Arsenal might be small-time with their celebrations, but better that than be like Man Utd and claim to be biggest skint club in the world.
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Biggest club in the world, is it?
Apparently Man Utd have a fanbase of over 1 in 8 of every single person, man woman or child, on the entire planet. (Some clown was quoting 1.28billion in the mailbox or comments recently)
Yet they require taxpayers’ money to rebuild Old Trafford?
FFS please pick one, you’re either the biggest most bestest, most followed club in the world… Or you’re not.
After all, everyone rightfully took the piss out of the Scouse for trying it on with the furlough.
Dave (if you can afford to pay Antony as a professional footballer, you don’t deserve anything from anyone) PVFC
The only point that needs making
Have people forgotten that football is supposed to be fun? Cheer up you miserable buggers, let people celebrate.
Paul Norris
Arsenal are small-time…and that creates joy
In response to Andy’s mail, I would say that it’s been a steady decline since 2015/16. The club were consistently ‘underperforming’ since 2004, with a decade of top-four finishes instead of winning the league.
After 2015/16, they struggled to even do that consistently, so they were underperforming again. These periods of underperformance led to a shift in expectations, which ultimately led to where they are now, which feels like overperforming.
The notion of ‘great clubs’ and ‘history’ does nothing to help the current batch of players at the club, who weren’t playing during the club’s heyday. I just don’t see what is wrong with that.
If you take Man Utd as another example, one of the biggest issues they have is that they refuse to let go of their expectations of such a ‘great club’, which isn’t helped by the ever-present Utd pundits laying into them for not performing how they did under a different manager at a different time, and that anything less than a dominant win is not good enough. This then leads to a long period of changing managers and players and results in a disjoined team and frustrated fan base.
So yes, Arsenal may now be a little small time, but that makes any success enjoyable. What would fans prefer… to expect to win everything and only win most games, or to expect less and win most games? The results are the same, but you feel happier, and isn’t that the whole point of supporting a team?
Rob, Suffolk
…There’s a story Alan Hansen tells that at the end of a title winning season Ronnie Moran would come in with a box of medals, pass them out among the players and say something along the lines of ‘Well done, same again next season’.
Arsenal went NINE years without silverware. It lives long in the memory. There were also EIGHTEEN years between the 1971 title win and the 1989 Anfield triumph. We haven’t won the league in 20 years.
You never know where your next trophy’s coming from. So we always celebrate like it’s 1998.
Graham Simons, Gooner, Norf London
READ: The highest-ranking Arsenal-hating Celebration Police officers revealed, with Carragher at 8)
Liverpool fans are just bitter
Players celebrate scoring, they celebrate blocking a shot or even conceding a throw sometimes so what’s wrong with celebrating 3 points against a rival? And if it annoys your rival, even better. Managers should however show some respect to the opposition dugout but that doesn’t mean they must hide all emotion all the time.
The scousers are just pissed off they got played off the park and lost. Not even blaming the ref or VAR could save them here so they have to find something else to be bitter about. Well done Arsenal for rubbing their noses in it. Or does three points just mean more to the Arsenal?
Jon, Cape Town
Yes, yes we are
It is often said that “there is no smoke without fire”. F365 have just written a top 10 article on occasions when teams have been seen to be “overcelebrating”. Around 7 of these were reactions to Arsenal. Individually, all 10 items on the list seem (to me) to be a silly or ridiculous overreaction.
But equally, as a relative neutral who doesn’t feel strongly about Arsenal either way, I can’t pretend that I haven’t looked at some of Arsenal’s reactions to certain wins and thought some were a tad over the top. Either there is a conspiratorial agenda against Arsenal’s celebrations, which I have been brainwashed by despite my best efforts, or there is a small kernel of truth to this whole thing, alongside all the nonsense exaggerations and overreactions.
Specifically about Sunday’s celebrations, I personally didn’t see anything excessive. I thought the thing with Odegaard and the camera was odd, nothing more than that. The only time Arteta’s touchline behavior objectively bothered me at all was an incredibly minor incident where he was outside his technical area relatively close to where a Liverpool player was taking a throw-in. But that was a tiny thing (and if it bothered the Liverpool player, he/Clop could have complained to the ref about it).
From a subjective perspective, it’s annoying to watch a team/manager joyously celebrate beating the team you support, but it’s quite easy to recognize that as bitterness with a sliver of self-awareness.
Oliver (If you aren’t spelling it Clop by now, you’re no friend of mine) Dziggel, Geneva Switzerland
Drawing v West Brom > beating Liverpool
It’s amazing how some Liverpool fans and pundits can keep a straight face while disparaging Arsenal for having the temerity to celebrate a win against them. This is, after all, the same manager who instructed his players to celebrate a draw at home against West Brom in 2020 by linking hands, bowing to the Kop and giving it the big ‘un before doing a lap of honour; and the fans lapped it up.
So apparently it’s ok to celebrate a last minute equaliser against the team that finished 19th that season, but don’t you dare celebrate giving a rival a pasting and rescuing your title hopes!
Garey Vance, MUFC
The league’s gone
Went to Arsenal on Sunday, came home giddy that we’re back in the title race.
Saw the City result on Monday night, pretty sure the league is going to Manchester again.
Feels like the comedown from a week’s holiday in Greece back in my 20s.
Honestly at this point top league football is stuffed, no one is ever going to fine City, they will do a LIV golf on and Premier League Litigation and keep racking up titles.
Our only hope is Pep retires and swans off with Phil Foden and co to Barcelona on a free.
Nick
Praise for Pep talk
Whilst there will, inevitably, be a reaction of “Well, he would say that wouldn’t he?” I nonetheless think that yesterday’s article ‘Stop getting Pep wrong’ was top-notch.
More of these please F365.
Mark (Regardless of the club being analysed). MCFC
…I’ve read F365 at least twice a day since i first discovered it years ago, because its funny, topical, and interesting. I realise that you can’t compete with the the likes of the Guardian, an in-house tactical analyst is beyond the budget, but what a relief to read something beyond the usual Tickner drivel, so thanks David Mooney! I’m not a fan of City or their owners, but as one of the most interesting and innovative coaches and teams of the past decade, it’s nice to read an interesting and thoughtful piece on their tactical evolution.
Oh, what’s this, new Tickner piece, maybe it’ll be something interesting this time…
(Nothing personal against Tickner, just often am disappointed by the quality of an article and see that its the man himself and his blend of mediocre writing, too-much-time-on-football-twitter analysis and hot takes)
Henry, Cologne
Small-time Crooks
For my sins, I read Garth Crooks’ column to see how many goalscorers he could fit in… he’s even counting own goals now – congrats Gabriel!
But attacking critics of Marcus Rashford’s behaviour because 40 years ago Frank Worthington visited Stringfellows? Wow.
Graeme (Licence Fee deserves better), Glasgow
Lift surfing with Crooks
Side note about Garth Crooks nonsense.
I used to work at the BBC and once shared a lift with him at Television Centre in White City. He entered on the 5th floor (sports) and we both went down to ground level, stood at the rear of the lift as we’d got in near the top of the building. He was carrying a large leather holdall, which I presumed was an overnight bag from being on the road commentating.
So, he enters the lift, turns around and bends at the knees to place his large bag on the ground, and then he lets go of the straps. What was weird was, instead of standing up, he only stood halfway up, and kind of spent the entire lift journey hovering like a surfer, knees still bent, with his hand positioned over the bag’s straps, but not holding on to it. It was almost as if he was waiting for the bag to need his help, but this thing was a serious piece of luggage, fully packed, and wasn’t going anywhere.
Even between floors when the lift had stopped and the doors opened to let people in and out he stayed there, as if it was some kind of balance test or dilemma that had incapacitated him, where standing all the way up was letting go too much, but holding onto the bag for the whole journey was too over-protective. So he just froze in between. When we hit the ground floor he waited for the doors to open and for those in front of him to exit before simply bending his knees a little to grab the straps, and stride purposefully out and off into the sunset.
Over-dramatic strange man.
Red Jim
Up the Alty
Just following on from Lewis’s email yesterday about going to watch Altrincham. I started watching Alty in early 70’s during the glory years (Super Stan Allan) and even went to Wembley with them in the FA vase as well as Goodison in the Fa Cup. Then started going to Old Trafford and had United season ticket for many years before emigrating to Canada.
Anyway went home in early January to see me old mum and went to watch Alty for the first time in 20+years. Pint at the Brickies, walk down Moss Lane and watched a cracking game. Alty up 2-0 to Barnet, got pegged back then last minute winner.
What a game, absolutely loved it . Close to the action, no VAR, no BS just a good old footy game.
Get involved with your local team, it’s much more rewarding.
Steve (ex-Flixton and Timperley Red) , Ontario
England’s most obvious midfield?
I’ve been meaning to send this mail for a while, but given Foden’s recent hat-trick, now seems to be the time. I would hazard a guess that England’s midfield should contain:
Bellingham
Rice
Saka
Foden
These are our top midfield performers, and would arguably also provide the correct balance. So, given this, how do we shoehorn the following in:
Trent – we know he’s a “generational talent” whatever the jiggins that means, but if he’s not at right-back, is he going to displace any of those four?
Henderson. Apparently Southgate went to watch him last week for Ajax. He could’ve watched Newcastle vs Luton, where amongst others Gordon, Wilson, Livramento, Trippier. Is he really still in consideration for the squad?
Is Southgate really going to knob-up what seems like a simple midfield selection?
Simon S, Cheshire
Source : Football365.com