Wed 10 Feb 19.45, Emirates Stadium 
Does Arsenal Have Supporters, Or Are They Customers?
By · CommentsI always have a healthy exchange with my Liverpool supporting friend Dean about all matters football and about our respective clubs. The fact that Arsenal play Liverpool tomorrow prompted a customary chat about the state of the football union.
He posed the question as to whether I’d been following the hysteria about Arsenal, quipping “Dude, you guys want to do a Benitez on Wenger”.
He of course was talking about the treatment Rapha Benitez got from everybody under the sun when Liverpool’s season was capitulating.
To his surprise, I told him that I switched on the TV at 4.00 pm on Sunday and turned the volume down, before switching to something else after the game was over. Since then, I really haven’t gone out of my way to read, listen or watch anything said about Arsenal.
Actually, I tell a lie – I re-watched the game on Arsenal TV and also watched Wenger’s press conference. I’m not into that kamikaze type nonsense right now of absorbing overly negative vibes to self inflict pain.
Both of us agreed that we expect nothing but drama from the media – for they have bills to pay. We were comparing notes on our actual fans and how the fans reacted in adverse situations.
It was then that I made the comment that perhaps Arsenal has customers rather than supporters. And in a media savvy world – let’s face it, the customer is king.
We were joking about it, but seriously speaking – are we getting to the age where fans are treated by the club like commodities where the expectation is that they will buy match day tickets, stadium hospitality and merchandize.
There’s also the small fact that the billions of pounds pumped into football come from the sale of broadcasting rights around the world for leagues like the English Premiership and the UEFA Champions league. The rights owners recoup their money by selling subscriptions.
Wenger has caused somewhat of a micro-storm in the footballing establishment in this past week by suggesting that he’d rather be 3rd in the Premier league than win the Carling Cup or the FA cup. The establishment’s translation of this is ”Frenchman doesn’t care and doesn’t give a damn about the historic FA cup or domestic cups – the arrogant fool. That’s why he hasn’t won diddly squat”.
But let’s face it – the FA cup and the Carling cup don’t actually pay the bills, do they? In the grand scheme of things, any romance they provide was firmly drop kicked into the long grass with the advent of mega bucks TV money.
We can sit and debate until the cows come back home and still conclude that the domestic FA and Carling cups are actually a distraction when it comes to clubs who need to draw in the mega bucks to keep afloat.
The ”Arsenal hasn’t won anything in 5 years” is a tiresome refrain that is already echoing the streets of Holloway and the alleys of Ashburton Grove. Mind you, such refrains are the pre-amble to the Post hoc ergo propta hoc (Latin for After it therefore because of it) pronouncements that Fabregas is now on his way to Barcelona.
The truth doesn’t always follow the idea that a second event always comes because of the first. Fabregas or any other player for that matter wouldn’t leave in the summer because Arsenal hasn’t won anything for 5 years. Far from that – if a time ever came for him to leave, it’ll be because the club agree to sell him or any other player.
What is more of an issue here is that the chain of stories and events following what’s now dubbed as ”yet another season without a trophy” is the classic shit stirring scenario.
For me, it’s part of the problem that makes me think Arsenal has customers. It’s these customers who have taken the view that they want a return for their money here and now and enough is enough. They are convinced that unless Arsenal win a trophy, the club is an equivalent of a failed banana republic that is headed to the dogs.
I guess in the last 5 years, Wenger could have fielded full strength teams in the domestic competitions, but I doubt that for the ’Arsenal hasn’t won a trophy in 5 years’brigade, a Carling cup or two will count.
I admitted to Dean that if there’s something I admire about the Liverpool fans, it’s the fact that they know when and where to remonstrate, and when and where to fully get behind their team and support the players like mad.
I sometimes feel we have customers who are more interested in getting a good return for their buck than they are in supporting the club through difficult patches.
Dean always reminds me of the Arsenal fan who committed suicide straight after the second leg of the 2009 champions league semi-final against Man United when Arsenal lost 1-3 at the Emirates.
He jokes that if Liverpool had such supporters they’d all have committed suicide by now if they had to wait 20 years to win the league.
I’ll confess, I was in two minds about how to approach my reflection of yesterday’s game against Chelsea. I wasn’t actually as disappointed as I was last weekend after the loss to Man United – the reason being that I felt the team in general played much better than we did last week.
The statistic that counts though, is the one on the scoreboard so it’s still hard to swallow the defeat. Even my wife who is an ardent Chelsea fan berated Arsenal for going missing at the far post in the 8th minute gifting Drogba an open net. He was never going to miss from there.
I also thought of talking about the fact that I’d prefer that Andrey Arshavin shuts up and stops talking willy nilly to the media. He should focus on converting the guilt edged chances he has on the pitch for that is what he’s paid to do.
Most of all, I also thought of venting my anger at Manuel Almunia for ball watching as Drogba’s free kick cannoned off the woodwork. His ”Oh my God!” face as he stood there as a spectator for some reason really really pissed me off.
Instead, I caught up with a movie I’ve always wanted to watch since it was released but I hadn’t had the chance. It was The Taking Of Pelham 123.
Great movie except for the stupid girlfriend of one of the hostages (George I think it was) insisting on the webcam that he tells her “I love you”, even though he risked an encounter with the business end of a machine gun. What an idiot of a girlfriend.
It was then that I thought of a Stone Cold Friday post that I wrote in early December 2009 following the first defeat to Chelsea. I think it was during a scene in the movie with a ridiculous traffic jam on a bridge that made me think of a dodgy Stamford bridge.
When I re-read the December post that I called Unite and Win, Divide and Fail, it occurred to me that the post is actually very relevant right here and right now.
I figured my gripe and disappointment isn’t with the team – it’s actually with our doom and gloom merchants. I can live with the teams short-comings so long as they show visible improvement and fight hard when the chips are down.
In my book, the team performed much better than they did against Man United, and I’ll take that for now and I look forward to a more positive result against Liverpool on Wednesday.
As for the doomers, I’d do an injustice to my December post (originally published on ACLF) by not publishing it here in its entirety. Enjoy:
If I were an analyst working for an industrial espionage outfit commissioned to carry out a destructive interference programme on Arsenal, I’d be looking forward to filing my November report with the dubious committee set up to oversee the capitulation of the club. The committee sits late every Friday night guided by the silhouette of a hangman and his noose perched above their heads.
The executive summary of my report would go something like this:
The past fortnight has been a watershed for our Arsenal destruction programme. Contrary to our initial belief that this team will capitulate by mid February, I am pleased to confirm that we are seeing the signs of their demise much faster than we expected.
Our campaign to spread poison and conspiracy theories about how the team can never hack it and why Arsenal receives an extraordinary proportion of injuries during international breaks is well on target. We have received a boost from two unexpected sources.
Firstly, 11 months ago we recruited a sleeper agent in the suburbs of Belgrade. An unlicensed quack masquerading as a miracle healer of sorts, our handlers ensured she had a dodgy tax record to support plausible deniability.
Our Belgrade asset was called to action a few weeks ago. She did an effective job in providing false hope to their talisman and the entire gooner nation. By the time they realised what the deal was, their chap was pretty much confirmed as out cold for the season, a situation that has clearly unsettled them.
The second and the most important catalyst to the destruction of Arsenal are the forces within. We always felt that the work their manager had done over the years stood on very firm ground. Our media allies and pundits have ensured that our anti-Arsenal message continues unabated. We needed their support to sow the seeds of doubt amongst their weak and fickle glory hunting fans; to convince them that they can never win something unless they buy players with inflated price tags.
In the last 2 or 3 weeks, this group of fair-weather plastic fans has unleashed a venomous tirade as they spit fire and brimstone on the internet and airwaves. The voices of reason of the realistic and level minded supporters will soon be drowned out if we maintain the current pace of interference.
Some of these fickle Arsenal fans don’t even realise what they have. The club is one of the best managed elite clubs in world football who are financially solvent and only have a mortgage for their magnificent stadium as debt owed. They don’t realise they have one of the best managers in the world who has the courage and vision to set a path and a future for the club that will stand them in good stead for decades to come. They don’t realise that they have a great talented squad that just needs a tweak or two to click into place.
Impatient for success, our friends in the media have drummed it into their heads that they are weak and useless, that there is no place for beautiful football in the game as we want it. Former Arsenal players in particular have been doing a brilliant job at confusing and annoying with their public utterances of our messages.
With the events of the last two weeks, particularly their losses to Sunderland and Chelsea, there is a danger that they will regroup and get reinforcements. It is not in our interest if they succeed in this and we must continue to run interference for the rest of the campaign if we are to achieve our goal of keeping them divided and bringing them down at the end of the season.
They have a very intelligent manager and intelligent players who have the desire to be champions. The players know that they aren’t there yet; that they have to iron out a few defensive issues and build up their mental strength and character.
Every competent observer we talk to convinces us that this team will only get better as the season goes on. Luckily they are getting their customary dip in form that every team has at this point. Our fear is that they will peak at just about the right time to grab all the honours and I can’t stress enough why we cannot let this happen.
They have a good number of bloggers who unwittingly do our job for us. You should seriously take the time to read the blogs of such negative anti-Arsenalists who call themselves fans and slate their own team left right and centre. Most fans around the world would trade an arm and a leg for their team to play the Arsenal brand of football, but some of these folks are so spoilt they don’t even realise the joy that their football team brings to true footballing fans around the world.
I’m confident that the media and pundits will continue with our strategic anti-Arsenal diatribe as the season goes on. Our hope is that their fans will follow this nonsense instead of getting right behind their team and becoming the 12th man if you will.
One of our worst nightmares is if the Arsenal crowd ever gets behind the team at their stadium in particular. A strong crowd that gives belief to this team up till the 96th minute of any game, in combination with a team this talented and this motivated will be explosive. You can see why we cannot let that happen.
Luckily for us, strategic interference has convinced the fans who attend match days that it’s not worth staying for the whole match. Their lack of belief in the team will hopefully start trickling down to the team itself and the players will realise that they have fake fans who are only interested when they bang 8 goals in without reply.
In conclusion, I must say that if we continue with our path, we will certainly be on our way to making the Arsenal the most lucrative proposition for an enticing hostile takeover. It is not in our interest to let all the ingredients of success come to fruition at this club despite the fact that success is nigh for them.
Our worst fear is that it’s only a matter of time before the team gets the benefits of constant defensive drilling and discipline, and that the supporters get behind their team and push them over the winning line.
We just have to make sure we divide and rule this club because the only obstacle to our intentions is that the team and the fans unite as one to unleash their magic on us.
…And by the way, I watched the whole game with the volume turned down to avoid the commentary or the pre and post match diatribe. It’s liberating, you should try it.
In the pre-match press conference yesterday, Arsene Wenger was asked what he wants to say to despondent Arsenal fans. A thought did cross my mind as to whether the journalist asking the question was one of the only 22 readers of a certain Arsenal blog who signed a non-starter petition to lobby the board to fire the manager.
In the view of the journalist (clearly a beacon of professional integrity and statistical analysis), a huge proportion of Arsenal fans no longer share Wenger’s belief that Arsenal can challenge for the title.
The Arsenal manager seemed somewhat baffled with how to answer the question before going for the ”let’s get a bit of perspective here” answer.
Wenger’s view is that Arsenal is actually in a fairly decent position for a team that was totally written off pre-season not to even make the top 4. We perhaps all need a modicum of perspective to appreciate that being 6 points off the top with 14 games to go and having played almost all your tough fixtures is not a bad place to be.
Like many of us, the manager’s disappointment seems to be with the manner in which Arsenal conceded ground to Man United. Clearly, the team didn’t shroud themselves in glory.
Facing Chelsea at Stamford Bridge is as good a game as any to put matters right. The team owe themselves that, and they owe the fans a respectable performance of the calibre we have come to expect.
Stamford Bridge is never an easy place to visit, but the Gunners have shown that they can defy all the odds and get a comprehensive win. Arsenal were also written off in this fixture last season, and yet they beat Chelsea emphatically despite Djourou gifting them an own goal.
It would be folly to assume that Chelsea’s mental strength will be ruffled by the shenanigans of their beleaguered captain. The Blues are professional enough to park the humiliation and embarrassment of their captain and turn up for work.
I feel that this game is extremely important psychologically. There’s a growing sense that Arsenal have a mental block when it comes to playing Man United and Chelsea.
I personally don’t think it’s that straightforward – considering that from a possible 12 points that could be collected by playing the 2 teams, Arsenal got 7 of them last season. I think the bigger problem for those who see this as a big deal is more to do with the humiliation of losing bragging rights.
What is not in question is that it’s unacceptable for Arsenal to play like they did last Sunday against Man United. A repeat of last Sunday’s performance easily qualifies as professional suicide.
My sense is that I’ll be happy with a loss or draw so long as the Arsenal team fight tooth and nail for every ball and that they apply themselves with gusto. A positive result is the least expected, but it’s not the end of the season if we don’t get the 3 points.
Chelsea and Man United will drop points not least against each other. For me it’s more important for the Arsenal team to get their pride back and to regain the psychological advantage.
In this respect, the pressure being put on this game as the be all and end all is somewhat artificial. It’s more important to get back into the mix and regain the psychological advantage.
The real fight is in the home stretch with Arsenal’s last 12 games. The other title challengers have arguably more demanding fixtures.
Arsenal need the consistency and confidence to tackle this home stretch positively. A positive game against Chelsea is just what the doctor ordered.
My sense is that Wenger will go for a starting line-up of:
Almunia
Sagna, Gallas, Vermaelen, Clichy
Song, Fabregas, Diaby
Rosicky, Bendtner, Arshavin
Nasri, Eboue and Walcott are likely to feature at some point.
This week, , a thread of discussion has been picking up as we naval gazed and reflected on our last game against Man United. I thought I’d flesh out the thread of discussion a bit more.
In chewing the fat about what it will take for Arsenal to pick themselves up and mount a fight back, the main question for me is what to do in this last mile to the first trophy for this team.
I’ve long held the conviction that not only do we have the personnel to do the job, the team also have the physical stamina and technical capability to be that very successful team.
The last piece of the jigsaw is all in the mind. It’s the mental fortitude that has been lacking at key moments, and by improving on this, I believe the journey in this last mile will be more bearable.
I think it would be unfair not to recognize the fighting spirit and mental strength the team has already shown. A perfect example is the run of 10 unbeaten games following the loss to Chelsea on 29th November 2009. The least this should tell us is that this team is capable of fighting back.
It is for this reason that I feel strongly that the supporters and players need to work together to help each other through the difficult patches and in the quest for that elusive title.
I want to look at what I feel is the key factor in this title challenge, and the aspect of our game that we’ve fallen short on several times this season. It’s my belief that the time it has taken for the team to get familiar and effectively execute play within the 4-3-3 system is the primary issue.
Arsenal’s strategy this season has been designed to take advantage of the key skills set that our players excel in – technique, stamina and pace. Success of this system of play is dependent on two main factors.
Firstly, the ability of our ball carriers to keep possession effectively, and secondly, the discipline and determination to maintain a high work rate that is needed to press the ball and close down opponents quickly when we don’t have the ball.
The transition from defence to attack is a focal point and these are the times we can either be a devastating attacking force, or if not properly organised, be vulnerable to a good counter attacking side.
The game plan is most effective when we move the ball at pace from defence, through midfield and into attacking positions. Complimenting this is the speed and technique employed on our flanks primarily by the full backs who will push forward to support any given attack.
From this point of view, we are more than likely to be playing a 3-1-6 while in full flow. This is also the point where our talisman up front playing the ’false no. 9’ has to be very effective.
By linking play with the 5 attackers around him, our lead striker also needs to hold the ball well and use it well to draw the opposing centre halves to follow him as space opens for the on-coming attackers.
This is one reason for example, why the Arsenal midfield is scoring a ridiculous amount of goals. However, this system of attacking is heavily dependent on ball retention and in particular, dependent on our ball carriers like Cesc, Rosicky, Nasri, Van Persie, Arshavin, Eduardo, Diaby, Ramsey, Wilshere et al, not to lose the ball willy nilly.
The speed at which our movement and fluency allows play to move through the midfield in practice should make it safer for us if and when we lose the ball in the final 3rd, nearer the opponents goal.
At this point, the flip side of the system should kick in. The 3 front men should be in a position to press very early with the hope that 2 things will happen. Firstly, that the opposition will make mistakes in dangerous areas during the early pressing and we can pounce. In fact, we have scored a significant amount of goals as a result of this.
Secondly, the early pressing should buy the time for the rest of the team to re-organize defensively. Usually, when the full backs are attacking, Alex Song and the centre halves will hold the wall.
If you ever wondered why Song gets more yellow cards than most players, consider that perhaps it’s just a tactic of the dark art of slowing the game down. It’s his job.
Unfortunately, not every team is going to allow Arsenal to impose this game plan for it’s a guarantee that they’ll be given a good hiding. This is why the transitions where either team loses the ball are so important.
In Arsenal’s case, our Achilles heel is that when we lose the ball in that attacking flow, we’re still not adept at re-organizing quick enough.
It’s therefore critical that the 3 most forward attackers press like mad immediately we lose the ball. Once we miss out on that opportunity, a chain of events usually starts that results in pressure especially to the retreating full-backs who will be more than likely exposed.
In many cases, we quickly recover and hold fire, either by sheer individual brilliance, collective team work, or Song just being Song and taking one for the team.
There are teams who are equally good at moving that ball from defence to attack at speeds that will give us difficulty. The law of averages suggest that some of these counter attacks against us will result in goals.
Granted, such a system is risky for most part, but I’ll tell you what, it’s bloody exciting to watch when it’s working in full flow. There’s also an element of ”we’re going to score more goals than you and we’ll win the match”.
It’s also true to say that if individuals on the pitch don’t do what they’re supposed to do or don’t pull their finger out, it’s easy to see how a chain of events can end up with our goal keeper picking the ball from the back of his net. This is where the mental fortitude and determination comes in.
Discipline is paramount to ensure that – the work rate needed to press early is maintained throughout the game; the confidence needed to retain the ball in difficult situations is not lost; the decision making needed to re-organize defensively when an attack breaks down is top notch; and the need for intelligence and good decision making to read and anticipate is always evident.
When we don’t get our way on the pitch because of whatever strategy the opposition is employing, Arsenal’s key priority should firstly be to make sure that the team is working as an effective defensive unit. I feel sometimes that too much focus is placed on goal scoring on our part. I’d suggest that we don’t have a problem scoring goals.
We will go through fallow patches and it is during these times when the almost robotic and mechanical discipline of defending as a unit right from the players at the front needs to kick in. We should also be very disciplined in knowing when to reign in our attacking instincts and protect a draw or a narrow win because the game calls for us to be pragmatic.
Sounds like a project, huh? We call it Wengerball. It was never designed to be straight forward – but I’ll tell you what, it’s ecstatic to watch and I wouldn’t change it for all the tea in China.
Sex, Lies And The England Captain
By · CommentsI thought I’d take a detour today and muse about the scandal of the day. There’s no video tape (well, not that I’ve seen), so I went with ’the England Captain’ in the title.
Let’s face it – infidelity is as old as the universe itself. It’s disingenuous to blame John Terry for acting on his animal instincts.
Part of the problem here is this; From time immemorial, men have under-estimated the mystical powers of the business end of a woman’s femininity. The world is littered by the great and good and by ordinary man folk who’ve fallen foul and succumbed to this mystical power.
The England captain is but a mere mortal and only stood as little chance as the next guy with a hard on. Perhaps what is more tragic, is that John Terry broke the cardinal rule of not banging the missus of a friend and colleague.
For that show of breath-taking stupidity, the poor chap has to face the music and deal with it (how do they say it) – like a man.
The hyperbole and hysteria machine that is the media is working overtime to ensure that they milk this for what it’s worth. Good juicy copy to fill the columns and air waves comes at a premium in this 24 hour ’give me the frigging news now’ culture that we have.
The question then becomes whether morality has a place on the football pitch.
If you want to know how big a deal this is, you only have to listen to the excuses already being made for England’s failures at the 2010 World cup.
If I were John Terry, I’d be pissed off that I’m already being set up as a fall guy – but frankly speaking, he should be more worried that his wife has a problem with his away game record.
Incidentally, there’s form on this very issue that Capello and the England team can draw on. It wasn’t very long ago, 3 World cups ago to be precise – that the USA national team totally lost the plot.
The USA captain at the time was banging the wife of a team-mate and once that came to light, it was all downhill from there and the team never recovered.
My sense is that a captain has several jobs and it’s easy to debate whether on-field matters can be separated from or affected by off-field matters. Everyone will have an opinion about this and you can argue until the cows come home.
The thing is though, the glue that holds together all the attributes that makes a captain successful is trust. Once that’s broken – it really is a project to keep the team together.
Certainly, if I was a Chelsea or England player, I wouldn’t want to leave my wife or girlfriend alone in the same room with Terry. I would suspect that Terry would find it hard to command the respect of those that matter in the England setup.
The other bigger headache for Capello is that if he fires John Terry as England captain, he doesn’t exactly have the entire Vienna Boys Choir to choose from to get a new captain.
Steven Gerrard might seem to some as a natural replacement. But what does it say about a thug who bullies a DJ in a bar because the DJ refuses to play him a Phil Collins song and goes ahead and knocks a few teeth off the unsuspecting chap. I’m still amazed that even with the CCTV footage, the good folks of the jury saw it as self defence….but clearly, I digress.
Banging other people’s missus’s has consequences and I guess we’re already seeing the media blaming John Terry for another ”…but we won it in 1966” refrain.
If there’s one thing that jumps right at you when you first visit the Emirates Stadium, it’s the sheer magnificence of the home of Arsenal FC. While Highbury was the spiritual home of the Gunners for 93 years, it was time a club the stature of Arsenal moved to what is widely recognized as one of the best sporting arenas in the world.
I was quite lucky as I worked on Holloway Road during the final years of the stadium construction, and every day, the view from my 4th floor office window looked absolutely majestic.
I remember attending a work reception at the Victoria and Albert museum when my colleagues and I were bombarded by a pompous director of the V&A. Every 5 minutes, this chap bragged and waxed lyrical about the view of the city from his new corner office. If I would have got away with slapping the punk, I would have decked him – but hey, I had bills to pay.
Anyway, the next time he mentioned his panoramic view of the city, I instinctively suggested that I too, had the best ringside view of one of the world’s most majestic structures. And we had a Waitrose supermarket too, so he should just stop with the verbal diarrhoea.
Arsenal was quite innovative in the way it used partnerships to build the stadium, the most obvious example being the collaboration with Emirates Airlines. Until Arsenal as an elite club did the naming rights thing, very few big clubs looked at the sale of stadium naming rights as a revenue option.
Now even big clubs like Man United, Liverpool and Chelsea are seriously considering ditching their traditional stadium names for a few bob (well, quite a few bob if I’m honest).
In the next few weeks, Arsenal will blaze the trail again by introducing an interactive digital match day service in partnership with Sony.
In a nutshell – supporters will get their own mini TV (using a Sony play station portable) by their seats showing them action replays from selected camera angles, plus slow-motion options, live match statistics, team sheets and Arsenal player profiles and pre-match video content and Arsenal.com editorial news.
Fans will also be able to vote for their man of the match within the Arsenal TV Match day + user base, access the League table and live scores and results from other fixtures.
I’ve got to tell you, that while such innovations are amazing and it’s great that Arsenal are showing they can keep up with the 21st century, you have to ask the question as to whether it’s a good idea.
I guess that I’m just nervous because it’s a project keeping fans in the stadium in the first place, win, draw or lose the match. There’s a new breed of stadium supporter who is unpredictable.
When you get fans then playing with Sony PSPs and analysing every detail of every move, reading statistics like how fast a player is running or the mileage they’ve done – very few PSP users (and fans around them) will end up watching the game.
There’s a serious risk that the accusation that Arsenal supporters didn’t leave the library behind at Highbury will become folklore.
Unless you’re a member of the press corps filing match reports and photos, technology for supporters should be restricted to small radios that will give an alternative commentary and perspective without distracting the primary job of supporting the team.
