No hiding place for Arteta after this Arsenal exodus

Editor F365
Aubameyang and Guendouzi happy at Arsenal

Arsenal are leaking players with no sign of anybody coming in. Have they absolutely screwed this window? E-mail us at theeditor@football365.com

 

Oh Arsenal…
Has Arsenal won the January transfer race for the wrong reasons by sending out every available fringe player on loan or terminating the contracts? Just when other teams are busy reinforcing their teams, Edu and Arteta are busy stripping the team to bare bones. Only a few days ago Arsenal could not raise a team to play Spurs! The transfer window is closing shortly and Arsenal is yet to make any quality signings. Why give supporters false hopes while targeted players want nothing to do with Arsenal?

Steven Gerrard seems to know how to manage transfers better. He goes about his business with minimum fuss while our two heroes have been made to look very sheepish. Arsenal must now deliver with the razor-thin squad left as there is no hiding place for Edu and Arteta.
Carey (disappointed Gooner) Yiembe

 

…I have spent the last four days checking Fabrizo Romano’s twitter handle at least every four hours for Arsenal news on the transfer front. Nothing, nada… We needed a striker and an upgrade on Xhaka. Seems like we will get a returning Pepe and Jack Wilshere..

Unless you are going to tell me, this Arsenal players he inherited are the most indisciplined bunch of players in the world ever, then something is wrong. Three players kicked out in two years for none footballing reasons? That must be a record in professional football. If you are a professional footballer, will you go there?

A Concerned Gunner
Kufre, Nigeria

 

On Tottenham’s Old Lady signings
Last Tuesday, F365 wrote “Spurs clearly need *some* kind of transfer movement this week.” In a piece about Adama Traore. Who subsequently joined Barcelona.

No matter, as Fabio Paratici went back to Juventus, concluding deals for midfielder Rodrigo Bentancur, and wide forward/winger Dejan Kulusevski.

As a hybrid Juventus/Tottenham fan (please don’t judge me) I see Juve getting the better of this arrangement.

Aston Villa target Rodrigo Bentancur looks over at his team-mates

Bentancur has regressed horribly in the last couple of seasons, as Forbes reported last November: ‘Bentancur has failed to show any tangible progress, and his passing has become increasingly unadventurous after a string of high profile mistakes.’

Kulusevski meanwhile has struggled to kick on since arriving, with different managers and tactical systems blunting his undoubted attacking talent.

If both players rediscover their mojo in North London (a BIG if), Spurs will see their €60m outlay well spent.

Personally, I think both will struggle, and can’t see them making enough of a contribution to securing Champions League football.

Juventus will be delighted either way as these deals almost entirely offset their €75m signing of Dusan Vlahovic.
Dario (hoping I’m wrong as both players can be great on their best days)

 

Giddy about Diaz
I’m irrationally excited about Diaz even though I knew little about him two weeks ago.

Have a weird feeling he’s got the humble genius personality that will fit in rather well.
Aidan, Lfc (was also irrationally excited about almost getting Werner so clearly a humble idiot)

 

Love for Wayne
I’ll hold my hands up and admit when Derby made Wayne Rooney manager I was extremely sceptical but he has proven himself to be a very promising manager with huge potential for the future.

Given the ridiculously difficult circumstances inherited, not even considering the 21 point deduction, he has performed miracles at a club, Derby, which we can only describe currently as a basket case.

To see his players fighting until the end for him today was a real sign of the respect they must have for him. I don’t think anyone would’ve begrudged him taking the Everton job or just walking away completely but he has shown he’s up for the fight. The gap is now just 7 points to safety, granted one team above have a game in hand to make it 8, but with 18 games to go survival may just be in sight for them.

No matter what happens over the course of said 18 games I think Rooney deserves a hell of a lot of plaudits for both the job he’s done and the way he’s carried himself in extremely trying circumstances.

I have no affiliation to Derby or Rooney but he has really impressed me. I genuinely hope he can keep them up and get the rewards for his efforts. If he manages to do so I can’t think of a more impressive managerial performance in circumstances so difficult or a bigger point deduction being overturned.

I would love to hear other mailboxers suggestions if they can think of any other similar performances.
Edward Canhands (Haven’t written in in a while – Wishing all success and happiness in 2022)

 

VAR from over
Sorry about this fellow mailboxes but I can’t allow Andy’s nonsense to remain unchallenged.

You see Andy, even the most cursory of questioning points towards you being a one-eyed, tribal conspiracy theorist. But we’ll get to that shortly.

Your snide paragraph detailing a hypothetical incident in front of the Kop (no consideration for the 19 games played away from home?), hostile press/Twitter (who would weirdly be unaware that the VAR is a named regular referee and not some anonymous robot in a room) and manager who will endanger the safety of the referee if he disagrees with a decision(I mean come on, that’s the most insidious part)is just that. Snide, grasping nonsense to help you to explain your confirmation bias.

But anyway, back to the questioning. If, as your entire email is built up to conclude, the referees apply unconscious bias (with another little snide aside implying that some of them apply conscious bias) and the VAR is able to dispassionately overcome this, why was it that in the recent match at Selhurst Park that’s prompted this latest round of bed wetting, Kevin Friend the on field referee initially waved away the penalty appeal only for VAR to intervene?
James Outram, Wirral

 

Football and a domestic abuse problem
Football has a problem. In fact, football has many problems. Football has a racism problem. Football has a sexism problem. Football has a homophobia problem. Football has a domestic abuse problem.

Now, football doesn’t exist in a vacuum and so most of football’s problems are simply reflections of society’s problems. That being said, football occupies such an important cultural position on these islands that these problems in a footballing context need to be addressed.

In England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland domestic abuse crimes are in a trend of increasing year-on-year. Northern Ireland had a drop in cases last year, but it followed a frankly unbelievable 15 years of year-on-year increases.

Studies have shown that when England play a match, cases of domestic abuse increase by 26%. If they lose it goes up by 38%. Derby matches see an average increase of 21% of domestic abuse cases. In 2015 a Merseyside derby saw a 61% increase in domestic abuse cases.

Domestic abuse, like sexual assault cases, is very hard to prosecute. Often times it boils down to one person’s word against another’s. It usually takes place in the home with nobody watching and fear of, or gaslighting by, the perpetrator often results in accusations which have been made, being retracted.

Domestic abuse, like sexual abuse, racism, and homophobia, rarely comes about from nothing. We are all influenced by our surroundings and by those we surround ourselves with. Excusing unacceptable behaviours because “boys will be boys” or “look what she was wearing” has an impact on those around you. It teaches boys that they aren’t responsible for their own actions and it teaches girls that it was her decisions/actions that resulted in her being harassed or worse. This sort of language evolves and turns into the othering of certain groups of people, i.e. “what do you expect from *them*?”, or victim blaming, i.e. “why didn’t she do what she was told?”, or straight up harassment, usually under the guise of a joke or compliment, i.e. “lighten up, it’s just a joke” or “it’s a compliment, don’t get worked up over it”.

The same pattern is repeated whether the group being othered is based on sex, race, or sexual orientation. Any group which deviates from the perceived norm, i.e. straight, white males, is at risk of it.

It is up to men to call out their friends when they start down this path. We are social creatures and the risk of being isolated is often a strong deterrent. If you hold your friends to account, or even tell that gobshite in front of you at the match to shut up, you’re not allowing the initial seed to be planted.

Now, in before the comments down below, in much the same way as not everyone who kicked a football as a child will become a professional footballer, not everyone who heard or made such comments, or held those beliefs, will become an abuser, racist, homophobe. However, I can guarantee you every abuser, racist, homophobe has heard and made these comments at some stage.

There’s often talk in football about bravery, but I think the bravest thing I’ve seen in football in years, if not ever, is a young woman going public with domestic abuse allegations against a player for one of the biggest sports clubs in the world. Coming forward about any domestic abuse is an act of immense bravery, but doing it in the knowledge that it will put her in the focus of the media and football fans worldwide is on another level. We all know that football fans can be toxic at the best of times, she has shown real courage.

I believe her.
Jerry

 

…I’m sure that those in charge here will be very careful about allowing posts about the big story that broke yesterday.

I’m not going to comment on specifics (because, let’s face it, despite what turned up on social media yesterday, a process has to play out now, and indeed is playing out) but I did want to say that the big picture here isn’t that a young talented footballer may have just blown his career, or that a football team will be weaker because they have lost said footballer.

The big picture here is that misogyny is still rife, and if you want proof, take a quick look at the cesspit that is Twitter and see young men (particularly, it seemed) making jokes about a woman allegedly getting beaten up and raped. Treating the whole topic like it is something to make light of and have a laugh about. And the amount of men who I saw jumping to his defence in a cliched “innocent until proven guilty” manner. Yes, this has to be investigated, but who do you really think is actually the victim here?

This isn’t a football problem as such, but the ridiculous spotlight that we put on footballing matters means that we can see misogyny through this lens, and here we are in 2022, in a supposedly civilised and progressive part of the world, and the simple fact is that nearly all women will have to suffer (at best) harassment from dickhead men when they are just trying to go about their lives.

And I know that some people reading this will be sighing and thinking look at this fella here, moralising and playing to the crowd, but it isn’t about that. It’s about us men accepting that there is a problem here and not looking the other way, or even joining in, when somebody’s daughter, sister, wife, mother is treated like a lesser being because she is a she.

If what was alleged yesterday turns out to be true, then if you’re not appalled and outraged, then you’re a part of the problem.
Mat (enough is enough)