Tag Archives: Arsenal

Arsenal’s Identity Crisis

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I was not going to write anything today. This morning I just did not have the energy for it. I drank a little too much at my company awards do in Leicester on Saturday, then hot-footed to Manchester yesterday. By the time I got home, I was drained, physically and mentally.

I had today booked off as annual leave, a bit of time to rest and recuperate. But here I am in the office, working. And I felt I needed to get a few things out there.

Arsenal, what a disappointment.

I have seen us play countless times, my away credits currently site at 63, I have seen us win great games, I have seen us get smashed out of site, but I do not think I have ever been as disappointed as I was yesterday. As frustrated as I was when I woke up this morning.

Arsenal have lost their identity.

When we have previously lost, there has been reason. The refs, injuries, an inadequate squad hamstrung by financial restrictions. The frustration of defeat has been tampered with an “oh well, lets get on with it” attitude. But yesterday, there is nothing left in me except for bitter disappointment and apathy.

We should have won yesterday. Whilst Arsene Wenger was right when he pointed out that the Manchester United side was not as depleted as some might be claiming, it was still very depleted.

It might have contained the likes of Morgan Schneiderlin, Ander Herrera, Juan Mata and Memphis Depay, but it also had central midfielders playing in defence, and various players who’s shirt numbers are so high that they would not even be lottery balls.

Wenger sitting their saying that Manchester United have spent money, whilst Arsenal have £150m in the bank, perhaps shows how deluded he has become.

Arsene-Wenger

The issue is not the defeat. We lost. OK. It is the manner of defeat.

I have never seen us pass so poorly in the middle of the park.

Despite having 61% of the possession, we continually gave the ball away. It continually went sideways from Gabriel to Bellerin, back to Gabriel, across to Koscielny up to Coquelin and back again.

When it came to incision through the middle, there was none.

There was a hole in the middle of the park. Coquelin for all his good defensive attributes is not a creator. He is not in the team to pass the ball. He disrupts play and keeps it simple.

We then have Aaron Ramsey. He is a ball of energy, he covers a lot of ground. But he is not great on the ball. He has a tendency to dwell on it, to miss the opportunity to play someone in behind. And with that moment, the space is gone, the player is offside of the defender has covered.

And Mesut Ozil prefers being higher up the field, doing his often great work in and around the box.

With Ramsey also pushing up, it left us with a massive hole. Coquelin could not bring the ball forward, and no one was coming deep to help out.

It is the first team I have really noticed us missing Santi Cazorla in the middle of the park. His distribution, his creation from deep.

A team who for a decade has been known for a style of play. Pass pass pass. Well out passing ability in the middle of the park completely left us.

And the issue is it was not just one game. You can kind of accept  a poor performance every now and again. But this has been happening for a while now.

Since we went top on 2nd January, we have won just 2 league games from 7. 9 points 21. It is simply not good enough.

It is all so predictable. Even earlier in the season, when we were top, or 2nd, there was a feeling that we were doing it without playing very well.

“That’s a sign of Champions, winning when playing poorly”

Whilst that is correct, it is only a sign of champions when you start to then play well. Arsenal have just not done that. We won games in the first half of the season playing poorly. Now we are drawing or losing games when playing poorly.

We are tactically inept. We look like we are playing without a plan.

There is also a worry about the heart of the team. Our heads go down when we go behind.

This season, we have won just 2 games after going behind – both against Leicester. We have also snatched 2 draws.

In comparison, Spurs have won 5 times from behind. They are also on a 6 game winning run, and look as much champions as we look like coming 4th.

With a key game coming up next Saturday against Spurs, and a game midweek this Wednesday, we do not have time to feel sorry for ourselves. To lick our wounds.

Football is an odd game, we could be top this time next week.

As a final thought, Theo Walcott. I feel for the man. 2 years ago he had finally arrived. Scoring over 20 goals. Injury has robbed him of his last two years, and now he is running scarred. He is hiding. He does not want to be passed the ball. He is a deer in headlights.

My issue with him is not his performances, but the fans and their hypocritical nature.

They cheer for Olivier Giroud and jeer Walcott when he is taken off. Yet just a few games ago, these fans were treating Giroud with disdain. Those who were continually shouting “FFS Feo” also probably sit their shouting “FFS Giroud”. They would moan whoever.

I have always felt there is a certain element of our fan base that would moan and complain at anyone. Whether it be Eboue, Gervinho, Walcott or Chamberlain.

Arsenal need to find their confidence. They need to find their identify.

Keenos

The Dark Worlds of Barcelona & Real Madrid

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For a long time, Barcelona and Real Madrid have been the world’s premier clubs. At the top of the tree. Winning everything, with style. The clubs no one wanted to face, but everyone wanted to join.

But what is rarely mentioned is the dark side of both clubs, and how they have both stretched laws and regulations to get to where they are. Some will say cheated. Other’s will say loopholes. Some is proven, other just speculation.

So what is the dark side of Barcelona and Real Madrid’s success?

Accusations of state funding / assistance

For a long time, there has been accusations that Real Madrid and Barcelona have had questionable help from the state. Whether it is the national Spanish government, or their local City or Catalonian officials.

Accusations have been thrown at Real Madrid about outside intervention since the 1940s where it has been reported that opposing players and officials were often threatened and intimidated by police to ensure they did not beat Madrid. During the same period, it is not too hard to find information reporting links between Real Madrid and Spanish Dictator General Franco.

At the same time, there are also plenty of reports that Barcelona received a lot of support from the Catalonian Government, who often saw Barcelona as much more than a football club, but a tool to use against the national government. Success for Barcelona over Real Madrid was seen as success for Catalonia over Spain.

Records of much money and ‘assistance’ these two sides actually received from the Franco / Catalonian regimes has probably long since disappeared.

Fast forward 60-odd years and not much has changed.

In 2013 Barcelona and Real Madrid, as well as Athletic Bilbao and Osasuna were investigated by the European Commission due to public funding issues creating giving them an unfair competitive advantage.

“Since 1990: Possible privileges regarding corporate taxation of Real Madrid CF, Barcelona CF, Athletic Club Bilbao, and Club Atletico Osasuna – These four clubs are exempted from the general obligation for professional football clubs to convert into sport limited companies. The effect of this exemption is that these clubs enjoy a preferential corporate tax rate of 25 per cent instead of 30 per cent applicable to sport limited companies.”

They basically got tax relief by not becoming sport limited companies, even though they have an obligation to do so. Fair? I think not.

On top of this, Real Madrid and the City of Madrid have also been investigated for a “very advantageous real property swap.”

In 2003, Real Madrid sold their training ground to the City of Madrid for €22.7 million. Just 5 years earlier in 1998, the land had been valued at €595,000. Even London land price rises, this is unbelievable.

At the time, Real Madrid were in crippling debt. They were coming to the end of their Galactico project and were struggling to pay their bills. Did the City of Madrid use public funds to bail out their crown jewel of a football club?

Most recently, it has come out that a Spanish bank has underwritten the debt owed by Real Madrid to Tottenham in the Gareth Bale deal. The controversy here is that the bank was recently bailed out by the EU. Have the EU inadvertently assisted in the funding of a football club transfer? Who knows, but there are calls for it to be ivnestigated.

Whether the speculation is true or not, there is no smoke without fire.

Tax Evasion

‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, shame on both of us.’

Lionel Messi, Javier Mascherano, Neymar.

All 3 recently have been investigated for tax evasion.

Mascherano has been sentenced to jail for 1 year after admitting two counts of fraud totaling just over €1.5million. He will likely to a deal to stay out of jail but pay a hefty fine.

A plane and a yacht are amongst £32.5m assets frozen by the Brazilian authorities as they investigate a £10.5m tax fraud by the Brazilian between 2011 and 2013, including funds paid to Neymar and his father by Barcelona as part of his transfer.

The judge in the case accused the 23-year-old of “omitting sources of income from abroad”. Barcelona Football Club was cited as the source of unreported money.

And then we come to Lionel Messi. In a case that has been rumbling on for a while, Messi seems to have done everything possible to avoid liability in a €4.1 million tax fraud case, including trying to pass blame on to his father.

Most recently, the Barcelona public prosecutors involved in the case requested that Messi be cleared of all charges, quell surprise.

They announced that they would however be seeking an 18-month prison sentence for his father for allegedly defrauding Spain’s tax office. The judge in charge of the case rejected this request, and the Spanish State Legal Service called for Messi to be tried alongside his father on tax fraud charges.

This is a clear example of the Barcelona courts attempting to help Messi get off with fraud.

As investigations rumble on, it will not be a surprise if more Barcelona are embroiled in tax evasion cases. And if they are doing it in Barcelona, they are probably also doing it in Madrid.

Drug Doping

One of the more controversial darks sides of Real Madrid & Barcelona.

Eufemiano Fuentes is a Spanish doctor heavily implicated in the Operación Puerto doping case. Whilst the case mainly focused on the world of cycling, other sports were also implicated.

As of February last year, a Barcelona laboratory still holds 211 bags of blood and plasma which they are refusing to release to authorities. Madrid’s Provincial Court are set to announce (or may have already announced) the destruction of these bags. A Barcelona lab and a Real Madrid court involved in the cover up of bags of blood belonging to unnamed athletes???

It has been accused by some who were involved that they saw “well-known footballers” from La Liga visit the offices of Dr Fuentes. Now this could just be a normal visit. Fuentes was a doctor as well as a doping doctor.

But the rumours will not go away. In December 2010, an inmate claimed Fuentes had told him, “If I would talk, the Spanish football team would be stripped of the 2010 World Cup.” Fuentes has denied speaking to said inmate.

Fuentes himself has offered to identify the 211 bags of unnamed blood, but was told (or encouraged) by Judge Julia Santamaria that he was under no obligations to name any other athletes others than the cyclists implicated.

The issue is Spain has amongst the weakest anti-doping laws in Europe. Pretty much non-existent. To such an extent that Fuentes had to be charged under public health laws.

Cyclists got away with it for a long time, then we had the US Postal / Armstrong case. How long until we have the equivalent in football and a big side is found of guilty of running ‘the most successful doping programme sport has seen’.

Child Trafficking

Barcelona were recently banned for it. Real Madrid (And Atletico) are facing bans for it. Signing players from outside the EU under the age of 18.

La Masia is often put up as an example of how a football academy should run. Barcelona claim (and it formed part of their defence) that La Masia “forms people before athletes.” But it is also a centre of illegal activity.

Over the years, countless under 18s have been signed from abroad and gone through the academy. One was Lionel Messi who joined from Argentina at the age of 14 on ‘medical grounds’.

On the face of it, Barcelona & Madrid are just using their network of scouts and globalisation of football to sign the world’s best young talents. But in reality, it is child trafficking.

The NSPCC defines child trafficking as:

“Children are recruited, moved or transported over international borders to be exploited, forced to work or sold.“


 

Real Madrid and Barcelona sign children from foreign lands, to play them in games (work), even if they do not want to. They exploit these young children to ensure that they have the best young talent. It is clearly illegal, immoral and stronger sanctions than just transfer bans should be implemented.

 

So often they are held up as great clubs. But clearly Barcelona and Real Madrid are experts in the dark arts. Using every thing they can to be a success, no matter if it break the law.

It is an utter disgrace. And we have not even looked at how Bayern Munich have risen to the top yet.

Keenos

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Do not blame Arsenal for the FA Cup draw

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If Arsenal get through against Hull in the fifth round of the FA Cup, a quarter final tie against Watford is what awaits. And to every non-Arsenal fan’s fury and frustration, Arsenal were once more drawn at home.Untitled

Since Arsene Wenger became Arsenal manager, we have been drawn at home in the FA Cup 39 times. And drawn away 27. In a 50/50 chance, Arsenal have been drawn at home 59% of the time.

“But that does not add up, it must be a fix” I hear the less well educated (Spurs fans, Northerners) cry.

Well it does not add up because you do not know statistics.

Yes, it is a 50/50 chance of being at home, but that does not mean that when the data is crunched, you should see an exact 50% split. Especially when the data pool is as small as 66.

Do not believe me? Flip a coin. 66 times. Write down how many heads, how many tails. I did it. Untitled37 heads, 29 tails. Or 56% heads. You see, what you must remember is that each time you flip the coin, or a ball is drawn, the previous times have no barring. Each individual event has a 50/50 chance of happening each time. In other words, just because you flipped heads last time, does not mean you will flip tails this time.

Now of course, the larger the data pool, the closer to 50% you will get with a 50/50 chance. So if I flipped my coin 1,000,000 times, it will be closer to 50% than when I flipped it just 66 times. Because what it does not account for his runs, streaks. For example, I got 9 heads in a row when doing this task.

At some point, the statistics say that I will probably get 9 tails in a row and it will even itself out. That is true. But over time it will even out, not over just 66.

I bet if we increased our data pool, and rather than looked at how often Arsenal have been drawn at home since Arsene Wenger took over, we went for the entire history of Arsenal, the statistics would be closer to 50%. Arsenal are just on a streak of home games, just like I had a streak of heads.

It is just the luck of the draw.

“Arsenal always get easy draws” I hear the bitters cry out as a secondary argument.

Well this once again is not Arsenal’s fault.

In 2013/14, is it Arsenal’s fault that Manchester United could not beat Swansea at home in the 3rd round? Or in the fifth round that Manchester City knocked out Chelsea, before getting knocked out by Wigan Athletic? And do we just forget that Arsenal knocked out Spurs, Liverpool and Everton that season?

Fast forward to 2014/15. Chelsea lost at home in the 4th round to Bradford. Is it Arsenal’s fault that they were unable to face Chelsea due to them being unable to win at home against a League 2 side? No.

Is it Arsenal’s fault that Spurs could not get past a then-bottom-of-the-table Leicester City at home? Or that Manchester City lost to Championship side Middlesbrough? Arsenal can not help it if our opponents keep losing before we play them. Coincidently, had Manchester City had won, we would have played them in the 5th round, where we instead knocked out Middlesbrough.

In the 6th round of the 2014/15 season, Arsenal played away to Manchester United, and won. So that is Manchester United, Liverpool, Everton & Spurs beaten in 2 seasons. Not our fault Chelsea and Man City lost before we could play them.

And then the semi-finals. Liverpool lost to Aston Villa at Wembley, before Aston Villa were thrashed by Arsenal in the final. I am sure it would have been great for Steven Gerrard’s last game in England to be in an FA Cup final, but it is not Arsenal’s fault Liverpool did not make it, but Gerrard and his team mates.

Even this season, Spurs lost at home to Crystal Palace – the 2nd time in two years that they have been knocked out at home,

So opposing fans, you can moan all you like, but it is not Arsenal’s fault you keep getting knocked out before you get to play the mighty Arsenal. Maybe if your sides were better, you might actually get the chance of playing us in a semi final or final?

And has anyone actually looked to see who other teams play on route to winning the FA Cup?

Well the last time Spurs won it in 1991, they obviously beat Arsenal. But their route to the semi final? A 4th tier side (Blackpool) and 2nd tier sides (Oxford United, Portsmouth & Notts County). Arsenal were the first top tier team they played that year.

How about Manchester United in 1998/99? Their treble year? It is never mentioned that they were drawn at home in every round of the FA Cup. All that is mentioned is that they won it.

And that is what is key. Who wins it. No one remembers who you played on the way. No one really cares.Portsmouth played one Premier League side when they won the FA Cup in 2008. Wigan Athletic just the 2. But who cares? No one.

It does just make me laugh when the draws happen. Because at the end of the day, it is a 50/50 chance of you being drawn home or away, and it does not matter who you play as long as you win. History will remember the winners. Not who they beat.

The only certainty that there is in the FA Cup is that over the last 25 years, Spurs have not won it. And it is for that reason that they are so bitter.

Bring on Hull, bring on Watford, and let’s go to Wembley again!

Keenos

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