Photo from The Daily Mail.
Morning all.
Forget ‘Set Piece FC’, Arsenal have won the title without ‘115 charges’ lurking in the margins like Man City, without buying their own women’s team like Chelsea, without petro-dollars behind them. That should be celebrated.
The words of Ian Herbert writing in The Daily Mail and he has a point. A valid one. The club has spent money of course, lots of it but then so has every club in the Premier League. Like most though, Arsenal have respected the rules. Our women’s team is in a healthy place too, WSL Champions in the making I’m sure and as said before, the only English club to win the Champions League. Twice I hasten to add.
Liverpool did similar last season, yet no one was calling them the Penalty FC or Last Minute FC were they? Their football wasn’t the best but over the ten months, they did what they needed to do in order to win the league. No one cared about how many decisions went their way did they, certainly not in the media but even if they did, their fans wouldn’t have cared less, just as Arsenal fans don’t now.
I love seeing all the videos of the players celebrating, they obviously don’t give a flying fudge what others are writing, why should they as it’ll be their hands on the Premier League trophy come Sunday evening.
I found this part of Ian Herbert’s article interesting: “Data published earlier this year revealed that since the Premier League’s launch in 1992, its clubs had lost a mind-blowing £4.99billion between them, with Chelsea racking up £1.2 bn worth of red ink and City and the Abu Dhabis registering nearly £600m of losses according to their officially published accounts. Arsenal had commanded an overall profit of £132.4m. ”
Yet still both clubs spend…
As Ian Wright is quoted as saying: “We’re chasing down a City side where we’re still talking about charges. How have they got to this? How have they done that? They’re able to buy these great players – Semenyo, Guehi. Arsenal can’t construct their team the way that they can.’
The bitter folk in this footballing world can voice their disgruntlement all they like about VAR, pushing and shoving in the box and decisions which appear to favour Arsenal but the real question is, do they look at their own clubs and judge them the same way?
The officiating in the Premier League is poor in general, why else would there be “ref watch” on Sky Sports each week? Yes, Arsenal might have one or two 50/50 decisions go their way but over the course of this season and those before, they’ve been on the receiving end of many many dreadful decisions. Decisions which have cost the club points and even prizes. No one had something to say about that did they? Two wrongs don’t make a right I know but one shouldn’t pick and choose which wrongs matter more. Because they all matter.
One thing nobody can argue about though is that The Arsenal are Premier League Champions 2025/26.
As Ian Herbert wrote at the end of his article:
Yet for all that, a trophy with red and white ribbons will be paraded this weekend. It will be one of football’s better days.
Indeed it will Ian, indeed it will……
Catch up in the comments.
Refreshing to see a bit of positive journalism for a change .Fans of many clubs dislike us apparently but when you talk to them you find that it’s because of the way that we are run that depresses them because their own clubs don’t do things similarly.
We know that rarely do we see anything positive from Spurs but it’s the other clubs not including the oil states and the ones with creative accounting that are jealous because not only do we challenge consistently but we are well run too.
I was born and bred in North London and played football with supporters of all the London clubs , I have yet to be congratulated by any Chelsea , Spurs or West Ham supporter but QPR , Fulham , Millwall have said well done even if it’s through gritted teeth.
Millwall used to sing that no-one likes them but they don’t care . I reckon that mantre has shifted to us .
That’s what I thought so thought I’d put it out there.
reckon you are right re the Millwall mantra..
Good morning one and all.
The league season ends this coming weekend, between then and the opening of the transfer window is the ideal time to publish the findings of the 150 charges enquiry. Publish the sanctions, if any, yes I’m a cynic, and get the whole mess cleaned up before clubs are committed to actions that may well be negated by the punishments handed out.
Jeff Powell apparently wrote a negative article on Arsenal in the Mail, either today or yesterday, well it seemed negative by the headline, I didn’t click on it, but the Athletic FC podcast put out a nice piece yesterday and did Amy Lawrence on the Athletic, I’ve not listened to the podcast but I know it’ll be good, maybe Rico, put up Amy’s piece if you can? Anyway morning Gooners and Rico.
Today I’ll be driving in London listening to and luxuriating in a series of podcasts’, especially now my excited soul has settled down. With a World Cup on the horizon Berta and the boys will have an attention free period to do the business we need doing, which I’m not sure is a massive amount given the success this group have provided us so far and maybe some fine tuning?
I didn’t see the piece of YouTube, where an Athletic article was discussed, but the gist of it was apparently the 6 year plan Josh, Mikel and the management staff has decided on in 2020 and which has now come to fruition this season.
This ‘plan’ if true was that Arsenal could not afford and would not spend the vast amounts Chelsea initially and latterly City have in their team building but the plan was to scout and source younger players, coach them up to an elite standard and develop them to just peak as the City squad in particular peaked in their current cycle and began to decline, albeit not dramatically but just enough for us to take advantage.
It’s an interesting theory but even if it’s partly true then kudos to the ownership for having the fortitude and patience to stand by the manager, despite the noise, and wait especially while everyone else was going batshit.
I couldn’t help feeling a certain pang of sympathy for Christian Norgaard who remained on the periphery of things whilst everyone else went bananas on Tuesday evening. I hope he gets a start this weekend because he has contributed behind the scenes by being a supportive team mate even when not getting a place among the subs.
I also heard a rumour that during the run-in that Eze approached Arteta and asked him to reign in the intensity of the training which in fairness to Mikel he did after listening to his laid back midfielder. Mikel is still learning his craft and hopefully when the coaching staff analyses the season they’ll make some changes to lessen the stress on our players during the next season?
Morning Kev, Cicero.
I saw the Powell article, he’s a Man Utd fan apparently and yes, it was a very negative article. I stopped reading after a few lines.
I tried to add a piece from The Athletic this morning Kev, I was forbidden despite adding a link. It included how many years are between titles for those who have won it once or more. I think it was 56 for the Totts but zero for us 😂
Whilst it’s good Arteta listened to Eze, surely as an ex player, he should be well aware of how much rest players need. When to push them and when to ease up.
As for Norgaard, I too feel sorry for him. I still don’t understand why he wasn’t used more than he was.
Funny enough I saw a thing on Christian Norgaard,he has a Premier league winners medal,unlike Harry Kane,Cole Palmer and Bruno Fernandes,and Steve Gerrard obviously.
I saw the headline for the Jeff Powell article,I didn’t click on it,bitter Mancs. They might find next season a lot harder.
I see Mikel Merino is back in training.
One thing puzzling is the idea that Arsenal are favoured by the Refs/VAR
It’s laughable really,it’s everywhere,fans of other teams really believe it.
They are focusing on the West Ham game I think Limey.
Hi Rico, I thought that Powell was a Charlton Athletic fan but in truth he’s a dinosaur so we can pretty much ignore his ravings, thd ravings of a bitter old man.
Looking back over the season Limey, I don’t think that Arsenal got preferential treatment we just got, for a change, treated fairly like everyone else and because we usually are stitched up it feels to us like we got the rub of the green.
I mean look at how many times Bernardo Silva should have been sent off this season?
Then compare that to how Gyokeres was routinely roughed up with no advantage?
Also, how many times have we been denied a penalty this season, the type of offences Arsenal are regularly punished for, what we did was to eliminate any possible opportunities for the officials to make a negative decision against us…
I read he was a Utd fan Kev, regardless though, he’s just a plonker.