‘Capitulation? P*ss off’ – Arsenal fans unhappy

‘Capitulation? P*ss off’ – Arsenal fans unhappy

If you have anything to say on any subject, mail us at theeditor@football365.com

Storey: Irretrievably joyles tw*t
Mr. Storey, you’ve watched last night’s second half which was played end to end, fought every step of the way by two good sets of players in front of a pulsating crowd under the lights. You’ve seen near-misses, goal-line clearances and bodies on the line. You’ve witnessed Skelenburg take a ball off Cech’s forehead as he’s about to score, only to set up a goalmouth scramble at the other end. You’ve seen Koscielny take a ball dropping from the sky, running full tilt towards his one goal, and in one touch pirouette, beat his man, and set up a last gasp injury time attack. You’ve seen utter joy, and utter dejection. You’ve seen Ashley Williams, hero of the day and professional fit person barely able to walk off the pitch, owing to the effort he’s expended.

If, then, you fail to report on the sheer human drama of it all and the Evertonian redemption, in favour of quoting a handful of isolated stats to prove a clichéd, lazy and pre-determined narrative, Mr. Storey, then I’m afraid that you are completely missing the point and you are unfortunately, an irretrievably joyless tw*t.

I’m a Gooner and one-eyed as you like, but f**k it, I was entertained. What is it with the constant need to draw conclusions on clubs, squads and individual after every sodding game?

For what it’s worth, I still think Arsenal have as good a chance as any of competing for the title and I still our best midfield partnership is Santi + 1. Capitulation? P*ss off.
Niallo, Gooner, Uibh Fháilí

Stop with the Arsenal narrative
I’m fed up with the boring narrative surrounding Arsenal. If they lose a game they’re expected to win against a smaller side, it’s ‘typical Arsenal’. If they lose a game against one of the big boys, it’s ‘typical Arsenal’.

In recent times, Arsenal have been beaten in various games in which they have been abject. Last night was not among them. While far from their best, Arsenal’s performance was reasonable, and but for some poor finishing – and Clattenburg (and the media’s!) decision to overlook what looked a stonewall stoppage time penalty – Arsenal would have taken at least a point in one of their hardest away games of the season.

The fact that the likes of Daniel Storey react with such glee to every Arsenal defeat as it gives them the opportunity to pedal this incongruous ‘Arsenal lose – they never learn’ narrative is really grating.

Arsenal are second in the League and have been pretty resilient so far this season. Perhaps Mr. Storey et al would be better served waiting to see how things pan out rather than going into their archive from three years ago and copying and pasting an article from their ‘Generic Arsenal loss article’ folder.
Clock End John (fully expect us to lose at City on the weekend, but wonder how it would fit into DS’ Arsenal narrative if we somehow contrive to win!)

(Are you suggesting that we don’t write anything until the end of the season? We don’t think that’s a sustainable business model – Ed)
The Football365 Step Championship
Amid the overreaction (or not) to Arsenal’s loss last night one key thing has been overlooked. We now have enough data to start to reverse engineer Football365’s step based judging criteria.

Since the similarly titled piece on 24 November (One step forward, two steps back for Arsenal)

Arsenal’s record in league competitions reads Played Five, Won Four and Lost One. Based on the assumption that the steps referred to in last night’s piece have only taken place since the article in November this means that each win earns a team 1/2 a step, while each loss results in two steps back. As a result, I am very pleased to present the ‘Football365 sponsored Step Championship’ table.

The numbers for for wins, draws, defeats and subsequent steps forward/backwards:
Chelsea 12 1 2 2
Arsenal 10 4 2 1
Liverpool 9 4 2 0.5
Manchester City 7 6 2 -0.5
Tottenham Hotspur 9 3 3 -1.5
Manchester United 6 6 3 -3
Everton 6 5 5 -7
Bournemouth 5 5 5 -7.5
Watford 5 5 5 -7.5
WBA 6 3 6 -9
Southampton 5 4 6 -9.5
Stoke City 3 6 6 -10.5
Burnley 6 3 7 -11
Leicester City 5 2 8 -13.5
Crystal Palace 4 4 8 -14
Middlesbrough 4 3 8 -14
West Ham 3 4 8 -14.5
Swansea City 3 3 9 -16.5
Hull City 3 3 9 -16.5
Sunderland 3 2 10 -18.5

The league takes a similar shape to the actual table but make pretty poor reading for Sunderland fans whose team are almost 20 steps back from their season starting point. Chelsea fans might also feel slightly hard done by that despite their cumulative 76-point swing they have had over their rivals they are only two steps ahead of their starting position. Interestingly, Arsenal are one step ahead of their starting point (which feels about right). Of course, there are still some gaps in the data (e.g. how many steps does a draw get you) but with the frequency that Football365 churn out step based article,s I am sure we will be able to fill that gap pretty soon.
Mike, London (I had a lot of time at work this morning).

Well done Mailbox
Further to Mr. Storey’s piece last night on Arsenal’s result last night I was not looking forward to the mailbox this morning. To my surprise the mailbox was full of defence for this Arsenal team and for Wenger and rational fan-based opinion. Last night was a missed opportunity to go back top and stop a wider chasm being formed in the title race, Everton deserved the result regardless of the decisions as it was a game played at a great tempo and great passion was shown by players on both sides. It could have gone either way that one.

I was a bit dismayed by Koeman’s comments stating that if you get aggressive with Arsenal they will collapse. This team has clearly showed by only losing once away in eight months and were unbeaten since the opening fixture that this is not the case as teams have tried differing approaches during that time but Arsenal have not wilted. On a purely analytical basis I thought that our passing from the centre of midfield (Xhaka and Coq) was poor last night but our physicality and fight was not an issue (maybe stats will show that to be incorrect). We had Gabriel covering for Mustafi who will be a loss for the time being but he is as good a cover as any teams and Bellerin was just playing his first 90 mins after layoff from injury and will take a game or two to get up to pace properly. (His pass through to Ozil in 2nd half in particular would usually be better but we’ll put it down to rustiness).

All in all this defeat is a defeat and nothing more, Man City at the weekend will tell us a lot more about the title credentials and will also offer some semblance off how we will handle Bayern. Lose and we can start to say we need to turn the results around as two losses on the trot will do us no favours but draw or win and I think Arsene would take that. It’s still not the half way point in the season. Arsenal have shown great consistency considering the amount of commitments in terms of games we have and I hope that the media (F365 included) will not resort to the reactionary end is now articles every time we lose.

You are generally brilliant but I’ll not say by writing that article that DS has gone two steps forward and two back, I’ll just put it down to an off night ☺ Still optimistic for the season ahead, it’s turning into a cracker.
Christymoro (Please media watch review Bein sports pre-match Andy Cole ‘punditry’ it’s a goldmine)

Actually though…
Firstly, Arsenal being mentally weak has always been an issue. Secondly, you asked the question of whether Arsene’s past failures reached a stage where one loss is no longer acceptable. You see, it’s not about the one loss, but rather, how the loss happened. Arsenal have been winning games with OK performances but I will say they have picked it up over the last few games.

The way they played last night was not good at all. It would have been okay if it was a loss while playing well. However, it was not. It was a loss where Coleman, the short right-back, found himself open in the box to make it 1-1. It was a game against a struggling Everton side. It was a game where Mesut ‘I should have been in the ballon d’or top three’ disappeared and is somewhat at fault on the Ashley Williams goal.

The point is that as soon as Arsenal build a head of steam, they pull a ‘typical Srsenal’ and stuff it up. It’s been like this for years. Arsenal are most definitely still in the title race, but I don’t think that this should be sugar-coated as “it’s just one loss”. It’s a trend that has plagued Arsenal for years.
Yaseen Moollatjie (Love me some footy in December!)

Where’s Arsenal’s leader?
In reply to Don Dada’s query in the last Mails, I think every club needs an authority that demands respect from his teammates and guides them on the pitch. That’s what I love when I watch Manchester United, seeing Herrera push Mkhitaryan to press vs Tottenham (and Mkhitaryan eventually benefitting and being assisted by Herrera) or seeing Rojo organise the defence when he is our 4th choice CB. Or Ibrahimovic’s gravitas in attack just egging on the wingers to run in behind so that they can get on one of his flick-ons. And when our club captain Rooney comes on and covers every blade of grass harrying and pressing when out of possession, it really sets an example for the Pogbas and Martials and Rashfords that need that little extra motivation, that just need to see their senior superstars work extremely hard and set an example for them.

Even Liverpool with their pressing waves are lead from the front by Firmino and led on the pitch by Jordan Henderson.

Manchester City and Arsenal though, have the flair players but no confident and loud senior player to do the dirty work and set an example that way. You could argue Fernandinho for City, but he seems like a quiet guy who goes about his job excellently, which is all well and good but isn’t exactly a tonic for a De Bruyne or David Silva to get back and ‘tackle’. I can’t seem to spot one man who could do this for Arsenal except for Xhaka, who is probably too new to assert that kind of power.

Chelsea lead the league because their damn manager is on the pitch pushing them forward. But all jokes aside, I’m sure the impact of a ‘captain’ is forever crucial, even if the player isn’t a captain by name, one energetic player will force his teammates to follow his lead. That’s what Arsenal and City probably lack at the moment, that one player who could drag them through the muddy patches through sheer will and set up the stable of amazing flair players they possess to unleash havoc on the opposition.
Zak, Melbourne (MUFC | 20 Titles and more to come… sometime)

Thoughts from Bournemouth
Absorbing game last night. Leicester came to Dean Court very early last season and I missed the away game so this was the first time I’d seen their perfected approach up close.

To begin with it seemed to fox Bournemouth a bit because they had so much time on the ball as Leicester sat so far back. The contrast with the press of Liverpool and Tottenham who’ve been here recently could not have been more pronounced. And despite Bournemouth dominating possession, Leicester had a couple of really good counter-attacking chances in the first 20 minutes, very similar passes to the two first-half Liverpool goals putting Vardy in gold positions.

Bu they looked a limited side. Mahrez looked disinterested and Amartey is no Kante. After the goal their primary threat was long throws.

For Bournemouth, Wilshere played in the deep role for the first time. It was probably his best performance this season, although when Leicester pressed further forward straight after half time he was briefly bypassed. What did surprise me was how good he can be in the air. He also had a brief cameo as lone forward after Wilson went off. It was the first time the fans sang his name as well, so far things look to be working out.

Finally, several Leicester attitudes were rotten. Bournemouth are no angels, in fact we have definitely become a lot less naive this season and Smith and Arter in particular can push it too far at times. But Leicester took it to extremes. Every decision Huth, Morgan, Fuchs, Vardy and Mahrez were in the referee’s ear. It looks like the early season drive to stop players surrounding the referee has lost momentum. And Vardy’s dive was dreadful. Maybe defenders are getting a bit wise to him.

Bournemouth have the ‘derby’ at home at the weekend – which Southampton fans don’t acknowledge – then Christmas trips to Chelsea and Swansea. What is apparent this season is that the squad is deeper and Howe doesn’t have to rely on the same 13-14 every week – fan favourite Pugh coming in and scoring last night is a sign of that. Hopefully this means in March and April they don’t run out of steam as badly as last season.
Andy J, Bournemouth

On the rise of China…
The final of the Champions League 2027 is played in Beijing in the middle of the day European time and Shanghai SIPG beat Real Madrid to become the first non-European team to win the trophy. Shanghai’s goals are scored by Joe Bloggsadici the triple Ballon d’Or winner and world’s most expensive player who was signed from Real Madrid after Shanghai SIPG offered a transfer fee that the Spanish club could not refuse and wages that Bloggsadici could not get anywhere in Europe.

Sounds outlandish, a non-European team winning the European Cup whilst most of Europe is at work, a non-European team beating the best teams from Europe, a non-European team having the world’s best player in their side. But this is very definitely the future.

Footballers from all corners of the world have traditionally been sucked to Europe by both money and the status of the European game. Europe’s role at the top of the football pyramid has gone unchallenged for decades. Until now. The economic rise of China has been viewed from European football shores as a boom for European clubs. Leagues can sell their TV rights for a fortune, clubs can tap into a huge new pool of supporters and make an annual trip for a few friendly games. European football can rise further on the back of supporters all over Asia. But that now looks like it is changing. We are now living in what most economists predict will be the Chinese century. The period in which China and its over 1 billion inhabitants comes to dominate the world economy and global business. Why would China and Chinese supporters support clubs in England, Spain or Germany when their own local clubs and their domestic league is richer and more powerful than the Premier League, Serie A or La Liga?

We are increasingly seeing Chinese clubs buy players from top European clubs at prices and wages no European clubs could or would match (Oscar, Hulk, Ramires, Lavezzi, Gervinho). These players are not quite from the absolute top level and we have not yet seen a European club go head to head with a Chinese club for a player and lose but that can only be a matter of time. If rumours are to be believed Alexis Sanchez maybe the first test case. Football is a global game. It has no one specific culture, it has no single language. Players follow the money, glamour and interest follows the players. If you are growing up in a favela in Rio de Janeiro or a barrio in Buenos Aries going to earn your fortune and claim the title as world’s best place is as attractive in Shanghai as it is in Barcelona.

So a none European club winning the Champions League is outlandish? Are the big European clubs going to deny the best Chinese clubs from entering the competition when they will bring so much extra revenue? Could the competition survive when we all know that the best players and clubs are not in it? No and no. There will be initial resistance but the power of money will win out. Just as Chinese supporters have for years been waking in the middle of the night to watch European games to see the top players and the top teams so in the near future will European fans be pulling sickies from work to see the world’s best players and teams playing in China.
Jo (Already becoming a hipster plastic fan of Liaoning Whowin so I can beat the rush)

A waste of time…
I enjoyed the latest Last Defender column, on the subject of timewasting, and it got me thinking about stoppage time at the end of games as well. Stoppage time is, of course, an artificial construct designed to add an extra layer of excitement to the end of a half, or of a game, much like the two-minute warning in the NFL. For those unaware, the clock stops with two minutes left in the half and both teams are given a brief respite ahead of a final push. Similarly, the fourth official’s board indicating how much time remains seems to imbue a trailing team with an added urgency that it’s easy to imagine wouldn’t otherwise be there.

As an aside, for part of the ‘is Sean Dyche really a PFM’ debate, he did complain about a Bournemouth goal being scored 2:15 into stoppage time, when the fourth official had shown 2mins on the board – as this means up to and including 2:59, moaning about officials doing their jobs properly to your detriment is classic PFMery. Dyche is by no means the only one guilty of this, just the latest one.

Another parallel with the NFL (and possibly the NBA, to a lesser extent) is that Steven mentions a football match being ‘two battles: one against your opposition, and the other against the clock’. In the NFL, the best teams are praised for their clock management – if winning, keeping the clock ticking so that the opposition are forced to use up their timeouts to preserve time; if trailing, but in possession, taking just enough time to take the lead and leaving insufficient for the other team to respond. In football terms, even though the clock is constantly running, doing things slowly is just as important as doing them quickly.

Timewasting is a legitimate tactic in football, but it is infuriating if you’re on the receiving end, particularly late in the game. It’s worth pointing out that some teams have come a cropper for timewasting when the referee has simply added on more time to make up for it – Everton against Bournemouth last season springs to mind.

Perhaps another (tongue in cheek) solution would be to relax the violent conduct rules for clear acts of timewasting. By which I mean, if someone puts an end to an opponent refusing to give the ball back by shoving him over, or stops a gloating forward shielding the ball in the corner by kicking him up in the air, it’s still a free kick, but no cards are shown. After all, if he was blatantly timewasting, he was asking for it ref.
Ed Quoththeraven

No, I really hate timewasting
I usually like The Last Defender but on this occasion it really is defending the indefensible to attempt to stick up for time wasting. I absolutely hate it. As I have got older (and I am very, very old now) I have managed to mature a little in my emotional responses to football. I can compartmentalise it from the rest of my life more than I used to. However, there is something about time wasting that instantly makes my blood pressure rise.

This is the same even if my team isn’t playing. I was watching a Spanish match the other week and the side in the lead made three late substitutions about two minutes each apart and managed to take their right back off three times (the dugouts being on the left hand side of the pitch). The ref just dutifully stood there as each one trudged painfully slowly to the side line (or adopted the Peter Kay dad-run).

It is the refs (or the rule makers) who need to do something about this. Players will do what they can to win matches (cough Dele Alli cough diving cough) but refs must be aware of what is happening as it is the same tricks every week. On Sunday as the Liverpool v West Ham match was winding down Randolph claimed a cross and did the keeperly thing on flopping down on the ball. He slowly got up, walked around a bit, pretended he was going to throw it and then kicked long. This took 16 seconds, the rule is six. This might seem petty but it is 266% of the time he was supposed to have. I am sure that a defending side would be annoyed if a ref made them retreat 26.6 yards back at a direct free kick. As I say, you can’t blame Randolph for this, he is only doing what the vast majority of keepers would do. However, where was the ref?

It is the same every week. Players encroach on corners and then slowly walk back with their hands up. Players knock the ball away at a free kick three or four yards just to break up play. Managers hold on to the ball and then claim a lack of respect being shown when a player tries to take it from them.

The only joy that time wasting brings is if the game suddenly turns and the previous wasters are now chasing the game. Seeing a side which has spent half an hour whittling away the minutes suddenly moaning because the opposition left back has to do his laces up before taking a throw in is lovely. Or, if the side behind scores in the time added for time wasting. That can be nice too.
Micki Attridge

The worst keeper in the world
A quick look at the stats at the Juventus game at the weekend says Torino had two shots on target, scoring one. By that measure, Buffon had one save in the game. Significantly less than than De Gea’s 2.3 per game.

“Oi Gianluigi…. You’re pure shite mate”
– Ben McAleer
Kev, Dublin

Bring back the silly
When I first started reading this site there was a definite undertone of ‘silly’ to go along with the excellent analysis and commentary. I know I am far from the only person who loved features like ‘Diaries of…’ or ‘lookalikes.’ In what I think is probably a reaction to the banterification (yes, that’s right banterification – like gentrification) of the world and the rise of garbage like the Lad Bible, F365 has more recently stayed away from this sort of article.

Personally I think there is a space for some fun – it could even replace some of the professional outrage and kneejerk articles we see. Which is why I applaud the coverage of little known Spurs signing Paul O’Pez. Give us a diary, give us a bio, give us something. Bring back the silly, the world’s serious enough.
Matt, AFC