Mails: Praying Channel 4 get the Champions League

Matt Stead

Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com.

 

Leave Wenger alone
Quick browse through this morning’s mailbox, and even after a routine, considered and professional performance. Someone manages to convolute this into a dig at Arsene Wenger.

The man “respected the cup” (though he didn’t have much choice given defeat would have exploded the Internet via Arsenal Twitter) by playing a strong side, including his stars. He was nothing but extremely complimentary to Sutton and their players after the game, and the club showed a bit of class with the funding for classrooms etc which would’ve in part been thought of by Wenger given his control over most things.

But because he hasn’t jumped up and down a bit, showed a bit of “Passion” like Klopp and shaken a few more hands post game then he’s boring and sucks the life out of things. Prefer that to losing to a Championship side at home anyday (sorry Liverpool fans, going with the subject matter he brought up!). Just shows that currently people  are always going to find a stick to beat him with, which is a shame for someone who will rightfully go down as one of the clubs greatest ever managers next to Chapman.

Also, shout out to the banner mugs who couldn’t  even raise that properly because they were too excited about getting on TV.
James (Not Wenger in or out, just bored of the consistent jabs both ways!) AFC, North London

 

Firstly let me establish my credentials as a paid-up member of the “Wenger Out Brigade”.   When Alan Shearer said on BBC last night he could not understand why the criticism of the Arsenal manager had increased since last week’s thrashing at Bayern because “nothing has changed, this happens every year at this time to Arsenal”, he was missing the point.  That’s exactly the problem, Alan, it happens every year, year after year, year after year after year.  Often we lose in the same competitions and to the same teams.  We have one of the best squads in the Premier League but they are managed by someone who ignores tactics, demonstrates admirable loyalty to players who do not merit it and appears trapped in an endless cycle of “just enough”.

So, with that said, I am now going to take issue with TGM who lambasted Arsene for not being enthusiastic enough in his interview post the win over Sutton.  Trust me, TGM, I am perfectly happy to criticise our manager when he deserves it, but that was a no win.  Had he been excited, lauding the players and talking-up our chances of winning the cup, commentators would have said things like “it was only Sutton”, asked how dare he be pleased when his team had only done “just enough” to beat a team 2,467 places below them in the league and reminded us about the Bayern and Chelsea results.  Be his usual gloomy, morose, French self and he gets accused of being a miserable git.

There are enough valid and substantive reasons to be unhappy with him (not starting the forward line that played so well at Southampton against Chelsea, refusing to recognise that Lucas Perez brings so much more to the team that Giroud/Walcott, not playing Arshavin in the FA Cup Semi Final, taking Robert Pires off in the Champions League Final, Denilson …I could go on for days).  Stick with those rather than looking for spurious reasons to criticise and let’s keep our dignity about us, shall we.
Carolyn, South London Gooner.

 

Blame The Sun, not Shaw
just wanted to write in about the Wayne Shaw incident. Now clearly the guy saw his opportunity for some media attention and has taken it, don’t be surprised to see him popping up everywhere for a few weeks, as he becomes the face of Pukka Pies or something for the bantz. But what I actually want to talk about is not his attention seeking antics as such, more the trouble he could get into with the FA for his pie stunt.

Why are bets like this even being allowed? The moment he’s aware of it he has total control over the outcome, if he eats a pie he’s suddenly under investigation, if he doesn’t, he’s made a conscious choice not to eat a pie and controlled the outcome of a bet still. Of course the latter wouldn’t have had the same scrutiny, but either way he has control and is impacting on people’s financial situation over something as trivial as eating a pie.

Sun Bets have essentially created a situation where they know people are going to be throwing money away on something where either Sun Bets make profit, or, very unlikely, the opposite and the individual who is the object of the bet (through no choice of his own) would need to break rules and face disciplinary action. I’m aware that the retort to this is “Well people shouldn’t bet on things as clearly stupid as this” but in my opinion the whole stupid situation should be avoided.

Obviously betting regulations need to be in place to stop corruption, but in this instance as it’s at the expense of The Sun over something that has absolutely no impact on the sporting event in question, and only ever benefitted punters (as there was no opposite odds in place), then I’m glad he did it and hope that thousands of people stuck big money on it. Sun Bets created this ridiculous situation to take easy money off people, they deserve not to come out on top.
Mike (AVFC), London

 

There’s a game tonight, apparently
Surprised there are no mentions of tonight’s game, Man City Vs. Monaco.

Monaco has scored the most goals in Europe’s top 5 leagues. They score an average of 2.9 goals per game. They easily dispatched Spurs. They are playing against one of the weakest, if not the weakest defense in England’s top 6. And Man City are without Jesus. Ladies and gents, put your money down on goals galore!
Guillaume (fully expecting a 0-0 to make me look daft) Paris

 

What’s the problem?
Arsenal fans,

If you were told at the start of the season that at this point

– You would still be in the FA Cup

– You were still in the Champions League but were not going to win it

– You were still in the running for top 4 (2 points of 2nd and 10 points of 1st)

What’s all this recent hullabaloo about? Am I missing something?
G (Hi Jack, told you I’d get posted soon x)

 

Villans of the piece
Not sure what to think of the reaction of the Villa players to the serious injury sustained by Scott Hogan last night.

Not one single Villa player came over to Hogan when he went down in a heap. After about 4-5 minutes Alan Hutton came across, but none of the others bothered to check on their teammate who was quite clearly seriously injured. In fact it appeared to be a conscious effort from the Villa players to avoid going over to see him.

This has got me thinking whether they have been told not to go over to teammates who are seriously injured? Is this a ploy from a sports pschologist, how would seeing the injury affect the other players for the rest of the game ,although in this case it was not a nasty leg break and instead almost certainly ankle ligament damage. Arsenal losing the plot and conceding a last minute equaliser against Birmingham, Gallas kicking the hoarding etc, in the the Eduardo game immediately spring to mind, although they did come from 1-0 down in that game to lead 2-1.

Is leaving the player to the medics the professional thing to do from a players point of view? Or is it callous and uncaring? Would be interested to hear the thoughts of others as personally I am not quite sure what to make of it.
David G.

 

More on the Premier League Memorial Cup
I was surprised to see no emails this morning about last night’s ‘Fallen giants’ game in the Championship, two clubs who should really be trading blows in the Premier League meeting on a Monday night prime time slot in the Championship instead.

From my (Newcastle fan) perspective, it was a frustrating opening half hour, as the recent trend of us starting the game a bit heavy footed continued, allowing Villa to sneak in a couple of chances. It wasn’t until we attacked and scored, that the game settled down and we pretty much dominated. If we can beat Bristol City this weekend, we just have that breathing space going into the three HUGE games that will define our season, weirdly I feel more confident in the team when we play teams up the top, as we raise our game against a team who is willing to take us on – which is much more preferable to the lethargy of our other displays.

There’s been a lot of animosity between Villa and NUFC fans since 2009, which will hopefully settle down over time. That aside though, Villa really looked poor – lacking pace, fluidity and any real plan. It seemed to be ‘get it to Kodjia’ and hope for the best. A more agile team willing to give it a go in the opening stages last night (such as Huddersfield) could have really went for us. 6 points above the drop and losing their best striker last night – surely they have to be pretty worried?

See you on Sky Sports again soon (Sorry F365!)
Harry,
Geordie in London

 

Pie and mighty
I would like to echo earlier criticisms of Sutton United using their brief period in the limelight to make as much money as possible. Do we really want the Emirates FA Cup (in association with Budweiser, Ladbrokes, to become associated with cynical, undignified cash-ins?
Lewis (Hi TTH)

 

The Ballymun Pele
First off. Urrrrrgh. A family funeral yesterday meant I didn’t have any interaction with f365, but instead did an excellent version of Joe Dolan’s Good Looking Woman with funeral favourites Bee Bop Gold, and an awful version of Special Brew at that night’s karaoke.

The wider implications were that it took until today to catch up on Johnny Nic’s article on “celebrity”. It left me a little conflicted as to what category I fall into. I never, and I mean never have asked a famous person for an autograph, photo etc.

However, about four weeks ago I was having a coffee with my wife and son in Swords. I was wearing a Hulk mask and talking to my wife when I spotted something out of the corner of my eye. “Holy Shit, its Keith Andrews” I exclaimed. He turned, glared and continued on his way. Only after my wife shouted within earshot, “Who the f**k is Keith Andrews?”

Regards
Lar, Dublin

 

Fat Man Scouse would have a point if Troy Deeney was being an *** the whole time. He wasn’t. He actually came and took a lot of pictures with a lot of fans for quite awhile. You could say all the stuff about fans. The fan had the right to be disappointed that he didn’t get his chance but his reaction was absurdly over the top and so was the others who became the mob. What because he’s a millionaire you can’t treat the guy with common decency? What do you want him to do, sit in a booth for 12 hours and take pictures all day. He was out for a dinner, it wasn’t as if he was there on an OFFICIAL signing, in which case yes it would be part of his actual job.

You say that Premier League footballers don’t have to take the money of the Premier League. Newsflash, nobody said you were getting autographs or pictures of players when you sign up for your Sky subscription or buy tickets to games. All you had was the live matches and the games on TV. Don’t like it? Go watch Netflix or something, it’s cheaper.

I understand why people like social media., nothing wrong with taking selfies with your friends or posting your pictures online. If you get somebody famous then good for you but please don’t be rude especially when said player already went out of his way to show his genuine appreciation in the first place out of his own time – only for those fans to just crush it because he had to leave and continue with his life (they have lives?? Shocking!). There are many times I’m sure where players were just being ***holes to their fans but this wasn’t one of them.
Lucky
Malaysia

 

Grammatical pedantry
Regarding the headline accompanying the article on David Moyes and Sunderland: one doesn’t ‘pull off’ a Trump, one either blasts or ekes one out, depending on whether one is in company.

So the headline should read, assuming David is currently either alone in his office, or on the training ground, protected by the evidence-destroying Tyne & Wear onshore breeze: “Sunderland: Can Moyes blast out a Trump?”
Dan, Brighton

 

Footballers with animals
Footballers with animals
may be the greatest thing I’ve ever seen.

That’s all!

Tiger Dan, Hull City
(Who knew Niasse was a footballer? Silva. He knew)

 

#PrayFor4
If Channel 4 get champions league coverage
, surely that’s got to mean the return of James Richardson……if there’s a God make that happen!!
Paul, Manchester

 

I read the news story about Channel 4 potentially airing some Champions League matches, and concluded that there surely can only be one candidate to present the coverage, should it happen: James Richardson. Preferably lounging around al fresco at a plaza-side cafe in Barcelona, partially obscured by an enormous latte and a pile of padron peppers the size of a small hillock, looking like Pep Guardiola’s more urbane brother.

No doubt Channel 4 will insist of a punditry panel of Will Self, Grayson Perry and Germaine Greer (all also at said cafe, drinking absinthe cocktails) which could work out very well or very badly.

Now over to Jon Snow who’s pitch-side with Javier Mascherano.
Dan, Brighton