Anti-Arsenal Agenda? ….. a supporter’s guide

October 11, 2012

Your cut out and keep guide to avoiding internet dross from hacks about Arsenal

Like most of us who should know better your humble scribe was as guilty as the next gooner of trawling the web looking for stories of Arsenal salvation in the form of megastar signings in the last two weeks of August.

What is more apparent in the hit-whore dominated sports websites of nowadays is that stock phrases that are supposed to entice the Arsenal surfer to click on a link are instead beginning to wind me up.

Such give away signs that reveal you should give the “story” a wide berth include:

1. “Carlos Kickabout snubs Arsenal to stay at Real Spanish club” – the image the hacks who use this phrase are trying to conjure up is that of Wenger and his side kick Stan, humbly approaching said Senor Kickabout (ok it doesn’t have to be a Spanish player, just any player with an agent trying to bump up his sale price) cap in hand asking for him to join only to be rejected causing said Arsenal duo to hold their heads in their hands and, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth, wend a “Trail of tears”- like passage back to Highbury House.

Yeah, of course, that’s exactly what happens because a hack has said so, nothing to do with a player using our clubs name to encourage interest and inflate the selling fee and thereby his agents fee.

2. “Player X is said to be unhappy at AFC” – “is said to be” !! Said to be by whom? By an unnamed anonymous(and probably made up source) by a reporter who can’t think of any actual reporting to do rather just fit in the name of any player they think of to their template for an AFC player angling for a move.

3. “It’s being reported that….” – so the hack with this opening line now has no news of their own they are actually just presenting the reporting of news as actual news. That smacks of a journalistic version of regurgitation and subsequent ingestion.

4. “Arsenal fight to be top 4” – now how many times have we heard every so called expert confidently predict that we would drop out of the top 4 – I’m thinking especially of a certain ex footballer who, on a audience discussion programme on the short lived Setanta UK channel. When asked by gooners in the front row if they would be in the Champions League the next season replied with relish “No chance, no chance at all”. If you think that is a recent phenomenon think again – it was at the beginning of the 2007-08 season. And who was the early purveyor of such agenda driven, inane detritus ? Step forward Stanley Victor Collymore, the gracious expert who saw fit to mimic Wenger on the radio in a manner he wouldn’t dare to for a certain Caledonian ex Aberdeen manager with a burgundy proboscis.

And finally.

5. Anything by Mihir Bose (not cricket related)

There are many examples of key phrases which flag up the bullshittometer’s red zone and I’m sure there’ll be great examples in the comments below.

Charybdis1966 (on twitter and you tube)

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Posted by ChärybdÏß1966

Does Adrian Durham really hate Arsenal?

September 11, 2012

The answer to that question is almost certainly yes, but probably not as much as we think.

One of my best friends is a presenter in the afternoon for BBC Radio London and I can tell you that he hasn’t got a clue who or what is on his show until he arrives.

The same is almost certainly true of Adrian Durham on Talk Sport; he arrives in the studio and is presented with the suggested windups, compiled for him by his producer, that he should employ that day. There is no way Durham sits at home thinking about how to belittle Arsenal — his producer does that for him and do you know what team he supports? Right first time — Arsenal.

The thing that Durham is particularly good at is acting out the windups that are presented to him within minutes of arriving at the studio.

The only saving grace that stops me hating the producer is the story that on one show Adrian Durham was calling Jamie Carragher a bottler, when a call was put through to him from a very irate Scouser, that being Carragher himself, who asked if Durham was man enough to sort things out face to face, needless to say Durham bottled it. But, you know who is charge of putting calls through to the studio – yep, Gooner revenge.

I know, I know, if you look down into the interlull barrel you will see a clean patch at the bottom — that is where I scraped it to produce this post. Lol

People who are familiar with my comments know that I can’t write a post without singing Wenger’s praises in one way or another so here it comes.

Rocky posed an interesting question recently: is Wenger planning a December surprise?

I think it is unlikely that Wenger has one particular player in mind to sign in the January transfer window; far more likely is that he has half a dozen. The squad as it stands is strong enough to challenge City for the title: the goal keeper and his cover are sufficient, the defence and certainly the midfield are sufficient. Even the attack right now is sufficient and has cover. I know GN5 will disagree with this but out wide on the right we have Walcott, The Ox, and Gervinho and on the left Podolski, Gervinho and Arshavin, plenty of depth there.

If Giroud gets injured then Podolski can play in the middle and this is where I came back to sharing GN5’s concern. If the Giroud injury is serious then Wenger can bolster the attack in the window and the player he brings in will know that he is needed and will not just be sitting on the bench.

Put simply.

Right now the squad is big enough, good enough and strong enough to win the league.

Onwards and upwards my fellow Gooners.

P.S. I am all for a bit of robust optimism but Chamakh to score 10 goals? You’re having a red and white scarf.

Written by LB

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Posted by LB

Fans leave early …. Supporters stay to the end.

March 12, 2010

This is the second edition of ‘Rant Friday’. Last week some new bloggers mistook the piece for an attack on Arsenal. It is simply an opportunity for anyone with a gripe to write a paragraph and get it off their chest.

Rasputin’s Beef

On Tuesday night we witnessed possibly the most entertaining and uplifting display of ‘Arsenal Football’ in the short history of The Emirates Stadium. A game in which the ‘experts’ had said we would struggle.  A game that followed Ramsey’s horrific injury and Niklas Bendtner’s profligacy in front of goal the weekend before. The team were magnificent, everyone played their part. After the fourth goal, a carnival atmosphere enveloped the ground ….. so why oh why, with 10 minutes to go, did thousands of so-called ‘fans’ start streaming out of the ground?

They missed the drama of the penalty and Nik scoring his first hat-trick, but more importantly they didn’t stay to do their duty as supporters and clap our boys off the pitch. The goal celebrations showed how important this game was to them – it had nothing to do with earning £60k a week, it was about playing superb football (and being allowed to play as is seldom the case in the premiership) and winning the Arsenal way. I can have some sympathy for anyone with young children who wanted to avoid the crush, but to the rest who left early I say, shame on you, you are not worthy of our team.

Livers’ Beef

Right first rant and I know this is only speculation but it’s been brought to light that Roma are over here trying to get Gallas on a pre contract agreement, this caused as we know by Arsene’s policy of only giving an extra year extensions to players over 30. Now, in some regards this seems sensible in that players will have to earn a new contract each year but it does make me wonder if this should be extended to players of say 33 or over.

If a players “peak” is 27, 28 then 2 years later they are over the hill or past it? No not really and not in the majority of cases. Players that Wenger inherited when he first came like the back 5 and Ray Parlour were all hitting 30 or already over 30 and they played some of their best football past this age. More recently and the one that hurts the most was Robert Pires who I think we have never replaced. Granted this season he’s in cameo roles for Villareal and not at his best or ok, maybe past it. But it was 2006 we let him go with Wenger ok with this because we had Hleb. Now both have gone and Hleb, for all his trickery and ball control was never as effective as Sir Bob.

We let Campbell go on a free so he could play abroad…….all the way to Portsmouth. Sure his head wasn’t right but are you telling me we couldn’t have done something about it and not wasted 5 years to get him back… oh we’ve not won anything in 5 years right? Even Sol won the cup in 2008. Which now brings me to Gallas. Gallas has turned his career around at Arsenal and plays extremely well with TV so why won’t we just this once give a player over 30 a 2 year contract and if he’s still quality after that then issue the 1 year extensions. I bet Aluminia has 8 years left on his contract…….

All these players that possibly leave on a free because of our policies and there are more than I named (The Dennis 1 year extensions became a joke) leaves me to wonder why it’s such a problem. This never happened in David Deins day…..

Second Rant and a small one.. European games v League games. What are the frigging rules for time added on? 6 subs in the Prem is 3 mins. 6 in the CL is 1 min ..WTF ?

tommystout’s beef

My rant is not about  the Arsenal in particular but the way we are treated by that abysmal radio station Talksport and other associated broadcasters. Adrian Durham in particular has riled me over the years but needling away are the likes of Brasil and Townsend. Please Gooners don’t phone them up and give them the time of day, if they have no one ringing up and defending Arsenal then they will get the message. After all what would a radio station have to talk about if they have no Arsenal to talk about, they’d maybe have to turn on their beloved Man IOU or upsetting other supporters instead, this goes for Liverpool fans too who have had their fair dose of negative air time especially over the past year. Boycott the phone calls and they’ll target someone else, their loss, Arsenal are big news and an easy target, for now!

I’m addressing Talksport because I’m a glutton for punishment and listen to their “white noise” most days, but it isn’t just them,  Alan Green for 5 live has his two penneth. Then there’s Gary Linneker and Alan Shearer for the BBC and then we get to Sky; Smug faced Richard Keys and old hat Andy Gray to name but two, they look for any chance to stick the knife in. What’s difficult to comprehend is that Sky want the viewing figures and the neutrals and lovers of pure football want to watch Arsenal but these “pundits” always do their best to condemn us. Work that one out.

Until Arsenal TV get themselves into a position back on the Satellite medium, where they can screen all of their games live, until that time I will remain a sky sports customer…. Then Adios Amigo!


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Posted by Rasp