Michael Oliver, the BBC and Millwall fans gets a kicking over the Jean-Philippe Mateta incident and there’s a whole lot more on Mikel Arteta.
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‘Disgraceful’ BBC
I’m usually a big fan of the BBC’s football coverage but their coverage of the Palace Millwall game is disgraceful. That Roberts assault is one of the worst things I’ve seen in 40 years of watching football. Behaviour like that has no place on a football pitch because it was life threatening and it should have been immediately, unanimously condemned. Instead we’re treated to Matthew Upson telling us “It’s a shame. For Roberts and the game…” while Jonathan Pearce drones on about how Millwall will cope with ten men. We have to watch Kelly Somers ask Steve Parish about what the second half is going to be like and how they’re going to manage Mateta being unavailable while a person is in hospital with a serious head injury. Parish really showed them up with “he’s a human being”. The BBC’s underdog narrative that runs throughout all their FA Cup coverage is patronising and annoying at the best of times and this stinks of them protecting the brand corporate nonsense and nothing to do with football.
Football’s attitude to seriously dangerous behaviour needs to be addressed. It doesn’t matter if he caught him on the follow through. It doesn’t matter that it was accidental. It was a disgusting disregard for the safety of a fellow human being and should be called out as such. The red card shouldn’t be for putting your studs in the side of a standing man’s head, it should be for attempting to make that “challenge” in the first place. Some deep thinker even wrote into the mailbox asking what Dorgu was supposed to do on a wet pitch when he didn’t know where his foot would end up. The answer’s simple, he shouldn’t have attempted to make the challenge at all. Trying to elbow a player and missing isn”t punished in this sport because he didn’t make contact. It’s insanity. The PFA really needs to step up and publicly call for priority to be given to players’ welfare.
I’ll leave it to others to talk about how Michael Oliver thinks MLS was a straight red and Robert’s wasn’t even a foul.
SC, Belfast (actually fuming)
‘Cowardice’ from Michael Oliver
Well that was a sh**tshow. Liam Roberts should absolutely be banned for as long as possible. It doesn’t matter if it was intended, he nearly kicked a man’s head off. The harshest possible ban would be appropriate.
Micheal Oliver – I despise any fan groups theories about a ref having bias against them. It ends well for no one. But I genuinely think Michael Oliver should be given the rest of the season off- unpaid. He was close to the challenge, had a clear line of sight, and had to wait for VAR to give the red card. That’s incompetence. So all competitions that don’t have VAR, go ahead, kick someone square in the face because the ref might not send you off. Cowardice from Oliver.
Travelling Millwall fans, you don’t really need a reminder as to why all other football fans think you’re disgusting. Your chants of ‘let him die’ all but confirm you’re beyond help. And to those Palace fans that did the same to Neghli, even if you thought it was in jest, you are awful humans who don’t deserve to watch football, let alone go to games.
Will (Ban Millwall away fans, but still charge them)
Oliver sh*te
Yet another example of Michael Oliver being absolutely shite at his job.
How on earth does he miss a studs up boot to the head challenge and have to have VAR intervene for him?
It’s getting a bit silly now.
Mark
Arsenal’s ‘fake title challenge’
Ben in the mailbox has touched on a salient topic here, and it is the way Arsenal is covered in the media, as well as on your hallowed pages. I understand why Arsenal gets the coverage it does: it is one of the most supported clubs in the world, one of the richest and it has some of the loudest internet fans in world football.
We do have to clearly establish one thing here though: in reality, by no objective metric can Arsenal be considered a genuine “big club” any longer. This is not a knee-jerk observation purely on the basis of a few bad results or seasons – this is an evidence-based observation with 21 years of facts. When your football club’s Netflix FC Slapstick Comedy Series has been running longer than Friends (10 seasons), Criminal Minds (17 seasons) and even CSI (15 seasons), you need to take stock.
It is easy to establish who the truly big clubs are. Liverpool, ManYoo, Citeh, Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern, Ajax, Inter Milan, AC Milan, Juventus.
There’s an expression that says “Winners win, Losers explain”. Arsenal fans are forever “explaining” their latest failures with hilariously asinine bollocks, which takes you on a guided crackpot tour of net spends, xG per minutes spent on toilet, points per calendar year, and of course, the Deep State PGMOL Plot where Zelenskyy is working overtime to hatch an evil plot to invade the Emirates and derail Arsenal. That is how you end up with the genuine carousel of imbecility where you have Arsenal fans so devoted to the Arteta Kool-aid that it isn’t sufficient to just drink it: one has to then piss it out, and drink it once again out of the urinal. Double down on that Kool Aid! And if the world points out that you are not drinking piss and that we can all see it? Accuse the watching world of hatching a malign plot to deny you the rich refreshing properties of piss-ridden Kool Aid. “They simply don’t get how great it tastes”! This is how you end up with the laughable situation where some mailbox dolt has genuinely tried to favourably compare a non-entity like Arteta, with Jurgen Klopp. 🙄🙄
The complete lack of grace shown towards Liverpool’s title win by many Gooners is farcical. Liverpool are genuine and deserving league champions. They have lost only once, been consistent, scored goals and displayed tactical adaptability. Their manager is a likeable individual that doesn’t lose his shit the minute a reporter challenges his failure, nor seek to insult your intelligence with doublespeak. Their captain is a true leader and a good example. Their star player is likeable – although the latest QArsenal gripe is to complain that it isn’t fair Liverpool’s star man is so good! 😂😂
Yet by the sounds of whining bitter Arsenal loons, this was “a rubbish season”, “weak standard”, and of course “luck” (😴🥱)
I said this ions ago and again, hard to come up with something truly original when the same Comedy Slapstick has been on endless repeat for 21 seasons (and counting). Nevertheless: all the big clubs above I’ve named are big clubs because the easiest test is to point to the trophies these teams have won in the past 2 decades. Not deep or controversial – it’s the way big clubs have always been differentiated from the others.
Liverpool fans don’t send in missive after missive “explaining” the “context” behind their season: they simply don’t have to. A simple pointer towards the PL trophy will suffice!
Arsenal fans have to “explain” because simply put, they are a Failure. To remain relevant cannot be done on the pitch, therefore primacy is required off it. Hence the QArsenal Massive.
I said a while back that Arsenal fans are always satisfied and always content. Lee asks if Arsenal fans would sooner have a decade of runner up finishes or, the odd trophy. Oh Lee have you learned nothing yet? Or have you forgotten that during almost a decade of trophyless ineptitude under Wenger, Arsenal fans literally simply redefined success! Top 4 became a trophy. You know, same way Trump can just say “it’s now called the Gulf of America”. And “Canada is now our 51st state”. Demented bollocks that these people genuinely believe. QArsenal!
A peruse of the mailbox will show you an endless stream of Arsenal fans exalting Arteta, and explaining to us other philistine fans that we lack the mental sophistication to see what amazing things Arteta has achieved! Riiiight. Liverpool fans weren’t satisfied with Rodgers, who is the Selfridges version of Arteta. But here we are, Arsenal fans telling us this fraud is Sacchi. Ok!
They are delighted with “competing” and “second place”. All roads lead back to Wenger: “I would take second place for the next twenty years”. A quote like that at Madrid and your security pass is revoked on the spot. If Kompany made a similar statement tomorrow, he wouldn’t see out the summer at Bayern. At Arsenal? It’s embraced!
No big club is ever content with runner up year after year – but Arsenal fans on the whole, are delighted. If Arteta had a similar season and abysmal transfer record at a club like Liverpool, he would be history this season because the fans would not tolerate a FAKE TITLE CHALLENGE that dies in February, in a year where Pep took the season off! That’s in addition to watching soporific corner ball shite each week, all bookended with the stench of an ashtray. Any manager of a big club being given £750m will have no choice but to demonstrate a clear RoI, in the form of trophies. Actual big ones. There is not one single big club I named above, that would retain Mikel Arteta after the season he’s just had. No chance. Not one would hire him tomorrow – (ManYoo might). ManYoo at present is a basket-case so there’s an asterisk there (even though I predict ManYoo will win another PL title before Arsenal, bookmark it). Arteta is a fair reflection of many (though not all) Arsenal fans: cocksure, boastful based on little to no evidence and no humility. But “stay humble” eh. The aura of Barack Obama but the achievement levels of Liz effin Truss.
Mikel Arteta is the second highest paid manager in the world, and Arsenal fans are actually, genuinely, trying to convince the world this guy is it. Full on crackpot MAGA-esque, Hillary Clinton server, Brexit means Brexit, Brooklyn pizza basement, Deep State, Biden ate my hamster, utter delusional batshit bollocks.
The Arne Slot title win is a mirror image of the Leicester title win. It was literally an open highway, zero cars on it – it takes an individual spectacularly inept to regress so spectacularly, but bravo Mikel, you outdid yourself! Slot has embarrassed the FAKE PROCESS, put to bed the asinine nonsense about “you cannot compete with Citeh”, and demolished the “You cannot compete with big spending” by humiliating the big spending Arteta, in his maiden season. And that is an abject humiliation, the world knows it. Bit Arsenal fans are still “explaining” that the stuff they’re licking out of that urinal is in fact, a delectable pomegranate coulis (and not piss-laden Kool-aid). Every conceivable nonsensical Gooner excuse, evaporated into smoke, just as it was when Leicester exposed Wenger’s bollocks about “impossible to compete with oil money and financial doping” shite 🙄. Of course, years after Wenger was sacked, Arsenal fans continue to twerk for his Loser Legacy, remodelling all the Greatest Excuses Hits. Arsenal is not a big club, by any objective measure of the last 2 decades. If “participation” is the new virtual trophy, then let’s start giving match day mascots ballon d’Ors. Because they have about as much chance at a league title as Arsenal!
Stewie Griffin (Other teams are “jealous” of Arsenal in the same way that billionaire Jay-Z is “jealous” and “fearful” of Stewie nabbing Beyoncé from him, even though wee Stewie is packing microwave meals in a factory for London Living wage money 😂😂😂)
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Klopp vs Arteta
I hope this answers some of the fanmail I’ve been getting:
Mat, no, I’m not saying the only difference in success between Klopp and Arteta is luck, I’m saying that their rises are both due to very good coaching and followed very similar trajectories following substantial investment that had incredibly high strike rates which I would each ascribe a similar amount of fortune. The individual circumstances are obviously different and reflect different managerial qualities.
I am saying that where Klopp and Arteta diverged this season (as Arsenal have taken a step back where Klopp was able to really shine) can to some degree be explained by Klopp having a full hand to work with but as I mentioned in basically every paragraph, he is/was a better coach.
Getting £142m for Coutinho is 100% luck. Barcelona had a huge chunk of cash burning a hole in their pocket, a huge PR crisis from losing Neymar and needed to appease fans to not have a board crisis. So they massively overpaid for a massive shiny toy. There are tons of podcasts, retrospectives and articles on this – you didn’t suddenly become the greatest negotiators overnight, you just kept saying no until it even got too silly for you.
Why would I be obsessed with Salah? No idea, maybe it’s something to do with how brilliant he is and essential to all your success. I guess you take issue with the notion of luck, so let me be clear, since you actually gave me the perfect anology – Liverpool were lucky with Salah in exactly the same way Arsenal were lucky with Henry. Both were slightly unorthodox wide forward with clear striker potential/goal volumes for a talented manager who could emphasise their qualities. When put in that position, they flourished beyond basically anyone’s expectations (usually even the managers who would frequently express surprise about how amazing they were) and become the best players in the world, all while rarely getting injured. So this isn’t blind luck, it’s calculated fortune lets say.
Do you actually believe Robertson is a mid table jobber without Klopp?
Finally, appreciate doing the adding up is tedious, but if you checked, I included Rice and that window in my ‘mental gymnastics’; I just skipped the most recent Calafiori one – mainly because I was making a point about what built teams to the start of this season (which was my point about where paths largely diverge – whereI concede Arsenal made less good decisions) but I appreciate your assumption I’m cherry picking for fun.
If you want to include the additional year correspondingly, excitingly, Liverpool’s spend was 6.4% of total league spend, and Arsenal’s was 6.3%. So funnily enough, my point still stands!
Lee, happy to answer the question – even the ardent Arteta apologist I am, this season is obviously disappointing, he hasn’t been without fault and there is clear need to do better next year. Even in my most optimistic mails I’ve identified that improvement is needed (as you saw markedly in every season before this one) and should Arsenal spend big and disappoint next season, I’ll have no issues accepting ‘Can he take them to the top?’ questions. I want a league win or a CL and whatever gets us there fastest I’ll take. I just don’t believe anyone out there gets us faster than Arteta as it stands (unless Klopp wants to return to the league for a new challenge ofc).
Paul, I give all the credit to the Liverpool scouts for the talent ID, the fortune lies in the players playing past the expected potential and rarely getting injured. Klopp got out of Mane, Salah and several others a pretty unprecedented level of output and whilst he deserves everything for doing so, you cannot say anyone could guarantee/know that was their ceiling, let alone that they’d make it.
Btw, Liverpool’s pioneering data approach, as successful as it was has now been so well replicated that every team can spot these efficiencies – making it harder for my money to get these bargains/successes in the market now, making Arsenal’s rise that much more expensive, as I mentioned in my mail.
So yeh, I think that covers everything, as always happy to disagree on what constitutes fortune, but ultimately given football is such a fine margin game, it will always play a massive part unless you can buy every margin (again, the common enemy guys is City, none of my mails had anything but respect for what that Liverpool team were).
Tom (doesn’t seem my gross vs net mail made the cut, that’s another discussion) Leyton
Ten Hag > Arteta?
The Arteta debate had me gripped to the mailbox. “He’s underachieved”, “he’s overachieved”, “he’s only 5th in the spending table”. Great stuff.
Two questions then:
1/ how many non-Arsenal fans would rather he stayed? (People generally want mid managers of rival clubs to stay, and I suspect most other club’s fans would be happy for Arteta to continue.)
2/ why are Arsenal – one of the biggest and most successful clubs in the country – unable to find the money for him to buy a striker? Or is it just that he prefers to spunk it on midfielders and defenders?
Personally, anyone that thinks Rice is worth £100m and Havertz is a good striker should stay at a club, as long as it’s not mine.
And yeah, Ten Hag did better to turn his spending into silverware. Whatever else you think of him, he managed to ride a true injury crisis to still win the FA Cup. What’s Arteta’s excuse again?
Badwolf
Defining success
Hi Lee, so you doubt you can find a single Liverpool fan who thinks 97 points in the league and winning the Champions League is a successful season? Our other near miss season was a cup double, champions league runners up and a 91 point season!
Well I’m one and somehow don’t think I’m on my own,
Mark Robbo, LFC
Zero credit for Arne Slot
I still see the regular barbs at Arteta saying he won the FA Cup with Emery’s team. So Arne Slot is winning this league with Klopp’s team then and deserves zero credit and it will be used against him in all future arguments….is that right?
Rich, AFC
