‘Let’s drop the hysterics’ as Man City owners are just copying Arsenal
There’s more David Coote but we start with the veracity of the Man City charges and also talk Newcastle and Arsenal.
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Man City are just ‘doing an Arsenal’
How long is it going to take before the contributors to the MCFC chargesheet actually consider the facts?
The recent Tribunal appointed to judge City’s use of APT sources of investment have been judged to be similar to shareholder loans at rates of interest below market value. Such clubs as Arsenal and Manchester United have benefited from such dealings on a significant scale. But due to the incompetence of the EPL rulemakers the latter form of owner investment has not been indicted.
This clearly eviscerates the case brought by the EPL against City which has thus shown not to be evenhanded. To his credit this has been understood by Arsene Wenger and his recommendation of a return to the drawing board is obviously sensible.
Football in England is a game in which ‘Tradition’ is respected. It would be very welcome if it were acknowledged that what City are attempting to do is exactly what the owner of Arsenal did in the 1920’s. That is he drew on his own ample resources to finance the ‘Bank of England’ team that dominated the 1930’s and establish themselves as a top club.
Let’s drop the hysterics and get real. City are essentially doing no more than what the owners of Arsenal and other clubs have done in past years.
Blueintoothandclaw
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On Newcastle and Arsenal
Johnny Nic was surely trolling — or perhaps just trying to be the first to predict Mikel Arteta’s sacking — because I’ve neither seen nor can imagine of an Arsenal supporter calling, Arteta Out right now.
For goodness’ sake, I detest Arteta, but I wouldn’t have called for Steve F*cking Bruce’s sacking after a bad seven-match run. At any rate, not after his first such run. For goodness’ sake, man, people aren’t entirely Pavlovian.
The fact that Stewie, though I enjoy his occasional, possibly fake, presence in the Mailbox, agrees is just sauce for the goose. Yes, Arteta will almost certainly eventually get the sack, though it’s possible he could be lured away by certain large, ostensibly rich Spanish or English clubs. I will laugh and laugh if he ever manages Man City. And you have to think it’s possible, even sort of likely. Especially if you think he’s Pep Lite (but still gaining weight, as it were). But he’s going nowhere in the next six months.
I live in the USA, where press outlets normalizing certain behaviors might be what resulted in our disastrous recent election. So while English football supporters’ anger at a press that seems willing to create the drama it’s supposed to be reporting on may seem almost quaint to me, that doesn’t mean it isn’t real.
For the record, I enjoyed Johnny Nic’s article even as I dismissed it. He deserves credit for that, if nothing else. Still, it’s been fun watching the reactions of the Mailbox’s many Gunners. I could hardly blame them for their irritation, though I might observe that some skins seem thinner than others, and that VAR still seems to be the target of a certain amount of paranoia amongst Arsenal supporters.
And if I were feeling a little malignant, I might point out that during the first half of NUFC’s match at Forest on Sunday, Anthony Taylor failed to even give a foul for a Ryan Yates elbow to Tino Livramento’s face that VAR evidently cleared, although it drew a lot of blood, required lengthy treatment, and looked like it might have been intentional.
Certainly, a player who puts himself in a position likely to cause such harm is committing a foul? I thought in the moment that it was one of those orange-card offenses. That failure by Taylor led to Dan Burns getting a yellow card for stopping play with a foul of his own, and the resultant ban. (I note in passing that United committed only six fouls in a dangerous away match that saw them conceding first. That’s remarkable.)
Later, in the 65th, before Taylor finally did book him for a heavy foul, Yates, evidently by now convinced that he was beyond punishment, kicked the ball downfield to slow the free kick. As any Arsenal fan will tell you with varying degrees of irony, the rules require the referee to book a player who does so. Yates should have been sent off for the foul-and-kick, and maybe for the elbow, too.
You’ll imagine that since my side won, I have no inclination to complain, or even no cause to do so. But I tell you that even in those moments — when we were losing, mind — or at any of his many other failures (some were indeed in our favor), I never screamed at Taylor through the television. I didn’t entertain dark imaginings about his biases, or his betting activity, or the shadowy cabals to which he might be in thrall. Taylor had a ‘mare, and I hope he’d admit it. But I don’t think he tried to sink us intentionally. I imagine he has too much to lose, and lose very publicly.
Heck, if he made calls against us because human rights and not because he’s Sunlun til’ he dies, I wouldn’t even blame him. Maybe it’s because my club’s owners have done stuff that is indefensible, and I accept such antipathy as justified. Or that I respect that PIF’s riches could be unbalancing to the league’s competitiveness, such as it is. Or maybe it’s just that if sport in general and Newcastle United in particular have taught me anything, it’s that success is often out of reach, failure is always at hand, and bad decisions will always happen. It will probably feel like they hurt you more often, but that probably isn’t the case.
Arsenal supporters might or might not be expected to have learned those lessons in the last couple of decades, but given the near misses of the last two seasons, perhaps it simply feels more frustrating to them than I can know, when success feels very much in reach but might be slipping away again.
At any rate, I’m convinced that there is no shadowy anti-Arsenal (or indeed, anti-NUFC*) cabal, and I don’t think Gunners should think there is, either. And even if there were, I rather doubt Johnny’s a part of it. Some of them, like Johnny Nic himself, should probably try to relax. Maybe watch an old season highlights video. I’ll bet The Invincibles is a pretty good watch. And it’ll stop you driving yourself mental.
Chris C, Toon Army DC (*Unless you count the EPL itself as a shadowy cabal. Because they clearly are agin us, as Americans don’t really say. But like I said, it’s sort of hard to blame them for being agin us.)
Who do you traitorously love?
With the hated international break upon us, I feel like it’s the perfect time to confess my opinion and ask others for the same;
I am a Manchester United fan, at times season ticket holder, have too many shirts to count since the early 90’s, have had the privilege to watch Cantona, Giggs, Scholes, R9, R7, Kaka, Henry, Torres, Rooney even Messi etc at OT and away and I have never ever seen a player greater than Dennis Bergkamp.
I to this day do not believe any player will ever score a goal better than what he did against Newcastle except the one he did against Argentina which is in my opinion the greatest goal ever scored. The fact you know exactly which goals is kind of the point.
I have seen some truly special goals in person and live at the time and I just don’t see anyone ever coming close to him.
I would love to hear other fans who can accept that for all the bias, hate and emotion, someone who never played for them was the very best.
Dave, Scotland for now
Best football swears ever
I enjoyed your list of sweary footballers in light of David Coote’s half-hearted efforts showing off round someone’s gaff after closing time (he defo got a call from his mates the next morning enquiring “where did you end up last night?”, but I feel that the greatest example of a sweary footballer was sadly omitted.
As someone who greatly appreciates a good sweary rant and a creative combination of swear words chained together, John Aldridge, Rep. Ireland versus Mexico at the 94 World Cup represents, for me, the gold standard.
He keeps things classic with standard sweary vocabulary, clearly enunciated for the nearby camera and microphone, yet the delivery is exceptional. We start with the classic “f@ck off you!”. John then adds a cheeky ” you Tw@T” into the mix, before finishing his three-punch combo with “You d1ck head.” He’s still ranting at the official who wouldn’t let him on the pitch as he runs on, while Jack Charlton takes over abusing the guy in the yellow cap.
Then to top it all off, Aldo scores a lovely header about a minute later.
Beautiful.
Ste Red In China
What are PGMOL waiting for?
What are they waiting for? The veracity of the video has been confirmed and the subject of the video has himself said as much.
By no means is this an unhinged rant to say we should be burning David Coote in effigy but I simply can’t see how this guy should ever manage a top-flight fixture again.
The integrity of the PGMOL has been so widely questioned, its constituents ridiculed for so long now, it would be unconscionable for Coote to get a slap on the wrist, lay low and wait for the heat to pass, then to pick back up and just carry on. This imbecile’s incendiary video is a gift-wrapped opportunity for the PGMOL to act quickly and decisively for once, to claw back some tiny bit of credibility as an organization to begin to be taken even remotely seriously. But I’m almost positive it won’t happen.
Instead, there will be a statement. Then Webb and Owen will do some talk show and podcast rounds and speak in grave tones about how we will never have robots for referees and how the human element will always be in play, and David Coote was just the unfortunate match official who exhibited his humanity for posterity. At some point Clattenburg probably chimes in too. Mike Dean will pop out of a cake and confetti will drop and the show will go on. It’s become farce to even call it a farce.
Eric, Los Angeles CA (Unrelated, but since Dr Tottenham has recently revived crisis clubs like Palace and Ipswich, might the newest patient in need of reviving kindly expect a house call at the Etihad in two weeks’ time ?)
…There will be a lot said about conspiracies and bias but Coote’s comments really boil down to stupidity. Coupled with an incredible lack of self awareness – that could be arrogance – that resulted in hypocritical and visceral anger against Klopp.
Sure, Klopp can be over the top, ‘bigger than life’ and could rile opposing fans with his frenetic touch line behaviour – but he was much more introspective outside the heat of the games. And he was the creative force behind an incredible team.
Coote? While officiating games is important, you aren’t adding value – value to fans, the league, the broadcasters. They can detract with bad decisions. But like other refs before him, they think they are ‘bigger than life characters’ too. But they’re not. They rarely have something interesting to say, generally boring, and often show how inarticulate and unwordly they are.
PGMOL acts like a secret cabal. A bit like the Wizard of Oz, once the curtain is pulled back we realize its all just a facade. Premier League referees should be miked up like those in Rugby Union. But I am sure PGMOL opposes it because they realize how inarticulate their members are: just listening to the released ref/VAR audio from the Spurs/Liverpool game is enough to understand this.
But ref audio has several advantages: it will ultimate force players to tone down their language and behaviour, it provide fans at games a greater understanding of what is happening in the field and, hopefully, force refs to make better decisions.
But will we get this? I doubt it. PGMOL seems to think protecting its own is more important than doing what is right. Eventually this comes to a head as Justin Welby is demonstrating so ably with the Anglican Church.
Paul McDevitt
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…I think Liverpool fans are getting a little ahead of themselves saying that David Coote’s refereeing against Liverpool shows evidence of anti-Liverpool bias. While there are one or two egregious errors that we can point to (the failure to sanction Pickford for the tackle on VVD, and the failure to spot the foul and DOGSO against Mohamed Salah against Aston Villa in the game on Saturday.) they hardly amount to a body that shows clear and significant bias.
HOWEVER, there are some much more serious questions that need to be answered, either by David Coote himself or by PGMOL.
1) When did the PGMOL become aware of this recording? Circumstantial evidence (not least Coote not working on any Liverpool games for the following couple of years) would indicate that they thought there might be an issue with Coote refereeing Liverpool games, at least while Klopp was manager. Was this because they were aware that there was a recording out there of Coote expressing anti-Klopp animus?
2) Did Coote himself ask not to referee Liverpool games in future? Did he bring the existence of this recording to the attention of PGMOL himself? And at the time? If he did, then this mitigates the third question, which is:
3) Why has this recording come out now? Is there any record of communication between Coote and the person who has made this recording? This is clearly career-ending, and it’s not a big leap to say that the existence of this recording has left Coote open to blackmail and manipulation. It’s not so much that he’s called Jurgen Klopp a “cunt,” it’s that he allowed some shady characters to video him doing it.
4) Is there anything untoward in betting patterns on games Coote has refereed? For example, a flurry of bets on a particular number of yellow cards? Or a particular player getting a yellow card? We genuinely need to look at every game he’s refereed since October 2020, for any sign of irregularity. This is a massive job, and will take PGMOL a long time and a lot of resources.
In some ways, I’m sympathetic to Coote. He’s destroyed his career and life by making a series of unwise decisions, and trusting some bad actors. And it’s bad that a professional referee has called a manager a “c***” using racially-charged language. But it’s A LOT WORSE that a man vulnerable to blackmail has been refereeing professional sporting events in England and Europe since October 2020, and this is a massive problem for PGMOL, for the Premier League, and for anyone who cares about the integrity of the sport.
Dara O’Reilly, London
Use of ‘German’ is the problem
Unfortunately for Alex from the earlier mailbox, his mail did not clear up any ambiguity as it completely missed the mark. David Coote thinking that Klopp is a c*** isn’t news in the slightest; in fact I’d be surprised if there was a single PL referee who thought of either Klopp, Arteta or Guardiola in positive terms.
The issue is indeed his use of ‘German’. Alex is correct in that Klopp is German and that is a fact. Klopp being a c*** is not a fact; Coote’s opinion of him being one is. To precede the use of the slur with his nationality however does indeed infer that him being German has something to do with him being a c***. It harkens back to the situation between Anton Ferdinand and John Terry, where it was the use of ‘black’ that was the issue as it inferred again that Ferdinand being black was the reason for Terry’s slur, or at the very least, a stick to beat him with.
In everyday life, you may think of someone being an idiot, a d***, or a c***. If you however think they’re a German/Black/White/Straight/Gay/Female/Male idiot, d*** or c***, then doesn’t that quite clearly mean you’re associating their identity with your opinion of them?
I can only imagine Alex is either trolling or is completely unaware, but I’d like to clear this up – Coote should absolutely not be allowed to ref a single game again for use of a xenophobic slur. Whether he thinks Klopp is a c*** cannot really provide us with clarity of his perceived professionalism in a game, so we cannot say for certain that he has reffed games with bias (though we did benefit from Odegaard briefly turning into Magic Johnson). That the PGMOL were aware of this video and continued to let him ref is also a disgrace.
Hope this clear it up.
Ronson, AFC
While we’re talking about refs…
I’m kind of shocked to see the PGMOL have released the Oliver VAR penalty footage from the somewhat already forgotten ETH final match. Because if you watch and listen to it, there is only one conclusion: Oliver bullies the on field ref into giving a game deciding penalty.
The question I have is simple: why? Why is it that Oliver so clearly goes desperately looking for that, so much so that if you watch you clearly see when he realised certain angles don’t support his case, and so he stops showing them, instead repeating one view as if it’s conclusive.
Why does he spend multiple minutes convincing the ref, who states multiple times that it’s just knee to knee as he saw it?
Either, unlike literally every pro, pundit, fan, and his boss Oliver believes that coming together to be an egregious missed error – meaning he doesn’t understand the game, the rules or his job; or he has another motivation.
I want him held to account. That’s all. Because from watching that clip, he is looking to influence the result of a match, and that should not be permitted, and certainly not without knowing why.
Ryan, Bermuda