UNTOLD ARSENAL

There was a moment right at the end of the game against Portsmouth in which Papa Bouba Diop committed what looked like a dreadful foul on (I think) Denilson.  From my position in the upper tier quite some way along from the incident I didn’t have anything remotely like a perfect view, but it looked dreadful from where we sat.

After what seemed an age of hand waving the men came on with the stretcher and carted Diop off.  But long before that the Portsmouth sub came on.  Now I know it is only a technicality, but you really should not have a sub on the pitch at the same time as the player going off.

Then, to add to the fun the stretcher party couldn’t work out how to proceed, going one way then the other, and then trying to walk across the whole width of the pitch - before the ref said, “it is three yards to the touchline, go off that way”.

Then, to my surprise (and if I have got this wrong, I apologise - it was three quarters of the pitch length away), there was no card for what looked like a terrible tackle.

And all that came after one of the oddest afternoons at the Ems, wherein Mr Microphone who whips up the audience to a frenzy (well, a bit of shouting) was not there and the stand in sounded as if he had never seen a microphone before, let alone a football match.  He had the Portsmouth fans in stitches with his mispronounciation of the team, he couldn’t find the names of the mascotts, he suddenly shouted “are you ready” and then went dead quiet.  It was an utter shambles.

What is remarkable is that an event that brings in the club £3 million should not bother to have a back up presenter.  You’d have thought… well, no, perhaps not.  After all it is just football.

Still, six without defeat, which is the best run of the league season, so at least we drove to the wild and wintry midlands quite happy.   Then on 606 came that utter imbecile prat twit nutcase bully ranter berk Allen Green who spent most of the match he was burbling about complaining about the fact that all the games were at 2pm not 3pm in the EPL.  Why? he shouted.  Why?  And in case we hand’t got it, he repeated himself 13 times.

Had I not been driving I might have been tempted to point out that it was a Sunday after Xmas, and that many rail services were curtailed and maybe it had a bit to do with helping away fans get home.  But of course he wouldn’t know about stuff that concerns mere ordinary supporters.

And then still it was not over because then we had Harry Houdini not only wondering why his magic tricks don’t work at the Tiny Fantasists, but also complaining endlessly about the ref.   It gives yet another chance for the EPL and FA to show how pro-tiny tott they are.  Remember their actions over the abuse Sol Campbell got when Tottenham played there, and how all they managed to do was put up a little range of pictures - out of the thousands giving racist and homophobic abuse that afternoon.   I suspect nothing will happen to Harry H, except a meaningless tap on the wrist.

The 11-4 score is the number of chances during the match recorded by the Guardian.  Tony Adams got his proper respect from those of us old enough to have watched his first ever game, and the Lord Wenger has said that he was ready to buy one player and now might buy two.

So possibly everyone could be happy.   Hope so - the comments these past couple of days have showed not much Xmas spirit, (or maybe too much Xmas spirit), and I want to make a suggestion.  If someone comes on with a load of abuse about me, or another correspondent, or the Lord Wenger, or anything else in the Arsenal Universe, why don’t we all just ignore it, and carry on as if it had never been said?   I must admit to being as guilty as anyone at replying - particularly when I was endlessly called a racist earlier this year.   But maybe silence is better.

Finally, finally, finally, a point from the game.  I thought Carlos Vela was brilliant.  Every ball, every touch… while others couldn’t make it happen, he just brought the whole thing to life.  I really do hope we can hold onto him.

So, five league games unbeaten.  Not perfect by any means, but certainly better than the two defeats that preceded the change of captaincy.   And certainly not bad when the run includes three of the teams currently above us.

And even more so not bad when you remember that the heart of our team has been ripped out of us either by wreckless insanity, a kick around on international “duty”, insane yellow cards and the inevitable sheer bad luck.   Eduardo, Rosicky, Walcott, Fabregas, Adebayor, Clichy - these are the people who make a champsionship winning team and none could start against Aston “if you go down and they’ve got the ball, hold your head” Villa.  Take out the young up and coming players like Djourou and Song, and you can see how far back we are being pushed.

Two things occurred to me last night as I thought over this.  I happened to glance at the Championship league table, and saw Charlton preparing themselves for the drop into League One.   That reminded me of the time when Charlton were punching way above their weight, challenging in the top half of the EPL.    But after the club failed to get into the Champions League, after challenging for a place, the muttering started.  The common phrase was “Curbishley has taken us as far as he can - time for someone new.”

Curbishley eventually had enough, left the club, and they went into freefall - and now look where they are.

The other thought arose from reading “Arsenal: The Official Biography” which I was given for Christmas.  It made me think, following all those endless “best 50 goals” type DVDs, just how easy it is to forget.  Somehow the past is an eternal Unbeaten Season, in which Henry scores a wonder goal in every game, and Pires gets a tap in.

But just read the ups and downs of 1999/2000, as an example, and you’ll see what I mean.  It was not all wonderful - it had its ups and downs - but ultimately Wenger delivered everything he promised and more.

There is a danger. a danger that the mumbling and muttering of discontent will eventually make Wenger think, “I’ve had enough” and go on to take any one of the million other jobs he could walk into.  It would give me no pleasure to watch the subsequent decline.

There are three big reasons why most football commentary is negative.

First, it is easier to write negative than positive commentaries.  I remember the classic moment 20 years back when we beat Liverpool Not-yet-insolvents in the last game of the year.  The fanzine “1-0 down 2-1 Up” celebrated that with a series of articles at the start of the following season.   Naively I expected the mag to be full of positives.  Instead it contained a whole string of make-believe articles considering what might have happened… if we had lost.

Second, journalists write negative all the time simply because most people don’t support Arsenal, Liverpool Insolvents, Manchester Bankrupts or the KGB in Fulham or any other team you can imagine.   (Incidentally that is why sponsorship of any particular team is always pointless from a commercial point of view.   Would you ever buy Crown Paints or Holstein?  Sponsors lose far more trade than they gain through their sponsorships.  It is all vanity for the top dogs.)   So if a JIP (journo in pub) writes a scathing attack on Arsenal, they are pleasing most of their readers, because most readers are anti-Arsenal, and that is good for sales.

Third, no matter how good you are, you could always be better.  (Even Arsenal Ladies have this - true they win every league match, but they have just lost Julie Fleeting, and they have been knocked out of Europe…) - which make criticism so easy.

So negativity is what we get.   You may have noticed how jolly the JIPs were over Cesc’s injury, and how they poke fun at the Lord Wenger when he gets annoyed on the touch line… it pleases most of their Anti-Arsenal readership.

The only consolation is that JIPs do it to every club.   Just today (24 Dec 2008) there are stories about Liverpool’s failure to get the money for a new stadium, about how Scholari is demanding money and  the club ain’t got none… so it goes.

Hence my thought as I get ready to go to my partner’s house for Christmas… a true supporter supports.  That’s the deal.  To peoople who say they are “Arsenal” but moan a lot about Arsenal my answer is that they should have a bash at being a supporter of a team that doesn’t win stuff, ever.  Like Torquay United.   Small ground, in need of repair, small crowds, relegated to the Conference, no reason local concern or feeling for the club, got to one Wembley final only to lose…   Go there and try supporting them every week. Then come back after three years and realise just how blessd we all are to have had Arsenal chosen for us by our families, our heritage, and our background.

Just under 99 years ago, Arsenal went bust, and were on the very edge of being taken over by and ultimately merged with Fulham.  Because of the dedication and determination of George Leavey, the chairman, who despite not being a wealthy man, selflessly put his own money into paying the players during the summer of 1910, Woolwich Arsenal survived as an independent club, and when the move away from the declining Plumstead area did come it was a move that brought growth and maintained independence rather than bringing closure and oblivion.

In 1910, first division Woolwich Arsenal were struggling on crowds of around 10,000, and criticism was everywhere.  We no longer remember how everyone at the time was a critic of Arsenal, but those who really know their Arsenal history do remember people like George Leavey.  He never got his money back, and no one ever really thanked him for saving our club, he is not honoured with any plaques or busts, as far as I know.  But I believe we would all do better to remember him, than spend our time sniping at Wenger, the board, the team, or the club.

Thank you for reading my ramblings.   Have a great Christmas.

Tony Attwood

…. the team that is built around the ability to beat anti-football.

It is now 243 years 38 weeks, 4 days, 5 hours, 23 minuutes 3 seconds since one of the big four won a league match, and time is starting to run out for these top clubs.

By having successfully evolved ways of disrupting all real football without engaging the wrath of the refs, the FA and the EPL, the anti-football clubs have endeavoured to aid their own survival.  The result, as we can see, is a bunching of lower teams together in the bottom part of the league.  Two defeats and you are in the relegation zone.  Two wins and you are “challenging for Europe”.

In the short term ultimately someone at the top is going to win a game, but the way it looks at the moment it is either going to be a victory in a game between two of the top four, or it is going to be because of a moment’s luck.

But what of next season, and the one after?  Having found their solution, the lesser clubs are certainly not going to give it up.   You can’t imagine Aston Villa, having found success with their approach, then stopping it and starting to play free-flowing open football.   Likewise you can’t imagine the FA, or EPL, doing anything about all the tricks of anti-football.   That is not their style and besides if they were going to do something, they would have done it by now. Rotational fouling has been around for five years, and there has not been a single move against it.

Which means in the end that the solution has to come from the one of the top four clubs that has imagination: Arsenal.  The only question is how long will it take to find this solution.

There are moments when I watch a game that I think that the answer is just around the corner - and then along comes another major injury and we are set back again.  Three really influential players - Rosicky, Eduardo and Walcott have now been joined by Cesc out of the game.  It is creative players like that who will find a way through, and those are the ones we are missing.

But there is a ray of hope.   It is clear that in the coming years the players who are going to join the Arsenal first team squad will have been around for a while.  They will have been brought up on anti-football as the norm, and they will, as part of their upbringing, seen how to overcome it.   I suspect that by the time Jack Wilshere is striding across the turf game after game, anti-football will be beaten, eaten both by its own desire to negate everything that is good in the game, but also by a new round of utter brilliance.

The message cannot be clearer - with the injury to Cesc now, and the clear signs that Liverpool are still be protected by referees in a way that other teams are not, the Lord Wenger will know exactly where we stand for the second half of the season.

Back comes Eduardo, followed somewhat later by Rosicky and Theo.  Out goes Cesc for a while, plus anyone from the kiddies’ side who wants to go off on loan.  Hovering is Jack Wilshere who the lord Wenger described last week as Bergkamp II.  (That’s interesting because about a year ago Wenger said that if there were another Dennis out there, he couldn’t find him).  Bergkamp II.  Can you imagine?   And he doesn’t even have a fear of flying.

If he is unsure as to whether the baby team will be able to step up and do their stuff, the Lord Wenger can go and buy anyone he wants.  Real Mad have already spent their dosh paying  several hundred billion for Lasagne Diarra - which is ok because it gets us more money, and it gets money for Portsmouth (and it is hard not to feel something for Portsmouth given who now runs the show, and who is in and around the team).

Virtually everyone else is bust - BarBarBarcaSheep could buy someone as could one or two Italian clubs, but it is going to be a very thin market - which means Arsenal can get whomsoever they wish.   (And that’s leaving aside the fact that by and large most of the people we buy are not on other team’s shopping lists anyway).

I haven’t a clue whether we should buy anyone or not - time and again I have been amazed at what he has conjured up from the realms of the outer darkness.  I’m the one who wondered what the hell he was doing with Henry who didn’t seem to know where the goal was for the first two months.  (I also thought Dennis was over the hill when we bought him.  Shows what I know.)

With that in mind, I was heartened by Sunday, and as each game goes along I think that Denilson is not just a great midfielder, but is getting that inside knowledge that Gilberto had - that “invisible wall” stuff that made him so valuable.  I do recall how, when Gilberto got his year-long injury, there was a general feeling that he would not be missed because he really did nothing.   When he came back he got an overwhelming reception - everyone knew by then why he was in the side, and what we had missed without him.

So, now its Villa.  If you thought Liverpool were play-acting (as they were), just wait until you see the “go down and hold your head” approach they have been using.

There was a moment in the Villa game yesterday where one of their players went down holding his head and the ref looked, and then played the game on.  The commentator said “that’s not right” or something like that, and eventually several minutes later the game was stopped.

I thought this a heart-warming moment.   I’ve never really wanted players to be injured (well except for Ince, I suppose, and Souness.  Oh and Keane, and…  )  Well, ok, I’ve not wanted that many players to be hurt, and that’s not what I was after this time.  It was just clear that the ref had rumbled the Villa game: “if you go down son, and they are attacking, hold your head.  It will get the game stopped”.

We saw it at the Arsenal Villa game where a player did exactly that and then came off for treatment on an ankle injury - and maybe the refs have caught on.

Which is good, because the rest of football is upside down.  Arsenal board are, according to the Observer, talking to Usmanov not, (as the headline claims) to get him on the board, but just to try and stabalise the club.  I’ve only been in one company where part of the shareholding was out of favour with another part, and believe me it does not make for stability, so maybe this is good.  Maybe this is the shakeout that has been needed  for some time.

(Or maybe it is like that moment in “1984″ in which we are at war with Eurasia, and then half way through a sentence everything changes and Eurasia is our ally and we are at war with Eastasia.  If you haven’t read it for a few years, read it again - you’ll be amazed how close we are to what Orwell was talking about - and he wrote it in 1948).

What was interesting was that our man in Switzerland did emphasise that the sustainability financial model of Arsenal is at the core of everything, Usmanov or no.  The problem of course is if Usmanov wants to use the club as Liverpool and Manchester have been used - as a way of playing with debt.  On that score we have no knowledge and that of course would be a disaster.   But if he sat there like a good boy, and stopped issuing writs to people who say nasty things about him (for God’s sake Mr Usmanov, a lot of supporters call me a total tosser, and I don’t go round suing them) then maybe its all right.

Still, it is good that after weeks of the JIBs (”journalists in bars” in case you have not been paying attention) not talking to the PAs (”players agents”) we are back to business as usual.    So we are going to buy Arshavin (Mail on Sunday) and Tevez (Mirror), Wenger is going to Real Mad (News of the world, so it must be true), and we are being taken over by a consortium from the Middle East (Sunday Times - ditto).

As for Chelsea, that Scolari fella has “branded” (press word) “liars”  some other fellas he calls “unscrupulous individuals” (PAs talking to JIBs), whom are “leaking untrue stories to newspapers in a bid to unsettle players and the club.”   Oh my whatever next.  I’ve never heard of such a thing.

The Observer says, “The statement comes at a time when there are concerns at Chelsea about players’ representatives and their relationship with the media”.  Goodness.

So finally on to the truly odd Liverpool Insolvency.   We know that the Yanks who own the Insolvents have got a £350m loan they have got to restructure by 25 January 2009, and they have no money to do it, and those awfully nice bankers who have just wrecked my pension fund won’t give them any money.

Well, on today’s BBC teletext it says, “Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez will have to sell before he can buy next month”.

I thought at first they were talking about players - but then I realised, that is not how Liverpudlians think.  To them the north west is the centre of the universe, rather than a run down port that was once part of the slave trade.  What that sentence actually means is that Liverpool want to buy January.  That is they want to buy the month.

Just like the emperors in Rome used to rename months after them - and then extended their month to have more days than another month named after any other emperor (August is named after Emperor Augustus etc), so Liverpool want to rename January as “Liverpool” thus making the year “Liverpool, February, March etc”.

You don’t believe me?   Shame on you.   And yes, to the gentleman who wrote in and said, “that wasn’t you on LBC on Friday afternoon was it?” yes it was - so there.  If I am on LBC, I must know about Roman emperors, Liverpool and months.  Stands to reason.

Right.  Into the Cortina and off to the Ems.

This week’s game in the press has been to suggest that Arsenal is falling apart because there have been changes at Board level.  My guess (which is of course just a guess) is that the change arounds can only be for the good of the club.  They will have no effect on the short term, and will have a very positive effect next year.

What is interesting though is that there is little on the way in which the management of Manchester Bankrupt seems to be following the finances of that illustrious club.

We have had an extraordinary outburst from Sir Alex F-Word about Real Mad, which was very neatly side-stepped by Real Mad’s top dog who calmly said “we’d never talk about anyone in such a manner”.

We also had the outburst about Evra who clearly did something a bit dodgy at KGB Fulham.  We then had some very ill-judged criticism of the FA which led to the FA replying (for once) by publishing the hearing’s full findings.  What was interresting about those releases were that they said that the Bankrupt’s assistant manager Mike Phelan and fitness coach Tony Strudwick were “unreliable witnesses” which is legal shorthand for saying they were liars.

So instead of letting this slip away into the Christmas piss-up that Manchester Bankrupt always have the Neville character (who according to the report behaved in an abusive and provocative manner” in the KGB affair launched another assault.

Everything about this looks like the Bankrupts have gone out of control, except for one thing.

Supposing they have invented a new rotational system - rotational press releases, or I suppose you could call it, rotational abuse.

They work their way around the club each one abusing the FA, another club, a ref, the EPL, anyone you like, and no one gets done because it was just a one off incident.

I am not sure if Manchester Bankrupt staff are that clever to organise such a process, but it would but quite amusing if they were.  Having failed to deal with rotational fouling and rotational time wasting, the FA and EPL are hardly likely to deal with this which means they can get away with anything they like.