As an avid Arsenal fan I scour the media looking for the latest updates and news on my beloved club and I absolutely expected fierce criticism to come our way following a string of poor performances, however, the press is going too far in some quarters and the latest hatchet job is starting to look a little sinister to me.
Matt Law of the Telegraph has written a piece making a whole bunch of claims which in turn was regurgitated by the Metro with their customary twist on words.
For starters, the original piece by Law uses the word source just once and that is attributed to the claim that little headway has been made in recent meetings over possible summer signings.
In fact, Law does not even use the words “according to” which is standard fare for journalists these days.
So, no sources, please take note of that as we consider the claims made by Mr Law.
He claims that some players are baffled by team selection, in particular, Mohamed Elneny being selected next to Matteo Guendouzi in midfield, and Carl Jenkinson starting at right wing-back in the game against Crystal Palace but offers up no proof whatsoever to back that claim up, not even an unnamed source or someone close to someone.
He further claims that the players feel he worries too much about the opposition when Arsenal play away from the Emirates, again, he offers up no evidence to support that claim.
He makes a statement that Emery has backed defender Shkodran Mustafi, without actually saying if that is causing any issues in the dressing room and the Metro then turns that into the squad being baffled by Emery’s faith in the German.
Who in the squad is baffled? surely we would have “sources” claiming that but nope, nothing, just a statement from the author.
There is nothing to substantiate the claims that any of this is what the players are thinking, there is absolutely no proof at all that the players are baffled, confused or have lost faith in Mustafi.
There is a whole section dedicated to potential summer signings with the conclusion being drawn that we are in disarray and that there is chaos over who will be named technical director.
Yet it has been reported for months that we will have just £45 Million to spend rising to £70 Million if we qualify for the Champions League, that is absolute clarity.
As for the role of technical director or sporting director, whatever name you want to give that position, it is well known we are searching for the right candidate and yet that is being used as some sort of evidence that there is chaos behind the scenes, why? What is wrong with taking your time to get such an important role right?
What Matt Law has done is take an opinion and turn it into fact, why else would his entire article be devoid of sources or quotes or any of the usual cover your ass wording from the press.
The reason I believe this is a little sinister is that just four days before a very important Europa League semi-final a so-called respected journalist runs an article that basically has the players turning on each other and the manager and we all know that the players and club officials read the newspapers, especially highbrow papers like the Telegraph.
These sort of articles undermine team solidarity and what British journalist does that to an English team days before a massive European game?
What Matt Law has written may well be what some of us are thinking, yes, Mustafi is a liability, yes, Emery has confused the hell out of us with some of his team selections, yes, there does appear to be confusion over our transfer policy but when you are a respected journalist that does a write up masquerading those opinions as actual facts with zero evidence then you are acting in an unethical manner in my book.
But let’s be honest, certain parts of the press have a long history of attacking us and there is no sign that will be changing any time soon.
Unlike the 30+ players (Ozil, Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan), Xhaka, Lacazette and Mustafi are still valuable. So we could sell them with good prices to increase the budget
Ajax reach CL semifinal without expensive players and Leicester won EPL with very limited resources. Whereas Arsenal spent more than 200+ M, but still cannot get a major trophy
This means the club is run by incompetent people and the whole youth development/ scouting systems need to be overhauled. Waiting for Mislintat’s replacement next season
Ajax have the pick of their country’s best players ,been like that for 40 plus years
More precisely, Ajax develops their own talent based on the Cruyff philosophy and principles, guiding players from a very young age through ex-Ajax seniors (like Bergkamp, Jonk, de Boer, etc) having a strong emphasis on the individual youngster and his needs.
We on the other hand rarely develop youngsters who get successfully integrated into the senior team. We send them away on loan under the pretext that they need further development away from home, yet rarely bring them back to become integral parts of the senior team.
Spurs have developed more youngsters into key senior players than we have. If you don’t have money (like Ajax, Spurs, Arsenal) you have to develop your own talent in order to compete at the highest level. There is nothing about our youth system that sets it apart from the other top 6 teams in terms of producing key members of the senior squad.
With Sven gone we can’t rely on our recruitment of senior players to do the trick for us. Geundouzie was a great find for our budget but, we need to be able to develop him further and we can’t rely on fining geundouzies every window.
We need to change our mentality and trust our young players more. IMO given the poor level of performance from some of our senior players we should or could have done with more minutes to Nelson, Rowe, Chambers etc yet these players are not at the club and not benefiting from training with the senior players and the manager. Big mistake IMO.
It’s far better to lose a game or two because Nelson loses the ball in the wrong place or because Chambers misses a tackle than because Lichsteiner is too slow or Mustafi does a brain fart. The young players hopefully learn from their mistakes whilst Lichsteiner and or Mustafi don’t and are not part of our future.
Nice one the people running our club are incompetent. That’s why we keep buying who we don’t need. A good example was when we bought Ozil, we had Cazorla doing very well as our attacking midfielder and we had a very good CM in Arteta. All we needed was a good DM, which half the Ozil money would have given us. A better striker than Giroud was needed and wingers because our wingers were inconsistent. Which made Di Maria more necessary than Ozil. But our handlers decided to spend a fortune on Ozil because Madrid wanted him out. We need to be addressing our weaknesses in transfer window and not buying whoever clubs throw at us. Look at clubs like Liverpool and Tottenham, they know their problem, identify their target and go all out for them
A fortune ?
Think he was pretty cheap mate .
Arteta was useless ,a cheap fabregas who was limited to his passing .
Arteta was a decent CM until Wenger decided to convert him to a DM. That’s where everything went wrong
Matt Law is well known for being a die-hard Spurs fan. nothing he writes about Arsenal is worthy of reading.
There you have it.
The media are only running these stories to prove us right when we lose Again 😉
Can’t wait for the “resort mentality” to completely disappear from the club
What a bell end
Emery: “Good morning team. How many games you want to lose before end of season?”
Arsenal squad: “Yes”
Just read the complete article in the Telegraph.
All looks pretty much spot on to me.
I can’t believe the article writer on here and some of the comments. So it was ok for most of us to be astounded at the team selection against Palace but when a journalist repeats what we’ve all been saying, everyone gets a bit precious about it. Emery’s selections and tactics recently have been completely baffling to most of us.
?
You don’t get the point of article.
Whether or not there is a “sinister” slant to the writings of Matt Law, it is evident that all is not sweetness and light within the dressing room.It is of course very easy for Journalists to turn speculation into something known in the business as “meaningful tattle” , but hey we thankfully love in a free Country and as such should take the offerings of Mr.Law and others like him with a pinch of salt.There have of course been many very fine Journalists over the years in the UK but Matt Law is not one of them.Enough said.
What Matt Law has done is take an opinion and turn it into fact, Justarsenal if full poster in that category. So nothing to cry fowl about. And the same can be said about the reported £45 Million. I believe It is a friction at the time to derail the progress of the team and not fact. How many players are on the last year contract now. How much will be cost to replace them in this inflated transfer fee. I would rather wait to the next transfer season to see how much we actually have to spend.
The has also been picked up by John Cross and the article in the Times reveals even more stuff. Sounds like Emery has lost the plot as he did at PSG.
Instead of blaming our recent results 100% on Unai Emery , should also mention the awful refereeing in the last 3 games , the statistics are there and most people here are ignoring it and are just Blaming Emery , i’m sure Unai knows more than everyone in this site including me so i will give him 1 more year instead of slating him in his first year.
Apparently Unai Emery plays 11 positions on the field as well as coaching.
Then again as with Chelsea it is easier (and cheaper) to replace a coach rather than the underperforming players.
What do these so called professional journalists have to say about the manager/coaches and players of the teams currently below Arsenal on the table? Are they there because of intra club fighting as well? Good news doesn’t sell newspapers is still true.
No, UE picks the players and he has coached them for several months now.
UE is leading us to worse stats than Wenger got in his final year, possibly his worst year at Arsenal… Still better than UE.
As for the teams below, they do not have our quality, it is easier to mock a team with high potential and failing to achieve it than mocking a team with no potential and doing better than expected.
It would be easier to mock Usain Bolt for losing a race to a man with 1 leg than it is to mock the man with 1 leg for losing to Usain Bolt.
Unfortunately, Midkemma the points table does not support your supposition that Emery’s performance in his first season is worse than Wenger’s last.
The last time we lost 3 games on the trot and shipped 9 goals was in 1966.