Sat 11th September 2010; 15:00, Emirates Stadium
The Miseducation Of Football Punditry
ByOn Tuesday night, I resorted to quietly creeping into bed after a long exile in the living room watching a movie way past my bed time. As much as the Chelsea defeat to Mourinho’s Internazionale planted a smug grin on my face all night, I thought it prudent to stay away from the bedroom until the coast was clear.
If there’s one thing marriage teaches you, it’s the skill of knowing when to compromise for the sake of world peace. My wife had clearly had an unpleasant night, seeing her beloved Chelsea bitch slapped out of the Champions League, and I had to rein in my temptation to shamelessly gloat.
I thought I’d got away with my stealth entry into bed only for her to say ”wipe that stupid smirk off your face”. Whatever happened to ’goodnight sweetheart’.
It was only until yesterday when we got round to talking about football, and the conversation naturally revolved around where Chelsea go from here. I’ve always maintained that it was only a matter of time before the footballing senior citizens from Stamford Bridge reached the point of diminishing returns.
Whenever I get the opportunity, I wax lyrical to anyone who will listen about the virtues of Arsenals youth development infrastructure, and the benefits it is slowly yielding. It’s the antithesis of the brazen ’cheque book’ style of management we’ve come to know in the last 8 years or so.
For many clubs, the ethos and practice of ’building’ a team within your means has become an unfashionable concept. The easy way out for clubs chasing glory is to ’buy’ their way into stupidity, as Chelsea and Real Madrid have spectacularly shown.
The Chelsea hierarchy and fans have been carrying out a post mortem after Tuesday’s dramatic exit from the competition their wealthy owner sees as the holy grail. Not surprisingly, the solutions being bandied about evolve around the need to dismantle the squad and start over.
The Chinese have a saying suggesting that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I couldn’t help but notice the default position that the football establishment and punditry have taken on this issue.
It seems that no one has learnt the fundamental lesson here that you can’t buy success. For one, this short-term mentality is a sure fire way to flush millions of pounds down the toilet.
Secondly, the constant cheer leading by the pundits and hacks for Roman Abramovich to whip out his cheque book is so detached from reality, you honestly start to wonder if these guys live on this planet.
My sense is that one of football’s biggest problems is the fact that pundits are unfortunately given a stage by media houses to spew some serious diatribe that goes unchecked.
There’s an inherent assumption that if someone played football at one point in time, then they have the competence and or ability to form a reasonable, well thought out and researched opinion about footballing matters. Unfortunately for us, we’re stuck with a bunch of folks who I’ve got to tell you, leave me with the impression that they possess the IQ and personality of a fence post.
We are forced to endure the injustice of having folks who’s grasp of tactical and general footballing matters such as finance or the evolution of the game across the world is so off the pace, it ventures into the realm of criminality.
Even after Abramovich has spectacularly lit a bonfire with over £700m of his own fortune and watch it disappear with the dying embers of an aging Chelsea squad, the pundits are so far removed from this world to think that the solution is for Abramovich to keep spending more of his personal fortune.
Clearly, the club can’t afford to spend its own money considering they’re still running an operating loss and have a payroll to revenue ratio that beggars belief.
I’ve got to tell you, spending £700m (and counting) is an expensive if not a breath-takingly stupid way to acquire 2 EPL titles and a few FA cups, and at the end of it, you’ve got a squad that is about to retire, and no viable solutions to organically refresh the squad in a sustainable way.
What’s ironic is that in the last 5 years or so, this group of pundits and hacks have totally derided Arsenal and Arsene Wenger for going about their business in the right way. It’s become fashionable to sensationalize and shamelessly laud the virtues of what is clearly the financial doping of football by the injection of obscene amounts of ’artificial’ investment.
The sycophancy around the likes of Chelsea and Manchester City’s unsustainable spending sprees is typical of a culture that has lost any form of reality. It’s a culture that still thinks that football is immune to the impact of the global economic crisis.
My take is that very few if any of these pundits have the capacity to understand and digest the environment that football is operating in. They fail to grasp the fundamentals that affect the dynamics of the game as it evolves, and they fail to understand the impact of their ill-informed and misguided so called ’expert’ opinions shoved down our throats in the media.
This in my view makes them extremely dangerous. I have a friend Kevin, who retired from the Armed Forces, after serving in both Northern Ireland and in desert Storm, the first Gulf war if you will.
The miseducation of these pundits reminds me of one thing Kevin says about combat and how intelligence is important. Going to war without intelligence is bad enough, but there’s nothing more dangerous than going to war with the wrong intelligence. It’s inevitable that people will die.
Pundits have the same dangerous effect on football, in that what they perceive to be their expert opinion about football is actually wrong and misguided for most part.
The constant clamour for Abramovich to spend more money to rebuild the squad is a classic example of having absolutely no grasp about the issue that ails Chelsea. Buying this squad is a fundamental part of the problem because it’s not sustainable.
I think one of the issues that can be addressed is that some standards regarding the basic education and communication skills of pundits are put into place. It’s insulting to pick any Tom, Dick or Harry who has just walked through the ’I used to play football’ door, stick a Mataland suit on them and put them in front of a camera.
I sometimes get bemused that following any news and or football event, there’s always an ”ex…” something available for his 15 seconds of fame in front of a camera or at the end of a phone to provide an opinion.
You do wonder whether it’s impossible for the media houses to get the opinion of somebody reputable who is actually in the game as opposed to a ’used to be’ who wants his name out there.
We can’t do any worse than expect that whoever sits on a sofa and earns his corn as a pundit should at least have a competent grasp of the subject matter, if not a basic education.
What was more interesting and telling though, is that through gritted teeth, some of them have reluctantly started pointing out that the Arsenal way is perhaps the way for Chelsea to go. I get the sense that the tide is starting to turn.
The losses of Real Madrid and Chelsea in the Champions league, despite the urban myth that has evolved to suggest that big money equates to trophies, is a visible indicator of this misguided notion.
My sense is that the success of Arsenal and the achievement of winning titles in years to come will do more for the sanity of football if only to illustrate that you can live within your means and be successful.
Speaking of football punditry, the late legendary Nottingham Forrest manager Brian Clough has to be commended for his shall we say – bitch slap of the hacks and pundits and putting them in their place.
Watch the video here:
I have to say, yours is one of the finest Arsenal blogs I have ever come across. And seeing as I frequent NewsNow many times a day, that’s saying something! Honestly, this is excellent work, your posts are well-written, well-reasoned, and just what the doctor has ordered. Thank you for a wonderful and insightful post, just like the ones previous, like the four-part “Oasis in a Fiscal Sanity” series. Look out Arseblogger, you’ve got some serious competition!
Oops, meant to write “Oasis of Fiscal Sanity”.
just to play devil advovate, arsenal model hasn’t been proven any better because we haven’t won anything to be fair. Your arguement would hold a lot more weight if arsenal become the all conquering side like the currect barcelona team (which i belive they will).
Hi Darius,
I completely agree with what you say from a football point of view. It is much better to bulid a team slow than buy it quickly.
However, from the media’s standpoint buliding a team is quite boring. There’s no ‘breaking news’ headlines or ‘exclusives’. This is I think partly why the media don’t like Arsenal that much (don’t get me wrong, there are lots of other reasons as well!).
The only exciting Arsenal stories there have been over the last couple of years has been buying Arshavin and selling Toure and Adebayour. Whereas the endless speculation sparked by Man City and Madrid’s ‘firing £50 notes’ is much better from a journalists/pundits point of view. This makes their job so much much easier as the stories pretty much write themselves and it fills up a lot of air time with the latest speculation.
Unfortuently, it dosen’t lead to very good football or a successful team!
BKK.
Thank you for the compliment and I’m glad that you enjoy the content on Stone Cold Arsenal. We will always strive to bring you something special and unique.
Don’t forget to spread the word.
Electrolex.
I beg to differ. I think what you suggest is a symptom of the problem where trophies are seen as the only measure of success. On the contrary, the teams that have spend ridiculous money in transfer fees and wages – money that they don’t have and they haven’t justified the investment because clearly, winning the few trophies they’ve done is not good value for money.
If there’s one thing that is a rarity these days is the patience to work at things. People want success here and now, and they want it faster than you can churn out a fast food combo meal at a KFC drive through.
What Arsenal has achieved in the last 5 years if you take into acount the constraints we’ve had to operate within is nothing short of remarkable, and to suggest that all of this hasn’t been successful is just short sighted.
Matt – I blame the 24 hour ‘give me news now’ culture, where an editor or producers worst nightmare is filling the columns and air waves.
Inevitably, we’re bound to get faecal matter served up as headline and breaking news.
obviously its the way to go..but you have to pick the right players to develop.it’s a reasonable point that the “colney creche” mind-set can be a weakness.,,also shay given wouldn’t have cost a fortune and nor would anelka when he left bolton..they could have been of some use over the past 2 or 3 seasons???
I’d like to believe that most fans are rational and the whole punditry / putting words in mouth etc is designed to blind them from the real issues. Its why you get emotional response to a sane comment.
Two instances stick in my mind
1. Martin O’neill losing his rag when the reporter paraphrased what Arsene Wenger said. That gave a field day to lazy hacks who repeated that diatribe everywhere.
2. Tony Pulis being told that Arsene Wenger has condemned that tackle. He lost his rag then and is still moaning about it. Funnily enough, Pulis himself had admitted that it was a bad tackle a minute before that.
Arsenal are not whitest of white, but they are such a stark contrast to everybody else. Their footballing and business philosophy brings out the ugliness of British football to the fore and I think that makes some people very uncomfortable.
The likes of Cascarino, Collymore and even Hansen get exposed as good for nothing cloggers. Hence, their gritted teeth reaction to every good we do and instant condemnation over lapses however small.
I agree with everything you wrote.
We should also distinguish between 2 different kinds of corruptive influences in football. There’s the likes of Real Madrid & Manchester United, who are big clubs in their own right, who retain at the top by “spending big”. But then there are the likes of Real Betis, Chelsea or Man City who try to buy status and success.
I think the 2nd phenomenon is the more dangerous one, because they threaten to shake the natural order of things, and require many clubs to “spend big” so as not to be overtaken.
Real Madrid can spend £220M on players, but it doesn’t pressure Real Oviedo. If Valladolid did the same, many clubs would react.
The problem is that football is already out of touch with economic fundamentals. Transfer prices are too high. Wages of some players make no sense.
The danger is inflationary pressures in an already inflated market.
Arsenal’s success provides a strong counterpoint to the likes of Chelsea; but then then likes of Wolfsburg in Chelsea, Sevilla in Spain, Valencia in Spain, FC Twente in Holland, have recently won titles without breaking the bank.
For some reason the football media prefers to pretend it can’t be done, or it’s a delusion to think you can do it.
In that respect, if Arsenal do win league or European Cup, it will be a high-profile rebuttal to the nonsense that you can only buy success, or the short-termism is the only logic of football.
My concern about media pundits is there are too many ex players- the BBC has become a rest-home for retired footballers who are unable to be objective about the game and only see the game from an ex players perspective, hence they exhude values of players-like extolling the value of winning at all costs- roughing up opponents and engaging in intimidation, grabbing what ever you can when you can, parochialism don’t think beyond your own backyard, everything is short-term and who cares about the cost of anything? whether it cost 5 pounds or 50m pounds you must have it now.
Sustainability, entertainment, fair play and the aesthetic value of the style of play means less than nothing to these uneducated greed balls- but I am sure that when it comes to attracting world wide audiences these are massively important.
Great article. I think what really brings it home for me is the fact that of all the pundits out there (particularly the regulars), they have either never managed a football team or done so briefly and failed dismally.
The concept of intelligence amongst ex-players is a misnomer in the general sense. I think this is best summed up by looking at Graham Le Saux. Ostracised in the dressing room because he preferred to read a braodsheet newspaper rather than a tabloid and subsequently labelled as gay by his fellow ‘professionals’ for doing so.
So being an intelligent footballer is a bit of a drawback really………………..unless, of course, you want to be a tv expert!
Excellent post as usual, Darius. The comments have also been top notch, leaving not much to add. I believe you know my views on the iZombies. I needn’t repeat them.
Even if they are sent for trainning they are probably too thick-skulled to learn anything.
Well. Now Ol’ Red Nose wants unemployed managers to form the FA disciplinary panel because of their knowledge of the game and understanding of serious foul play.
Step forward Phil Brown. Other recently unemployed managers include that old footballing maestro, Fat Sam.
You couldn’t make it up.
Superb Darius. How can the lack of a few trophies mean failure when true competition went out the window as soon as those trophies started to be bought? Apart from two teams every single side in the land would swap places with us so how has Arsene failed?
Of course we want to win things but I love watching the way we play, I love supporting an ethical club and competing at the top every single season no matter how much the rest spend. That in itself is success.
Darius,
Love your blog — found it through Yogi, who proved once again why he is smarter than the average blogger.
You are so right about Chelsea and City. However, you do not go far enough. Equally important, it seems to me, are having a good manager, and having one with continuity. Look at Chelsea — this team hasn’t won either of the main competitions since Jose left, and how many managers have they had? Murinho, Hiddink and Capello at Real show that without the right manager, a blank-check approach simply does not work. Hughes showed his limits, too. And now, Roman may be thinking that his second manager was the second-best manager he’s had, and he shouldn’t have thrown him out. Big player egos — and a team full of superstars has that — require a special manager: not just anyone can do it.
The flip side is the idea that Wenger doesn’t buy — Look at the current squad — TV, Nasri, Sagna, Rosicky, Eduardo, Arshavin, Gallas — without the players acquired as teenagers who are growing up with the squad, this is not a shabby list of top acquisitions, and not one many managers could match.
I think part of the problem with pundits today is the 24×7 instant analysis requirement of the internet age. Even were they inclined to do so, when would they have a chance to reflect on matters, rather than just repeat the first — often erroneous — thing that popped into their heads.
However, you should not be surprised at the pundits, especially the ex-players. Many of them were instinctive players, especially those who were great. They did it, without thinking. And that frames their entire approach to the game, as well as their mistrust of managers who do think, or use statistics to elicit meaningful distinctions between players, etc.
Thank you for your fine work.