Arsenal record win is ‘anomaly’ and ‘ultimately irrelevant’ against ‘bad’ PSV

Arsenal won 7-1 at PSV but really, what does it all mean? They’re not going to win the Champions League. Anyway, enjoy it fellas…

Send your thoughts on Arsenal and maybe Aston Villa to theeditor@football365.com

Might Arteta actually be okay at this?
Taps the ‘actually despite what you’ve heard, Mikel Arteta is a really good manager’ sign.
Simon, London

…Win a match by such a huge margin, with three left-backs on the pitch, he’d have to change his pants.
Bristol Christol (let’s hope we bring our shooting boots for the Man Utd game)

…Arsenal’s biggest Champions League win ever, home or away, with star turns from young players and seniors who’ve been under a bit of pressure, in a makeshift frontline.

Nice to see our ‘useless failure’ of a coach can still pull something from his sleeve eh?
Tom, Leyton

MORE ON ARSENAL FROM F365:
👉 Mikel Arteta sack inevitable as five outgoing Premier League managers named
👉 Declan Rice moment fuels Lampard obsession as Arsenal make history with Champions League ‘energy’
👉 Wages table shows Arsenal doomed to failure

Leave MLS alone
For a website that (rightfully so) calls out some of the toxic reporting around football ye could have a look at yourselves with your tweet about Lewis-Skelly.

Yes, he should have been sent off but calling him “exactly that kind of player” is properly shitty. He’s 18 years old and isn’t exactly going around two-footing players.
Charlie, AFC

Seven hells!
An Arsenal supporting friend (with tongue in cheek) suggested that if Arsenal park the bus in the second leg they should be okay.

I suggested they could probably leave it on double yellows with the hazards on and still be okay. Maybe even with the keys in the ignition. And the door left open.
Gary AVFC, Oxford (PSV were bad)

Means nowt though
Yes, a 7-1 away win is something to celebrate, especially in Europe. However, you sense it’s an anomaly. I can’t be the only one that sees the irrelevance of the result in the grand scheme of things? Good for a bit of confidence, nice for the fans, but ultimately irrelevant within the season as a whole. This Arsenal team is not going to win a thing this year, those ships have sailed.

Immediately after the match some people were asking if it meant that Arsenal are now dark horses for the Champions League. No is the answer.
IJR (Cheese dip incoming)

VAR from happy, actually
Aman Sheth is quite incorrect. When my club is on the receiving end of an incorrect call, I would definitely not wait three days for the decision to be corrected.

The sacrifices VAR requires are simply too great, particularly for a process so frequently wrong and applied with such manic inconsistency.

Injustice is a part of pretty much any sport, but especially football. VAR hasn’t cleaned it out of football by any stretch of the imagination. In the long run, bad calls tend to even themselves out, so why would I – or any fan who enjoys the game itself and not just winning – want to keep it in place, especially as it currently exists?
Chris C, Toon Army DC

…I respond to Aman Sheth’s missive thus:

I take the opposite view. I can’t understand how anyone can watch a game where VAR is involved.

When goal-line technology was introduced I grumbled, correctly stating that it was the thin end of the technology wedge that would lead to off-pitch video referees. I swore never to watch a match with a video referee. [I’m very stubborn. I’ve stuck to it]. I said that VAR would just make things even more likely for the bigger teams to win. I said that the [il-]logical conclusion would be that they’d stop playing matches, and 3pm Saturday would see each clubs’ head accountants meeting in the centre circle to compare balance sheets for the 3 points. With FFP/PSR, turns out I was right, eh kids? [Ignore me. I’m being silly there. Or am I? Or AM I? OR am I? OR AM I?].

I don’t claim to speak for everyone, but pour moi, live football without the instant joy of going feral when Newcastle scored was the main [only?] reason I ever went to the match [or watched on telly, or listened on the radio, or refreshed teletext, and so forth].

Taking that instant joy away [for 8 minutes, right, Cherries?] is anathema.

‘Oh, but it’s better now. Instead of drawing lines on a screen, we get a computer to draw the whole thing’. That’s better? You approve? Die yelping, goofy morons. [Bit of an obscure reference, that one].

Aman asks: ‘let’s think of VAR in this singular thought, if your team scores a goal but it’s given offside and it never was, and your player is sent off but it was never a red. Would you still be against VAR?’

That’s called projection, Aman. It means you assume everyone has the same flaw as you. Don’t.

I’m glad plenty of folk can still get a kick out of football. I can’t.
Alex Stokoe, Newcastle upon Tyne

Just maybe enjoy the game…?
I read all these letters about which manager is best, which clubs are the biggest, and I wonder what these people actually get out of football. Surely you watch football for a love of the game. If you only start supporting a team because they win trophies then you’re the very definition of a glory hunter. Trophies are a nice prize that come at the end of the season and if your team is lucky enough to win one, good for you, but the joy should be in the season before.

Ask yourself why you watch football in the first place. If it’s only for trophies and the bragging rights that brings then you’re probably wasting time, because chances are you’ll spend a lot more time being miserable than happy. Go and watch some kids playing football on the rec on a Saturday/Sunday morning and try and get some love for the game back.

With regards to VAR, I’ll use the example of two incidents that would have been changed with VAR.

One is the 2001 FA Cup Final. Stephane Henchoz blocked a certain goal by Henry with his arm. VAR would have awarded a penalty and Henchoz would have been sent off.

Another incident is when Arsenal won the Premier League in the 97-98. On the day that Arsenal finally got the points they needed to win the league, they beat Everton 4-0 at Highbury. The final goal was scored by Tony Adams “bursting through the midfield” and this would also have been ruled out by VAR (probably after a 5 minute wait).

Would I change either decision for the sake of the right call? No (even though one might have given us another shiny bauble in the cabinet). I think VAR is a blight on football and unless it can get every decision right (throw-ins, corners, free-kicks, yellow cards as well as red, regardless of where they occur on the field) and do that within seconds, then it is ruining everything about what football is and why I fell in love with it. Yes, officials make mistakes. Live with it. We did for many years and it worked. We all liked a bit of a moan about bad decisions but we moved on. There are more complaints now about what VAR doesn’t get right than there ever were about the occasional ‘big call’ the officials got wrong.

Finally, and I realise that I’m probably wasting my time here, Stewie…we all know what you think of Arsenal, Arsenal supporters, Arteta, Wenger, Havertz, Jesus etc. I’m sure there are still a few people out there who occasionally find you amusing, but I suspect most realise within the first couple of lines who’s written in (again) and skip to the next one.

You’re writing the same letter over and over and over again. At least you kept it short but now you clutter up the letters page with the same (hilariously funny, in your mind) drivel, written in a slightly different way. Please, just give it a rest, or try a different angle. Something new and original. Find some joy in your life.

Thanks.
Dave AFC

Enter the VARDIS
One seminal, sliding doors moment that might satisfy You Can Call Me Al’s Philosophical musings is the supreme court decision to uphold the sale of Liverpool FC from Hicks and Gillette to New England Sports Group around 2010.

Hicks and Gillette were following an accelerated Glazer model; loading debt onto the club whilst withdrawing profits and refusing investment. This lead to a Roy Hodgson coached team and a squad boasting such luminaries as Paul Konchesky and Charlie Adam. Liverpool were in free fall in the league, finishing 8th.

The Suarez season and the slip, Klopp, the careers of Trent and Mo Salah, City winning everything instead of almost everything. All of this hinges on this moment.

It is ever on my mind given United’s current woes, “There but for the grace of god go I”.
Will (“Don’t wanna end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard”)