Tag Archives: Premier League

Tottenham v Arsenal; Cheats v Winners

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This week has kind of flown by for me. Usually in the lead up to a North London Derby, I get giddy from the beginning of the week and write a few blogs to try and wind that lot up the road – I still love the fact that the official “Spurs Media Watch” on their website is their News Now stream, meaning plenty of anti-Spurs / pro-Arsenal blogs get published by them

Bar calling a cheat a cheat in yesterdays blog about Pochettino’s pro-diving comments, I have hardley thought about them this week.

As I said, the week has flown by. Although yesterday I was disappointed that it was not Thursday and the last episode of the Hunted was not on. Gives me something to look forward to tonight anyhow.

So on to this weekend.

Wembley, Wembley, we are the famous Arsenal and we are going to Wembley.

https://twitter.com/KeenosAFC/status/956285689754202113

It is going to be interesting Saturday. A 12:30pm kick off at Wembley has left everyone scratching their heads on where to drink.

The White Swan on Highbury Corner usually starts serving at 8am, but for recent North London Derby’s, they have not served until 11am. With it being a near enough 1 hour round trip from Highbury & Islington to Wembley Central (note: The London Overground from H&I going West towards Finchley is shut this weekend), that lease time for just one pint.

Now normally, you would think “head to Liverpool Street, Kings Cross or Euston, there will be a boozer there open”. But with Spurs now at Wembley, these areas will be heaving with that lot having a couple of pints before getting the same trains up as us. It does not really leave us with many options.

Maybe a bit of breakfast at the Breakout Cafe on the Cally, before heading to the Swan in the hope its serving? If not, then the only option is to emulate the Cologne fans and grab a couple of cans and head down to Highbury Fields.

Wherever we drink, it is going to be an interesting day…

At the minute, Spurs might be winning the battle. They finished above us last season, and sit 3 points above us this. But Arsenal are winning the war, having won the FA Cup last year.

Talk of the power shift and Spurs now being the bigger, and better, club are redundant until Spurs actually start winning trophies. I will continue to laugh at them whilst Arsenal win things and Spurs fail to do so.

If they start winning trophies on a regular basis, and finish above Arsenal more than a couple of times in 3 decades, then we can start talking about power shifts, etc. Until then, they are just our loud mouthed neighbours. The closest they have come to winning the league is when Arsenal won it back in 2004.

The fact that they have had to hire Wembley to get an opportunity to play their sums them up. Meanwhile Arsenal are about to play there for the 10th time in recent years – through being successful in the cup competitions.

Whilst Arsenal speak about winning real trophies, Spurs fans cling to statistics. Like Harry Kane scoring most Premier League goals in a single calendar. Meaningless. Or him being the 2nd fastest player to 100 Premier League goals. Again, meaningless.

There was football before the Premier League, and it does not really matter how many goals you score, or how quick you score them, if your team does not win any trophies.

Mo Salah, for example, recently because the 5th quickest player to score 20 Premier League goals. The quickest was Kevin Phillips. It really does not matter how quick you score goals, if those goals do not lead to trophies.

This weekend will be fun, and regardless of the result, Arsenal have a real trip to Wembley to look forward to this month.

Keenos

Jekill and Hyde Arsenal, Lacazette Agenda, Wenger Out Protest and Other Stuff

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Jekill and Hyde Arsenal

Great win, great performance. How frustrating.

Arsenal’s last 4 results in the league are LWLW. Both losses came away, both wins came at home.

Bournemouth (A) 1-2
Crystal Palace (H) 4-1
Swansea City (A) 1-3
Everton (H) 5-1

32 out of a possible 39 points at home, 13 out of a possible 39 points away. As an Away Scheme member, it is frustrating.

But rather than spend a Sunday focusing on what we have not achieved, lets enjoy yesterday.

5-1
Hat trick for Aaron Ramsey
Goal on debut for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
3 assists for Henrik Mkhitaryan

On Mkhytaryan, if a player left Arsenal and hit 3 assists and a 10/10 performance on his debut, we would be saying that’s what happens when a player plays under a decent coach. Well Mkhitaryan left Manchester United for Arsenal and has put in his best performance in England. What should we say now?

A delightful victory to take us into Spurs.

Lacazette Agenda

I really hate Arsenal fans sometimes.

Spend years moaning about lack of options, a weak bench, a poor squad, then we have two £50m strikers competing for one space and the narrative changes.

Now it is how can we fit both in?; how can we keep both happy? Lacazette is the fall guy.

Other sides throughout England, and Europe, have multiple quality players for every position. They do not have their own fans asking these questions.

Manchester City have 3 £40m+ centre backs in their squad (and Vincent Kompany). They have Raheem sterling, David Silva, Bernad Silva, Raheem Sterling & Leroy Sane competing for 3 spots – and still tried to buy Alexis Sanchez and Riyad Mahrez.

Why are we complaining?

And then the lies come in. That Lacazette has fallen out with Arsene Wenger. That he has questioned him.

The truth is Lacazette has scored 1 goal in 12 games so was rotated to the bench. nothing more than that.

Wenger Out Protest

It was disappointing to see so few turn up for the organised Wenger Out protest.

Looking at pictures, it seems their was more journalists than fans there. This has the potential to kill any pressure that fans can put on the club as the Arsenal board will see it as 25 turned up to a protest out of 60,000. And they have a point.

Some will point to the rain – but then thousands are marching for the NHS today (although those marching today are probably using the rain for their monthly wash). Others will say it is apathy. That fans now know longer care about, they do not think they can actually do anything.

These fans are wrong. The recent changes in the club – the employment of the likes of Raul Sanllehi and Sven Mislintat – came due to Ivan Gazidis bowing to fan pressure and reducing the influence of Arsene Wenger.

I feel this protest was always doomed to fail, and it has nothing to do with Wenger or apathy, and everything to do with organisation.

In the past, the likes of GC from this site, the Blackscarf Movement, and influential large Twitter accounts have been involved in protests. It takes a lot of work. It is not as easy as “put a message on Twitter and hope people turn up”.

It takes mobilisation of people to get them out. Canvasing the pubs. A call to arms in WhatsApp groups. Actual organisation. The BSM had around 5,000 turn up a few years back.

This was done done by merely putting messages on Twitter. It was done through actual hard work.

I was in The George from about 2pm yesterday. No one was even asking if people were going to the protest. No one seemed to even know about it.

Having faceless 16 year olds running Twitter accounts promoting and attempting to organise protests is always going to fail. Having 100s of RTs about the protests from fans who do not even go is pointless.

Hopefully this failed protest is a lesson to some of those involved, and those Facebook pages and Twitter accounts who promote the protests.

These protests take make organisation than sitting behind a keyboard. I actually wouldn’t be surprised if many of those organising or aggressively advertising it did not even turn up themselves. They probably do not even go to game themselves.

A lesson to be learnt.

Other

Alexis Sanchez scored and was Manchester United’s best player at the weekend. He also gave the ball away 32 times – the most by a Manchester United player in a single game this season.

Two MOTM games, Sanchez is putting in the same performances for United as he did for Arsenal.

He gives the ball away then more than any other player, gets involved when he shouldn’t be, has one of the worst pass completing percentages on the pitch, but will always be one of the best players on the pitch, one of the biggest threats.

Liverpool v Spurs – The “Won two League Cups between them in a decade but everyone thinks they have been really successful recently” Derby. Are there two sides that have won so little in recent years, yet seem to be praised so much by the media? They are the darlings of the British press.

Pep Guardiola – Interesting to see the difference in opinion on poor tackles. When Wenger complained about poor challenges and players needed protecting (3 double leg breaks), the media labelled Arsenal Soft Southern Softies. Guardiola makes similar comments, and that same media publishes a two page spread highlighting the “9 bad challenges on Man City player this season”.

As for him saying he does not have enough players, I always find it interesting the Jose Mourinho is labelled a “cheque book manager” whilst Guardiola is a great coach – he has spent nearly £500m in 18 months at Manchester City.

 

Have a good weekend all!

Keenos

How much is a Premier League medal worth?

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£25 million.

That is how much Alexis Sanchez is willing to “sacrifice” by joining Manchester City in January rather than the summer, according to reports this morning.

Were Sanchez to move on a free transfer at the end of the season, as history dictates, he and his agent will demand a huge chunk of his transfer value.

Arsenal created the situation of players getting “paid” the transfer fee when Sol Campbell joined from Spurs in 2001.

Instead of paying a huge transfer fee, Arsenal put together a four year package worth £20 million – including signing on fee, bonuses and salary – which back then made one of the highest paid players in world football.

It was reported at the time that his “basic” wage was £60,000, and that Arsenal would pay an additional £30,000 a week over the 4 year period as a signing on fee. This was big money 17 years ago.

This kind of set a precedent in players leaving on a Bosman. They would be paid more due to a lack of transfer fee, with that extra money coming in signing on fees to avoid breaking squad wage structures.

Fast forward to Demba Ba. He left Newcastle for Chelsea when the London side activated his £7 million release clause. His agents estimated that his true value was closer to £20 million.

With Chelsea then getting him “on the cheap” the agents demanded an increased signing on fee from Chelsea.

Ba pocketed £3 million, his agents £2.5 million.

Just last week, we saw Ross Barkley move to Everton for a cut price £15 million. Today it was announced that his agents were paid £7 million for the transfer.

So there is massive precedent of players on a free transfer, or going for a lot less than their “value” pocketed a big chunk of cash as a signing on fee.

Reports are that Alexis Sanchez (or his people) was demanding £25 million to complete a free transfer in the summer. And that he is willing to “sacrifice” that £25 million to join city in January.

Now the story could be written that Sanchez is so desperate to get out of Arsenal that he is willing to sacrifice a big pay day in the summer. Whilst this does have some legs, we are talking about 5 months time. The reality is that it is unlikely that he will want to lose out on £25 million just because he is a bit unhappy.

The truth is that he wants to win a Premier League medal. And that by joining Manchester City in January, he is guaranteed winning one. So he is willing to sacrifice £25 million to win that medal.

A Premier League medal for Alexis Sanchez will be a hollow success.

Manchester City have the league already won. They are 15 points ahead of Manchester United in 2nd place after 22 games. They need just another 11 wins to secure the title. And that is if Manchester United win every game. City probably only actually need to win another 8 games to secure the title.

Sanchez joining now is a player coming late to the race. The hard work has been done. At the end of the season, even if he scores 10 goals and contributes to a couple of wins, City would have won the league regardless of his signing.

He might end up with a medal, but it will be a meaningless one.

Interestingly, in Sanchez’s 10 year career in Europe, he only has one league title to show for it. It probably shows why desperate he is to win medals, however hollow they are.

So Sanchez is desperate for a Premier League medal, despite it being hollow. And he is willing to sacrifice £25 million for what would be a hollow victory.

£25 million to win a Premier League medal.

As a final thought, if Sanchez does join Manchester City this week, he will still get a huge signing on fee. So he is not really sacrificing anything.

Keenos