Everyone still hates Arsenal, Liverpool are bloody brilliant and Newcastle are finally being coached. Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com.
Why are Arsenal still hated so much?
I’ve been an Arsenal fan since the early 90’s so I can understand much of the hate we have received over the years. We went from the arrogantly beautiful Invincibles team, one of the best teams ever, to eventually a team of flashy players with no substance and no heart to be winners. Other teams/fans were revelling in our misery.
A few FA Cup wins in the last decade has helped cover the cracks, but there’s no denying Arsenal had no vision and were throwing around money to try and keep up with big boys.
However, we finally have a manager who is on the process of building something special and yet we are getting criticised left, right and centre.
We finally get rid of overpaid troublemakers like Ozil, PEA & Guendouzi, but apparently this means Arteta is the problem.
Ruben Neves accused Arsenal of over celebrating our victory yesterday. I would rather our players celebrate their hard fought victories than players of the past who seemed like they could care less about Arsenals success.
Martinelli showed some inexperience, but as Rio said afterwards, that red card was the referee making himself the news. Would that be a red card at 10 mins with the game 0-0??
If you discard the first three games of the season, Arsenal would be third in the league!! And yet 95% of pundits have barely given Arsenal any praise this season.
I can understand why we’ve been hated at times over the last decade, but now we have an exceptionally well drilled team, with a English core of young exciting players who want to win the proper way! It just begs the question: why are Arsenal still hated so much?
Ash, London
F365 says: Why Chelsea should keep Christensen over Rudiger
Liverpool are ‘bloody brilliant’
Watching lasts nights game I realised… I bloody love all the players in my team, Liverpool
They are all bloody brilliant
Over my 45yrs supporting them there have been massive up and pretty big downs (its all relative) but this has to be the ‘best’? but most likeable bunch of players to date
I know Mo seems a standout fave but I truly love Robbo (the smiling assassin) and Trent, Alli and VVD, Joel (nutmeg through ball assists… comon) The midfield Thiago is a non looking pass master, Fab is simply a purring destruction of a player, Jones is a homegrown cocky bugger, Jota, Bobby and now Diaz, hurling himself into tackles (and winning them) linking with Robbo and not afraid of a trick
And that without Hendo, Ox, Mo, Sadio, Harvey Elliot
Just so exciting to watch and seemingly not a proper wanker amongst them, no pouting, not histrionics, no biters, no racists, no c*nts at all (its seems lilke)
And we have always had wankers and bastards.. Since watching Sooey and Jimmy Case ‘half’ people for fun..or favourites Fowler, Gerrard… but never can I remember a full team of players any of whose names I would happily have on my shirt.
Just a fantastic time to be a Pool fan,
Thank you Jurgen and all those involved in this ‘project’
Just nice to be happy and positive in times of moaning and twitter ranting
Thanks. Happy Friday all
Al – LFC
Is Jota Liverpool’s Muller?
I don’t think Diego Jota had a touch of the ball in the first 15 minutes of the game against Leicester and when he did the ball seemed to bounce off him… but he ends the game with 2 goals, all very central and near the 6 yard box….
Is he Liverpool’s Thomas Muller or an onside Pippo Inzaghi.
Either way he’s become an unlikely success for Liverpool and long may it continue!
Zak
Arsenal reds
If you’re going to send a player off for two yellows when they don’t know about the first yellow, then you’ve just made the whole card system redundant.
You may as well allow referees to make mental notes of what would have been in the past been considered yellow card offences, and then allow them to issue straight reds.
Arsenal have gone from ‘you’ve seen them given’ to ‘NOBODY’s seen them given’ dismissals.
There will be ample opportunity across the weekend’s games for a referee to make a similar decision. But given Arsenal aren’t playing – will any one of them choose to do so? There’s more chance of the PM tendering his resignation.
Graham Simons, Gooner, Norf London
My favourite statistic is that Arsenal currently have 2x more Red cards (4) in 2022 as they have goals (2)…in mid-February.
As for Martinelli’s red, the moment he committed the second foul my immediate reaction was ‘That’s him off’. I even said it aloud (I was watching alone). It tells me 3 things
1) Arsenal fans are used to seeing our players sent off. A serious issue we need to address (the blame lies with us, but watching other prem games sometimes I’m baffled that people don’t get a second yellow or red because ITWX (if that was xhaka…)
2) They were, each in isolation, both bookable offences (I’ve seen the rounds of The FA official rules on advantage saying that the second shouldn’t have received a yellow)
3) Michael Oliver was ‘seeing red’. Its an expression we use mostly for players, but I think can be applied to refs as well – they too are human. At that moment the game had got extremely niggly, lots of fouls and even more calls for fouls. Perhaps he thought it was audacious of Martinelli to be so blatant and wanted to ‘one-up’ him by sending him off. All I know is that there is a reason the last time this happened was about 20 years ago – and that reason is that common sense keeps refs from doing this.
Steve – AFC
That was an unusual situation with Gabriel Martinelli last night, but not without precedent. A very similar situation was covered in You are the Ref 229, back in 2013. In his explanation of how to handle the situation, Keith Hackett stressed the importance of the referee communicating with players. From last night’s highlights, Michael Oliver clearly signals advantage, but we won’t know what else he said to the players; it’s fair to assume that Martinelli would not have committed the second offence if he knew he would be punished for the first one, so it’s easy to suggest Oliver could have given him more warning. In the end, he got four decisions correct in a very short space of time: advantage after a foul, show a yellow card at the next stoppage, award a free kick, show a yellow card; the fact it was the same offender both times, and therefore a red card was earned, shows his strength of character to apply the laws correctly instead of copping out by only issuing the one caution.
On the other hand, Martinelli is an adult and should take responsibility for his actions. Anyone with any awareness of the laws of football (and recent experience of how they are interpreted) should have realised that shoving an opponent to the floor tends to result in a yellow card; barging over an opponent without making any effort to win the ball often yields the same result. Doing one of those things in the aim of breaking up play is careless, doing a second with even a shred of awareness that a punishment is pending is incredibly foolish. Perhaps his suspension would be time best served taking a refereeing course.
Ed Quoththeraven
Arsenal celebration
Do people enjoy football anymore? Are players who worked their backsides off not allowed to celebrate their win in difficult circumstances? I find this relentless, joyless consumption of football soul crushing.
Ruben Neves knew what he was doing with his comments after the game, which was deflecting from the fact that we beat them at their own ground with 10 men with our backs to the wall. Arsenal have perennially been called weak and a soft touch, and they’re probably annoyed that they knew how important those 3 points were.
Arsenal fans have lots to worry about, but celebrating a win is not one of them. Enjoy yourself Gooners, if it annoys the opposition, all the better.
John Matrix AFC (not gonna get caught up in was it a red card because who cares!)
I understand the need for clicks from media houses or sites, but that Ruben Neves comment about Arsenal celebrating winning at wolves like they have won the league and how far wolves have grown, how this would not have happened 10 years ago.This statement is just ignorant. 10 years ago Ruben Neves never heard of Wolves. Forgive us if we celebrate a side we have rarely beat since they became a portuguese club. Forgive us if we celebrate winning a side that did the double over us last season, last time we played against Wolves we where cruising at home, then David Luiz happened we ended up loosing. Forgive us if we celebrate winning a team no pundit(even ex Arsenal players) gave us a chance to win.
When you go a month without winning a football match you celebrate it, you celebrate the release of pressure
..and No, Wolves have not improved as much as Arsenal has fallen over the last 10 years
9JA Gunner, Kufre
Coaching the difference at Newcastle
Having just read Steve, NUFC’s email about the better times for my team, I felt compelled to write in. Great email, Steve, and sums up how a lot of fans feel about this team at the moment – the trying to do something rather than the “getting by” that had sunk in under Ashley and Bruce. Bruce embodied that with the way he acted (giving players half the week off) and what he said in press conferences, which is why fans hated him. Under the new regime, it’s great to see a man in Eddie Howe who is at least trying to make the team better, and hopefully it comes off.
And that’s the main focus of my email. A lot of pundits and fans of other clubs are saying about “Newcastle’s signings will keep them up” but actually the only players playing are a RB signed for 15m that easily could have happened under Ashley (and was so essential because we didn’t have one really) and a striker signed as a backup because our main one got injured and we didn’t have the foresight to sign a second premier League worthy striker in the summer.
What’s happened is that the team have been coached for the first time in 2 years. I was worried for Howe that it would take a long time to undo Bruceball – essentially standing on the edge of our box and hoping ASM can do some magic – and he’s done it very quickly. Joelinton in midfield has been absolutely magnificent and has set the tone in terms of the press, tackles and getting the team higher up the pitch. The players are fitter, fighting and playing on the front foot and the performances under Howe have been a massive improvement. We have Liverpool and City a game (results may not suggest it but we went toe to toe with both) and the only aberration was the cup loss to Cambridge, which on a another day could have been 5 or 6-1 to us if people could finish.
Howe deserves a lot more credit than he’s getting – he’s turned around a rotten team and got them playing and given us a chance to stay up, even before the signings. 5 players undo a few years of underinvestment, as the squad needed improvements but they aren’t the reason we’re back in the hunt. The fans react to that tempo, that press and that fight and that’s why SJP is bouncing again. I live down south but am heading up for a game in a few weeks and I can’t wait. Newcastle are back, whether we stay up this year or not.
James, NUFC
Zouma backlash
The court of public opinion seems to have permanently donned a black cap, and sentences any transgressors to death regardless of the context or circumstances of their crime.
What Zouma did, is shocking not just because it’s a cruel and horrible act, but that it did not seem to occur to anyone involved that it was something that shouldn’t be done. This is where, to my mind, we deviate from constructive to destructive solutions. A mail this morning suggested that Zouma should be booed, and bullied for the rest of his playing days – is this really where we want to be as a society? Public humiliation and harassment as tools to fix people’s psyches? There should always be consequences for our actions, no argument there, but there’s degrees of difference here.
What strikes me about this incident, is that Zouma clearly has very different settings to the rest of us on what is a societal norm, and what is not. It’s possibly a symptom of the overall infantilisation of top level footballers, but I tend to think what he actually needs is help. Professional, psychological help. This seems more likely to succeed than 40,000 people calling him a c**t twice a week.
There’s nothing new here. Someone, on a weekly basis, needs to be the bad guy. A conflict is required, left vs right, science vs anti vax, gender critics vs trans people, peta vs footballers. The next transgressor to be tried, convicted and hung by the masses. Could be you next.
We’re all in the colosseum baying for blood. Meanwhile, Rome burns.
Jeremy (full disclosure – I called my cat a ‘prick’ the other day) Aves
I see that Zouma’s brother, Yoan, has been suspended by Dagenham and Redbridge unti the conclusion of the RSPCA investigation.
What is there to investigate? It’s all there on video. They’ve already taken the cats away from Zouma’s house. What more is there to investigate? Have they got Dr Doolittle in to interview the cats?
The amount of money wasted in this country on ‘investigations’ of things that are quite clear and obvious is mind numbing.
Peter B (the original and the best)
Thanks Mat from Leeds for pointing out that the cat might be scarred for life. I feel sorry for the cat and I would never kick a cat. But in comparison to the offenses by the owners and players at other clubs all across the country, I respectfully suggest that this is not a sackable offense and that it is in fact relatively small beans.
Regarding “woke” culture, this means the disturbingly common tendency to hang, draw and quarter people online before they have gone through a legal process. It doesn’t matter what Zouma earns, he has paid the appropriate fine for his offense. Should he pay more? Who are you to say?
And back to Moyes, as i said, his job is on the line together with the sustainability of the football club. Why shouldn’t he pick Zouma? Is he legally obliged not to or is this an arbitrary moral compass which you and the other hyper-sensitive Twitterati have made up yourselves and apply to people based not on actually legal process and reality but on how offended you personally are.
As for F365 being better 15 years ago, this had absolutely nothing to do with the Zouma incident (apologies if that came across that way) and was to do with the mailbox only being filled day after day with Liverpool and Man U fans complaining/bragging about their teams. Indeed, if you are a Leeds fan and my email has prompted you to write in, I would encourage you to do so more often. I know that the excellent folks at F365 would print football views from other teams if only we wrote in more. Have a nice weekend.
Mike
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