Was watching Liverpool and Arsenal more fun in the ‘pants’ years?

Did Liverpool and Arsenal fans have more fun watching their team without this enormous pressure to win and win well?

We also have mails on Spurs, Aston Villa and VAR. Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com

Was football more fun when your team was flawed?

Here is a question for Arsenal fans, maybe Liverpool too. Was football more enjoyable when our teams were a bit pants?

I will say Liverpool had a wonderful period being rubbish (post Dalglish 1990/pre-Klopp)…won the Champions league, UEFA cup, FA cup a couple of times and a few league cups too. Arsenal maybe had fewer trophies (last bit of Wenger up to now-ish) but few FA Cups in a row I think and more consistent in the league than Liverpool for the most part.

But my point is, at some point under Klopp I watched games expecting to win and there’d be anxiety if we conceded and frustration at low blocks and the wind and other pesky variables that got in the way. Arsenal fans have surely felt it most of this season; the fear of failure can actually spoil the enjoyment of the journey is maybe the best way I can put it. This was possibly made worse for us because we were competing with peak Pep for 8 years so anything less than 94 points wasn’t good enough. Sometimes more than that still wasn’t good enough.

Under Rafa I used to go to Anfield and hope for a win but expect to have a laugh and a pint either way. If the game was entertaining that counted for a lot. This season has almost been a disappointment because our lot didn’t expect anything different to business as usual. Under Klopp we were typically there or thereabouts and Slot came in and won it last year so it seemed reasonable to expect us to be 1st or 2nd this season.

Have Arsenal fans really enjoyed the season or will it be something you look back at retrospectively as great because you’ll forget all the crap games, the stumbles and the simple truth that modern football isn’t as good as the way Wenger used to train teams to play? Maybe Arsenal fans will enjoy this season because of the outcome that you’ll win it but can you say you enjoyed last season or the one before? In both cases you were there ish but the football was not great quality. Outcome is excellent compared to the 4th place Wenger era but does this team make you dream or do they just make you anxious for another result?

Thinking about this as I write I guess maybe the difference is that when Klopp had Mane, Salah and Firmino we were one of the best attacking teams to watch. I used to watch Man City in those days too hoping for a stumble but also because they were a great team. I don’t watch Arsenal games ever now unless they’re playing us. I wouldn’t blame anyone for not watching us this season either.
Minty, LFC

Liverpool and Arsenal obliged to play well

Patricio Del Toro, either you’re not very bright, or being deliberately obtuse (judging from your comments input, it’s probably the former).

So, let me spell this out slooooowly for you.

– Your team are the reigning champions

– Your team spent a record £446 million in the summer

– Wolves are bottom of the league and have won/done fuck all of note since Noah scanned the horizon and muttered “looks like rain” to himself

So, and here’s the difficult bit, hence the caps:

YOU. ARE. OBLIGED. TO. WIN. AND. DO. IT. PLAYING. ALL. THE. FOOTBALL.

This applies to any other elite mega spending team playing teams at the bottom, not just This Means More FC.

See also: Arsenal, The, and the derision heaped upon them for needing their star striker OG to get past Wolves a while ago.
RHT/TS x

(Jarred Gillett is an absolutely w*** referee)

Arsenal fans have turned into hypocrites

Do you remember Arsène Wenger? Arsenal fans will tell you he designed, built and paid for the Emirates Stadium all by himself. He was the last Arsenal manager to win the league in 2004, before he left in 2018.

He once said this about Stoke: “You cannot say it is football anymore. It is more rugby on the goalkeepers than football.” Hmm.

I wonder if he watched Arsenal v Chelsea the other day.

Speaking about Bolton’s treatment of Cesc Fàbregas, he also said: “When we get kicked everywhere, it doesn’t shock everybody… You do not come to watch players who kick him, you come to watch players who play like him, who play football.” Hmm.

Both David Raya and Gabriel Martinelli seem to require a lot of attention from the physio when Arsenal are ahead. It must be nice to watch those players, particularly when Martinelli recently tried to drag a clearly injured Conor Bradley off the pitch after dropping the ball on his head.

And Wenger said this, about style more generally: “People come to watch players who play football.” Hmm.

In the recent Arsenal v Brighton game, which ran to almost 101 minutes, the total time it took Arsenal to restart play from corners, goal kicks, throw-ins and free kicks was 30 minutes and 51 seconds. That’s 1,851 seconds, or roughly a third of the match spent waiting for Arsenal to put the ball back in play. That is certainly a style of sorts.

Personally, I think this is a chapter of Premier League football where the overall skill level is not especially high. I don’t blame Arsenal for trying to win the league this way; playing in a sort of Atlético-Stoke hybrid. As the last three years have rather hilariously shown, they haven’t been able to win it any other way.

An interesting statistic is that in the 16 Klopp v Pep Premier League games, there were 46 non-penalty goals, and only three came from corners. They were entertaining matches.

What seems to grate with people, I think, is that Arsenal fans, along with the manager and sections of the press (at least until they realised they might be watching a version of the emperor’s new clothes) behave as though Arsenal are the stylistic successors to those Manchester City and Liverpool teams, and that Arteta should be discussed in the same managerial bracket as Klopp and Guardiola.

Now, I’m happy to admit that Arteta has done a good job. But “great” would mean more trophies, or achieving similar results while spending considerably less than the almost £1 billion that has gone into the squad rebuild.

That said, you cannot argue that currently, and I stress currently, they are top of the league and well placed to finally win something.

However, as a Liverpool fan (and it took some time to come to this conclusion), I would still rather see City win. Yes, the same City who have 115 charges hanging over them like the sword of Damocles.

So I would sign off with two short messages to Arsenal fans. 1) It has taken only eight years for the fanbase to become thoroughly hypocritical; and 2) Your self-righteousness makes Manchester City more likeable by proxy.
Ian Hewison

Hankering for a different time

Vitriol is now dressed up as ”banter” and if you do not find it amusing you are too sensitive or defensive. Which is why I enjoyed Tom’s e-mail in the mailbox. Some would say I simply agree being an Arsenal fan. However this is less about the standard of Arsenal’s football and more about what is considered constructive criticism.

This would seem to be mirrored in all walks of life. Even the so called TV professionals are guilty of this, it seems there is no depth limit in order to sell a podcast or tiktok reel. My best friends by coincidence are Spurs fans and also have very strong opposite political leanings to myself. Yet, we remain good friends, in fact I enjoy listening and learning to different opinions to mine, I find it challenging.

It is a great shame football and opinions are now so polarised. We are all biased when it comes to our own team but what was true ”banter” is now long gone. Humour is now how angry I can appear and drop the F-word. Having an open mind is no longer tolerated.

Living in the past.
Matt Coplestone

Arsenal just a very good football team

A good way to understand Arsenal this year might be:

In a stop-start season where Arsenal has missed its captain and starting striker for over half of it through injury, the team has become a greater sum of its parts. With 19 different scorers and 101 goals on the season so far, many games have given way to new heroes to step up. The defense has also been the best in Europe, suffocating most teams most nights and continued to chug along regardless of who’s playing.

I think all Arsenal fans if we’re being honest will say that we’re not the attacking side we saw in 23/24 or 22/23, but we’ve been proud of the ever-evolving team and their resilience to get through the season. We also feel like if Arteta can manage the squad well and we get some players back, there’s a great opportunity for something really special in the next two months due to all the hard work of the players.

These cheating calls are pretty unfounded, the time-in-play stats tell a different story than the narrative. I think most Arsenal fans will also agree we’ve had some luck with decisions that seemed to completely elude us last year with some horrible decisions. It’s always surprised me there was not nearly as much clamor against VAR for forgetting to check whether Ivan Toney was offside for a header in 23/24.

Ultimately, people are just going to complain and all fans can do is enjoy the good days because they don’t come often.
Emmy, Texas, USA (Yeehaw)

Football pundits need to be better

In business there is a concept known as the ‘Peter Principle’ which basically says that people are often promoted to a level of incompetence. Take football pundits for example. I may be biased but I think Paul Scholes was a generational talent, highly rated by top players of his time. As a player, you couldn’t get a word out of him but now you can’t shut him up, and sadly, much of what now comes out of his mouth is, to be polite, not very astute.

For example, his latest pearl of wisdom is that if Arsenal win the league, they shouldn’t hand out the trophy, so bad is their style of play. Now I realize that he is being somewhat tongue-in-cheek but honestly Paul! One of the beauty’s of football is that there is never just one way to win. Arsenal currently may more closely resemble a Rugby Union team but sooner or later other teams or rule changes will provide workarounds.

My primary problem with this latest batch of pundits is that most of them play it safe and trot out the same old cliches, like “no player would ever deliberately try to hurt another” or “he’s lost the dressing room”. That is why, love him or hate him, Roy Keane’s punditry reflects how he played, he took no prisoners.

How about some insight into actual playing that we spectators miss? For example “we all knew he never passed the ball” or ” the boss told us if you stick him a couple of times, he disappeared from games” or “X is skinning Y all day long so Y is standing too far off X creating space”. How then, as a team, do you handle such things? You know, insight!

I realize education was never a strong point for footballers so being able to articulate their insight may be beyond most of them but Neville and Carragher made a point of studying and learning and it’s paid off. How many of these other pundits have even read books on tactics? Please do better!
Adidasmufc
(A bit jaded about incompetents being chosen for positions of power and influence)

More on improving VAR

Hat tip to Chris Feather’s contribution to the last mailbox on improving VAR. I have some additional thoughts.

The genie is probably far too gone from the bottle by now, but my biggest gripes with VAR are:

Reviews take too long;

Refs shouldn’t become the center of attention and the VAR process makes them exactly that; and
Refs are abdicating their responsibilities to manage games and make big calls because they rely on third-parties outside of the stadium to “help” them reach decisions that end up annoying us anyway.

The referee, assistant refs, and the 4th official should be the sole sources of game management and rule enforcement for a game. VAR shouldn’t be an entirely different team of people in a bus somewhere miles away from the stadium, removed from the context of the game itself.

I’d suggest that either the main ref or the 4th official be equipped with a portable screen of some sort (we all have phones) that they can use to review incidents and decisions. That beats the unnecessary drama and time wasting that comes with watching a ref do weird arm gestures and jog over to the side of the pitch to review footage (after he’s already spent a minute or two listening to the van boys ramble at him through an ear piece, while we suffer the same via Gary Neville) and reach a conclusion that pisses everyone off anyway.

Refs can review major incidents (goal, cards et al) with footage sent to their device within a minute or less of the incident’s occurrence. One replay at normal speed and no more than two slow motion replays. Offsides can be handled by a combination of the assistant refs and semi-automated technology (again, footage can be sent to devices). Coaches get one review request per half. I’m sure this suggested approach has its flaws, but perfection isn’t the goal. Increased refereeing quality without unnecessary delays should be the goal.

Ultimately, I can live with an individual ref (and his team) reaching decisions I don’t agree with if they’ve had the chance to take a second look at footage. My annoyance pre-VAR was that TV viewers could often see clear errors that the refs did not have access to in real time – NOT that refs weren’t getting every call right. Refereeing is and should remain a relatively subjective process outside of the most obvious and undebatable calls, but VAR has just introduced more annoyances without necessarily making fans and viewers feel better now than we did before VAR.
Deen (Arsenal FC)

Spurs not relegated yet

So, I spent too much time on youtube today. I was on talksport, skysports, dedicated Spurs channels etc, not to mention F365.

If you were to live online 24-7, you’d think Tottenham were already down. You wouldn’t know that there are nine games left, including winnable matches vs Wolves, Forest, Leeds and Sunderland. You’d think we were in Wolves position, not ours. You’d think next Sunday was May 24th, not March 15th.

A constant diet of “Tottenham Relegation CONFIRMED!” videos on the 8th of March and fans (not to mention off-duty players) start drinking in this doom loop feedback . You tell someone they are sick enough times, they start to believe it.

Yes, we’ve had an awful year and are grossly underperforming. But until we can’t get enough points to finish in 17th place, we are not relegated however many youtubers and bloggers try to write us into the Championship.
Sam

Stop picking on Aston Villa

I noted at least two sly digs at Villa from F365 last week.

First the Editor chastises apparent Villa fan Matt Law for his article citing data and finances as factors ruining the game, The Ed somehow finding it appropriate to invoke Coutinho’s wages as a reason why Villa fans have no right to complain. Whilst we all know with hindsight that was a massive mistake, that deal happened four years ago under the previous regime. It contributed to both the CEO and Manager no longer being at the club shortly afterwards. Is it really still relevant?

Dragging it up in this context also completely misses the very point of Matt Law’s complaint – that PSR/SCR should not be placing such restrictions on ambitious clubs with very wealthy owners willing to invest. In short, it shouldn’t have mattered a jot what Villa paid Coutinho if the owners could afford it. They should have been free to pay Coutinho whatever they felt was appropriate without fear of recrimination, punishment or chastisement. Just like the Sky 6 were allowed to spend whatever it took or whatever they could afford to build their brands, international fanbases and revenue streams, either over decades (the red cartel) or more artificially and quickly via sugar daddies (Chelsea and City).

Revenue streams which now consolidate and protect their positions at the top of the tree because every other club is now blocked off from doing likewise. Villa fans, Matt Law included if he is one, have every right to complain about that situation regardless of what Coutinho was paid. As do fans of Newcastle, Leeds, Forest and any other club with ambitious owners with deep pockets.

After that (and perhaps this was a little tongue in cheek, perhaps not) Will Ford seems to find it amusing to muse that Emery might leave for “a better run football club” in the summer if Villa miss out on Champions League. Those close to the club will probably agree that the worst thing about how Villa have been run recently is the transfer business we’ve done since Emery took over. Since Emery has been given full control over all football matters at the club, that’s down to no-one other than Emery himself. Or at least down to members of his coaching and recruitment team, who were his choices.

Emery and his team have worked wonders with the playing squads they have had in terms of coaching but they have barely improved the starting 11 in nearly 4 years (Rogers and Tielemans is it really, maybe Torres), and we are only a left back away from being able to start an 11 that played under Dean Smith. The Harvey Elliot situation was the poison icing on a very stale cake. Emery’s erstwhile sidekick Monchi, apparently lost his job over it, but he was working for Emery. So if Emery leaves for a “better run club” he’ll likely be taking those issues with him and said destination club will most likely soon no longer be “better run”, at least in that respect.

I also wonder which “better run club” Mr Ford has in mind? Brentford, Bournemouth or Brighton, who have built their relative successes on ultra-canny recruitment on an even lower budget? Given their well established and successful recruitment departments and methods, he would be highly unlikely to get the control he has at Villa, and if he did, his poor record in the transfer market would probably see them disappear without a trace. I doubt it’s Spurs, who are a basket case and could be in the Championship next season.

Or Forest, much like Spurs but with added maverick (and that’s being polite) owner. West Ham maybe? Would anyone perceive them as being well run? Nah. Fulham maybe with their perma-mid-tableness? Can’t see that either. Emery’s been mentioned in connection with Real Madrid – there’s zero chance any of the so-called elite clubs will give him the degree of control he currently has and he’s already shown at PSG and Arsenal he struggled with elite players and elite expectations. I can’t think of many/any clubs where Emery would be given as much control of football matters and also not be restricted by the same financial strangleholds that are affecting him at Villa.

Transfers aside, I’d contend that Villa are about as well run as they can be for a club suffering under the yoke of such restrictions. So maybe save your snide digs for someone like City, who despite having free reign to spend like loons for years, still managed to rack up 115 charges of breaking the financial rules. And who still haven’t been punished more than a decade later.
Kevin, Villa