We go to Liverpool, play defensively looking to hit our opponents on the counter, lose 1-nil to a freak free-kick and are heavily criticised for the way we approached the game.

Manchester City come to Arsenal, play defensively looking to hit us on the break, draw 1-1 and are praised for the way they approached the game.

Thousands are cancelling Sky Sports every week, and it is not just due to the cost. Their agenda driven pundits who change their viewpoint depending on who is playing has also created a fatigue in football analysis. At least from a mainstream stand point.

The likes of Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher flip flop on every issue depending on who they are talking about. And when it comes to The Arsenal they will always look to paint us in a negative light, and our opponents in a postive.

Last season they criticised Arsenal for drawing against Manchester City, having had less time to prepare for the game following a mid-week trip to Italy, and being down to 10-men for the entire half.

This season it is all praise for Manchester City for drawing away from home having had less rest, whilst having 11 men for the entire game and taking the lead so early on.

A Manchester City of 4 or 5 years ago would have built on their early goal. Instead, they sat back and looked to defend the lead. And they have been praised for doing so..

We all know negativity sells. And we all know that writing or talking about The Arsenal gets more hits (and therefore ad revenue) then any other club in the Premier League.

This morning, the Daily Mirror have led with the headline Ex-Arsenal striker in coma with brain injury after horrific head collision during match. It is a headline that will quickly rise to the top of NewsNow and get everyone clicking.

The player in question was former Arsenal youngster Billy Vigar, who left us last summer and joined Step 3 side Chichester City.

Yes, Vigar was in our youth set up, but for the Mirror to use this horrific incident and his connection with us to generate ad revenue is crass. They would not have written the story had he not been a former Arsenal academy lad. And this just highlights that it is all about associating Arsenal with any incident to generate those clicks.

Papers have a history of using “ex-Arsenal star” in their headlines to generate that review, just like they did when Jay Emmanuel Thomas was jailed over a £600,000 drug smuggling plot.

JET played 5 times for Arsenal in a career that saw him make 384 appearances, inlduing over 100 for Bristol City. “Ex-Bristol City star” just doesn’t generate that revenue though.

We also had the Ex-Arsenal striker jailed for ‘chilling’ behaviour towards scared ex-girlfriend. Once again our name being used to make money. This time it was Anthony Stokes who made one appearance for us. He played just the 191 times for Celtic. But playing for small clubs does not matter as it does not get the clicks.

This agenda really does turn you off. And it was why so many like myself no longer listen to TalkSport or read newspapers.

It is clear and obvious what these outlets are doing, but still some fans eat it up and use it to fuel their own hatred towards their club.

In the last 24-hours we have been criticised for daring to celebrate a 93rd minute equaliser, and not picking the ball up and running back to the half way line. For a start, this is untrue as Martin Zubimendi attempted to grab the ball, was wrestled to the floor by City before making his way back to the half way line.

“You would not get Man City to celebrate. Their players would have gone straight back to the halfway line” was the line being peddled by many. Yet we all remember the incident a year ago when John Stones scored. Erling Haaland had the ball in his hands and decided to throw it against Gabriel’s head rather than run it back. He was priased by many pundits for showing passion.

“Liverpool never celebrate draws, that is why they are winners.” Yet not so long ago Liverpool players, being encouraged by Jurgen Klopp, celebrated a 2-2 draw with West Brom like they had just won the league.

The celebration police have been around for a long time. I do not get the criticism of any team or their fans that decides to celebrate a goal. Especially one in the closing stages of a game where they have been dominating but could not get the breakthrough.

On Sunday, the entire stadium erupted when it went to 1-1. Every Arsenal fan in the ground celebrated. So it was disheartening to see, when scrolling through social media on my train journey home, some fans crtisicing us.

They are the fans that sit at home and watch on the tele, phone in hand ready to moan for e-likes (note: not every fan watching on TV is like this, it is a minority), they are the fan that at 80 minutes would have left the ground to return to the pub. Those sort of fans that do not support and back the team for the 90 minutes (plus whatever stoppage time there is).

When we equalised, you should have celebrated no matter where you were watching. If you instead decided to take to social media and moan that players and fans were celebrating, then you are the one with the problem. I do not think football is for you.

We had one clown on the Facebook page claim that the final whistle was met with boos from Arsenal fans. When it was pointed out that no one booed, his response was “well you must not have been at the game”. As the conversation continued, he claimed that “my mates in block 95 told me they booed”. Imagine lying on the internet to strangers.

And that is where we are now. So many people, fans and pundits, are driven by the endorphine hit of e-likes that they will peddle whatever crap they think of in an attempt to get that attention or that rise out of someone. We welcome all views on the Facebook page, but those that are clearly lying in an attempt to paint our club in a negative light are quickly dealt with and banned. I only wish Arsenal would do the same with certain journalists.

2nd in the league. Only Liverpool with their incredible 100% record ahead of us. 6 games played in all competitions, 4 wins, 12 goals and just 2 conceded. It baffles me how anyone can be sitting their moaning.

We go again tomorrow!

Keenos

No Bukayo Saka
No Martin Odegaard
No William Saliba
No Kai Havertz
No Ben White

We went to Atletico Bilbao with half a starting XI out missing, including arguably our 3 best players, and won 2-nil. It was a victory for squad depth.

Mikel Arteta spoke in the summer about changing the make-up of Arsenal’s squad. He no longer wanted to rank players as A, B and C. Instead, he wanted a squad with a higher floor, where he could pick on 20 players without seeing a drop off in quality.

A year ago we would have been concerned about going to the 4th best team in Spain without so many top players. But this 2025 squad is made different.

The fact that even without the 5 missing superstars, we could win so comfortably really is a testament to Arteta and Andrea Berta building a fantastic squad.

Noni Madueke, Mikel Merino, Cristhian Mosquera, Viktor Gyokeres and Jurrien Timber were the 5 to start and there was zero drop off in quality.

And then add in Myles Lewis Skelly and Thomas Partey, both of whom would have started 6 months ago. And then you are perhaps beginning to see the step up in squad depth.

The cherry on the cake is that Arteta was able to bring on players of the calibre of Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard, despite missing 3 key attackers, and it was those subs that took us to victory.

Arteta’s place for this season was built on the semi-final defeat to PSG last year.

Losing 2-1 in the game and 3-1 on aggregate, Saka had thrown us a life line with 15 minutes to go. It would have been a huge task, but we were not out of the tie.

Arteta turned to his bench to see what attacking options he had. Players that could make an impact in the final 20-25 minutes. He saw Raheem Sterling, Ethan Nwaneri and Nathan Butler-Oyedeji. He opted for Ben White.

Now some will say that this was by his design. That he had not signed the attackers we needed over successive summers. And I get that. But he was also robbed of Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus. Two senior forwards who could have made an impact.

Role on to last night and Jesus and Havertz were still nowhere to be seen. But instead of Arteta looking at the attacking options on the bench and feeling his heart sink, he was able to bring on game changers.

Nearly two years ago I was blogging about Arteta taking inspiration from Eddie Jones and his finisher concept. It feels like the rest of the world has caught up following Trossard and Martinelli’s moments.

Too many fans were quick to write off the pair. Demand we cash in. But both have shown that they are able to change games.

Trossard, for me, has always been a supersub. His instinctive, off the cuff play benefits from the chaos of the closing stages of a game. And likewise Martinelli could become a suuperb option off the bench with his direct, tireless running at fullback who have already faced 70 minutes.

Neither is particularly suited to Arteta’s structured build up play (nor is Noni Madueke). But the pair, alongside Mdueke, will thrive in the chaos of the final 20 minutes when the play is less structured and they are facing tired defences. Their instructions will be simple: Go make something happen. And against Bilbao they did.

So we get 3 points from a tough away fixture. Based on last season, we need to win 4 from 8 to qualify for the play-offs and 5 wins and a draw to be top 8.

UTA.

Keenos

2010 to 2016 saw some of the most volatile infighting I have ever seen at Arsenal football club.

The period coincided with Arsenal going 8-years without a trophy, and the rise of the so-called “Wenger Out Brigade”, whose sole goal was to create a negative atmosphere around the club that would force the board to sack our greatest ever manager.

The period also saw the birth of Arsenal Fan TV, who platformed those with extreme negative views and produced rage bait for revenue every weekend. The result was arguing and fighting in the stands, around the ground and online. It was a horrible time for someone who just wanted to go to a game, have a beer and support their club.

One big criticism was around our transfer policy.

We were getting labelled as “cheap” having seen the Suarez £40m+£1 bid go public, which the media deliberately misrepresented to profit off the disharmony at Arsenal. During the same period, we also saw the club miss out on Eden Hazard and N’Golo Kante, with the narrative written that we were unwilling to match what Chelsea were offering, despite both players preferring us.

These deals lead to heavy criticism from Arsenal and Arsene’s detractors. But now they have egg on their face.

It has been announced that Chelsea are facing 74 charges related to alleged breaches of agent regulations by the FA. Charges relate to the period between 2009 to 2022, when Roman Abramovich owned club, and mainly relate to events between the 2010/11 and 2015/16 seasons.

Sky Spors have reported that Sky Sports News understands that “transfers which raised potential concerns are believed to include deals for players such as Eden Hazard, Samuel Eto’o and Willian.”

I remember the disappointment around us not signing Hazard. It felt huge. But what is now clear is that we were not competing for his signature on a fair playing field. Chelsea, whose new owner self-reported the infringement, were making illegal payments to players agents and representatives to secure their signature.

The current owners of Chelsea have been very smart, going down the route of “blame our predecessor” in the hope to avoid heavy sanctions.

They have self-reported to the FA and already settled a case with HMRC on the matter. Reports indicate that they are proactively working with the FA on the case in the hope of reducing their punishment. And it is likely that will send up as a 7-figure fine.

But what does that really mean? The fine will be easily paid, BlueCo will sell more real-estate to finance any loss, and everyone will move on.

The real losers are the fans of opposing clubs who missed out on memories, on moments, whilst Chelsea built a Champions League winning team based off bungs.

Trophies won by Chelsea between 2009 and 2022 were won through cheating. There is no debate. Chelsea’s current owners, through self-reporting, have admitted they cheated.

That is 3 league titles, 2 Champions Leagues, 3 FA Cups, 1 League Cup and 1 Europa League.

74 charges is huge. The FA should go further than a fine and expunge those domestic victories from the record, and encourage UEFA to do likewise.

Financial doping is no different to pharmaceutical doping. The FA need to take the lead from the Tour de France and begin removing victories wojn through cheating from the official record.

Yes, you will never take away those special moments from their fans, nor give other fans special moments who may have won. But by removing from the record the victories it makes a statement.

What should not happen is those trophies be “redistributed” as you do not know who might have won them had Chelsea not cheated. The only fact you know is Chelsea would not have won them. So remove the victories from the record and put an * by each year. The same should also happen to Manchester City if they are found guilty of cheating.

They should also have to give back all prize money earned during that period, as it is prize money won through doping. We see this in athletics and other sports. Get caught cheating, you lose your medals and have to pay back your winnings. Even if it does bankrupt you.

Hopefully, now those loudest voices against Wenger and Arsenal during the 10s realise what we were up against – first with Manchester City and then with Chelsea. It is all good shouting your unhappiness from the stands and spreading negativity online, but now that you have the facts, you must admit you were wrong.

Arsenal did not struggle during that period due to inaction from the board or a manager losing his touch. We struggled because other teams were cheating. Where buying players through illegal means, or by using money they had not right to use.

Enjoy your friday.

Keenos