Is the British Football Media Serious?

Thank God, it’s over! This was truly the interlull from hell. Not only was our best current player injured for almost two months, but our best former player has been branded “a cheat” and “a liar.” I have refrained from covering and incessantly commenting on this whole affair because I am just absolutely sick to death of the British media. A bigger bunch of hypocrites and hucksters, I have never before seen the likes of.

Even respectable writers, of which I believe there are three in the whole country, have gone mad. Henry Winter is calling for Henry to be banned from the entire World Cup. For a handball! Intentional handballs are a part of the game. Many times it is a reflex action, whether it was here or not. But banned for an entire World Cup? Henry, if you need help looking for your mind, let me know.

The source of the most disgusting piece I have read, and I have by no means read them all because it is just too wearying on my mind to do so, was no surprise… Myles Palmer wrote:

Thierry, your cheating has touched something deep in me, so deep I thought it had died. I didn’t know I could still feel such rage and disgust. Thierry, you are a sickening cheat and a shameless liar. You’re a disgrace to the sport that’s made you a multi-millionaire. You’re a bottler who has never scored in a final in your entire life and you make me sick. You were the worst  Arsenal captain in the club’s modern history. The day Wenger sold you, I jumped for joy. Literally, I jumped across the room, punching the air. You care about nothing but your owns stats and your own legacy and this is now your legacy. Last night is your legacy. You’ll be remembered as a cheat.

Give me a fucking break, Myles. You deserved every comment you got on that ridiculous drivel. It’s too bad you don’t have the balls to  publish your comments like the rest of us. Then again, wind-up tools rarely like to show themselves getting wound up. I sometimes feel so absolutely drained from reading this drivel and I worry that if I read too much, I will start to think simply and irrationally, just like them. The hypocrisy is just beyond comprehension. I mean, I’m sure every one of these writers who are playing the role of the moral judge has never cheated or lied about anything in their entire lives. I mean, it’s football, after all. From the reaction, you would think Henry stole 1000s of children’s Christmas toys.

Of course, that is assuming that what he did was dishonest. I’m not entirely convinced that it was and neither are many of the Irish players and coaches. Unlike football writers, they actually know what it is like to play the game. Ireland were hard done by, of that there is no doubt. But I believe the onus here is on the referee. Players do things like this all the time, it is up to the referee to catch it. Just as in the Eduardo incident, the player is being punished more and treated worse because the official missed the call. If he had made it, it would have just been what it was… a handball.

Rooney and Gerrard dive, Drogba exaggerates fouls by 5,000%, players constantly call for a decision on balls gone out of play that they know they touched last, etc…

The game is full of cheating, and full of cheating far worse than what Henry did. I don’t care about the situation or the circumstances… let’s just look at what he did. He handled the ball. Call out the S.W.A.T. team! The same people calling for him to miss the World Cup also called for a multi-match ban on Eduardo for a yellow-card offense. Thankfully, writers don’t run football, they only leech off of it.

On the BBC, Mark Pougatch expected Henry to stop the entire stadium and French team from celebrating to tell the referee that he handled the ball. Get real, Mark… it’s just too easy for a commentator to say that from his booth. That is never-never land stuff, but that is where the football writers and commentators live.

Rather than conducting their 85th witch-hunt  of a non-English player this season, the football writers should have been using this incident to bring the issue of video replay to the fore to put pressure on Platini and the rest. Another golden opportunity missed. But that should not be surprising… football writers and the media in general have their own agenda which has nothing to do with what’s best for the game.

As an Arsenal supporter, I can honestly say I don’t give a flying fuck about Ireland, and increasingly about international football, especially when it comes to Thierry Henry. He’d have to handle the ball in  important situations like this at least 500 times to even begin to get me to consider altering my view of the player. To try to make people feel guilty for not feeling the same self-righteous indignation which the writers do is just as shameful as the handball.

Now, back to stuff that actually matters… Arsenal travel to Sunderland tomorrow morning and will have Carlos Vela, Armand Traore, Lukasz Fabianski, and Denilson available following recovery from their respective injuries. Meanwhile, Walcott, Diaby, and Wilshere are still “a bit short.” Kieran Gibbs should be back next week and Gael Clichy in two-to-three weeks. So, our injury situation, which looked almost criminal 48 hours ago, doesn’t seem quite so bad now.

It’s Not Quite As Bad As It Seems

While the injury to Robin van Persie was disturbing news this past weekend, let’s try not to go overboard. Posts on message boards and the like have been raging about how our season is over, etc., etc., etc…. That is hardly the case. Yes, he has been in the form of his life with 8 goals and 7 assists in 15 matches. And, yes, it is deeply frustrating to see Robin, once again, injured over an international break due to a crunching tackle. But we have options, and all is not hardly lost just yet.

Early prognostications had him being out for anywhere from 2 months to the rest of the season (wind-up from The Sun, anyone?). The reality is that he will be out for about six weeks. That would see him return just after the New Year. In which case, he will miss the Chelsea match, Liverpool away, two meaningless Champions League group fixtures, and league matches against Stoke, Hull, Burnley, Portsmouth, and ahome match with Villa. The first four are currently 9th, 10th, 17th, and 20th in the table. Not exactly an intimidating fixture list there. Chelsea have a few injury problems as well, while Liverpool… well, they just suck.

OPTIONS

While it is frustrating to have more attacking firepower out injured than the bottom half of the table combined, we still have many options. For one thing, this is why we bought Eduardo 2 years ago. Questions about the player being able to “step in” seem to me to be ridiculous. Okay, he missed a couple of right chances against Spurs, but I have faith that a proper run of matches would see him repeat his form of January 2008, when we were faced with a similar situation. Also, Nicklas Bendtner will be back from his groin surgery by the second week of December (go easy, Baroness, go easy!). Theo Walcott will be returning to training next week and should be available by the end of the month.

In the side, we have Arshavin who could play up top if necessary and it would be ridiculous to forget Carlos Vela, whom the manager has named when asked about being shorthanded up top after the van Persie injury. Vela has been out for weeks but he is also near a return. So we have options. Meanwhile, Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole are both questionable to be fit for the match at the Emirates and Drogba was pulled from the Ivory Coast’s starting XI this past week. The fact is that we should be able to win every one of those games with Eduardo, Arshavin, and Rosicky or Nasri as our front three. And by the middle of December we will have Bendtner, Walcott, and Vela fit.

CLUB/COUNTRY

The most frustrating part about it is that it was, of course, a ridiculous, meaningless friendly. It’s time that the federations are made to pay compensation for using the players and also for injuries which occur in non-competitive matches. The club, and the supporters, invest way too much money in footballers for the current system to remain the same. We have a club/country setup that is a remnant of the game’s pre-modern era. The rest of the game has changed and the way the club/country setup works must be brought up-to-date. Clubs are no longer sending players who they pay a minimum wage to and have to work in the off-season. Clubs now spend millions of pounds training young players or on transfer fees. These players are from a financial perspective, quite literally, investment properties.

That a federation can come and borrow a player for a game which means nothing and send him back injured for six weeks ahead of a crucial match with not even so much as note of apology is ludicrous. The federations don’t care one bit about the clubs but then complain about how the clubs try to keep players from them. Well, why wouldn’t they? Federations have the sweetest deal of all… they have a team of stars on call that they didn’t have to pay anything to train or buy. Wenger’s analogy of the players going off on international duty is like someone borrowing your Ferrari for two weeks and then returning it in such a condition that it needs to be in the shop for six weeks is spot on. I’m not advocating an end to international football, but to have the player go away for the third international break of the season already for a meaningless friendly is reckless and it must stop.

Personally, I really feel for van Persie. Some like to say he’s made of glass, but, unlike Rosicky, who gets injured getting out of bed in the morning, his injuries are almost always caused by another player. He had his first true full season last year and led the club with 20 goals in all competitions. Free from major injuries, we began to see the real potential of van Persie. And in the first 3 months of this season, we began to see that potential realized. There is no more devastating trio of attacking players in the Premier League than Fabregas, Arshavin, and van Persie. The fact that he has 7 assists to go with his 8 goals means we not only lose a goalscorer but a provider as well.

Bumps in the road are inevitable over a long season and we need to show that we can deal with them. And, while the whole team isn’t riding on his back, we are counting on Eduardo to do exactly what we all know he can do and for the rest to pick up the slack, if necessary. Van Persie’s injury is frustrating but it’s not devastating. The club is more than deep enough to cope, especially when our minor injuries are all cleared up in a few weeks.

Cesc Fabregas’ Secret Weapon

Our regular Guest Contributor, Ted Harwood, takes a look at Cesc Fabregas’ secret weapon, Alex Song, and his emergence this season as one of the best defensive midfielders in the Premier League. Song’s form is directly related to Cesc’s performances this season of 10 assists in 10 league matches, just one less than the total that led the league last season, as well as his 9 goals in all competitions. His confidence going forward is down to his confidence in Song. You get the sense that he is inspiring the same sort of confidence that Flamini did 2007-08, and it also shows how important the DM spot is to Arsenal’s style of play.

Alex Song is a player that has shown lots of potential since arriving on the scene at the Emirates in 2005.  He made sporadic appearances during his first year before going on load to the Addicks at the start of 2007.  Upon his return to the club in the fall of 2007, Song began to log significant time at both central midfield and center half in the Carling Cup and the Champions’ League.

Despite being named in the African Cup of Nations best XI in January of 2008, many Arsenal supporters remained unconvinced, some claiming that Song was too slow for the Premier League, some claiming that he was not confident enough, many saying that the club should have sold Song rather than Diarra (hopefully those same folks have at least changed their stance on that, now).  This season, at only 22 years of age, Song has really settled well into the defensive midfield slot of Arsenal’s new 4-3-3 formation and has been playing the game with verve, gaining much of that confidence that was perhaps a worry a couple of years ago for him.

With the help of the superb resource that is The Guardian Interactive Chalkboards, I took a look at all of Song’s performances in the league this season so far (every match bar the Pompey triumph).  The chalkboards confirmed what I had seen with my eyes and tried to piece together in the shoddy, ramshackle cabin that is my memory: Song has been, with one or two unfortunate exceptions, rock solid in front of the back four.

One of the areas in which Song has really stepped up his game is his passing.  His ratio of completed passes to failed passes is in the 10:1 range for every game, sometimes even better, and in all areas of the pitch.  We had caught glimpses of this in the encouter with Blackburn last year when he provided the final chipped pass for Eduardo’s insane outside-of-the-left-peg strike.  This year, he has been efficient in distributing the ball to Cesc, to the wings, or to the back four when creative options weren’t immediately available.  His razor of a through ball for RVP to control and slot home versus Birmingham City shows that, when placed in an advanced position (an increasingly rare locale for Song), he can provide the proper pass for the forwards.  He almost never makes weak passes in dangerous positions, a potential area of concern a couple of years ago.

Clearances have been a bit of a problem, with The Guardian’s staff deeming many of Song’s  clearances to be “unsuccessful” (it is unclear what this means, exactly), but further investigation revealed that this has been a bit of a concern for the entire team, not just Song.  I’m sure that Wenger will have seen this in film review, and will take steps to make sure that when in danger, Arsenal do a more effective job of putting the ball as far away as possible.

Song’s tackling has been excellent, and, like his passing, he’s been nicking the ball away from opponents all over the field, left, right, and center.  On a couple of occasions (e.g. the Tottenham match) he has lost challenges in delicate positions, and the unfortunate penalty (if one can call it that) at Upton Park could maybe have been prevented with an earlier challenge by any number of Arsenal players .  Overall, Song has been the team’s best and busiest tackler.  In the Wolves game last weekend, things were pretty hairy for the first 20 minutes, and when Song came in, one could sense that Ramsey in particular relaxed, relieved of the heavier of his defensive obligations, and began to play his game.

It is this last point that is most important; Song has seemingly gained the absolute confidence of his teammates.  It is no secret that the creative players in a 4-3-3 need to have faith that if they concentrate on setting up attacking moves, should something go wrong, there is a player nearby who will help them to sweep away the danger.  Much of the success that Cesc, Diaby, Ramsey, Eboué, and Rosicky are enjoying this year is due to the reassurance that Song will at least slow up and at most destroy any counterattacks that may come down the field. Song’s impact on the side was plain to see in the Wolves match when Arsenal struggled for the first 20 minutes until he came on.

The 2010 edition of the African Cup of Nations presents a new dilemma for Wenger with regards to Song.  In 2008, Wenger compounded the effect of Song’s absence by also selling Diarra, which left Arsenal a little thin in defensive positions behind Flamini at times and perhaps factored into the teams’ growing misfortunes as the season progressed from there.  This year, Wenger will no doubt have learned from 2008.  The fact that he did not bring in cover for Song’s absence in the August window may tell us something.  Transfer options, though, would appear to be limited or unrealistic; surely Yaya Touré would not come to Arsenal to plop back onto the pine as February rolls around.  Vieira remains, as always, a sentimental choice, but playing time is crucial for him as well in advance of June and the World Cup.

As in central defense, the problem is that one has to find a player who is better than the backups we currently have but not worried about being on the bench when Song returns.  Internal options would appear to be more realistic, if not necessarily preferred, although the options we have are perhaps better than people think.  Although Denilson is a different type of player, he achieves similar results to Song with his passing and breaking up of play via interceptions and the occasional tackle.  His form may still be a slight concern in six weeks’ time, though, and Wenger may see him as a forward-thinking central player at this point.

Another intriguing option, although it is hard to imagine Wenger doing this, is moving Vermaelen into Song’s position and placing either Senderos or Silvestre in the back four.  I am not convinced that this is an option, really, as Wenger will no doubt see Vermaelen’s aggression as key to the back four’s attitude this year.  As much as Vermaelen seems to offer going forward, if it were a larger part of his job, it is hard to judge whether he would pull it off.

Craig Eastmond played very well versus Liverpool in the Carling Cup tie, but may lack for experience.  This has not always stopped Wenger in the past, though; Ramsey, for instance, played in the defensive slot for the first time in my memory on Saturday, so we cannot say that Wenger would not try Eastmond there at some point (although, to be fair, Ramsey has more big-match experience).  And Wenger may just try Ramsey there again.  He seems to have eliminated Diaby from his defensive plans, admitting that the Frenchman has a bit of a nose for goal, and that this causes him to neglect his holding obligations from time to time.

Song’s form this year will be difficult to replace during his absence, but Wenger will no doubt have anticipated this problem this year and have any number of options in his mind.  One thing is for sure, though, and that is that Song is quickly developing into one of the better defensive midfielders that Arsenal have had since Vieira left, and hopefully this (at one time, anyhow, pleasantly surprising) development will carry over to other young players in the squad.