UNTOLD ARSENAL

If you have never read it, and you like a spot of laughter, it is always worth taking a peek at page 338 on BBC Teletext.

It is a summary, updated daily, of the madcap ramblings of a drunken bunch of nae’r do wells with nothing else to say (ie Fleet Street’s Finest).   Each story lasts a few lines and they tell you absolutely that the Lord Wenger is plotting to buy some reserve geek you’ve never heard of from a second division club that probably doesn’t exist in a country somewhere east of Afghanistan.

To be fair none of them actually said any of the things in my headline - but they might have done, because just as I made that lot up, so do the papers.

My point is, apart from  the jolly amusement that the BBC Gossip column gives each day (it was there, for example that I read last summer that we were selling Adebayor and buying Peter Crouch instead), it is a reminder that it is all going to happen again.

The journalists, having had a swift half of G&T are even now sharpening their noses to write up the wind up in the walk up to the start up of the transfer window being opened (if you get my drift).

And some people will get worried.   “Why is it always our players that want to leave,” they will scream in anguish, forgetting that the same gibberish is being written about the players of every team.   Chrissy Ronald Ronaldo wants £800 million a second to stay at Manchester Bankrupts otherwise he is off to Antarctica, Tevez wants to leave whoever he plays for, and it is the same old barmy army of Real Mad, BarBarBarcaSheep, WC Milan, Inter, and someone else I can’t be bothered to remember who are doing the buying.

So, let me strike a word in first.

It’s all a load of tripe.   This is how it goes:

Agent says to player - “you are worth more than this” and makes a fuss.

Manager ignores it, but at proper time says yes or no and opens negotiations or not depending on what he thinks of the deal.

Meanwhile agent puts story to drunked up hacks saying “Peter Crouch to Arsenal” and the silly boys down the pub print it because they lost any sense of reality years ago.

Agent then says to his boy, “look sunshine everyone wants you…”

So it goes round and round.  But in the end, the Lord Wenger usually gets who he wants, where he wants him and when.  Not every time - Flamini was an exception, but mostly those who go, go with Wenger’s blessing - from Vieira on.

And for what it is worth, my guess is that Wenger didn’t mind Hleb going once he knew he had Nasri.  And if that is the case, I am with him all the way.

Last little word before I make the long treck from the wild and windy Midlands to glorious sunny north London: goonernews has decided it doesn’t like us - or rather it did yesterday - so if you fancy reading about Arsenal’s Genetic Production Factory and other exciting stories, go back a page or two (or see the list top right, depending which sort of page you are looking at).

Right, time to start the old Austin 7.

In deepest darkest Hertfordshire (Shenley to be exact) there is a biological laboratory. Surrounded by armed guards and men in track suits, it houses one of the most extraordinary genetic experiments ever seen on British soil.

For it is here, no less, that the Genetic Research Experimental Facility is based. Funded by Arsenal FC the Facility is the home to a series of experiments which have resulted in not just the production of young footballers, but the production of young English footballers who can actually play, err, football. Qute extraordinary.

“We start with a genetic soup,” explained Ivor Lottatalking-Todo as he showed me around the site. “The exact make up of the soup is variable, which is why the players that we produce here is so varied in both nationality and playing ability.

“One of the biggest problem we have had to deal with is the production of players who become classified as English. The essence of being English make up is so muddled, being a mixture of Danes, Saxon, Celts, Norwegians, French and even Belgians from earlier times, plus of course everyone else since the UK had its period of colonial expansion. So it is hard to get the mix quite right. One gene slips and you think you have an English kid and he turns out to be classified by FIFA as being from Chile or China or somewhere else. Take Ramsey - we thought we had an English boy, and it turns out to be Welsh. Beats me.

“Personally I don’t think this nationality thing matters at all - they are all people - but these fanatics at FIFA have all these odd rules about where your mother was born, and the fans of other clubs keep shouting “England England” so we have to abide by the rules.

“Our early experiments showed how wrong we were getting it. We had Francis Jeffers for example - a complete wash-out. We got the English bit sussed, but he had three left feet and a pair of ears that went in strange directions. Then we had that Pennant chap - somehow the mix went strange and it turned out he thought he was a racing driver.

“After that there was that strange Cole fellow. Started out ok, good footballer, quite English, but then his brain went awol leaving his head completely empty. Very odd. Just an experiment that went amiss, I’m afraid.

“But each failure has its value as we change the mix a little to compensate, and of course you can see the difference. As the production of the Fabregas line has shown, we now know how to make players - and the production of the Ramsey format means we can produce British players.

“And now you can imagine how excited we are about the Wilshere line. Of course there were production problems. We originally called him Wiltshire, after the county, just to emphasise his Englishness, but some of the genetic goo got spilled in the tub, and it ran over the name tag, so he came out as Wilshere instead - but who cares. He is English and can play football.”

And so it seems the production line is destined to continue. Now the genetic make-up is known, there seems to be no end in sight.

“We expect to be producing a dozen or more English superkids a year now,” said my guide. “One of the big benefits of working with English kids is that they are at such a premium that even if we get the football mix slightly muddled, as long as we produce someone who is designated “English” then we can sell him on. Again, look at Pennant. Or come to that Bentley. Crazy, insane I know, but if a boy is English someone somewhere will buy him, no matter how naff he is.”

Thus we have the future. Every month a new model player appears, all brilliant, many English. Not be eh?

Arsenal, we are repeatedly told has a little squad. That’s why they can’t win things. To win things you need a Big Squad. With a Big Squad you win things.

Its worth putting both ways round because it is said so often. You know the game - one journalist says it so another says it, and then another, and before you know it, it must be true.

But, well, maybe not.

Daniel Agger of Liverpool made the point that losing to the Tiny Fantasists (that is the team that reckons it has a season ticket waiting list of 20,000 and whose main achievement of the Levy Years is to get planning permission for a training ground), in the League Cup was not good because, “We have a big squad and the more games we can have the better it is for us. Not going any further than the fourth round this season is very annoying.”

Especially when you see the bunch of children that hammered you 6-3 at home a while back, sail through.

That is the problem with squads - you need to keep people happy. Or not as is the case with Pennant, at Liverpool. The Insolvents manager won’t play him - not in the league, not in the cup. Nowhere. He wants to sell him, but no one wants to pay much.

That’s part of the problem with being insolvent - you can’t buy until you sell, but all you have to sell is your players who are so fringe that they don’t even get a single game in the league cup.

Which brings me to my point. Arsenal keep players happy by having a tight first team squad in which everyone is going to get a game, with an extra group of young players who will be more than happy for a few games in the league cup.

Of course there is a risk that this way you run out of players for big matches. That’s true, but the Lord Wenger’s way around this is to find players who can play in two positions. Diaby with his midfield centre forward role is but the latest example. Kolo came as a full back, went to centre, and can move back. Gallas can deputize at left back if need be while Traore has fun and games on the south coast. Nasri can play across the midfield, Song can play centre half or midfield.

Some don’t like this - but… the alternative is to have a player of the highest quality who then gets very few games because he is a deputy to a top player. When his chance comes (eg in the league cup) he can’t do it, because he is rusty, and feels he is being made to step down.

When our kids get to the league cup it is the big moment for them - the great step up, so they give it everything, as we have seen. And, as we have also seen, in many cases they mature quickly for the first team. No one can deny that Ramsey can play in the first team already, just as Cesc could at that age. And if he then has to step back he is hardly going to feel it is not worth staying (unless he changes his name to Bentley)

The first team squad, slightly smaller than most, the vibrant reserve side that can play in the league cup, plus the ability to move players to other positions, is a superb system, and a great invention of Lord Wenger’s. There have been elements of it on show in other clubs, but not the whole pattern as we see here.

I know for sure that in 30 seconds time a journalist will say that Arsenal can’t win because they have a little squad - but then maybe I’ll drop him/her a note pointing at the grand squads of the Insolvents and CSKA both of whom lost in the cup, or Manchester Bankrupts who only just managed to scrape through.

Have you noticed the change in the way the wind blows?

And how everyone in the world of journalism is now denying they were puffing in the opposite direction?

Until a few weeks ago the Lord Wenger was the total enemy of English football, singlehandedly destroying our chances of playing in European matches and winning anything.  If it hand’t been for Wenger England would have been world champions in 1970, 1974, 1978…

Well I exaggerate of course, but you know what I mean.   The pathetic childish chants of “England England” heard at grounds where we play (usually when the opposition are 2-0 down).   The charges of neo-racism - the sheer endless level of blame heaped on the man.

And then, suddenly, our children’s team beat Sheffield Untidy 6-0 and Wigan 3-0, in a team containing some England players, and the press is saying,

“I was never one of those who thought that Wenger was anti-English.  He always used the best players avaialble, and if they were French rather than English so be it.  You can hardly blame Wenger for a lack of quality in England.”

And on and on and on.

It really is rather sad the way the hacks change their views to meet the prevailing feeling.  So no more, “Wenger sacked Bentley because he was English”, but rather “Wenger sold Bentley because he was not good enough at that point to be in the team, he had done poorly on loan at Norwich, and he was an absolute disruptive pain in the arse who said, ‘if you don’t play me I go’.”

So he went.  And look where he ended up.

The kids team is great, and if you ever get a chance to watch the reserves (which is in effect our third team) you’ll see just how much depth there is.  Take a look at the under 18s too.

There’s more where this lot came from.

Tony

According to the Sun (that great vanguard of truth and taste) Ray Wilkins of CSKA said exciting things about Arsenal’s cup win against Wigan.

Things like “You enter a competition to win the competition. Why go into it if you’re not concerned whether you win it?   Playing a young or weakened team undermines the value of the competition.   And we have not and will not do that. We want to win it, big time.”

Which means he’s going to be a bit upset at losing to Burnley, who we also beat with a young side a year or two back in the FA Cup, I think.

On the other hand Chelsea won’t mind the fact that a coin was lobbed into the crowd by one of their players.   In 2002 a Liverpool player called “Carragher” did the same sort of thing when the Insolvents were playing at Highbury.   There was quite a demand that, since a fan who did this would be banned for life from the ground, so should the player.

But no, the “Carragher” was sent off, got a police warning, was fined £40k and told not to do it again.

Seems like it is all getting a bit softer these days - after all the EPL doesn’t fancy being sued by the might of Russia.  No sending off, and no sign of a fine or anything else.

What we do see is that after 10 years of careful nurturing of talent, combined with world-wide scouting, Arsenal have produced a youth team that can defeat an EPL team, with Liverpool Insolvency and CSKA Fulham have used the time to buy anything that moves.

Their buy-buy-buy policy has resulted in a second team (not a youth team) that in each case doesn’t really look as if it wants to play much.

If ever there was a week that shows the worth of the approach of the Lord Wenger, it is this.   I know we are behind in the league - obviously I look at the league table - but knowing what the youth team is up to gives me a really warm feeling.

On the day when everyone is raving (quite rightly) about our team of 3 year olds there’s nothing more to add on that front - save to reiterate that it was possible to get a ticket for £10.   If we had been playing the Tiny Fantasists they would have demanded the standard A prices - just as they did last season.Which leads me to money.

We all know the economy has disintegrated, the banks are bust, and capitalism is on the brink.   But the football clubs sail on into the sunset without any worries…

Except…

At a conference in Zurich, Keith Harris, the man who is trying to sell Everton and Newcastle, said he is most concerned about Liverpool.   As I have mentioned before Liverpool have to find £350m to pay in January to Royal Bank of Scotland and Wachovia.

Both these banks are in dire trouble, and there is no sign that they want to agree to roll over the debt (something that Manchester Bankrupts are also dependent on, but from different banks).

The £350m owed by Liverpool Insolvency includes £185m borrowed by those lovable cartoon characters Tom Hicks and George Gillett, to buy the club, even though they promised the supporters of the Insolvents that they would not do this.  And some of the Insolvents supporters believed them.

Ah.  Bless.

Liverpool can extend the debt at higher rates of interest, for a further six months, and then, in July - just as the transfer window is bubbling into life, Liverpool Ins. must either refinance the loan or repay it.

Of course some idiot might come along and put money into the Insolvents, or  that old “we can’t let a famous club die” stuff might kick in.

But what the banks know is that for everyone in Liverpool that they might alienate if they let the club sink, there are 100 people who would applaud them.  After all why should companies that manage their affairs well be refused money while a club that manages its affairs so badly is given cash?

Meanwhile at Everton, Bill Kenwright, the chairman, has said that they must have new investors because they just can’t keep borrowing as they are now (and that’s before they even think about building a replacement for the current ground).
For someone to buy a club they look for an increase in the value of their investment  of around 10% a year, without any extra investment.  Everton can’t get anywhere near that.  Which is why no one wants to buy.

Both Liverpool Ins and Everton suffer from being based in, well, errr, Liverpool.    We all know it is not a very nice place to live, and in truth it is not a wealthy city.  There are not the financial and business connections to run clubs in terms of massive purchases of players year after year after year, as they have done.

Of course clubs don’t have to go bust.  What they have to do is have stadia that make a profit on every match, bring in their TV money, have a very positive image world-wide, and can afford seasons where things don’t go well.

Which brings me back to Arsenal.  The performance by the Children’s Team this season is making news around the world - in the most positive way possible.  Even the rampant nationalists who insist that we have english players in every side had to shut up. (Interesting that everyone forgets that 20 years ago Liverpool played a cup final without a single english player in the team).
For Arsenal it is exactly the positive publicity that brings in more and more supporters to the club.

And as Harris said at the Zurich conference “Arsenal’s £260m, borrowed at 5% interest to finance the building of the Emirates Stadium is the most competitive and conservative”.

For Arsenal, its not looking too bad at all.

While the Tiny Fantasists (managed by Harry Hotspur) and Portsmouth (previously managed by the self same chap) have both utterly failed to do anything about one of the awful outbreak of racism and homophobia against Sol Campbell, and while the EPL and the FA have likewise failed to take any action whatsoever over the action of Tiny fans, Lincoln City have led the way.

Lincoln have made an official complaint after their players and assistant boss were racially abused at Kettering Town on Saturday. The complaint has been made to referee Simon Hooper, who will be including it in his report to the Sweet FA.

Lincoln have also asked the ref to note that the stewards did little to stop the abuse.

So, once again we note the utter and complete silence that comes from the Tiny Fantasists and Portsmouth. I suspect they will carry on in this way for ever - pretending that racism is something that happens in Croatia but is never but never associated with EPL teams.

All I can do is to remind them and the FA over and over again, that the racism and homophobia witnessed at the Portsmouth Tottenham game this season was awful. Had it happened on that scale at the Ems the ground would probably have been shut.

It just goes to show.