Tag Archives: AC Milan

You are allowed to want Arsenal to win (and want Wenger Out)

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I want to be positive. I really do.

Arsenal face AC Milan tonight in the Europa League. Defeat will make it 5 losses on the spin. One of the worst runs I can remember in my lifetime. A run that would see Arsene Wenger surely lose his job (if our board had a pair).

I will never be one of these fans who says they want Arsenal to lose so that Wenger is sacked. I want Arsenal to win the Europa League. And in my mind, all true supporters should want us to win the trophy.

Many fans will see that winning the Europa League will give Wenger a lifeline. The truth is, he should leave Arsenal even if we win the Europa League. But the reality is that even if we do not win it, the board will probably let him see out his last year of his contract.

Or they might not. Moves might already be being made to replace him this summer. Regardless of performance.

Who knows what is happening at Arsenal. I do not think Wenger’s future is tied to success in Europe.

So having made that statement, I want us to win the Europa League.

Arsenal have not won a trophy in Europe since 1994. We have lost 3 finals in 3 difference competitions since then.

European success is the only thing Spurs fans have over Arsenal. They have 3, we have 2. Winning in Lyon in May will even things up.

If wanting Arsenal to win trophies is a bad thing, something that can not make you happy, buzz your tits off, then I am sorry. Actually, I will not apologise for wanting to see my club win things.

Changing manager will not guarantee success. Liverpool have shown that with the appointments of both Brendan Rodgers and Jurgen Klopp. 6 years with no trophies.

So if changing managers does not guarantee success, we should not be saying that we do not want to win trophies so that we change manager.

Live in the moment, in the here and now. You can not predict the future, so cheer on a win against AC Milan.

They are not as good as some think.

Like Arsenal in recent years, they are a big club whose star has fallen.

I saw someone on Twitter state that AC Milan were as good as they were when they beat us 4-0 in the San Siro a few years back.

Well if your agenda pushes you to say Fabio Borini is as good as Zlatan Ibrahimovic, then live in your cloud coo-coo land with your fairies and expectation that changing manager will mean instant success.

A few other things just coming to mind…

A lot of fuss has been made over Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain “making the Champions League Quarter Final for the first time in his career”.

On the face of it, you would say that this highlights the massive underachievement by Arsenal in the Champions League, and it perhaps does. But it also ignores that Oxlade-Chamberlain was complicate in that underachievement. He was in many of the starting XI’s that saw us get knocked out.

So Liverpool fans are celebrating Oxlade-Chamberlain making the QF of the Champions League for the first time in his career, even though he did not play a single minute? So he is still yet to win a Champions League knockout tie.

Maybe that is where Arsenal went wrong? They should not have played The Ox? And this is perhaps my favourite…

The way some Arsenal fans and the media big up Oxlade-Chamber like he is performing any better for Liverpool than Arsenal is hilarious.

At Arsenal, who would have a spell of 2/3 games in a row of great performances, followed by 10 games of doing nothing. Not much has changed – we as Arsenal fans now just no longer see the poor games.

He has 3 Premier League goals this season. That is one less than Nacho Monreal, and one more than Alex Iwobi.

Lets calla spade a spade. He was average at Arsenal, is average at Liverpool, and is simply an average, inconsistent player.

On a final note (in an attempt to be positive) I had a it of fun with this tweet from friend of the page AFC_Glen.

https://twitter.com/AFC_GLEN/status/971330957943934976

A 3 year old arsenal fan would have seen his side win 2 FA Cups. Compare that to his playschool mate who support Liverpool. Nothing. Or Spurs. Nothing.

Come to think about it, the 3 year old Arsenal fan has seen more success than a 27 year old Spurs!

There are granddads in Cheshunt who have seen Tottenham win less than that 3 year old Arsenal fan.

Hopefully all those out in AC Milan get around OK, despite the widespread transport strikers. I went their when we lost 4-0 and it was a great few days at the football. Top city, top drinking, and they sell mini bottles of sambuca in the ground.

Up the Arsenal

Keenos

Arsenal have nothing to fear from dying giants AC Milan

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That is Arsenal out then was the response when the little bit of paper was opened up shortly after 12-noon showing that Arsenal were to play AC Milan in the next round of the Europa League.

AC Milan, one of the big boys of Europe. A name up there with Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Manchester United and Juventus. 7 times Champions League winners, 18 times Serie A winners. They are one of the big boys that we were told we would be competing with when moving to the Emirates.

There is no arguing that AC Milan are one of the biggest names in world football. But a bit like Liverpool, this is based on the past. In the present, they are actually a fairly average team. One that Arsenal should not fear.

Despite having spent nearly €200m this season on new players, AC Milan sit 7th in Serie A, 25 points behind leaders Napoli.

In the league, they are in a similar position as Arsenal, although an argument could be made that the likes of Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Spurs are strong than the likes of Sampdoria, Roma, Lazio and Napoli.

Napoli are out of the Europa League, and Juventus and Roma are both behind in their ties. The Italian league is certainly not what it used to be back when Football Italia was on Channel 4.

AC Milan do not score enough goals, and concede too many. In 25 games this season, they have scored just 35 goals, and conceded 30. Arsenal have scored 16 more goals in just 2 games more.

Under former Glasgow Rangers midfielder Gennaro Gattuso, their form has got better, unbeaten in 7 games in the league, but they are still not very good.

In the last round of the Europa League, they played Ludogorets Razgrad. Having won the first leg 3-0 away, they limped home in the second leg 1-0 (yes, we lost). This a Ludogorets team that Arsenal put 6 past in last years Champions League.

Sticking in most Arsenal fans mind is the 4-0 defeat at the San Siro in 2012. At the time, it was Arsenal’s heaviest in European competition, and the first time in 222 European games (excluding qualifiers) that Arsenal had lost by 4 or more goals. This has obviously happened a couple of times since.

The AC Milan side that day contained the likes of Zlatan Ibrahimović, Thiago Silva, Robinho, Clarence Seedorf, Mark van Bommel, Kevin-Prince Boateng and Philippe Mexès,

Ibrahimovic and Robinho, then compare it to their current forward line.

Despite spending so much in the summer, their two main strikers are Liverpool flop Suso and Fabio Borini, formally of Sunderland. No wonder they have not scored many goals.

The game is an ideal match up for Arsenal.

The big name of AC Milan should be enough for Arsene Wenger to take the game seriously and put out his strongest XI. The players should also be able to get motivated without much help.

Often the dangers in the Europa League are the lesser names who are up and coming, your Sevilla’s or Atletico Madrid’s of this world. Teams who are on an upwards trajectory. The best teams to often play are the big names who’s management, players and fans think the Europa League is below them.

AC Milan certainly fall into that category.

So the draw has not been unkind to Arsenal. It is not a trip to a dangerous lesser team, or to the cold winds of Russia.

And as a final thought, I imagine there is an AC Milan blogger who has written the exact same article as this, only detailing how Arsenal were not the team that we once were. How Arsenal are a team on the slide, who think the Europa League is something to not be taken seriously.

Play the strongest XI, we win.

Keenos

How many Twitter followers does your club have?

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In November 2013, I did a little analysis to see who was the most followed football club on twitter. Arsenal came out on top, but what was surprising was that, at the time, Mesut Ozil had more followers than any Premier League football club.

As it is quite at work in my industry with the lead up to Christmas, I have decided to review the blog and update the figures.

To get a proper provisional analysis, the above is a list of teams who were in the Premier League in 2013, and are in it now.

The first interesting analysis is just how much Twitter has grown over the last 4 years. On average, Premier League sides have increased their following by 552%.

Secondly, Manchester United, who in 2013 were the 4th most followed side in the Premier League, are now topping the table.

In 2013, I noted that I was surprised to see Man U in 4th place as they are easily the most supported club in the UK, and one of the most supported in the world. It shows how poor their media team probably were back in 2013.

The growth of Manchester United aside, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Liverpool have shown a similar growth pattern.

With regards to Liverpool and Arsenal, it shows how strong and historic the clubs are, that they have been able to continue to grow their support without league titles at a quicker rate than the likes of Manchester City and Chelsea who have won league titles. It shows success is not everything.

Saying that, Spurs now languish a long way behind Manchester City. I wonder how many of those fans that follow City had heard of the club when Twitter was first launched back in 2006?

City’s growth over Spurs does highlight that success is very important, especially when it comes to gaining new fans, and foreign fans.

Spurs have not much bigger a following than Everton, an equally unsuccessful side over the last 20 years. It perhaps shows that Spurs fans claim that there has been a power shift, and that they are a massive club, are false.

In terms of Twitter following, Spurs are the 6th most followed in England. They are probably also the 6th biggest club in the country.

It probably also shows the brand of the Premier League that the biggest growers (bar Manchester United) were smaller clubs, lower down the table. I feel a lot of their followers are general fans of the Premier League, rather than fans of the clubs they follow.

The second table is the clubs who were not in the Premier League in 2013, so I have no original data on them. What is interesting is Leicester City.

At 1.1million followers, they would be placed just behind Newcastle. It would have been interesting to see their 2013 data in comparison. I imagine it would have been not too much higher than Southampton. Leicester’s does show just how much success can increase support.

Like success has boasted Leicester, relegation is also clearly damaging.

Those clubs who went down have still grown their twitter following, but at a slower rate than those who stayed in the Premier League.

The 6 teams who are no longer in the Premier League have increased their Twitter following by, on average, 398%. The bottom 6 teams in the Premier League by followers have increased by 557%.

And finally we come on to how the Premier League sides compare to the rest of the world

The first observation is that Real Madrid have overtaken Barcelona since 2013. Although by the time you include alternative languages for both, Barcelona are still ahead.

One interesting thing to note is the Spanish version of Real Madrid’s twitter is followed by more than the English version, but the English version of Barcelona is followed by more than the Spanish version.

Perhaps this indicates that Real Madrid are more popular in Spain, whilst Barcelona are followed more by foreign fans. I know what I would prefer.

Another interesting thing to note is once you remove the English sides, the rest of the world has only grown by 293%. That against the Premier League’s growth of 522%. It shows that in terms of leagues, the Premier League is still the most popular in the world, even if Barcelona and Real Madrid are streaks ahead in terms of individual club.

The last thing to note is how small Celtic are.

With just 551,000 followers, they are not much bigger than Norwich City, and are well behind the likes of Crystal Palace, WBA and Swansea. They might be a big side in Scotland, but it certainly shows they are a big fish in a small pond. And if they ever did join the Premier League, they would be a very small fish in a big pond.

Until next time

Keenos