Archive for Off the Pitch
How ‘English’ Is The English Premier League? Part II
Posted by: | CommentsIn Part I of this article series, I set out a rationale that explains the international context of today’s footballing environment as relates to the English Premier league. In this second instalment, we examine the impact of foreign influence across all aspects of the game.
Player influence
By the early 90s, there was already a sprinkling of foreign players within the English leagues but their impact wasn’t in any way significant at the time. 22 non British players were registered to play in the inaugural season of the Premier league. In the 2009-2010 season, there are 337 registered players from 66 different countries.
Numerous arguments have been put forward suggesting that this monumental growth of foreign players in the EPL of over 1500% in 18 years has adversely affected English football. The case is made that the quality of English football and the progress of English players is hampered by the continued participation of such large numbers of foreign players in the EPL.
There are fundamental flaws in the premise of such arguments. For one, taking this view invites an inherent assumption that English football and the culture around it is better than and is perhaps being tainted by a foreign brand of football. In my view, it’s an assumption that totally tests the boundaries of arrogance and vanity.
Secondly, such arguments miss the fact that the collective influence of foreign players has brought so much more to the premier league as a way of life. The inevitable by-product of this is that English players are in a much better environment to prosper and develop their technical capability because they’re playing alongside quality players, some of whom are the best in the world.
The most noticeable impact that foreign players have brought to the English game is the addition of flair, creativity and technical skill. The overall quality of the football has significantly improved and for the most part, this exciting mix of world talent has been responsible for making the EPL as successful as it is.
I think it’s fair to say that the EPL wouldn’t be what it is now without the likes of top quality foreign players like Dennis Bergkamp, Eric Cantona, Paulo Di Canio, Jian Franco Zola, Patrick Vieira, Jurgen Klinsmann, Robert Pires, Thierry Henry, Christiano Ronaldo, etc.
This argument in part has morphed into an almost instinctive need by the English football establishment to defend what I would refer to as the endangered species that is the English brand of football. I believe that taking this view is a simplistic cop-out that plants us firmly onto the slippery slope of xenophobic attitudes.
I’ll expand more on how I see the xenophobia manifesting itself in the final instalment of this article tomorrow – but it’s worth just mentioning the notion abound that the growth and development of English players is actually stunted or adversely affected by the increased number of foreign players in the EPL is a falsehood.
The fact of the matter is that if England players are talented, they shouldn’t have a problem rising to the top and being part of the cream of the crop. It says a lot when many EPL managers are now opting to sign non-English players for the simple reason that English players generally come with an over-inflated price tag that is not a true reflection of their value on the pitch.
A good example to illustrate my point is the comparison between Jolian Lescott who cost Manchester City £22 million and Thomas Vermaelen, the former Ajax captain and the current Belgian national team captain, who cost Arsenal £10 million. Another example – Fabien Delph cost Aston Villa £7 million, which is more expensive than what it cost Arsenal to acquire both Cesc Fabregas and Robin Van Persie.
Influence of Foreign Managers
Allow me to use Arsene Wenger as the perfect illustration of the influence of foreign managers in English football.
In a recent UEFA report by Andy Roxburgh, the former England manager and now football commentator for BBC radio Graham Taylor makes a telling observation about Arsene Wenger.
Taylor says:
Arsene Wenger has changed the face of English football. When he came in 1996 pretty well everybody was playing 4-4-2 but we were playing a static game and Wenger has to be given great credit for getting the movement of players and the flexibility of teams.
Wenger produced a side that did play 4-4-2 but it was a very flexible 4-4-2. The front 4 were able to exchange with great movement. This allowed Arsenal’s flair players to play as strikers and midfielders at the same time with anyone of them likely to score.
Former Arsenal players have alluded to their first impressions and reactions to Wenger joining Arsenal in September 1996. On being informed that they had a new French manager, the almost instinctive reaction in the dressing room was “He’s French, what the hell does he know about English football?”.
This initial reaction, coupled with the now infamous headline from the London Evening Standard of ”Arsene Who?” pales into insignificance when you evaluate the sheer impact that Arsene Wenger has had in English football.
I highly recommend that you read a more in-depth article I wrote called ’Where Arsenal leads, others will follow’. In this article, I capture what I think makes Wenger’s impact and influence to English football both unique and ground breaking.
It isn’t just the fact that Wenger is the second most successful manager in the EPL having won 7 major trophies (not counting the Community Shields) – and achieving 2 doubles in the process.
The tangibility of the trophies somewhat clouds the intangibility of the vision he has brought to the game, the style and brand of football (better known as Wengerball) that Arsenal plays, and the training and development culture that he has instilled at London Colney.
Off the pitch, Wenger has worked well with the Arsenal board to ensure that Arsenal is now recognized as one of the top 5 most successful football clubs in the world. The fact that this has been done despite the shackles imposed on Arsenal by the expensive move to Ashburton Grove from Highbury, the fact that he has had to build a squad from within Arsenal’s youth development structure for most part, and the fact that Arsenal remains a very solvent and financially healthy club in this age of economic turmoil makes Wenger’s achievements all the more remarkable.
IN the article on Arsenal’s leadership I referred you to above, big names in the footballing world like Guus Hiddink, Fabio Capello, Rapha Benitez and even the Manchester City Chairman Gary Cook pay great tribute to the impact Wenger has had on the English game. They do this in their endorsement of Arsenal’s vision and their own desire for others to follow in Arsenal’s footsteps.
Join us tomorrow for the last instalment of this article series. I’ll briefly touch on the influence of the ownership of clubs by foreign individuals. I’ll also talk about how I see the xenophobia that I’ve previously mentioned manifest itself in the context of the struggle of achieving a balance between the quintessentially English brand of football, and well – football in the 21st century.
How ‘English’ Is The English Premier League? Part I
Posted by: | CommentsIn this 3 part article series, I want to explore the question of the Englishness (or not) of the English Premier league.
The reason why I ask the question is because of my belief that there is an element of xenophobia in English football in general, and an anti-Arsenal sentiment in particular. The answer I feel, has a lot to do with the question about how ’English’ the Premier League really is.
I couldn’t help but think of the urban legend that has become the internet definition of Globalization.
Question: What is Globalization
Answer: Princess Diana
Question: Why?
Answer:
An English princess with an Egyptian boyfriend crashes in a French tunnel, while in a German car with a Dutch engine, driven by a Belgian who was drunk on Scottish whisky, followed closely by Italian Paparazzi, riding Japanese motorcycles, treated by an American doctor, using Brazilian medicines!And this definition was pointed out by an Indian , using American technology, and you’re probably reading this on one of the IBM clones, that use Taiwanese-made chips, programmed by low cost Indian programmers, and a Korean-made monitor, assembled by Bangladeshi workers in a Singapore plant, transported by lorries driven by Sri Lankans , hijacked by Indonesians, unloaded by Sicilian longshoremen, and trucked by Mexican illegal’s…..
You get the picture…
This is often a difficult topic for discussion and I’ve witnessed it leaving people’s noses out of joint and making it very uncomfortable for some. It’s however not a valid reason to avoid discussing a pertinent issue that affects and influences the public perception of football.
Like music, sport in general and football in particular are universal mediums of communication and social interaction. Football is a microcosm of society and it’s fair to say that attitudes and prejudices abound in football are a reflection of attitudes and prejudices in society.
Until the advent of the Premier League at the end of the 1992 league calendar, it’s fair to say that foreign influence in the makeup of any top division English side was the exception rather than the norm.
The Premier league was born in part due to the frustration English teams had suffered after they were kicked into the long grass by UEFA’s 5 year suspension from continental tournaments between 1985 and 1990.
There was a genuine desire to change the face of English football and shed off the ’hooliganism’ label that came de facto whenever one spoke of English football. Standards had significantly dropped and new investment was needed to revive both the spirit and the infrastructure of the game.
The 22 founder clubs of the Premier league broke away from what was then the 1st division of the football league, with the primary aim of selling TV rights independently to raise the much needed income to lift the profile of English football.
The deal that then emerged with B Sky B was ground breaking in a lot of ways, not least because of the sheer amount of money that was going to be pumped into English football for the next decade or so. Of course it now turns out that the trend has continued for close to 2 decades.
Something else happened though, and this forms my core argument in this exploration of how English the premier league remained.
The business case for such a ground breaking agreement between the Premier league and B Sky B was the continued assumption that Sky would be able to sell broadcasting rights for the Premier League around the world to continental agents like DSTV and Super Sports among others.
The TV revenue from subscription to satellite and cable channels showing the EPL was a gold mine and continues to be what sustains the obscene amount of money now available in footballing terms.
From a marketing and branding point of view, the Premier league has done remarkably well to put itself around the world and sell itself as the world’s most powerful and richest elite club competition.
It’s not surprising that in many countries in the world, local football has suffered significantly as stadia remain empty on Saturday afternoons. Local supporters fill bars and pubs in many cities across the globe to catch a glimpse of their favourite English Premier league teams in action – and this is to the detriment of local football.
In many cases, football followers around the world know more about Premier league players and their careers than they do about their own local footballers. In this respect, the influence of the Premier League in its core markets across the globe is monumental.
I want to focus my argument from this angle. I believe that it’s impossible to sell yourself around the world the way the Premier league has done for nearly 2 decades without the international nature of your market if you will, influencing the structure of the game.
The obscene amount of money that’s being pumped into English football would never be achieved if the Premier league didn’t have this global reach. The English market alone cannot sustain this.
It therefore goes without saying that there is a counter balance to this global reach by the Premier league. It was inevitable that foreign influence in all strata of the Premier league would start being a factor. This is very true now if you look at the number of foreign club owners, foreign club managers and players, foreign agents and commentators – name every aspect of the English game and you can identify foreign influence.
It’s the very concept of globalization. In the world we now live in, it’s absolutely impossible to spread your wings around the world without the world returning the favour. If I was to be more blunt, I’d say this:
As sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, globalization in its current rendition of economic migration and free movement of people dictates that you can’t go around the world selling your wares and not expect to get a taste of it in your own backyard.
In the last 2 centuries, the empire has had its rampant gallivanting around the world “conquering” most of it for its own purposes of survival.
It’s difficult to see in this day and age how they’re going to change the fact that there’s folks from the rest of the world and the former empire who want and demand a piece of that action – with some having the belief that it’s their God given right.
I said earlier that football is a microcosm of society and there is a counter balance to the spreading of the Premier league around the world. If we accept that there is a direct line that you can draw from the money coming out of the pockets of football fans around the world straight into the coffers of the Premier league – then it’s inevitable that the world then becomes part and parcel of this circus.
Join us for the second instalment tomorrow when we take a deeper look at how foreign players, managers and owners have shaped the Premier league in the last 2 decades.
You can read Part III of this article series here.
Is Arsenal’s Digital Innovation A Revolution Or A Distraction
Posted by: | CommentsIf 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.
Is Anti-Arsenalism A Reality Or A Myth
Posted by: | CommentsLike many Arsenal supporters out there, I suffer from an acute case of Arsenalitis. It’s a disease characterized by a deep emotional attachment to anything that has to do with Arsenal football club.
Some of the symptoms include chronic insomnia when the Gunners lose games or draw games we should have won; and frequent bouts of hypertension and anxiety attacks when we feel the club is unfairly being misrepresented in the media.
Despite the responsible thing of managing one’s own health and well-being say by not watching or listening to diatribe – you can’t help but notice the blatant cases of bias against Arsenal.
So is this anti-Arsenalism really a myth, or shall we stop beating around the bush and call it what it is – blatant bias and xenophobia by the establishment towards Arsenal?
Years ago, my Liverpool loving friend Dean asked me why I love Arsenal so much. You see, Dean and I grew up together and we’ve been really close friends for just shy of 30 years.
When we were kids, we played our own leagues in the council estates and equivalents of Hackney Marshes. This was in the early to mid 80s when Liverpool were flying and many of the local neighbourhood teams adopted the names of big clubs like Liverpool and Manchester United, despite the fact that we were lucky to even watch a televised match once a month in our part of the world.
The funny thing is that we knew more about the team we supported and the players of the time, than we did about school work and the local curriculum. Prozone would have been proud of us at the time.
Dean was the local Liverpool’s star. Their Graham Souness, the guy who made them tick. He’s the only footballer who I know will nutmeg you and dribble past 3 players, turn towards you with that impish ”gotcha” smile, before smuggling the ball into the goal from a ridiculously impossible angle.
So I wasn’t the least bit surprised about his allegiance to Liverpool. His question to me about the roots of my allegiance to Arsenal did make me think though.
I suppose the biggest driving factor for me is to do with what Arsenal as a club represents. Victoria Concordia Crescit says it all, but it’s much more than that. It’s about the club’s values and philosophy of openness and opportunity. About the clubs desire to go about things in the right and fair way, and about the clubs patience and determination to develop an ambitious vision, stick to it and work hard at realising it.
There are many aspects of Arsenal’s journey over the last 2 decades that are a reflection of my own journey in life. In the last 18 years in particular I’ve identified more with the Gunners than any other development in my life I guess.
Friends tell me in a way that I’m lucky that my wife is also crazy about football. The down side though is that she’s a diehard Chelsea supporter (yeah! I know) – but I guess we all make sacrifices in life and have to live with the consequences.
Perhaps these are the reasons why I feel more sensitive and aggrieved about the open bias towards Arsenal that I encounter every day from the English football establishment. And it’s not paranoia. I know paranoia, believe me.
I’ll give you 4 examples (and there’s loads more) to illustrate my point.
1. Broadcasting of Arsenal Games on TV or radio
I’ll cite the group stages of the champions league. Out of 6 match days, there’s 24 opportunities that 2 radio stations have to broadcast the commentary for the games involving the 4 English sides.
I’ve used radio as an example because on the specific Tuesday and Wednesday nights of the Champions league match days, I was working and where I was , we can only listen to radio.
Out of the 24 opportunities that both radio stations had, only one Arsenal game – the match day 1 game between Standard Liege and Arsenal was broadcast. In a fair world, you’d expect that more than 1 out of 24 Arsenal games would get air time. In most cases, both stations broadcast the same match involving either Chelsea, Man United or Liverpool.
Don’t even get me started on the debacle of the Sky vs. ITV split that sees Arsenal relegated into broadcasting wilderness.
2. Anally Retentive Commentators.
It’ was refreshing that in his last webcast to Arsenal supporters, Wenger confessed that he rarely watches Arsenal games on TV with the volume on. The outright bias and diatribe the commentators have against Arsenal can drive you loco.
It’s almost like it’s a scripted attempt to brainwash Arsenal fans with negativity. Whether it’s constantly referring to Gallas’s drama at St. Andrews in February 2008, or the application of selective amnesia that blanks out any virtues of the Arsenal game and amplifies Arsenal’s shortcomings; some commentators need to be lynched.
In many cases, commentators have publicly referred to the opposing team as ”our”. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if they’re on the opposing team’s payroll, but to be fair, such commentators are just thick.
3. Xenophobia towards Arsenal’s colourful squad
The constant references to Arsenal’s supposed lack of English players is mind numbing and bang out of order. They serve to reinforce stereotypes that promote the dislike of the unknown and the misunderstood, and essentially fuel xenophobia.
The way the non-English mantra is latched on to suggests that there is something inherently wrong with not being English. An argument has been made that the English premier league is actually English in an attempt to justify the xenophobia.
Frankly speaking, in the 21st century, that’s an argument that needs to be filed right between shit and syphilis. There’s no room for that level of ignorance and arrogance for that matter in a game that is prostituted around the world as the best league competition on the planet.
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the Premier League is only popular in the world because of the myriad of international players and managers in the game. If it was still quintessentially English, the league would still be in the wilderness of the mid 80s to early 90s following the 5 year UEFA ban caused by hooliganism.
Furthermore, the billions of pounds Sky and other TV broadcasters pump into the game is only made possible by the ability to sell broadcasting rights all over the world. The English premier league can’t be a reality without non-English participation.
Inevitably, Arsenal is the whipping boy of this ”you’re not English enough” band wagon. It’s a shame that no one takes notice of the composition of the Arsenal youth and reserves team, and Arsenal’s stellar work in bringing through talented English players for the future.
4. Misguided truths or convenient lies about Arsenal
Take your pick:
- Arsenal don’t have strength and depth
- Arsenal need an English spine to win the EPL
- Arsenal must play ugly to win
- Arsenal can’t hack it if you bully them or kick them off the park
- It’s OK to actually kick them weak and brittle Arsenal players
- Arsenal are broke and there are a poor man’s imitation of the big 2 clubs
- If Arsenal don’t win a trophy this season then Wenger must go
- Wenger is a tight fisted egomaniac who refuses to spend money for big name transfers
- Arsenal are a selling team
You get the picture…
Basically a narrative has been building for several years now to serve the purpose of pigeon holing Arsenal into an also-rans outfit. There will always be a negative edge pursued on any Arsenal story.
A good example is when Andrey Arshavin said that Arsenal needed a miracle to have all their first team players available at the same time. This was swiftly rehashed and reported as “Arshavin says Arsenal need a miracle to win the title”
What is also noticeable is the contempt and disdain that Arsenal and Wenger are held in by the I-Zombies (pundits and hacks) in football. Most of them find it really hard to hide their contempt for all things Arsenal. It’s so pathetic to watch them pretend to be impartial.
It’s true what they say though. If they hate you this much, you must be doing something right. Is choosing to win by playing beautiful football such a bad thing?
Why You Should Watch Football, Not Invest In It
Posted by: | CommentsFor quite a number of years now, Arsenal football club in general and Arsene Wenger in particular have been derided by the footballing establishment for refusing to spend stupid money for short term gain. Since the advent of the English Premier League and the injection into the game of obscene amounts of money, football has actually lost the plot in this country. I think it’s fair to say that Premier league clubs in particular, have fallen foul of the basic expectation of common sense and have totally believed their own hype and press.
The Premier League is pretty much prostituted around the world as the biggest and most powerful club league competition on the planet, and with this hyperbole comes the expectation that money will then flow. There are only a handful of clubs that can regularly generate match day revenues that are significant enough to keep the clubs afloat, and the rest of the money is generated from commercial activity like merchandise sales and rights issues. TV revenue from rights sold around the world are a major part of this.
Even then, football has become a beast that feeds itself to the point of obscenity and there are now signs that something has to give. The funny thing is that a lot of football commentators and establishment figures have acted in a way that suggested football was immune from the laws of economics. I personally think part of the problem is to do with the fact that not many people in football actually understand finance and the way money works in football. There’s a misguided assumption that if you continue winning, it’ll always be alright on the night.
The landscape within football was further altered when Roman Abramovich rode into town and started the new era of ’sugar daddy’ ownership. It was the beginning of the madness that suggested that the newest fashion statement in town was to buy a football club. Forget billionaires buying islands in the Caribbean, or kitting themselves out with a custom made Boeing 747 jumbo jet. No no no – if you had money, you had to get into football.
The thing is this though, “buying success” was never going to be financially viable. Even Abramovich has realised the folly of his madness and has to flush over £350 million down the drain. Another £350 million has been converted into equity in the hope that one day, someone might buy those shares and he can recoup the £700 million plus he’s pumped into Chelsea. And they still run an operating loss every year.
The working assumption, particularly within the footballing establishment, is that a knight in shining armour is going to ride in from the mountains and save the clubs by buying out the current owners. The leagues are riddled from top to bottom with clubs hoping that a middle eastern, Russian or American billionaire will bail them out.
Despite all the glossing over and spin that has shrouded Manchester United’s finances over the last 4 years, the sheer magnitude of the financial nightmare that is facing them is out in the open. Just going through the 15 page risk section, which they’re legally obliged to provide in a prospectus, is nothing short of shocking.
Perhaps now we can inject a bit of reality and start talking about football finance in a sober manner. The era of ’cheque book’ management is over and the devil is in town to collect his dues from those who defied the laws of economics and thought football was immune from financial ruin.
Perhaps now we can acknowledge that talking about footballing finance requires some level of understanding of the bigger picture, and not just to put on a suit as a pundit and go on TV to say ”Manchester United and Liverpool are too big to go to the wall. Some rich person will come and buy them”.
Consider this, the UK government, UK PLC itself, with a Triple A credit rating is finding it hard to raise money by selling bonds because investors don’t think they’ll get their money back. What chance do Manchester United have? Besides, selling bonds to raise money for the club doesn’t get rid of the debts, it just shifts them from Column A to Colum D. They’re rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Liverpool is another case all together. I actually feel sorry for Rapha Benitez. Watching his press conference after they got kicked out of the 3rd round of the FA cup by Reading, you couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. Mark Lawrenson was the summarizer for BBC radio 5 yesterday, and after the match, you could hear the despair in his voice – if he didn’t have a microphone, he’d be crying. With Liverpool playing the way they are right now, it’s hard to see how they’ll keep up with the pace. Without making it to the Champion’s League, it’s hard to see how they’ll survive financially.
It’s times like these when you have to sit back and thank the Arsenal board and Arsene Wenger for their prudence and financial stewardship. For all the times they were derided for being poor and tight fisted, it’s now becoming clear that they were simply exercising their custodial duties to protect the future of the club. Many clubs are now aspiring to go the Arsenal way, both in the management model and the youth and squad development model.
Football and footballing finance is about to get ugly and there will be casualties. I think that if and when big clubs fall, it will have an adverse effect on the ability for the Premier League to command the revenues it does around the world, but I think that’s a good thing. The strong clubs will survive and come out better than before, and it’ll be good for football.
Meanwhile, Manchester United and Liverpool are case studies for investors as to why you should watch football and leave it at that.
Guess Who’s Coming To Arsenal…
Posted by: | CommentsThat seems to be the game being played up and down Fleet Street and on air waves. Some people actually make a living from speculating and rumour mongering when it comes to the transfer window. But let’s face it, for the most part, it’s all bull shit designed to sell papers and bring in the listeners so as to sell advertising.
I was bemused over the weekend when a particular sports radio show proclaimed that they had an ’expert’ in the studio who was clued up on the January transfer window. They were asking people to call in so that their ’expert’ could confirm or deny the transfer rumours for their club. I don’t know what was more tragic – the self proclamation of expertise in transfer rumour mongering, or the fact that the said expert worked for the News of the World.
It’s like a whole new industry designed to peddle hogwash has been unleashed on us, and right on cue, you find Arsenal supporters (in fairness, supporters of other clubs too), lining up to masticate over falsehoods that have been concocted by lazy journalists who have no clue about what cuts.
I laugh when I read stories like ”Player X has been linked to Arsenal”, or ”Player Y is the sort of player that Arsenal need for their midfield”
The question I’d like to ask is “who linked the player with Arsenal?”, If it isn’t a journalist sitting down his local pub on a Tuesday morning racking his brain on how to meet the copy deadline that evening?
”I know what! That kid is tall, he looks like an Adebayor, he’s African and can speak French – wouldn’t it be funny if we linked him to Arsenal”
And
There starts a story about how we’re going to sign the new Adebayor. What then follows is the trail of lazy uncorroborated copy and pasting that gives a non-story a life of its own.
Take the Patrick Vieira to Arsenal story over the summer. I know for a fact because I was listening on the radio on the way home, when Ian Wright, almost in exasperation that Wenger was not going to sign a so called world class defensive midfielder, plucked a thought from the air in the mould of ”What Arsenal really need is a ‘Vieira’ type player who will stamp their authority in the midfield”. Very few people at the time believed that Arsenal had the solutions within. Wright then innocuously suggested “wouldn’t it be nice if Arsenal does bring Vieira back for a season just to provide some leadership and presence within the dressing room and play a few difficult matches”.
Believe it or not, the next day there was an unconfirmed report in a tabloid that proclaimed that sources inside Arsenal suggest that Wenger is looking to re-sign Patrick Vieira to bolster his midfield. This was accompanied with the usual waffle of how Vieira is Mr Arsenal and how he will be a good fit for the inexperienced Arsenal midfield.
Sky Sports news, The gospel according to St. Murdoch included it in their news roundup session – where they essentially read all the sports tabloid headlines without regard to journalistic integrity and in effect giving some of the nonsense credibility.
The Vieira story then started feeding itself like a hungry beast with Italian newswires picking it up as fact because English tabloids had written about a romantic return for Vieira to Arsenal and Sky Sports News reported it. The English papers then quoted the Italian press as more proof of the credibility of the story and the Italian press further obliged by quoting the English press who quoted them in a vicious cycle that forces the story to have an uncontrollable life of its own.
The next thing you know, Wenger has to respond to a question about re-signing Vieira in one of his press conferences, and because Wenger doesn’t want to be blunt, he says he hasn’t thought about it, but just by mentioning it, the story then becomes ”Wenger is thinking about re-signing Vieira”.
You catch my drift, right? And all because a lazy journalist was listening in a pub when he heard Ian Wright romancing about what Ian Wright thought Arsenal needed.
Just thinking about this January transfer window, there seems to be this misguided notion that Arsenal (or any other team for that matter) have to buy and spend big money to give them a chance at whatever. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against improving the squad by bringing in new players. I’ve been vocal about this. What I have a problem with is buying for the sake of buying or because there’s undue pressure from outside. If there’s a player out there who can add value to this Arsenal squad, a player who is better than who we already have, then I’m all for it. No one can argue that our last 3 signings, Vermaelen, Arshavin and Nasri haven’t added significant value to this squad. The core of players being developed at Arsenal can greatly benefit from such a value signing.
It’s this thoughtless ’cheque book’ style of management that has landed many a club with unmanageable debts. Perhaps more teams should consider that solutions for some of their deficiencies so far lie within the club if they could get more of their players fit or playing better. Perhaps its a tactical change for some that will work, or maybe just players actually playing to their true form. It’s folly to think that buying reinforcements is the only solution. I believe it’s one of the solutions, but not the only one – but more importantly, the player being brought in has to be the right fit for the club.
My sense is that if there’s a player out there who can fit our style of play and hit the ground running by playing Wengerball, then our scouting system will find that player and Arsenal will buy such a player. I think it’s wrong to buy a player because of market pressure and to have to change your system of play to fit that new big money acquisition. For the long term health of the team, this is one case where the tail should never be allowed to wag the dog.
Also, I just thought I’d mention a new section of Stone Cold Arsenal, the Stone Cold Article Series. This new section provides a more straightforward way of accessing related articles that cover a similar theme or topic area. The article series can also be accessed from the main menu.
Arsenal Determined To Keep Current Squad Together
Posted by: | CommentsWith the January transfer window in its element, journalists up and down fleet street and news editors on the air waves are racking up their brains concocting rumours and imaginary stories about players moving clubs. It says something about the 24 hour news media culture when any whiff of a story, regardless of how discredited it is, gets air time because papers need to be sold to pay wages and news cycles on air need to guarantee ratings to sell advertising.
Get used to Arsenal being linked with all manner of players from Emile Heskey to Mario Balotelli and Patrick Vieira to Pascal Cygan. Well, maybe not Cygan, but you get the picture. Wenger hasn’t really made it easy for the rumour mill as he’s openly stated that he’s in the market, but let’s face it – being in the market doesn’t mean he’s going to buy for the sake of buying. Arsenal has one of the most comprehensive scouting systems in the world – the kind capable of hiding in the forest to watch Thomas Vermaelen during training, or the kind capable of picking an opportune moment to approach Carlos Vela’s dad at a hotdog stand in an obscure North American football match. Arsenal doesn’t do brochures of the Michael Owen and Emmanuel Adebayor type, or YouTube 8 minute highlights. However, we can be confident that if there’s a player out there that can fit the Arsenal mould, our scouting system will find that player.
Of course we could pay over the odds and totally blow apart our wage structure to get some ’big name’ players in to stroke some egos. If Robinho, Dimitar Berbatov and Andriy Shevchenko are case studies in how not to spend ridiculous money on a player, then those who think big money equal success are in for a big disappointment. Arsenal don’t do big buck transfers, and brazen ’cheque book’ management is not Wenger’s M.O.
What is important though is building on the platform that has been developing during the last 4 years. Arsenal were well on track to great things 2 years ago until we lost Tomas Rosicky who limped off during a 4th round FA cup encounter against Newcastle; and Martin Taylor failed in his attempt to mutilate Eduardo’s ankle. This was followed in the next season with the loss of 75% of the midfield that had been so effective in the 2007-2008 season until that fateful January and February when we lost Rosicky and Eduardo respectively. If you also consider that Fabregas was out for at least 4 months in the 08-09 season, we effectively lost our entire first choice midfield after Rosicky’s injury, and Flamini and Hleb’s mercenary tactics to secure moves to ’greener pastures’.
Sometimes we under-estimate the impact of the decimation of our entire midfield core in this way. Add onto that the fact that during the business end of the 2008-09 season, we were literally operating without 75% of our preferred first choice defence with Clichy, Sagna and Gallas out with long term injuries. That’s why it’s remarkable that Arsenal went on a 21 game unbeaten run with our so called fringe players, and extended that positive run to become the most successful EPL side of the 2009 calendar year.
It would be a travesty to lose the camaraderie, team spirit and determination built during this period over the last 3 years because it has shown that Arsenal can survive through adversity. What is more important than the knee jerk reaction of jumping at the transfer window for reinforcements and a breath of fresh air, is to acknowledge the progress made internally. What better way of doing it than to ensure you give this squad the best ever chance of staying together for the foreseeable future. I would suggest that Ivan Gazidis and Arsene Wenger have illustrated how much of a class act they are by ensuring that since May last year, 15 players from the current squad of 29 have had new long term contracts secured and they can focus on working for the team.
The footballing world is sometimes so pre-occupied with the glamour and romance of big name signings in transfer windows, that it’s easy to forget that the biggest asset you have is within. Our current crop of players have been together for the best part of 4 years and the progress they’ve made as a team is truly remarkable. As much as I would personally welcome any new addition to the squad who will add true value, I’m more encouraged by Arsenal’s determination to keep this magnificent squad together.
I am definitely not a supporter of buying for the sake of buying or to appease the establishment.
Tue 13th September 2011; 19:45, Dortmund