Tag Archives: She Wore

Arsenal’s “humiliating” TV rescheduling, Semi Final Tickets, Thomas Tuchel & Leicester Fans

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“Humiliating” TV rescheduling

I had to laugh yesterday when The Sun created a story about Sky TV changing their TV choice for a load of rearranged games. Dropping Arsenal v Leicester for Crystal Palace.

Let’s be honest, it is agenda drivel BS which no real Arsenal fan would take seriously. Those who use it to form any sort of Wenger Out / Arsenal in Crisis are clearly a little bit thick.

Having a TV game switched is no a “humiliation”. Anyone with half a brain would realise that Palace v Spurs would be a more attractable game then Arsenal v Leicester.

In recent weeks, Palace have beaten Chelsea and Arsenal. They are currently in a relegation scrap. The potential for a story is much bigger than Leicester.

At the time of TV scheduling, Leicester were still in trouble. Champions on the verge of relegation. The media would have loved that story and wanted to be there every step of the way. In recent weeks they have got themselves to mid table. They are safe. No longer a threat to relegation. There is no story there.

Palace is now a bigger story to tell than Leicester. And Sky want to tell that story.

This season 70% of Arsenal games have been on tv. That is 70% too many for a match going fan fed up with games continually being rescheduled for a TV audience. We play Middlesbrough on Monday night. Easter Monday. A bank holiday. A disgrace of scheduling.

I would rather be “humiliated” and have Middlesbrough v Arsenal on Saturday 3pm so I can actually go, then have it as a TV pick.

Sky have showed so little interest in showing Arsenal for the rest of the season that in the latest set of TV games, they decided to pick Stoke v Arsenal. A pointless game. A pointless rescheduling. The rest of the Premier League should be humiliated that this is the best offering Sky could pick for this slot.

Arsenal would have been on 17 out of a possible 20 times since the turn of the year up until Leicester and 3 of the next 4 after Leicester will be shown on TV.

We have had jut 1 Saturday 3pm kick off this calendar year. And just 7 all season. 7 of 38 games on at 3pm Saturday.

TV companies do not humiliate football clubs by changing the TV scheduling. They disregard fans by scheduling games without thinking about those who actually go to games.

It is not humiliating. It is an agenda.

Semi Final tickets

Another example of “using a story to suit an agenda” is with semi final tickets. Arsenal have yet to sell out and tickets today (I think) go on sale to fans who have been to at least 10 games and held a red membership over at least the last 2 seasons.

“It shows fans apathy. That they are fed up” has been the main narrative wheeled out by many.

The fact is all 4 clubs have struggled to sell out their FA Cup Semi Final tickets.

Chelsea had to go down to fans who have been to 5+ games to sell their allocation. They are top of the league. Spurs tickets went on sale to bronze members (their equivalent of red members) who had “148 loyalty points”.

Spurs loyalty points system is similar to Arsenal’s away credit, but with a few big differences. It includes home games, they give a different weight to different games, and it includes the last 4 seasons and the current campaign (Arsenal’s is last 2 season + current campaign, away games only, 1 point per game).

Now Spurs even give you loyalty points for just renewing their membership. A bronze member gets 15 loyalty points. So if a bronze member has held their membership for the last 5 seasons 9including the current one), they would have 75 loyalty points without even going to a game. Almost half the points needed for an FA Cup Semi Final ticket. Incredible.

They give out 1 point per Category A game, 3 per Category C and 5 points per Category C game. You can use your own brain to work out which sides fall into which Category.

So if you had renewed your membership every year for 5 years, you would have had to have gone to on average, 3 Category C games a season over that time to be over the 148 points.

So Arsenal are getting hammered for tickets being on sale to 10+ games over the last 2 season, whilst Spurs fans would have had to have gone to just 15 games over the last 5 seasons. Chelsea just 5+ games (I have not researched over how many seasons).

Of course, both these clubs are considerably smaller than Arsenal. Have small grounds and smaller fan bases. So it is only natural that their fans would have to have been to less games than Arsenal (although both sides sell more tickets each week than the 32,000 they have sold for the FA Cup Semi Final).

Then we come to Manchester City.

Manchester City have put their tickets on General Sale. That means any Tom, Dick or Harry can buy one. You do not even have to be a member. Or a Manchester City fan. You could be a Leyton Orient fan, do the Marathon, then head to Wembley.

So all 4 clubs, no matter if they are having a great season or an awful season, are struggling to sell out Wembley. This shows there are deeper rooted issues surrounding tickets and poor sales than “Arsenal fans showing their anger”

  • Tickets are too expensive – Whilst tickets priced at £30 – £60 does not seem unreasonable, the pattern will always be the cheapest tickets go first. The majority of last tickets on sale will be the £60 ones. Fans might be unwilling to pay this much for a single game.
  • Wembley Apathy – I am a big believer, like many, that FA Cup semi finals should not be held at Wembley. I would much rather have 20,000 Arsenal fans & 20,000 City fans at Villa Park. The most loyal of fans. Rather than 32,000 fans, watered down by day trippers and ‘friends of the FA’ at Wembley. Some fans just do not want to go to Wembley unless it is for a final.
  • Wembley Apathy II – This will be the 7th time in 3 years that Arsenal have visited Wembley. Football fans get bored quickly. A trip to Wembley, for many, is not as exciting now as it was in 2014. It is like shagging Kelly Brook. Great to begin with, but after a while she gets boring. It’s why so many blokes end up getting rid of her.

Should Arsenal have sold out by now? I would have expected so, yes. But Arsenal have struggled no more than the other 3 clubs still left in the competition.

What it highlights more than everything is that there is just how fragile clubs membership lists are. Clubs have 100,000+ members, but less than a third of that seem to be willing to buy tickets on a regular basis.

homas Tuchel

One of the names banded about a lot as a potential Arsene Wenger replacement is Thomas Tuchel of Borussia Dortmund.

Now I am all for getting Wenger replaced, but the replacement has to be a manager who can take us forward. Someone like the excellent Max Allegri at Juventus or Simeone from Atletico Madrid. What I will not accept is a sub-par manager. Someone who is not superior to Wenger. I want the best players at Arsenal Football Club. I want the best managers.

When I have previously seen the likes of Owen Coyle, Brendan Rodgers, David Moyes, Gary Monk, Michael Laudrup and Eddie Howe linked with the Arsenal job, it is laughable. It actually strengthens Wenger’s position as it makes it appear that there are no better options out there. People are willing to call for any manger to replace Wenger, as to them it is not about how comes in, but who leaves. More interested in Wenger going then who his replacement is.

Thomas Tuchel is another one who can go into the bin. For me he is one of the most overrated managers in Europe.

The sole reason he is on anyone’s radar is because he was at Mainz 05 and then moved to Dortmund. The identical journey as Jurgen Klopp. They label him “the new Klopp”. But having a similar background to Klopp does not mean he is good enough.

A bit like when Bruno Cheryou, French with Algerian descent, was labelled the next Zinedine Zidane, French with Algerian descent, due to him being French with Algerian descent.

Or those that labelled Abou Disney the next Patrick Vieira because he was tall, black, born in Senegal but grew up in France. Or the countless “diminutive playmakers” from Argentina who get labelled the “next Maradona” or more recently the “Next Messi”.

You need to judge someone on what their own achievements are, not on the achievements of someone who shares similar characteristics. And so far Thomas Tuchel has achieved nothing.

Last night Dortmund were taken apart at home against Monaco. Losing 3-2.

They currently sit 18 points behind Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga. It has to be said Bayern are an awesomely strong team so being 18 behind should not be seen as a negative for a manager. But sitting 4th in the league is more damning.

On top of this, Dortmund spent around £100m last summer. Much of which wasted on a lot of unknown youngsters.

So Dortmund spent a lot of money, hide failure behind having a team of kids, sit 4th in the league and are on the brink of going out in Europe. Maybe Tuchel is the perfect replacement for Wenger. If you want to keep mediocrity and the status quo.

Leicester Fans

Talk of Leicester fans disgracing themselves in Spain. Some Arsenal fans have commented on the matter calling them a disgrace.

Let’s be honest, at some point, almost every football fan has travelled abroad, stood in a square topless, drank too much beer, sang some naughty songs and ended up being charged by the police.

It happened in Milan. In Munich. In Lille for the Euro’s. European police do not like us and look for any reason to give us a smack.

The songs about Gibraltar were spot on. Gibraltar is ours and Spain can F Off. It reminds me of being in the square in Lille with England (and Welsh) fans last summer singing “we all voted out, we all voted out, F Off Europe, we all voted out”. We got charged, smacked and gassed by the French police that night.

If you have said, tweeted or commented that Leicester fans embarrassed themselves and England yesterday, please get over yourself. Get off your high horse. You are probably someone who on a Euro away spends all day taking selfies infront of the Eifel Tower. You probably do even more embarrassing things at games then have a beer and a sing song.

Euro aways are the best experience. Beers abroad with your pals. Sadly it seems some fans are so concerned over how they wish to portray themselves on social media that they forget their own behaviour abroad.

What Leicester fans did was no different to what Arsenal, Chelsea or Spurs fans have done abroad. And it was great.

Have a good Easter!

Keenos

Arsenal’s shocking transfer dealings exposed

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https://shewore.mysupadupa.com/Throughout all of the Wenger stuff, one thing has become increasingly clear. Our transfer dealings this season have been atrocious.

When the summer transfer window shut, I was fairly optimistic about our season ahead. And part of the reasoning behind this was due to our transfer dealings.

Arsenal had signed two excellent experienced players Granit Xhaka and Shkdoran Mustafi, a talented young centre back in Rob Holding, and a fairly unknown forward who had excellent statistics in Lucas Perez. But it all seems to have unravelled. £93million spent on some exciting talents.

Granit Xhaka

When we signed Granit Xhaka, I was excited. I had followed him since his Basel days and was excited that we had signed him.

He looked the complete midfielder. Defensive awareness mixed with a fantastic range of passing. He would add steal to our midfield, protection to our defence, but would also be the man to start our attacks. He was the leader in the middle of the park that we had missed for so long. It seemed he had no weaknesses.

But then it all began to fall apart. His ill discipline that had hampered his early career reared its head once more. Rash into a tackle, he was clumsy rather than ferocious. 2 red cards and 9 yellows this season. And it could have been more.

Yes, he was unlucky to see red against Swansea, but there have been other times when he has been lucky to stay on the pitch.

He has probably not been as bad as it seems, but his position is made to seem worse due to the fact we picked Xhaka over N’Golo Kante, who has taken another huge step forward at Chelsea and is now the best defensive midfielder in world football.

With Xhaka, we are peering over the fence at our numbers Chelsea, seeing what we could have had, and it feels we picked the wrong option.

Shkodran Mustafi

I questioned Shkodran Mustafi’s ability back in December. At the time he had no lost a single game at Arsenal which he had played in. I was mocked in the comments o nthe blog, on Twitter and Facebook. How could I be criticising a player who had yet to lose in an Arsenal shirt?

Well at the time I looked beyond the results of the team and was looking at the performances of the defence.

At the time, Arsenal had not kept a clean sheet for 10 games, with just 4 all season – 3 of which had Mustafi in defence, and the Mustafi / Koscielny partnership was conceding at a rate of a goal a game.

I ended the blog with;

Arsenal defensive frailties have become worse this season. Mustafi has solved one problem but created another.

4 months on and he was part of a centreback partnership against Crystal Palace that failed to make a single tackle. Two crude tackles in the 1st half meant he probably should have seen red. He was lucky to stay on the pitch.

Mustafi has played 17 games in 2017, Arsenal have conceded 31 goals. We have conceded more 3 or more goals on 7 occasions this calendar year. We have kept just 6 clean sheets. 3 of which have been in the FA Cup.

It is not just Mustafi’s fault. The entire defence from Bellerin across to Monreal has been shocking. But Mustafi has shown as huge technical issues which worry.

He tends to chase the ball. He is a poor judge of a high ball. His headers rarely reach a team mate. He dives in to tackles. He is beaten too easily.

I still think he will turn out to be a good player at Arsenal, but at £35,000,000 you would expect better performances than the Sunday League level ones he is putting in at the moment.

Lucas Perez

It is easy to forget the Lucas Perez is an Arsenal player. He ha splayed just 265 minutes in the Premier League this season.

Whether this is because he is a poor player, Wenger does not fancy him, Wenger is misusing him, or a mixture of everything, it will probably never be known.

It would not surprise me of Perez was shipped out this summer with Arsenal recouping what they spent on him.

A hat trick against Basel in the Champions League has been his career highlight thus far. His other goals coming against Nottingham Forest, Bournemouth and Sutton.

He was clearly a panic buy when it became obvious that Danny Welbeck was going to be out longer then expected. With just Olivier Giroud up top, we lacked a pacey option and Perez was bought in.

Perez has been hampered by the decision to play Alexis Sanchez through the middle. Whilst this did work out for the good, it has meant less game time for Perez. Walcott has had a very good season wide right (18 goals this season) but I perhaps would have liked to see Perez get a run out ahead of Alex Iwobi in a few games on the left hand side.

With Welbeck back fit, Perez is currently behind Welbeck, Giroud, Sanchez, Walcott & Oxlade-Chamberlain to get game time. You would struggle to make a justification for him to start ahead of any of those.

A very expensive panic buy. Not good enough to challenge for the 1st team when everyone is fit.

Rob Holding

It would be unfair on Rob Holding to label him a flop. He is just 21 and has shown good signs when called upon. At just £2million, he was clearly signed with the future in mind.

Unlike Calum Chambers, he does not have the hefty price tag over his head which will lead for calls for him to be ready for the first team.

He ha sonly played a handful of games this season, and could do with going on loan to a Premier League side next season to get some game time.

We could have a decent player on our hand, but he needs game time.

Takuma Asano

Does he even have a work permit yet? Throw him in the box with the likes of Joel Campbell, Wellington Silva, Samuel Galindo, Pedro Botelho & Carlos Vela. Players who we signed, spent years getting them valid work rights, and they ultimately turned out to be useless.

Kelechi Nwakali

Just a baby. We would moan if we signed him, and then moan if, after a trial, we turned him down and he became Yaya Toure.

£3,000,000 is a lot of money for a player who had only every played on sandy fields in Africa, but that is the cost of talented young players these days..

Cohen Bramall

Would be completely unfair to judge him as a flop. And I will not do so.

What he does highlight is just how poor our transfers have been this summer. He was the only signing in January, and he highlights just how little business we did in January. Just a young, non-league full back.

We have barely won a game in 2017. Not signing a single senior player in January is now looking like a ridiculous decision.

 

£93,000,000 spent. Money not well spent.

There is no point moving to the new stadium, having a big load of money to spend, if we are not going to spend it correctly. Just another reason why it is time for Wenger to go.

Keenos

Mirror caught out lying over Ozil to Man U transfer “exclusive”

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So this mornings Arsenal related transfer news to hit the BBC Gossip Column was that Jose Mourinho was lining up a big money move for Mesut Ozil in the summer.

The report came from the Sunday Mirror, who declared it an Exclusive that Mourinho was looking to add another number 10 to his Manchester United squad. He had worked with Mesut Ozil at Real Madrid, has spoken fondly in the past about him, and clearly rates him highly.

It would have been a fairly easy story to write. One which might have had some truth in it. Until journalist Tom Hopkinson decided to use his creative writing degree and basically make stuff up to fill his article out. And it ended up back firing as it has exposed him as at best, unknowledgeable and incompetent. At worst a liar.

Tom Hopkinson completely missed the fact Real Madrid announced on May 20th 2013 that Jose Mourinho was set to leave the club at the end of the season. He joined Chelsea on June 3rd 2013, and Mesut Ozil joined Arsenal on September 2nd 2013.

So how could Mourinho have been “furious” at Real Madrid bigwigs, when he had already left the club?

Proof, really, if any was needed, that this new breed of young journalists make up transfer speculation to get noticed, and have an inability to check their facts.

Have a good Sunday

Keenos