What The Press Say
Oct 6th, 2016 by 'holic
The international break is a time for journalists and bloggers alike to feed off scraps. I thought I would have a look at what they are finding.
There is no doubt about the one that catches the eye first is a piece by Darren Lewis in the Mirror. He doesn’t write too often about the club at the southern end of Seven Sisters Road, so you may question his take on comments attributed to Ivan Gazidis in an Associated Press release. Apparently Ivan has dropped the first hint that “the club could be planning for life after Arsene Wenger”. Here are Ivan’s quoted words. Make your own mind up.
“Arsenal is not Arsene Wenger. They’re not one in the same thing. He’s been clear and we’ve always been clear, that’s a mutual decision as to how long he’ll continue. Both need to be on the same page on that. In a football sense, he has transformed the club.”
You might also wonder about the context in which those comments were recorded, and whether a few very carefully chosen words from a much larger conversation have been put forward to support a view that is more about a desired outcome. You would find part of the answer in the earlier report of Ivan’s comments in the Guardian which includes the sentence that didn’t appear in the Mirror piece. They don’t look like they come from a man looking to hasten the parting of the ways.
“What Arsène has done is to capture and understand and embrace the values of the club and enhance them.”
Jack Austin at the Independent posted a frank interview with Per Mertesacker who most certainly does appear to be weighing up his options for next summer. Hannover are reported to be keen on bringing the World Cup winner home. Currently injured, the Arsenal club captain knows his first team opportunities may be limited following the capture of Shkodran Mustafi and the outstanding form of Laurent Koscielny. It would be a blow to lose someone of Per’s quality and experience, but as he himself says, he has to do what is best for him and his family.
“Of course, I ask myself what would make sense if things were to end at Arsenal. Where can I be of any help? What do I want? Could I maybe return to Germany? I look at the perspectives for me and my family, and I think that I’ll intensify those thoughts from January on. That’s also the time when you can listen to other things when your contract is expiring.”
Over at the London Evening Standard you can read of Granit Xhaka’s delight at being nicknamed ‘Xhakaboom’ by Arsenal fans. This being the first I had heard of it I searched the nickname on Twitter and there it was. It’s been talked about for days by people from around the globe. It does rather make inevitable the resulting repetitions at future matches of a rework of DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince lyrics. No, don’t worry, I’m not going there now!
It also provides the not entirely surprising quote from Theo Walcott about Granit’s willingness to shoot from distance, to telling effect too at Hull and Nottingham Forest.
“The fans encourage him to shoot but we’re just telling him not to shoot too often!”
So there you have it. It isn’t the boss who will try and coach the long-range efforts out of him. It’s his team-mates! Another popular misconception is nipped in the bud.
79 Responses to “What The Press Say”
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xhakaboom!
the press is as bored as we are during the interlull.
i hope you are wellest, holic.
Strangely scruz I started today with a sore throat and a runny nose, and I am ending it with full blown manflu. 🙁
This does, however, necessitate lots of hot toddies! 🙂
Evening H
Was interested to know whether you read the full interview Arsene did with the Men in Blazers group,while in the US in the Summer.
I recommended it to all and sundry in the previous drinks,and Pangloss kindly provided the link to it in a later post.
Everyone i know who has read it,thought it was the best insight into Arsene/Arsenal/and his philosophies that they had ever read.
Boomshakalakalaka.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wZ39aAhokQ
Clive, just watched Roger Bennett’s interview with AW, and thank you for the recommendation. Ask AW a straight, thoughtful question, and you get a straight, thoughtful answer.
It is telling that Bennett isn’t a football journalist by trade or a former pro, but worked for a well-known philanthropic foundation in NYC and also made documentary films, nearly all of which are now about football. He clearly loves and knows the game (Everton fan; son of a Liverpool judge) and his Men in Blazers show grew out of what was a fan podcast. He has done a similar “Inside the Mind” interview with Jurgen Klopp.
Clive, I just watched it for the second time, and I am in bits, I don’t mind admitting.
I just pray history grants him the admiration and respect he deserves. We may or may not be approaching the end of an era. Yes, an era.
He doesn’t deserve the barbs of fuckwits who seek to be angry to have an internet presence. Wankers, all of them.
I will support who follows him with a passion grown of years of loving the Arsenal. I do know though that he will be following a true legend, and one who should have the respect of all Gooners throughout his time.
This generation had it’s Chapman.
One could also wonder whether the England job is a carrot. If he is serious about taking the job sometime, then sooner would surely fit better than later.
I just hope there has been some equally serious work in train behind the scenes regarding the poor bastard who gets to follow him at Arsenal. We wouldn’t want another Moyes…
I just wish AW is handed a five year extension and we continue to get to watch the exciting football Arsenal for has been famous for in the last twenty years under him. I find the prospect of Arsenal without Arsene depressing and hope reports like the one below have no truth to it and Arsene will extend his contract.
http://www.punditarena.com/football/english-football/arsenal/sokeefe/arsenal-gazidis-wenger-leave/
Chris@8: let us remember, somewhat uncomfortably, that when Moyes was at Everton he was often proposed as the ideal successor to AW.
‘Holic@7, I often wonder whether Wenger or Chapman is the greatest manager we have had. It may be an impossible question to answer as it is so difficult to compare the game of the 1920s/30s with that in the modern era. Both not only made Arsenal champions, they also revolutionised the role of manager
X’s control permeated every corner of the club. He picked the players, bought the ones he wanted to fit the formations he was evolving or changed the positions of the ones he had. He wanted his teams to play with pace and flair. He invented tactics and introduced new training methods and dietary regimes. He saw football as a series of problems to be solved. He brought in innovation after innovation — small changes to make his teams better, but which collectively added up to something revolutionary.
Is X Wenger or Chapman?
That US interview with Wenger is very different to the sort of interview any other Premier League manager would have given in the last twenty years( save possibly Klopp and Guardiola and maybe Ferguson) because it is about so much more than football. I can’t see Harry Redknapp giving us his philosophy of life and touching our hearts so much.
My wish for Wenger is that he retires without his legacy being tarnished. I’d love to see him win the Champions League this season and call it a day because it will be incredibly hard to maintain his extraordinary focus as he moves towards 70. I’m 65 and still working at a senior level but I do notice how hard it is to keep the level of concentration and maintain the energy I used to take for granted. And Wenger is in a hothouse environment albeit one compensated by a huge salary. I suspect his single- mindedness led to the end of his marriage and one worries if he has much of a life outside football , highly intelligent though he is.
I meant what I said the other day about renaming the stadium after him because he effectively created the wherewithal to build and maintain it.
We owe him a massive debt even though most of us at times have doubted his judgement, something which he admits is entirely reasonable. But there can be no finer man to have in charge of our club.Arseblog did a great favour in releasing it. I think it may mark a change in the feeling towards him from the WOBs. They may realise how ill- judged their criticism and vitriol towards him is.
Ned
It was Chapman but could have been Wenger!
Apart from the “invented tactics” bit. Even his greatest fan couldn’t claim he was a tactical genius.
TTG, I doubt our stadium will ever be named AW Stadium as the as the money which naming rights bring in is too big. The current agreement with Emirates gets Arsenal £30 million per year till 2018-19. This will be worth closer to £50 m when the agreement is renewed. Spurs are talking to Quatar investment group and hope to get anywhere from £150 m to £400 m for naming rights of their new stadium when it opens in 2018-19. I cannot see Arsenal giving up that sort of money to rename our stadium after AW.
Or vice versa, TTG. Interesting point is that they were both schooled men, Wenger in economics and Chapman in engineering. I suspect they both see/saw the game in the same scientific way, a series of problems for each of which there is a rational solution to be found. To that end, it was telling in the Bennett interview when AW was talking about the need after losing a game to find what he called the ‘starting’ problems among the hundreds of things that will have contributed to the defeat.
Cynic: Wegner’s tactical nous is under-appreciated, to my mind. And even Arsenal’s much vaunted WM formation to counter the new offside law was as much or more Charlie Buchan’s idea as Chapman’s. Chapman talked of ‘organising victory’ rather than ‘tactics’, and that would seem to apply rather well to AW, too.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/arsenal-face-fresh-injury-scare-8998896
Arggghhh!
And now Nacho is called up to…
Curses to the break!!! Can we keep this good run going whilst our best players are out or below par… time to test that strength in depth again.
BB – On the other hand, arseblog news says …
You pays your money and you takes your choice. Me, I just worry about the sky falling in.
Ommmmmm Ommmmmmm Ommmmmmm
COYG
Ksn
Why not the Arsene’s Wenger Emirates Stadium!? Emirates would gain a huge amount of kudos with Arsenal fans if they did this
Wengerates.
TTG,
Great idea, welcome it. A statue outside the stadium named after him and a generous send off pay packet would be just what he deserves. Not next year but by 2021-22. Fervently hope he decides to continue for another five year.
Is the interlull over yet?
Pangloss. All the good of those Ommmmmmm’s, built up over a multi-hour period, wiped out in seconds by that Is the interlull over yet? Not speaking for Ned of course, but the monks would surely say Tsk, Tsk, Tsk.
Tsk, Tsk, Tsk.
There, I said it for them.
🙂
Rokocoko.
http://www.bbc.com/sport/rugby-union/37582098
Rugby player or stuttering advocate of a late Baroque artistic style?
In my defence, I never said that the Ommmmmms did me any good. Apologies if I implied that tehy did.
COYG
PS Answer the bloody question.
Sorry to hear you are down with Man flu H,only bonus is,at least it is during the Interlull,with no missed visits to the Ems.
Thnks for the response @7.
I think everyone in the Bar knows my thoughts on Arsene,so much so,that i would be happy for him to continue managing
‘ Beyond the Grave ‘.
The Board could hold weekly seances,getting Arsene’s team selections,and the press could get his pre and post match interviews the same way.
The only thing missing would be his physical presence,but with the giant leaps forward in Cryogenics, this could well be possible in the not too distant future.!!
Pangloss, No, the interlull is not over quite yet so a few more Ommmmmmm’s could be in order. 🙂
Get well soon Guvna. More whisky! ?
Toddy time?
Thanks bt8.
Ommmmmmmm Ommmmmmmm Ommmmmmmm
Arsene says the England manager should be English. The more the merrier I say so co-managers just might do a better job than just one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyLsO6LpLSI
Rokocoko (#26) is pronounced Rocker-thoko (thoko ryhming with cocoa with ‘th’ as in thing).
Cocoa drinking heavy metal rugby player then?
Harry Redknapp wants Arsenal or Chelsea to sign up Rooney next year. Redknapp expects Manure’s bench warmer to be a regular in Arsenal’s starting eleven. You couldn’t make it up.
http://www.thesportreview.com/tsr/2016/10/harry-redknapp-tells-arsenal-or-chelsea-to-try-and-sign-wayne-rooney/
The Chavs are very welcome to take ‘arry’s advice.
Ommmmmmmm
If anyone in the bar was minded to say anything derogatory about Andrey Arshavin, late of this parish, be warned or be bald:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/1932718/andrey-arshavin-shaves-the-head-of-an-internet-blogger-who-said-he-wouldnt-score-more-than-seven-goals/
Fine scraps indeed, Holic !
Thanks for filling the blanks left by the tabloid titbits of Gazidis’ comments on Arsene. The piece I found was in The S*n, which someone had left lying on a table in the coffee shop. I won’t dignify the piece by elaborating but it was even more worrying than the Mirror. Who knew ?
Per Mertesacker should never have accepted the job of club captain. It has been obvious for some years now that no sooner is the armband in place, than permanent injury strikes and the incumbent is never seen on the field of play again.
For those whose memory is less reliable than my owm – unlikely – may I offer Thomas Vermaelen, Mikel Arteta, Per Mertesacker himself and, no, I won’t offer Cesc Fabregas for fear of causing offence and the fact that he did actually play the occasional game in his final season.
Whatever other tripe may find it’s way onto the back pages during the international breaks, it is surely scurrilous nonsense to suggest that Mertesacker’s current injury may actually slow him down.
There are limits to how much wool can be pulled over even a S*n reader’s eyes and slowing down the BFG is something that remains beyond the capabilities of science, let alone the Arsenal, er, Fitness Team.
On an academic and controversial note, I will leave you with this conundrum. Should the Interlull be called the Interlull ?
It is, after all, not a ‘lull’ in International stuff. It is during the ‘lull’ that Internationals become active. On that basis, the other chunks of the season, like when we occasionally play actual league games, should be daubed the Inter’lulls’ and these interminable breaks might become the Interactions / Interactives ?
For god’s sake get the football started again ……. ?
Who says there’s an interlull, or whatever it’s called? Swindon played Bolton today. Lost though, unfortunately for the Swindon legions (legion?). 🙁
Interlull is a perfectly good portmanteau, Trev. But if you want a compound word, it should probably be intralull.
Browsing the results of the internationals from my Pacific eyrie it is obvious that the greed of FIFA ( and UEFA) to qualify the big nations has led to a whole slew of ridiculous fixtures, certainly in Europe. There’s scarcely a game worth the name. We huff and puff to beat Malta at Wembley for goodness sake . And 81,700 people went to see it. England haven’t got any top international class players, not any and yet we will stroll our qualifying group and then bomb in Russia.
To think the compelling Premier League and all the other big leagues in Europe judder to a halt every few weeks for these farcical games. It’s a ridiculous situation . International football has morphed into a bloated farce.
I’m omming with Pangloss ?
Perhaps FIFA should use a qualifying rounds system like the FA Cup with the stronger teams being brought in as the rounds progress. I guess the greedy desire to have as many games as possible to sell media rights for is the only thing standing in the way of that or any other sensible suggestions.
A Lowestoft restaurant is looking to hire a gin butler.
If they’d been looking for a cunt butler they’d have been spoilt for choice.
I’m humbled, TTG
Ommmmmmmmmm
My family used to take Summer holidays in Lowestoft when I was a kid.
Funny now looking back at pictures of myself wearing a heavy jumper on the beach and building sand castles behind a wind break.
I did learn how to feed a tortoise though.
Happy Days.
UTA.
Ned@44
That’s a very feasible and sensible suggestion. The trouble is the FA want to fill Wembley and qualifiers do this better than friendlies. FIFA want the thirty two teams with the biggest followings in the finals to make them a success. You could have a tourney for the teams ranked below 24 and the winners or first two nations in that competition could play off against the seeeded teams.
Time was when we went out to Poland in the qualifiers who finished third in the 74 World Cup, went out to Czechoslovakia ( who won the 76 Euros) in the qualifiers and finished behind Italy who finished fourth in the 78 World Cup.
It was first past the post only then and diminished the value of the main competitions ( which were 16 teams ) but the pendulum has swung too far the other way now. Players run the risk of getting injured and knackered in games which are ridiculously easy and meaningless in competitive terms. And even then Scotland may find it hard to qualify!
Ttg, sadly, common sense and football parted company some time ago.
Noosa, how to feed a tortoise ……
Lettuce in on the secret ! ?
Trev, Cos he can!
Trev,
Flowers and little weeds – but don’t tell Bill or Ben, they may get upset.
UTA.
Lettuce puns, Ned,
Just the tip of the iceberg. ?
Doing my best to stick to the straight and narrow of the Romaine road, Trev. 😉
Join me, bt8, it may do no good but, strange as it may seem, you know it makes sense.
Ommmmmmmm Ommmmmmmm Ommmmmmm
Paris: Arsenal have never won the European Champions League but they reign over the continent when it comes to matchday revenue, with takings at their Emirates Stadium greater than anywhere else in Europe.
Their 60,000-capacity ground in north London, opened in 2006, generated 132 million euros (£116 million, $148 million) in the 2014-15 season from ticket sales and fan spending, according to a study by Deloitte.
That is the equivalent of 30 percent of their total annual income and puts them just ahead of Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu, with its capacity of over 80,000, which generated 129.8 million euros in the same season.
Of the 10 most profitable stadiums in terms of matchday revenue, five are in the English Premier League, two in Spain, two in Germany and one in France.
The 10 most profitable stadiums in Europe (based on matchday revenue in 2014-15 season, according to Deloitte study)
1. Emirates Stadium (Arsenal): 132 million euros
2. Santiago Bernabeu (Real Madrid): 129.8
3. Camp Nou (Barcelona): 116.9
4. Old Trafford (Manchester United): 114
5. Stamford Bridge (Chelsea): 93.1
6. Allianz Arena (Bayern Munich): 89.8
7. Parc des Princes (Paris Saint-Germain): 78
8. Anfield (Liverpool): 75
9. Etihad Stadium (Manchester City): 57
10. Signal Iduna Park (Borussia Dortmund): 54.2
Source: Agence France-Presse
Leaf it off, Trev.
Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Whoops, I almost fell asleep there …
[…] read North Bank Ned and TTG’s exchange about FIFA/UEFA competitions in a previous bar with interest, although I’m not sure I agree with their preferred solution. They suggested […]
yup
told ye i’d shut up fer a while
eff off yerself chris ya feckin shitehawk
.
fuckin havin a shite bollocks of a time
home life down the tubes
all kinds of nonsense
but what annoyed me most
trev’s inconsiderate refusal
not to use my favourite pun subject
fish
probably did it just for the halibut
??????????????
??????????????
This place is becoming organic. Drinks feed pieces feed drinks. >>>>>
fuckin hippy
i hate your hemp fuelled pieces to peeces
.
(meeces will be duely remunerated for misdirection appropriation shocker)
not by me
“i will build a wall !”
i won’t
obviously
my construction days are over
.
“enjoy your subterranean iron horse you london devils”
YA”buncha long bearded tattoo renting wormy black nail polish wearing ignore you at the bar bar staff” bar going daisies
sorry
i apologise
feels a bit dangerous
here in the twilight ‘holiczone
of course it doesn’t
i know dangerous
big girl
still scared of her
her husband looked scared too
saw him last year
ashen
i remember
bla an stuff
back over in england for lusty exuberance s
after i’d moved out
bar in west london
yup
thought it brilliant
playing pool on blue baize
geezers across
proper gooners
she dug her nails into me hand
wish i’d had a yarn
were talking about The Temptations
proper know what they’re talking about
too
met some right goofballs
last time in london
magnet me
guy had a big plastic container thing
offered me a drink
i’d been there for hours waiting on the bus out
“chicken soup”
drinking like a bootlegger
with a jug
arm and shoulder
turned out to be a nice fella
hooray for national express
how much more
nonsense
do I need to melt