keepers. Fabianski’s confidence was low, very low thanks to the support he has(n’t) got.
Dogface, really breathtaking stuff.
They took too much serious energy out of our community.
Removing the vitriol from varun alone is so welcome.
Kudos!
Let us never be fooled again and thank this poster, whoever they may be, for enlightening us in the ways of the troll.
For them, it seems, this is a full time job… I agree with Gooner Gal – one has to wonder exactly what this was all about – and as Mandy says; other blogs get fooled by these guys and get sucked in – I do notice that nobody really here had a good word to say about any of those accounts – they were tolerated and our attitude was ‘inclusive’ – more fool us.
This community has its differences but it is healthy and we should not be any less inclusive or suspicious of our fellow posters but we should take note when things don’t seem quite right… bob – yes, the energy was leeched but I hope that it will be returned in the form of resolve now the truth is out and the boil lanced.
Mr. Troll – a message to you, thank you for giving us a really good chuckle and teachig us a valuable lesson, your pathetic posts after we banned all of your accounts are now framed and hung on the wall of the toilet in Untold Towers – they aid in our deffication you see as some shits, no matter how little, take a good deal more concentration to pass than others.
When Bergkamp was at Inter he was played out of position (as a lone striker) rather than as support to someone else in that position – what has now come to be known as a No.10.
Think about the last FA Cup Final that we won on pens v Manure when he was forced to play that role (and was very poor) and you can understand why he and Inter didn’t get on.
Arsenal recognised the problems he was having and got him to sign on the promise of playing deeper and, after an unproductive intial spell, the rest is history.
Fans in general don’t understand the subtle differences between different roles on the pitch and, frighteningly often, don’t want to.
Some of the most successful players in Arsenal history became so after changing their position but such events of coaching brilliance are to often forgotten in the mists of time. A great pity.
@DogFace
I’ve seen postings by those names on other blogs as well. I guess they want to hijack all Arsenal discussion around the net and spread their venom. I seriously wonder what sort of person/people would spend their entire time doing this.
@Richard B
Good point about change in positions/roles. Henry of course had his too. But Bergkamp once said that in Italy their attitude was that a striker is supposed to score goals. Everything else is secondary. SO if you are not scoring 1 every 2 games you are useless, no matter what you may be/may be able to offer the team in other ways.
Richard B,
Would you apply the same reasoning to the need for a new striker (more clinical/poacher/next eduardo, etc.) and having RvP back in the No. 10 (if not downing st.)?
also, do you think the out of position has been a factor with some of our starters, or is flexibility/versatility enough of a good reason for the way that Arshavin, Theo and Bendtner, possibly Nasri too, have been deployed? I don’t know if there was an option or not, but I’d appreciate your thinking on this. cheers.
Re changing a players position (Bergkamp having been moved to lone striker by Inter and back to support striker by Arsenal) it’s interesting to recall that forty years ago half the Double winning side was made up of players who had been shuffled around by Don Howe. McLintock, Simpson, Storey, George, Graham and arguably Radford (who moved to the wing and then back to central Striker) all switched in the lead up to that momentous season.One or two even moved during it.
Wenger has a record of playing people out of position for a while in order for them to develop part of their game that he considers needs improvement. Henry out wide to gain confidence, Diaby ditto to make him use his left foot more,are just two examples.
Currently I think we have several players who are struggling to perform to the maximum due to the position they are asked to play. Nasri obviously craves to play in the centre (where Fabregas naturally plays) but he’s much better out wide than is Arshavin who also wants to play centrally where his lack of defensive nous would be less exposed.
Walcott, in my view, would be better employed cutting in from the left (think Overmars) and, funnily enough, I think Bendtner (if he stays) would benefit from a continued stint out wide as Radford benefitted from.
Clichy, I don’t think, appreciates playing behind Arshavin or playing in a 4-3-3 as opposed to the 4-2-3-1 that he played in originally.
Stewart Robson (who is worth the Arsenal Player subscription on his own) said several times at the back end of last season that RVP should be withdrawn to a support (Bergkamp) role and we may see it happen if Fabregas and Nasri both leave. If that happens Chamakh is going to be under greater pressure to play both better and more often although another central striker looks like he may come in to lend a hand in that position.
Jonathan Wilson (of Inverting the Pyramid fame) predicts that teams will reduce forwards so much that 4-6-0 will become the norm for many sides especially away from home. I’m not so sure but I can see 3-2-4-1 being a way to go but Wenger will still demand more creativity from his back line than most managers and fans will still not understand that defending set pieces is as much about attackers that can’t/won’t defend as it is about defenders not doing their job.
Contrary to popular belief our defenders, in open play, had the best record in the Premiership last season. At set pieces the height of the forwards coming back to defend was exposed.
Interesting times!