Archive for Analysis
The Curious Case Of Laurent Koscielny
Posted by: | CommentsMore often than not, the sleepless nights are about the heartbreak, the disappointment, the anguish and the despair. They’re about the anger and disgust for the punditocracy and the hacks who consider it open season on Arsenal.
You can almost taste the bile from the disdain and contempt in which Arsenal is held in the footballing media circles from Sly Sports to the BBC, from Talk Spite radio to the tabloids. There’s a macabre-esque enjoyment of Arsenal’s agony in every sense – and when we say it’s a conspiracy, we’re called paranoid.
Today though, there’s so much to say and write about such an amazing day for the spirit of Arsenal football club. For that however, I’d like to encourage you to visit ACLF where my friend Yogi has written a wonderful piece that captures the emotion and captures the moment. As George our resident pedant puts it, for all the days of anguish that Yogi has kept our sanity, it’s days like these that he deserves the stage to express the magic of the moment.
I have chosen today instead to focus on Arsenal’s most influential unsung hero, Mr Laurent Koscielny. There’s more than enough analysis all over the internet and the media of the now legendary shafting of the heathen horde at Stamford Bridge.
You see, the problem with the English football establishment is that there’s a collective determination to exercise cultural incompetence of breath-taking magnitude. Take the lack of understanding of the fundamentals of football business and finance. English football is the only place on this planet where people still think it’s OK to spend the GDP of most developing countries just to chase trophies.
It’s either a brazen and reckless disregard of the laws of economics as they pertain to football, or spectacular incompetence from a collective that has the IQ of a fence post. It’s the sort of culture that equates high spending to quality, notwithstanding the fact that the rationale for the market pricing is fundamentally flawed. How can it be justifiable for example for Andy Carroll to cost more in transfer fees than Thomas Vermaelen and David Silva combined.
So when the Arsenal scouting system pluck Laurent Koscielny from the wilderness of the French league, he is considered a pariah since he doesn’t conform to the text book definition of a Premiership defender. It’s almost like it’s a crime that they don’t know him so he can’t be that good. Koscielny’s not only fighting the PR battle against the football media and pundits, he’s had to contend with undeserved criticism from Anti-Arsenal Arsenal supporters.
Yet this brilliant young man has something that a lot of defenders don’t have. He is tenacious, dependable, perceptive and applies himself with finesse. He is a dogged defender with absolute class when it comes to the art of intercepting, one on one defending and recovery defending. He is exceptional in the air and excellent in working with the ball on the ground.
Koscielny is also silky in offence and has an uncanny ability to convert defence into attack with one touch football. A very confident player with the ball, he links up very well with the midfield and is perhaps one of the best ball playing defenders around.
The fact that people still talk about Arsenal needing quality defenders without paying Koscielny any respect for what he is currently doing is an insult of the highest order in my humble opinion. If Koscielny isn’t one of the best defenders in the league, I don’t know who is.
In yesterday’s post match punditry by Sly Sports, the punk Jamie Redknapp had the audacity to suggest that Laurent Koscielny had now arrived after that performance against Chelsea. As I was reminded, Jamie was probably the only person in the country who didn’t notice Lionel Messi in Koscielny’s pocket when Arsenal beat Barcelona with panache in perhaps the greatest match of football ever played in an Arsenal stadium.
From the first game that Koscielny played at Anfield, it was so obvious that the boy oozed class. And I gather it’s not just the class. I know a few female Gooners who are willing and ready to copulate with the guy and bear his children.
Granted, he has made some mistakes – but point out to me a defender in the league who walks on water. The media even hail Sideshow Bob at Chelsea as the second coming of defensive messiahs. That’s David Luiz in case you’re wondering who Sideshow Bob is.
If Luiz was that good – why the hell didn’t he play to stop the horror show at Stamford Bridge yesterday. Even after they wax lyrical and go sycophantic about Luiz because he cost £24m while Koscielny cost a few bob according to them, you can’t hide from the fact that Laurent Koscielny stands head and shoulders above the Brazilian defender. Everything they say about Luiz, you can say that about Koscielny with compound interest.
Let’s not forget, Fernando Torres might as well have been sitting on the bench yesterday, that’s how effective Koscielny was. He’s done it to Messi, he’s done it to Rooney and he’s done it to Drogba – and folks still think of this guy like a step child from the wrong side of the rail tracks.
And yet, Gooners around the world are debating who will lose their place in central defence to accommodate the equally magnificent Thomas Vermaelen.
I think people are missing the point. The question is not who will partner Thomas Vermaelen in central defence. The more substantive question is out of Vermaelen, Mertesacker and Djourou, who will be Laurent Koscielny’s preferred partner.
My sense is that Vermaelen and Koscielny will be Arsenal’s first choice central defensive pairing, but if you take it that there will be suspensions and injury as well as the need for tactical changes to counter different opposition – there’s enough games to go around for everyone.
The most exciting thing for me is that Koscielny, Vermaelen, Mertesacker and Djourou are either 25 or 26 years of age. The central defensive solutions at Arsenal for the next 8 to 10 years are on solid ground, notwithstanding the fact that young shining lights like Ignasi Miquel and Kyle Bartley are on hand to complement the squad depth.
Dont forget, if you haven’t yet, follow Stone Cold Arsenal on Twitter and join the growing community. We’re trying to find out where Bruce “We’ll beat the crap out of Arsenal” is hiding.
Arsenal’s Sanity Will Pay In Europe
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s been an interesting few days going walk-about, and meeting new folks while working in what I’d describe as a “pulling-your-teeth-out-without-a-local-anaesthetic” type of economy. You know the kind of economy that demands that you bend over, grab your ankles and doesn’t offer you the courtesy of using lubrication while shafting you in the most uncomfortable fashion.
“We’re heading to the dog house”, Joshua reminds all of us round the table discussing how best to stop our client from having to fold its tents and go to the wall.
To which I remind folks that whatever needs to be done should be done by Monday night so I can make my way back home. I have a very important European engagement on Tuesday night with an organization in Germany that specializes in the kind of artistic expression I normally indulge in at the home of football.
“Since when was football an art”, comes the retort from Steve across the table.
See, you have to forgive Steve. Not only does he have the personality of a puff adder, he resents that I call Wengerball and what Arsenal does as art. Personally, I think he’s a closet United fan, but he pretends he doesn’t give a hooting funt about football.
“Europe is fucked anyway. How long will they pretend the frigging elephant in the room is a hippo”, Joshua eloquently brings some order to the table.
And it makes you think. Greece is way past staring at the abyss, and they’re at the point where the abyss is smiling right back at them before it swallows the whole country into a very dark place. Ireland and Portugal like most other fairly mediocre economies were propelled by the smoke and mirrors of a European political plot hatched in Maastricht to create the United States of Europe. A plot which has back fired spectacularly with the impending collapse of whichever is the lesser of two evils, the Eurozone and its single currency, or the European Union in its current form.
The amazing thing is this though. The football establishment still thinks that everything is normal and that what is happening around them will not affect their existence. You only have to listen to the illiterate punditocracy jizzing and sycophanting about the amount of money being spent by a cabal of filthy rich individuals, or in the case of Manchester City, another country’s sovereign wealth fund.
When talking about Everton, a club that pretty much has to ask Barclays Bank for permission to pay the bills – the solution offered is that they should go to the middle east and look for a sugar daddy because that’s the only way to survive.
This kind of “chocolate tea pot” reasoning is what has contributed to a culture of recklessness when it comes to football finance. The expectation is that the only way of working through the challenges of the game is by spending money you don’t even have to buy your way out of it. We’re constantly told that “it’s the way the world is now”. Accept it or take the highway. If you don’t have money, you can’t compete.
The hacks get bemused when Arséne Wenger suggests that football is pretty much going to hit a cash crisis in the very near future. You can almost see their rolling eyes scream out “Wenger should just stick to managing Arsenal and buying the big name, big money players he needs to compete with City and United”.
Mind you, Wenger is a guy who has a masters degree in economics, and it wouldn’t be farfetched to suggest that he actually has a clue about what he says regarding the economy. As they famously say, the tide is coming, and only after it has left will we see those who’ve been swimming naked.
It’s not even about the Financial Fair Play rules. Clubs will find loopholes around that. They won’t be able to cheat the economy though. I hear people say that clubs like Barcelona, Real Madrid or even the debt riddled Man United will never be allowed to fail. There’s an Asian tycoon or Arab billionaire waiting in the wings to save them.
The thing is this though, it really doesn’t matter how luxurious and state of the art your yacht is. It could be the world’s most expensive and the world’s most fanciful boat. If you don’t have a lake or an ocean to prounce around in, then it’s pretty useless.
If the economies of Spain and Italy collapse – and it’s not beyond the realm of possibility – the super clubs in these countries will come tumbling down like a house of cards built on a foundation of smoke and mirrors. Ireland, Portugal and Greece are the proverbial warning signs and even though they represent a small percentage of the European economy, they’re the biggest red flags in town.
Italy alone represents 23% of the European economy and it’s pretty much unsavable by the patch up “rescue” packages being pushed around by Germany and France.
And people ask me why I love Arsenal so much. The answer – Arsenal is an oasis of sanity in an orgy of excess.
We get another opportunity to enjoy a new European adventure for the 14th consecutive season. We get to play a great team like Borussia Dortmund in an electric atmosphere.
And this is the thing to remember. Because of the foundations that Arsenal has built, we will continue to enjoy being at the high table of football for a very long time to come. While others figure out how to get out of their financial quagmire – well, they’ll probably try find a sugar daddy – we’ll be straddling the European landscape with our brand of scintillating and exciting football.
What more can you ask for?
Football, Racism, 40 Acres And The Regulation Mule
Posted by: | CommentsLast evening, there was a captivating debate on ACLF about the extent of racism in football. Yogi’s joint has this eclectic mix of fascinating characters who occasionally take a spin outside football and indulge in profound discussions about politics, police states, the economy and many other colourful topics.
What struck me about the discussion yesterday was the level of understanding and ignorance in equal measure when it came to the reality of racism in football. It was a discussion triggered by the suggestion by former West Bromwich defender Brendan Batson that affirmative action was needed in English football to open up opportunities in management for blacks and other ethnic minorities.
So, in the sporting world’s rendition of General William Sherman’s 1865 special field order No. 15, is it time for English football to start handing out the “40 acres and the regulation mule” to managers of colour?
The redistribution of arable land to freed slaves was an effort to give them a chance to make a living in recognition of the clear disadvantage they already faced. Even as far back , that representation of affirmative action was deemed necessary to try and redress inequalities stemming from generations of slavery, despite its revocation after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.
And here we are nearly 145 years later, and the “Rooney Rule” (nothing to do with that other one from Manchester) is seen as the only viable mechanism to break the establishment’s stronghold on the status quo when it comes to the lack of black managers in football.
Racism, like with most other “isms” is an emotive subject on any given day, and one commonly misunderstood characteristic is how racism manifests itself. It doesn’t have to be overt or explicit for it to exist. And in most cases, it is subconscious, subtle and hidden under the surface.
We’ve seen the numerous high profile initiatives and campaigns in football like “kick It Out” that in my opinion, are feeble and toothless PR exercises for the establishment to show that it is doing something. Only this week, the England football team were training with the “Kick it Out” bracelets to show the media and the world that they were sensitive to the racism experienced in Bulgaria during the fixture last week.
I know it’s feeble and spineless because it’s not nearly enough and not gutsy and deep enough to effect any changes. Footballing authorities are more interested in spending time witch-hunting banned managers for misdemeanours like sending signals to the bench from the stands via mobile phone, instead of tackling clear cases of racism.
It was only recently that Sergio Busquets of Barcelona blatantly abused an opponent with explicit racist slurs and FIFA and UEFA concluded that there wasn’t enough evidence. Gil Grisham from CSI would have built a case against Busquets from the TV footage even without leaving his sofa.
But it isn’t just the racism in the stands and terraces, and the racism on the field of play. When it comes to management, officiating, and the board room, the trend continues. It’s shocking that out of the 92 registered association football members, only Chris Hughton at Birmingham and Chris Powell at Charlton are black.
At the highest level of football, we’ve seen the likes of Paul Ince, Ruud Gullit and Jean Tigana take charge of top football clubs, but is that nearly enough?
I don’t buy the argument that there aren’t enough black or minority professionals capable of doing the job at the highest levels. The fact that not many are even pursuing the opportunities in management is symptomatic of the fact that they are not likely to get the chance to manage at a high level, even if they were extremely competent and capable.
Nobody’s advocating for not giving the best man or woman the job. In an ideal world, the best candidate triumphs. But idealism and reality are two parallel universes. The reality is that the footballing establishment still live in the stone age and represent values and principles that are out of step with the modern world.
There’s a lot of noises about change, and a lot of noises about inclusion and diversity. They say “but, can’t you see how colourful the Premier league and the football leagues are? We have black, Asian and Hispanic players happily plying their trade alongside white folks”.
The blunt truth is that despite the player diversity numbers, racism is still alive. It’s taken a long time to get to where we are, but there are still tangible cases of racism towards players. My sense is that it got to a tipping point where it was impossible to ignore the talents of exceptional black players and that’s the reason barriers started breaking.
Sweden in the summer of 1958 was probably not prepared for a black 17 year old Edson Arantes do Nascimento (Pele), but history will suggest that the world will never forget him. Pele spectacularly announced himself on the world stage despite the “hostile” conditions towards black players.
Much more work has to be done in other areas of football, whether in management and coaching, or in the board room. As much as the establishment might want to rationalize or justify what is happening or what initiatives have been put in place, not nearly enough is being done.
If we need to hand over footballing’s equivalent of 40 acres and a mule, then it needs to happen. It’s criminal that opportunities for minority professionals in a game of such a high percentage of minority players is almost non-existent.
This isn’t about handing over jobs to disadvantaged folks for the sake of political correctness. It’s about recognizing that we’re not even starting from a level playing field and we have to do something drastic about it. It’s about getting them to the table. Those who are good enough can take care of themselves from there.
Don’t forget, we’re getting into this tweeting thing now. Join me on Twitter.
Who’s Payroll Is Phil Daud On?
Posted by: | CommentsClaiming that “We was robbed” has to be the under-statement of the decade.
And so we learn the true cost of challenging the establishment. It was naive to think that it’s impossible for any referee to have a worse performance than Lee Mason did in the home game against Everton.
When David Moyes cowardly unleashed the media on Cesc Fabregas, you would have thought that the Arsenal captain had actually called the referees mother a 2 dollar STD infected hoe.
But Cesc actually raised a legitimate question that needs to be asked time and time again. Who the hell is paying these referees?
The only way to explain the breath-taking miscarriages of justice on the field is either by recognizing that the referees are incompetent; or they’re corrupt. If they are incompetent, why does Mike Riley keep them in a job.
But then again, why are we expecting anything from Mike Riley, probably the most incompetent referee to be promoted to lead the pack of wolves.
The blunt truth is that what happened on Tuesday and the media circus that followed it have cost Arsenal big time. We have literally rattled the snake and the serpent is biting back.
How dare we question the integrity of referees? You should have heard the seething pundits and hacks breathing fire and brimstone on the Arsenal. Apparently, we are bringing the game into disrepute by questioning the integrity of the officials.
What a load of nonsense. These bastards have no integrity. They have no moral leg to stand on. They are low life cretins who shamelessly implement the corrupt agenda of a Neolithic establishment.
Anyone who thinks that there’s no anti-Arsenal agenda needs to wake up and smell the coffee. Forget the establishment ganging up on all fronts, the sheer bias and mismanagement of games is unacceptable.
This is not a theory, this is fact. To which I refer you to Walter’s running referee performance record on Untold Arsenal. Walter is an active referee himself and has laid out in black and white, the referees performances this season – and the results are shocking.
So I ask again. Who the hell is paying Phil Daud on the side? Who is Phil Daud sleeping with?
Daud has personally been in charge of 4 games involving Arsenal that have had contentious and unbelievable decisions against us. Once is a mistake; twice a coincidence; three times – and it’s a conspiracy. Four times or more – it’s just bang out of order.
Our players can’t ask for justice on the field without being reprimanded; our manager can’t say anything that will unleash the pack of wolves on us – so we’re going to ask and we’re going to continue asking until the corruption in English football is addressed in the same way the Police got involved in Serie A.
The evidence is there – and this is not a theory.
The only two disappointments I have from yesterday’s game are the injury to Djourou and the fact that Diaby didn’t get his money’s worth for that red card.
Diaby should have punched the living shit out of Barton and knocked his teeth out. He should have put him on a stretcher and made sure in no uncertain terms that he will not hesitate to defend himself from a 3rd career threatening injury in as many years. Barton is a certified thug who has only one intention and that is to injure Arsenal players.
The referee was clearly not going to protect him; and to be honest, I’d rather Diaby is out for 3 games than out for the rest of the calendar year with yet another broken leg.
The irony of course is that even after all this – we’re better off only 4 points adrift of the Manure. So – are they in a crisis and all now?
And just in case we forget – it was this weekend a year ago that Aaron Ramsey got assaulted by Ryan Shawcross.
Realignment Of The English Footballing Order
Posted by: | CommentsWatching last night’s game between Middle Eastlands and Liverpool, I had this conversation in my head about what was going on. Part of me was kind of pissed off that Liverpool rolled over and let the Mancunian Chavs tickle their bellies, pat them on the head before sending them back home with a reality check.
Another part of me was pissed off that Arsenal didn’t bury a 10 man Liverpool last weekend. Like many, I’m rationalizing that a point at Anfield is a precious point during any part of the season; or I’m rationalizing that it was the first game of the season, Li’l Jack Willy showed a bit of understandable and acceptable inexperience in the lead up to Liverpool’s goal, Arshavin was just about getting out of the dressing room, we didn’t have our first choice squad on the pitch – yada yada yada.
Maybe it’s just easier to get pissed off with Liverpool for rolling over last night and letting Moneybags City bitch slap them all over the park.
But it’s worth observing that even this early in the season, the new order in English football is realigning itself and its going to cement itself very quickly. They say the table doesn’t lie, and I’m making an early prediction that the current top 4 will finish in the Champions League places at the end of the season.
If you asked me, I’ll unashamedly proclaim that the final order in the top 4 will be alphabetical; but then again I’ll ask – what the hell did you expect me to say?
Clearly, a few people have been drinking that cool-ade stuff down the Tottenham Lodge in preparation for their tussle with the Young Boys of Bern. The 28 minutes of the first half of last Tuesday’s match between the Spuds and the Young Boys was the best 28 minutes of football that I’ve watched in a very long time.
Even then, ‘Appy ‘Arry and Big Bad Billy G seemed to have drank too much of that stuff to propel them to delusions of grandeur that leads them to suggest that the Spuds can win the title .
There’s a vicious rumour going around Seven Sisters road that revenge of the 1913 revolution of North London is nigh. Or maybe it was Henry Norris’s wheeling, dealing and politicking that relegated Spuds to the 2nd division in favour of Arsenal staying in the 1st division that pisses them more than a move from South East London. I forget why the Spuds have such an inferiority complex.
Manchester United on the other hand are going through a very interesting period. I suppose those with a more sunny disposition might call it a rebuilding time for them. If I was cynical, I’d suggest that they’re following the Arsenal development model to the tee – only they’re what, 5 or 6 years late?
To be honest, I don’t think the powers that be at United would have noticed the Berlin wall falling if it hit them on the way down. We get reminded that their predicament is justified because of their successful haul of trophies in the last 18 years. We get told that if it wasn’t for the Glazer family, they would be well run and debt free. Yeah – blame the Glazers alright, but the end result is that Manure is a financial basket case.
The bottom line is that Manure bought the title when they had the chance and it’s kind of ironic that their so called youth development policy is now being lauded as a virtue. I suppose that’s why they’re now paying main street prices for relatively unknown players just like an old sage of ours does.
Either way, United is not the club that they used to be and it will show this season. I get bemused when it’s suggested that Arsenal don’t have strength and depth in defence, yet Manure and even Chelsea are threadbare beyond their first choices. But I suppose they have youth.
If you haven’t been around for a while, you’ll notice that Chelsea are already being coronated as the 2010-2011 Premier league Champions. If you believe some media houses, they’re on track to scoring 228 goals this season while only conceding a few goals here and there for good measure.
Chelsea’s defence is suspect – they’ve only got away with it this far because they haven’t been properly tested by the teams they’ve played.
“But they can only beat the teams in front of them”, I hear the murmurs in the shadows.
Well, as long as selective amnesia is not applied as Arsenal is accused of being flat track bullies. The Gunners too, can only beat the teams that they play – it just doesn’t apply to the Chavs.
Nevertheless, Chelsea’s dominance as the Moneybag specialists is being overhauled by Middle Eastlands; in the same way as Manure’s dominance as the model club is being overhauled by Arsenal’s organic development. It’s the new order of the footballing establishment.
The question is whether the virtuous cycle of building wonderful things from the ground up like Arsenal is doing will overcome the vicious cycle of buying things like they’re running out of fashion the way Middle Eastlands are doing it.
England’s Redemption Can Be Found At Arsenal’s London Colney
Posted by: | CommentsEver since the game between Ingerland and Slovenia mid-week when the 3 Lions scraped through to the knock out stages by the skin of their teeth, I’ve been a bit hesitant to follow the media coverage through the English media.
I suppose one reason is that I’ve reached saturation point with the sycophancy and vanity that impales the coverage of the fortunes of the England team by the media here in the UK.
By the very nature of the beast that is the World cup (emphasis being on the ’World’), I and many other football lovers around the world want to follow the fortunes of the many teams still in the competition, and would highly appreciate a balanced, objective and impartial media to tell us about the other great teams and the other great players also in the world cup.
But Hey!, I also want my council tax bill reduced but that ain’t gonna happen soon.
There was only one way out from the fever pitch madness and media coverage that led to, let’s face it, the mother of all bitch slaps and humiliations that England has ever faced on the international stage. The only way out for England to justify the hyperbole and narcissism that the media and establishment fuelled before yesterday’s game against the Germans was that England win and that they win comprehensively.
Not even the clutching of the Frank-Lampard’s-goal-was-disallowed-shame-on-FIFA-for-not-introducing-goal-line-technology straw can hide away from the fact that England has had a woeful World cup campaign and the players, management and the FA should hang their heads in shame.
A Dejected And Beaten England Team Leave The Field Following a German Master Class in International Football
I’ve covered most of my reasons why I suggest that England will never win the World cup until they come out of the Stone Age, so I’m not going to go over that ground and suggest that if you haven’t yet, you should read that article to get a sense of where I’m coming from.
It’s not about the disappointment and anti-climax of the so called Golden Generation. It’s not that Fabio Capello is a dictator who has added no value to the fortunes of the national team at a major competition. It’s not that the solution is to get an English manager like Roy Hodgson or Harry Redknapp who can understand the ‘English’ game in a way that a foreign manager cannot.
It’s not that (this one was a funny excuse by Graham Taylor) international competitions take place in the summer after a long hard season and it’s during a period when England players don’t normally play their games and in hot climates – shame on you Mr. Taylor for even uttering those words. It’s not that the team failed to show ’pluck and spirit’ and that good old fashioned English graft, grit and steel that is the cornerstone of the brand of English football that we’re told drives the best league in the world.
The issue here and something that I’ve preached on several times is that the underlying culture and philosophy of English football is rotten and stuck in the Neolithic age. When even Stand Collymore on his radio call in is asking Arsenal fans how England can learn from Arséne Wenger and the way he nurtures talent who are technically gifted and can cope with the way the rest of the world plays, then you know there’s a problem.
I submit to you that until England starts from the grassroots by changing the culture and moving away from the ’kick and rush’ brand of football that Franz Beckenbauer rightfully mentioned and was harangued by the English media for – Team ‘Ingerland’ have the mother of all mountains to climb.
It’s not enough to be a celebrity footballer, or believe the hyperbole about what ability you actually have. There’s a very big difference between being talented on paper as is suggested by all and sundry, and actually producing on grass.
And can we now draw a line under this nonsense of calling certain players world class. Rooney, Gerrard, Lampard, Terry and Ashley Cole are good and above average players, but let’s not push the envelope. I even agree with Robbie Savage’s (when was it I last agreed with Savage) that a player should only be considered as ’world class’ when they can sit on the same table as Pele, Diego Maradona, Zinedine Zidane, Johan Cruyff, George Best and players of that ilk. Leo Messi is the only player currently warranting that badge of world class.
I was having a discussion with some friends yesterday evening as we explored what it is that ails English football (well, aside from the vanity of the media about the perceived capability of the team).
One of the analogies used to describe England in comparison to say Spain, Brazil, Argentina or Germany was that these 4 teams were like a gourmet restaurant that serves the best food and wine you’ll ever get anywhere on this planet, while England were proving yet again that despite the hype, they were just a kebab shop down the high street.
So many times, Arséne Wenger has been vilified by the English media for not having a team that was ‘English’ enough. This naturally came with the accusation that the Arsenal manager is one of the protagonists responsible for harming English football – as if Wenger is responsible for the cultural and philosophical deficiency of an entire footballing establishment.
Wenger famously stated that he won’t pay over the odds for English players whose price tags are inflated for no justifiable reason, yet they can’t deliver. His alternative was to set on a path that would allow Arsenal to develop their own crop of English players who played the Arsenal way.
The problem for Wenger is that visionaries are rarely lauded, let alone acknowledged and appreciated for many people don’t see the virtues of the said vision until long after the seeds are planted and the rewards are being enjoyed.
Take a look at the results of Wenger and Arsenal’s vision within the youth and reserve team setup at London Colney. Arsenal has the best crop of young talented players who are mostly English coming through the ranks. The youth team that won the double of the youth FA cup and the youth league in 2008-2009 had 9 English players in that squad of 15.
They‘re not just young and English, they’ve been brought together in a way of life since the young age of 11 and they have grown up in a culture that promotes the virtues of total football.
These young players are technically gifted and they can work with the ball with both skill and gusto. It’s also plain obvious to see that the issue is not whether all these players eventually make it to the Arsenal’s first team.
Not all of them will, but Arsenal get’s to decide whether they keep the best of the crop. For the rest, they are sprinkled around the football leagues and they get an opportunity to make their careers elsewhere while still reaping the benefits of the Arsenal way.
Those who graduate to the ranks of the first team are already showing the signs that they will be staking their claim to the England shirt come the 2014 world Cup in Brazil and the 2016 Euros in France and beyond.
The Arsenal Young Guns Celebrate In Style
It’s players like Little Jack Willy who has lit up Bolton on his loan spell to the Trotters from Arsenal. It’s players like Jay Emmanuel Thomas who are so versatile and prolific while being technically gifted, you can see him becoming the England midfield general for the next 10 years.
It’s players like Craig Eastmond, a young prospect from Wandsworth in South West London who feels nothing at the prospect of being thrown into a high pressure game for Arsenal and holding his own as a defensive midfielder. It’s prospects like young Kieran Gibbs from Lambeth who is already on his way to becoming one of the world’s best left backs.
Have I mentioned Kyle Bartley and Sanchez Watt? Or Henry Lansbury, Mark Randall or Tom Cruise?
The talent at London Colney is ridiculous and only a fool can’t see that the future is bright in the sleepy village of Shenley that hosts the Arsenal Academy in the heart of the Hertfordshire countryside.
When Reality Bites Sycophancy: Story Of The World Cup So Far
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s been a hectic week trying to catch up with everything inside and outside work after a long break. Naturally, I wanted to organize myself so that I don’t miss any minute of the race for the Coupe du Monde as the world descended on South Africa.
My strategy of focussing on catch-up until last Friday was not helped by the sheer suffocation I endured from the media as a collective, as everywhere you turned, a story of the World Cup was being shoved down the proverbial throat.
The coverage ranged from the necessary and quality reporting that covered team profiles and objectively looked at the chances of the 32 nations; to the shockingly incompetent, ignorant and lazy-assed views of BBC commentators who kept insisting that the ’Calabash’ (the inspiration in the design of Soccer City) is an African cooking utensil.
In between the two extremes was the customary sycophancy of the English media about the fortunes of Team ’Ingerland’. I suppose a degree of reporting is necessary so that we get to know how the team are doing, but I tell you, these guys are just stopping short of installing cameras in the hotel toilets as they seek to follow and anticipate every move that the England camp make.
It’s this obsessive self indulgence, naval gazing and mutual back slapping in equal measure that makes it harder to deal with the fall out when expectations are not met. I guess it’s easier to get bemused by the post-mortem that unleashes it’s wrath on a single player like Robert Green (bless him) for the mother of all howlers.
However, there is less of an objective questioning of how lacklustre the rest of the England team was. It’s fine making Mr. Green the ’Anti-Christ’, but I’d suggest that the entire team needed to look themselves in the mirror and heave a collective ”shame on me”.
Dare I even say they needed a bit of Theo Walcott in there; but then again, when an out of his depth James Milner and an out of position Sean Wright-Phillips are chosen ahead of a competent and talented Joe Cole, you do wonder what’s happening in the Rustenburg funny farm. Even Aaron Lennon was committing crimes against association football that our Walcott is normally accused of.
I was also bemused by the ITV commentator (can’t remember who it was), who raised the temperature of his commentary every time Rooney touched the ball. If I was in the next room, it was possible to think that Rooney was about to hit the back of the net, and this is the sort of sycophancy and self indulgence that clouds an objective view that most fans around the world would like to hear.
The truth is England were dire, even without Robert Green’s howler. Lampard, Rooney, Lennon, Milner, Wright-Phillips, King, Carragher et al were all passengers. In fact, I’d go as far as saying that Emile Heskey and Glenn Johnson were England’s best players on the day, followed closely perhaps by Gerrard.
Considering that Heskey might have been dying of embarrassment from his fiancées performance on Channel 4’s ’Come Dine With Me’ wags special a few days earlier, the boy done good with an assist and shot on target to add to his name.
I think some of these stars should get some PR advice before unleashing their wives and girlfriends to the public. To tell you the truth, I felt like hiding behind the sofa when Heskey’s fiancé é said she didn’t know who Martin Luther King was, yet she had a portrait of him in her living room….but I digress.
My prediction is that the semi-finals will be contested between Brazil, Spain, Germany and Argentina. There’s nothing I’ve seen so far to suggest that I’m way off base on this one. While Brazil, Spain and Italy are still to play, the 8 games so far have been mostly a guarded affair with teams preferring not to lose as opposed to trying to win the first match.
I enjoyed the Argentina vs Nigeria game, and was interested to listen to the comments of one of the Nigerian defenders who avers that Lionel Messi is getting too much protection from the referee. His view was that you can’t even touch the boy and he’s either on his way down or the referee is heavily breathing down your neck while rustling for his yellow card in his pocket.
I suppose you can understand the clamour to ’protect’ the world’s best player, but you can also understand the fear defenders have, especially since one yellow card could spell the end of your world cup with any simple subsequent mistake – there’s very little room for error.
The Germans were very exciting last night against the Socceroos. I was very interested in the fact that the average age of the German team was 26, and it made me reflect on where Arsenal will be when our team that has been growing together for this long hit their heights in their mid 20s.
Nevertheless, the Germans gave Australia a footballing master class (and where the hell did they get that Brazilian…LOL), immigration is a funny thing I tell you.
Rumour has it that Mark Schwarzer is on his way to Arsenal, and I’ve got to tell you I was a bit worried by him picking the ball 4 times from the back of his net. It was heartening that he at least tried to stop 2 of the goals but the shots were too powerful and went past his attempts, but all the same, it’s not the sort of resume you want to take to a new employer.
Group D with Germany, the Aussies, Serbia and Ghana is a very interesting one since the winners or runners up will meet England. I personally think it will be Germany topping the group and Ghana second, but I’m worried that either of these teams will give England a nightmare.
England and the Yanks should make it through safely, though Slovenia will want to say something about that, and they should be taken seriously for the simple reason that they top the group and have the bragging rights. If England can’t get out of this group, then the players only have themselves to blame.
I think it will be helpful though, if Capello stopped that Gestapo approach of secrecy and named the team early enough so that each player can prepare mentally. It would certainly give the chosen goal keeper time to kill the nerves and minimize any Keystone Cops moments.
Tue 13th September 2011; 19:45, Dortmund