Arsenal not thrilling because opposition are ‘dog turd’, actually…

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Arsenal and Nottingham Forest battle
Arsenal and Nottingham Forest battle

Arsenal fans are riled again after some other football fans said their team was not great to watch. Not sure why they care.

Mail your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com

 
Arsenal fan wants F365 shut down for not being kind to Arsenal
Do you reckon there’s a chance that Ofcom may be receptive to shutting down Football 365? Or wiping the absolute dross you and your writers pour out of your mouths 50-100 times day off the internet?

Coverage of the premier league at this level should be material, add some acceptable dialogue to the discussion; and generally speaking, not prop up the team that has dismantled and made redundant the league we all love and cherish. In my opinion.

I took a quick scroll through the X feed for the day and it’s filled with click bait reports with zero credibility. Very very few likes on any of them.

I’m not surprised you have to take the low road, like so many of your peers in the space, and attack Arsenal for clicks. (Still, not many clicks at that.)

Be better. The media world would be a better place without you.

Best Regards.
Every Arsenal fan around

(You seem to have confused the Mailbox with the F365 writers and X with real life, fella. Oh and clicks aren’t measured in X likes. Apart from all that, great mail – Ed)

 

Arsenal fan says sorry for your teams being sh*t
Oh, as an Arsenal fan, can I be the first to apologise to rivals that their own teams are dog turd. I understand that it must be frustrating to watch Arsenal do the bare fundamentals and win, but that isn’t Arsenal’s fault. If you are incapable of beating us, that’s on you. If your team can’t keep a clean sheet, or worse, keep our awful attack out, that’s on you. Especially with our awful attack. If you don’t prioritise a clean sheet, you’re gonna concede.

And for the entertainment purists, we have close to a decade of playing ‘open and expansive’ football under Wenger, and we got humiliated, regularly. We would go to our rivals’ grounds and get spanked. We were the banter club. We aren’t anymore. In fact, I think that is what upsets United, Spurs or Liverpool fans, they know they have spent a king’s ransom, they know that they should be doing so much better, but they aren’t. Again, this isn’t Arsenal’s fault. You may call Rice a cross country runner, but he’s joint top with assists from open play this season. Sorry if you find that fact boring, but it refutes this idea that he is scamming a living.

As for goals, I’m a child of George Graham’s Arsenal, 1-0 to the Arsenal is my blood type. Would I like to be some free flowing rock and roll football, sure, who wouldn’t, but the next best thing, actually the best thing, is winning. And we win more than we lose now under Arteta.

You should all take a long hard look at your clubs, how they are run, what they prioritise, and your performance. Arsenal isn’t the problem, its you. Your clubs who don’t come to play football. In fact, the one team that matched us, beat us comfortably (credit to Brighton, they were excellent).

So yes, dig in lads, it’s gonna be a long season for you.
John Matrix AFC

 

…Quelle surprise, more brainless abuse for Arsenal’s style of play, especially from usual suspect RHT/TS x. I agree that the first half was dreadful but this was not Arsenal’s fault.

Forest are a decent side (as they showed in the second half) and were at home for a late afternoon kick off – perfect conditions to create a tough atmosphere you would think. Instead, even their striker was 20 yards inside his own half at all times. We had 80% possession away from home. They had clearly been coached to do absolutely nothing in the first half so they could then change things at half time in the hope of nicking it late on.

The second half was better a) because Forest tried to play counterattacking football and b) because it’s hard for teams to successfully park the bus against us for a full 90 (see Lille also). You might say ‘well Arsenal are the much better side, it’s their problem if teams park the bus – they need to find a way to win regardless’. Fair enough. We did. But watching Arsenal try to play football while the opposition doesn’t is rarely going to be entertaining.

If you want to be angry, be angry at Glasner and just about every opposition manager (even cheaty Pep parked the bus against us last season for the first time in his career), not Arteta.

Much love.
Simon Cochrane

READ: Arsenal are fitting champions of the Scrappier Premier League

 

…After reading the submission by Andy H, Swansea, I was wondering what he thought Arsenal should actually do? I will assume he has noticed that nearly every team Arsenal plays uses a low-block against them. It can sometimes look like a game of attack v defence.

I’d be keen to know how Arsenal are supposed to play? Do they simply lob balls into the box and hope that within the 15 people already in it, that it lands on Kai’s foot and like the parting of Bonnie Blue’s legs, a massive space opens up for him?

Maybe Arsenal could simply yell ‘charge’ and run head first into the penalty area?

Maybe they could ask the opposition very nicely if they wouldn’t mind not sitting back so much, and if it wasn’t too much trouble, perhaps letting them score?

It takes both teams to make a game. I accept that Arsenal can look a little laboured against a deep defence and that there are a lot of sideways passes. But this is needed to try to draw the opposition out of position.

Teams are happy to ‘park the bus’ against Arsenal because in most cases, if they don’t they’ll get comfortably beaten. I can completely understand this tactic. Many teams know that they’ll need to frustrate Arsenal and then hopefully catch them on the break or maybe nick something from a set-piece. This is completely fair and has always been thus. Do what you need to do.

Declan Rice doesn’t look as dynamic as he used to at West Ham, because West Ham were/are sh*t and nobody needed to defend deep against them. Therefore he had space to run into.

I’m sure Arsenal would love to have space behind every defence they play against. We could get back to the flowing football of some time ago. But then they’d just keep winning and people like Andy would say ‘why do teams give Arsenal so much space?’.

Like Andy, I wasn’t enthralled by Sunday’s game. However (and I’m guessing he isn’t an Arsenal fan – can’t be arsed to check back), I don’t really give a sh*t. We won. I’ll take a boring 0-1 away win for my team, any day of the week.

If you’re that bored Andy, I’m sure Swansea has loads of sheep to go and bother.

I’ll grant you that City sometimes do a little better against a low-block, but then if you cheat the system, you can afford to attract someone like Haaland.
Stu – Gooner in France (Bordeaux town centre was quite lively on Saturday!!!)

 

Forest nearly scored a blinder, mind
Having watched Murillo turn Arsenal’s defence inside out with seconds on the clock, and then have the absolute sticks to leather the finish for spectacle, XgSOT be damned – I wondered aloud to my half/not-interested spouse, “was that the best “goal never scored” for a few years?”

Utterly useless point that it probably is to think about – I remember Cheick Tiote having a thunderbastard ruled out because of an inconsequential offside, and a famous one that used to do the rounds on VHS compilations of Best absolutely owning Banks in the 70s only for the goal to be disallowed softly but that burst of skill, and choice to totally beef it at the top corner is up there with the nearlys, Id say

Is it even fair to chalk disallowed goals alongside near misses? Obviously another classic unfairly disallowed is the Mendes blinder hit on the volley at Old Trafford

Curious with the ATL/BTL lot have in their memory files – wondering if the world needs a Puskas opposite contender for best “goal never scored” – and slowly trying to recover from an absolute cank of a cold as I let the night nurse take hold.

All the best,
Harold Emerson Hooler

 

Carrick not the solution or the problem at Man Utd
Man United were poor against Leeds but they weren’t as poor as they have typically been so far this season. You could characterise that as an improvement, I don’t, but you could if you were really trying to be kind.

The problem with this improvement is firstly that Leeds were still the superior team but more importantly that it was achieved by the same three at the back system that got the last guy sacked less than 12 months ago. When you’re whole reason for having the Man United job is improving results by immediately ditching the previous maligned formation and system it then looks terrible to reach for the security of that system to rescue your job.

I couldn’t make up my mind on Carrick last season. The warning signs were definitely apparent as the teams underlying stats steadily diminished and luck went his way too many times but there was a steal to the team during that run, a simplicity of instruction which played to our strengths. Both of those positives have disappeared and he’s grasping for a solution.

Though we can’t really blame Carrick in all this. He’s just another name on a long list of causalities, another victim of poor management. What makes a great team is a clear vision, adopted totally and driven forward ruthlessly by those at the top, uncaring and unyielding in the face of setback or scrutiny. They build on marginal gains which compound over time into sustained success.

I thought we might have had that for a time, when INEOS appointed Amorim then backed him with signing despite the general objection of fans, but ultimately United’s men in power are weak and more interested in protecting their own positions than achieving success. We are once again a team without direction or conviction. Performances on the pitch perfectly reflecting the shambles throughout the club.

Carrick isn’t up to the task of managing this United team but I’m not sure anyone is. The only way a manager could counteract the crushing incompetence of United’s hierarchy is by achieving immediate success, sustaining it with a run of luck so prevailing that people start to question whether they’re still in possession of their soul, then having the force of character to wrest control away from the limp functionaries above them.

I don’t think a person capable of this actually exists and let’s be honest, if they did United certainly wouldn’t hire them.
Dave, Manchester

 

On Man Utd, Liverpool and more…
On Man U/sarcasm:

I don’t know why Carrick’s in the line of fire…

Man U have lost just 2 games all season, one to Man Cheaty FC (where it was a close game), and one to a Brighton team that’s high flying and pulling a Leicester 2016…

And to the miserly part owner, I have a brilliant and cheap proposal to engineer an uptick in results. Just pay me $100k consultation fees. Sack Carrick, appoint Ole as a temp manager. There you go. (I’m probably not the first, and won’t be the last to suggest this).

Check the record books: Man U’s record under temp managers is incredible. Ole, then Carrick. Ole taking over from Jose Moany: P19, W14 D2 L3. Win Rate 73.7%. First Utd manager to win his first 8 games. Engineered a 2-0 first leg deficit to win 3-1 away vs the future UCL repeat champs (er, 6 years in the future).

And next season, sack Ole first game of the season, appoint Carrick as temporary manager. Rinse and repeat. Better yet, to avoid compensation costs, just appoint them as temporary until the end of the season. What better way to save on hiring and firing costs?!?

And on to LFC:

Turns out Carra wasn’t really right. Barcola and Wirtz aren’t useless, especially Wirtz. Wirtz has recently upgraded himself… he’s now a 9-figure priced … flat track bully! That’s still more useful than Viktor … who’s an 8 figure… bench fixture (or not even). Wirtz created 9 chances recently against Brentford, who’re a tidy competitive team. So maybe, just maybe, this 23-24 year old still-developing player is indeed getting more acclimated to the EPL, albeit glacially. Still reminding myself that Pires was useless in year 1, Henry scoreless for 12-14 games etc… And thank you Klopp… as long as Wirtz produces internationally, we’ll be able to get some money back should we finally decide to sell him.

Other than that, I feel like we went off the mark when we tried to buy galacticos instead of moneyball players, the approach that had fueled our past incredible successes. Rayan Cherki instead of Wirtz. Munoz over Barcola. Hugo Ekitike over Isak. Committing 200-300 mil on 3 players in attack was just insane. And this season, spending another 120mil 9 figure sum on a winger who plays the same position as 3 other players [face palm]. Whilst leaving gaps at LB, RB, and MF. Feels like we’ve gone away from our prior successful DNA, but I guess and hope that folks on million dollar salaries in LFC’s backroom know what they are doing. They’d better or LFC are in deep doo-doo.

And here’s where the Man Cheaty advantage comes to the forefront. LFC cannot afford to have Claudio Bravo, Eliakim mangala, Kalvin Philips, Grealish level of big ticket spending… Man Cheaty could. With the money AND the spending above what was allowed, they could just keep paying for players until Pep got what he wanted.

And … what does it say about Pep that he’s biggest successes were all … tainted. Record points and goals at Barca… achieved when ref “consultant” Negreira was paid between 2001 and 2018. With a softened up league, Barca could rest themselves for Europe. And no need for me to repeat that Pep’s incredibly successful spell in the EPL coincided with more than a decade of systematic cheating.

Man Cheaty sympathizers may claim… Pep and his players still had to win on the field! Little different from Lance Armstrong supporters claiming, Lance still had to peddle. Or if any of us took part in the Tour de France with electric battery aided bicycles. Don’t we still have to peddle? But man, … just try riding a bike with electric battery aid and without… Even mountains become molehills, and molehills become downhill lol

LFC are improving. All is good with the world.
Gab YNWA
PS At least as a fan I don’t have to worry about having LFC’s successes expunged from the record books, or being thrown into the oblivion of non-league football.

PPS Kudos to you Klopp, you competed ably with a ‘roided club and manager. Sure they won way more often, but they’re already losers for depending on (financial) dope.

 

Red Cartel is A Thing actually
In response to Andy H,

Looking at it another way, if you removed City and Chelsea from the equation, then the ‘Red Cartel’ of Man Utd, Liverpool and Arsenal would have won the PL a combined 30+ times since inception.

The only other teams to get a look in would be Blackburn (courtesy of Jack Walker’s unfettered spending), Leicester (which isn’t quite the fairytale it seemed when you consider their championship FFP implications) and erm, Spurs.

Then, if you look at it from an owner perspective (rather than a fan perspective), their priority is Champs League qualification, purely for the money.

Sharing the odd title between themselves, to appease the fans is only of secondary importance.

Champions League also gives the added advantage in attracting prestige players, helping further solidify their place at the top table.

As has been seen, any team (Villa, Newcastle, Leicester etc) that starts threatening this hegemony, get asset stripped of their best players tout suite, or rules introduced (APT etc) to limit their potential.

Also when two teams actually get to interview the potential new PL CEO, and get a say in his appointment, and then every new rule change or rule omission (exemption of shareholder loans etc) benefits a certain set of teams, that appears to me to how exactly a cartel would operate.
Scott, N.Yorks

 

Forfeit those Man City games
I’m with David from this morning’s mailbox – I don’t see why teams aren’t simply forfeiting the games against City. City get a 3-0 win, if makes a farce of their season and makes a stand against what’s they’ve done. If all teams do the same there’s nothing lost in any way. Even if City won the appeal, the impact on them would be huge and we can just read the table ignoring City in top spot. It would add a new level to discussions over games in hand, too – ‘they’re currently a point above the relegation zone, but they still have a loss against City coming in a few weeks’.

City having won all their games so far means it’s possible to just start it now without any negative effects on anyone who has taken points off them, so let’s get going!
Henry ‘Forest Fan’ Wade

 

Just not that riled by Man City
I get that Man City broke the rules and should be punished bit honestly cannot get as riled up as other contributors seem to be about the situation. These “rules” are just made up by some men it suits and were put in place for selfish business reasons to protect the financial status of the Premier League clubs. They keep the very top teams at the top which suits them. The mid tier Premier teams are protected from being usurped from the lower tier. Of course, they would prefer to challenge at the top but better to protect their long-term standing if they cannot do that so they also voted for the rules.

If my company said to me, we can guarantee you a job for life with a 20% pay rise per year but you’ll never get a promotion but nobody else will ever be hired or promoted above you and they applied that to the while work force, I would probably vote for it.

And yes, it seems that Man City cheated and gave us some amazing football in the process. If they had not done this cheating them maybe Pep wouldn’t have come and they wouldn’t have challenged and Man Utd, Liverpool or Arsenal would have won those titles.

They too would have had a big financial advantage over the teams they beat but its ok coz “rules”.

I personally wish they hadn’t got found out so we could just enjoy the football. The titles were actually won on the pitch. Whether it was Man City with an “illegal” unfair financial advantage or Man Utd with a “legal” unfair financial advantage I don’t really care tbh.
Glenn G, West Midlands

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