Premier League should not be publicly shamed for Shelter rejection

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I am not usually one to go out of his way to defend he Premier League or it’s member clubs.

Too often over the years they have done very little to help the likes of me – a match going fan.

In fact, at times it feels like fans like me are not wanted by the Premier League. By Arsenal.

But on this occasion I will come to the defence of them.

It has been well publicised that the Premier League turned down a request from homeless charity Shelter for home clubs to raise the awareness of rough sleeping.

The league have been criticised by all corners of the media and across social media sites. But they are on the right to turn them down.

Football clubs and the Premier League will have countless requests from charities for support. They can not support them all.

What Shelter have done is wrong.

They have used the rejection to publicly blackmail the league into changing their stance.

Rather than accept the decision and move on; they went to the media.

This was done to shame the Premier League into a u-turn whilst also giving lots of free publicity to Shelter.

That does not sit well with me.

Charities should not be using the rejection of companies and organisations to boost their profile. It is uncharitable.

Take the MacMillan Nurses a few years ago.

They publicly wrote to every Premier League side asking their players to donate a days wages to their charity. Some accepted; others rejected.

MacMillan Nurses then published the list of clubs that rejected their request in the hope the media would pick up on their story. They did and the public flogging began.

Arsenal were one of those clubs to reject the request and became the headline name the papers went with.

What it ignored is that Arsenal had its own charity – the Arsenal Foundation – which distributed funds across many charities across Islington. One of the fundraising activities they already undertook was every player donating a days wages to the Arsenal Foundation.

From this blog we make a small amount of money. We donate that money to charities.

We often get requests from people asking for donations – whether it is or a kids football team or to support someone’s JustGiving charitable drive. We often have to reject them as we simply can not afford to donate to every request.

Whilst football clubs are much richer, they will get countless more requests than our little blog. And whereas we are getting asked to donate £50, they will be getting asked to donate £500,000.

Like us, at some point they have to say no. They can not donate to every charitable request.

It is why Arsenal – and many other clubs – have set up their own foundation. This allows them to point any request towards their own foundation.

If you want a donation, apply to the foundation not the club.

The Premier League are also no different.

They will get daily requests to donate money or publicly support a cause. They can not agree to donate or promote them all.

We already have the support of Black Lives Matter and Mind. As well as Kick It Out and Rainbow Laces. They already do a lot to raise awareness in multiple causes.

But the more causes they agree to raise awareness in, the more diluted that support comes.

It could get to a point where every weekend the Premier League are showing their support for a different cause. And then some will still get rejected.

So you will still have a charity or organisation going to the press saying “our request for support from the Premier League has been rejected”. And it will become a headline story.

A lot of football clubs already run a “Big Sleep Out” event for homelessness.

This is where they encourage people to spend a night sleeping in their stadium to raise funds for homelessness. In 2019 Chelsea raised £25,000 split between the two local homeless charities. Wolves raised £30k in 2019; Bristol Rovers £7k in 2020 and West Ham over £100k for Shelter just last year.

Clubs clearly already do so much to raise awareness and funds for homeless charities.

The sad fact is their rejection of Shelter’s proposal will get more publicity than the positive acts each club does in the area.

What Shelter have done with their public shaming leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.

Instead of praising clubs for the work they do, they could end up alienating them and losing their future support.

Shelter might have just shot themselves in the foot for future funding from clubs.

Over the pandemic every club stepped up and donated a huge amount of food, resources and time to help those who needed it. They also would have rejected a lot of requests to help.

If every rejection was made public, it would have been a daily story.

At some point the Premier League, football clubs and businesses have to say no. They can not support every charity, every cause.

On a final thought, those media companies that have criticised the Premier League in recent days; do they support every charity that requests it?

We should be focusing on the charities, causes and work the Premier League and her members already do. Not criticising them for rejecting one charities public advances.

Move on. Focus on the football.

Keenos

Tierney v Tavares – The fight to be Arsenal’s left back

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My Man of the Match against Watford was Nuno Tavares.

The Portuguese left back has been fantastic in the last 3 Premier League games since coming in for Kieran Tierney.

Such has been the level of his performances that against Watford, fit-again Tierney spent his time warming up in T-shirt and shorts.

12 months ago Tierney would have been rushed back into the starting XI when clearly not fit

As it stands, the left back position is in Tavares’s hands and it wil lbe down to the Scot to get his head down, work hard in training and take his opportunity when it arises.

Against Watford Tavares never stopped running up and down the line.

He has the lightning pace which allows him to join any attack, whilst also getting back to cover in defence.

He is also a strong boy, capable of getting involved in the battle.

As for his distribution, he put in a couple of dangerous crossing against Watford and his short passing is also very good.

With Liverpool up next, Mikel Arteta might opt to return to the more experienced Tierney against Mo Salah. This would perhaps be unfair on the younger man; but also a decision I can understand.

If Salah rips Tavares a new one (which he does to almost every fullback), Arteta will be criticsed for playing him and it could put back Tavares’s development.

Another option could be to play Tavares further up the pitch ahead of Tierney to cover Trent Alexander-Arnold.

With the ages of both Tierney and Tavares, it feels like we have the left hand side of the defence covered for the foreseeable.

Keenos

Benjamin the Great, Glorious Gabriel, Excellent Emile and Auba’s Anguish

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Benjamin the Great

A lot was made about the signing of Benjamin White when he joined Arsenal.

The clubs criticis would have you believe that we had spent £50million on a fancy-dan defender who, whilst great on the ball, could not head and was suspectable defensively.

After a tough start to his Arsenal career in that performance against Brentford, White has been nothing short of brilliant.

Against both Burnley and Watford, he showed his rumoured weakness under the high ball was no more than a myth.

Each game he is growing in stature at the back as part of a defence which has now kept 5 clean sheets (only Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City have kept more).

He is also the best ball playing defender in the league.

His ability on the ball, both running out with it and his passing, is adding another dimension to our attacks.

Like with David Luiz in his prime, when White gets up a head of steam he quickly beats the press and dissects through the middle of an opponents midfield.

With these runs, he quickly transitions defence into attack and creates space for others.

He was unlucky to miss out on a place in Gareth Southgate’s England team as Conor Coady was picked ahead of him.

Southgate will not be able to ignore him for much longer.

Glorious Gabriel

The other half of what is quickly becoming one of the best central defensive partnerships in the league is Gabriel.

Gabriel is the leader at the back. The commander of the back 4.

The Brazilian barks the orders, sets the line and the others pick their position off him.

He is a huge reason why White is looking so comfortable in defence. And why Nuno Taveras is looking like a player 100 appearances for Arsenal under his belt, not just 10.

Gabriel is cool and clam. But he is also a powerhouse. A force to be reckoned with.

At one point on Sunday the Watford players were surrounding the referee complaining about something. In stepped Gabriel, arms out wide, positioning himself between the ref and the Watford players.

A one man army, Gabriel had taken control of the situation without the need for other players to get involved (and potentially talk themselves into trouble).

I do not know what level Gabriel’s English is as he does very few (if any?) post-game interviews. But if over the next 18 months he becomes fleunt in the Queen’s, he will inherite the armband from Aubameyang.

Gabriel is everything people think Virgil van Dijk is. And more.

Excellent Emile

Last season Arsenal suffered from a lack of goals – and no more so than from midfield.

Nicolas Pepe was our highest scoring midfielder with 10 in the league, Saka scored 5.

Emile Smith Rowe, Martin Odergaard, Granit Xhaka, Dani Ceballos, Thomas Partey, Mo Elneny, Joe Willock and Willian scored 6 league goals between them. A frankly embarassing return.

We needed someone to step up to get close to hitting Aaron Ramsey numbers. Makign those late runs into the box. Getting double figures in goals.

When we sold Willock, the clubs critics said we had sold our only goal scoring midfielder (the Halen End graduate scored 8 in 14 whilst on loan to Newcastle). Some felt he deserved a chance back at Arsenal. That he would have played this role.

Willock is yet to score for Newcastle this season; highlighting that last season was perhaps a hot run of form and his real ability was the 1 league goal in 40 games for Arsenal.

So somone needed to step up from midfield – and that man has been Emile Smith Rowe.

He is playing left side of midfield but very much has a license to drop inside. This has led him to picking up some very good positions in and around the box.

Arsenal’as fluidity in the front line is what is opening up space for Smith Rowe.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang drops outwide dragging a centre back with him. Lacazette then fills the space ahead of him left by Aubameyang. This pulls back the opposing defensive midfielder marking him.

That then leaves a big load of space between defensce and midfield that Smith Rowe is utilising. It is a clever tactic.

4 goals in 11 Premier League games makes Smith Rowe our top scorer this season alongside Aubameyang.

Like White, Gareth Southgate can only ignore this form so long.

And 10 munutes after this blog was completed, it was announced that Smith Rowe was called up into the England squad.

Auba’s Anguish

Whilst everything about Arsenal is wonderful right now, Aubameyang will not be in a rush to re-watch the Watford game; his performance costing Arsenal 3 goals.

the officials were completely correct to rule out Bukayo Saka’s goal for offside. But the situation would not have risen if it was not for Auba.

Alexandre Lacazette had done all the hard work, finding a pocket of space and chipping the keeper.

Ben Foster’s touch landed at the feet of Aubameyang with the goal at his mercy.

An inform Aubameyang would have hit it first time. Out of form he takes a touch and then slots it home. What ended up happening is he completely misscontrolled it the ball. It then bobbled to Saka who stuck it away but was clearly offside.

Arsenal then won a penalty after Danny Rose clotheslined Lacazette. Upstepped Aubameyang who failed to convert from the spot.

I have never been a fan of Auba on penalties. It feels like he is not very good at them.

He never seems to put his foot through the ball, rarely finds the corners or side netting. Every penalty he takes is saveable if the keeper guesses the right way.

And it feels like that is Auba’s tactic when it comes to penalties – hoping the keeper dives the wrong way.

When someone like Harry Kane takes them, you feel even if the keeper guesses right the ball is beyong him.

Aubameyang missed against Aston Villa a couple of weeks ago and has now failed to score from 4 of his 13 penalties. That is a poor record.

The Villa, Tottenham and Watford misses were also very similar – all to the keepers right.

Auba’s anguish peaked when he got the last touch on a goal bound shot from Martin Odegaard – sticking the ball in the night from an offside position.

At this point he was desperate to get his name on the scoresheet following the poor touch and the penalty miss.

Odegaard’s shot was bending inside the far post. there was no need for Aubameyang to touch it. But he stuck out a big toe and the goal was ruled out for offside.

Aubameyang has 7 goals from 11 games this season. The Watford performance was just one of those games where nothing went for him.

Keenos