;

Should Arsenal accept the reality of debt in the modern world?

2011-03-15T13:40:00.003Z

For all our talk about beautiful football, we were beaten by it twice last week. It seems that beautiful football is something we have made up ourselves at Arsenal and can only mean what we want it to mean, whether we win or lose. We win, lose and draw with beautiful football so everybody else is wrong apart from Arsenal because we're doing it right.

This is an easy sell. Look at Steve Jobs on his sermon on the mount performances telling the world how he is giving them "what they need" when in fact, it's an idiot's game all this consumerism and branding. You have to be a fool to part with your cash simply because it means something at the expense of all the things in the world that really do matter to us, or should matter for that example.

In football, there is a reliance upon an industry that churns out employees with massive wages at a high cost for the consumer. Arsene Wenger earns millions and millions year upon year so are we to believe that money doesn't matter at all in this game? I want to say right now, that I realised recently Arsene Wenger may very well be the greatest manager in the world of football today but not for the reasons you may be thinking. A club acquires a manager based upon their intent and the board members at Arsenal, need a manager, who will keep them away from having debt and paying debt.

We're a funny company you see. I know the world is saying that debt is bad but we're not living in that world anymore. We're not living in a world where a company is completely built upon its own finance. No matter what the press and their know nothing bloggers and reporters say, debt is good for a company. It can be the saving grace and a very very cheap way to finance a major project. What was our major project? The Emirates stadium at a debt of a very low interest rate built upon the de-regulation of banks that brought all of this about.

When the idea of the stadium was going ahead, the arguments coming from the boardroom were not entirely about what is good for the fans or for football, it was all about the most appropriate financial approach to the game. I still believe, in fact I believe it more so than before that David Dein was thinking on a purely footballing basis when he made his decisions heard about Arsenal. This is extremely rare and for a massive global brand like Arsenal that completely ripped apart football into a corporate object is indicative of nothing more than Arsenal being far away from football and all about money.

I used to hear some fans saying that our board members didn't make that much money - but seriously... 20/30 million is a lot when you've only got 1 million in the bank (and I say only there, but it is a lot) and that's what Arsenal is. The board may not take a wage but they must look after their investment and they are all invested in the club in some capacity and the debt, with the structure arsenal has as a company will be to the board member's expense so they can't allow it.

I'm going to get to the football and Arsene now. Arsene's role at the club is simple. Avoid debt, avoid needing to go into debt and bringing in massive investment (which is possible with a billionaire backer) and play some games that will allow us to stay in the running for TV rights, European and Premiership money to pay the bills and avoid the money needed at other clubs.

The world's banking system will not change over night so as long as a football club can bring in money to the club at a low cost and pay off any costs attached to that debt... they're fine. They could do anything to do this by selling players or changing the way they play football and buying other players. The board members at a club will adjust for any scenario and as much as some clubs have gone into liquidation, how many have completely disappeared? I say this while Leeds are fighting to get back into the premiership from league one? Sounds like a good solid 5 year plan to me.

Now, I'm going to be absolutely honest. Do we need it? I think yes. I think it would be nice to win some trophies and show what Arsenal are capable of but I have some further theories beyond this. What if Arsenal don't win trophies because they know that it's more important for United, Chelsea to win them because of their debt? You are nothing without your competition in football. If your competition suffer, Arsenal will also suffer too. We need the competition in this game to survive in order for us to survive, especially with the financial situation we have chosen with our current board who need that money when the debt, the debt built from a credit crisis that practically destroyed parts of the world, will disappear and so will our board members with a lot of money in their hands.

They will sell it off. Arsenal will disappear once this board has alleviated themselves and the future will show that Arsenal will not be able to survive solely on this stadium. We will have to go into debt because that not only how football is, but importantly how world finance operates and we will be no different from any other club. So get ready for it and stop looking down at other clubs - we will be next.

The stadium was nothing more than a project that will provide a return for the people who run the club and have ownership in the club. Any idiot who thinks there is anything else occurring at the club really needs to work out the world we live in. Football can be fun but I think people are, well I think they are, wiser to what is occurring in the world. I personally find the idea of debt quite, uncomfortable but it works for corporations, it works for the owners of corporations and it operates well for world and building these modern economies that exist around us.

I don't feel the vast majority see this. I think Arsenal could have won a few trophies this season, a couple at least but with the restraints that such a financial structure gives you in football, I don't think even Arsene can overcome this. I recall people blaming the ref or blaming certain players. I think the person to blame in all of this, is, the greatest football manager in the world today, Arsene Wenger; a puppet for the Arsenal board. I feel sorry for him in fact. Here is a man who chose millions for untold footballing glory.

Can Cheryl Cole do this? Simon Cowell and mediocre pound stretching of the premiership

2011-01-02T23:41:00.005Z

Useless individual in the public eye, one Cheryl Cole, conveniently told by her publicist to exercise the far extremes of a Newcastle accent fails to live up to any qualities that would benefit humanity.

Although she does benefit somebody's wallet. That's usually Simon Cowell who stretches mediocrity beyond its moments of death to the masses - the masses who are fooled into believing mediocrity has merit.

So in light of the world of Cheryl, you can use what you can to your benefit so you are two types of footballer's wife/girlfriend. The one who benefits more from dragging her husband through the dirt and the one who doesn't. I believe that a fair number of footballers do career away from their monogamy and venture out to the world of, well not polygamy, but hedonist modern day make up addicts who dwell in the dark scary holes of loud health hazard music we call night clubs.

Yes, even Footballers with all their money are sent crawling to these nightmares of modern contemporary sinkhole living that are night clubs. For sex I guess and maybe... to show themselves. To parade in some macabre mating ritual because there is nowhere else to show off your wealth. Clothes are so rudimentary and obvious that everyone is wearing your threads. Cars are such and the same that you are no different to anybody else with the same car. So where can you go but these filth ridden effluence of evolution or Hell. Maybe we can get Richard Dawkins to put this area of evolution in his next book and put it next to the chapters on commercialisation and capitalism.

This is where they go. Beyond our temples of dreams and our obeisance to the premiership TV screen, the money gets spent on the drugs of the moment, from extreme fashion, to sex, to alcohol - to any other stretching of mediocrity. That's the sign of our times. We are so finite in our relation to talent that we feel the only thing worth looking at are the publicity echoed through magazines related to sexualised images of nothingness. Well nothing worth nothing.

So Cheryl in all her pretty pointless appreciation of wisdom couldn't see the brilliance of Ashley Cole. Neither could we to be honest and we called him "Cashley Cole" because he wanted another 5 thousand pounds. Such is our fans mediocre appeal to football that we didn't think the once "best left back in the world was worth anything more" but if we look at the premiership today, the appreciation of mediocrity is too far away. Teams that were once giant beaters are dwindling further down the table to be replaced by teams, that still don't garner appreciation regardless of how much their players express brilliance and their managers scowl at the bias and prejudice in favour of the big four.

People still expect Liverpool to do well for all their problems there is no appreciation for the balance we can see in other teams. For all the money spent at Manchester City and Chelsea (basically Billionaire money funnelling organisations), they appear to be no match against the likes of teams that spend far less. Pretty ugly world I think considering how the owners of these clubs made their money.

Pretty much Cheryl Cole in perspective because Cheryl got all her money from being a pretty face and an exploiter of Geordieness and these Billionaires got their money from pillaging and raping the planet. OK, we all do it but there was no talent or brilliance involved so how can we expect them to spend well when it comes to money?

No different is Simon Cowell.

So to summarise and supplement, the electronic digital obeisance with the credit addiction has destroyed global supply chains. We can no longer give the world amazing talent, amazing expression and the world no longer recognises for all the mixed messages of sex, yes, blame sex, sex messages that are sent through the media. Our children are barely prepared for any of this and for all her complete lack of morals and decency - Cheryl Cole is a true example of everything wrong in the world and she exercises behaviour and attitude to fuel this.

No matter how good the premiership becomes. No matter how brilliant the quality in the league is, we will never ever see what is great because of Cheryl Cole, Simon Cowell and Billionaires with nothing but "ownership" and as much talent to do something as a drug riddled junkie locked in an empty room with no windows or doors.

Pretty much like what happens when the X Factor is on.

Can Cheryl Cole do this?

Finally - I guess this is proof I have a life.

2010-11-26T14:06:00.002Z

Lupe Fiasco - Never Forget You ft. John Legend
Destroyer - Chinatown

This morning, by chance, in a greasy spoon, I came across - THE SUN!

A newspaper famous for reporting on non-happenings that appear as happenings by characters from a self indulgent consumerist nightmare.

Not that I'm a regular reader of newspapers these days. I've got too much to do right now and therefore haven't got as much time to go over who plays where for Arsenal. Who plays where for any other team. Which team has bought who and how he plays, how he should play, where he should play and why he is playing. I don't have time for it anymore.

That... is... pretty... upsetting.

There was a time when, like anybody else I craved all that. Just look back at my correspondence from years gone by. Why this, why that, why the hell Bergkamp? Yes I questioned that and after seeing him for numerous games I still wonder that.

Bergkamp is a good place to start. We did have Dennis Bergkamp (you see what I did there? If not... bugger off) and we had him for longer than we should have had him. I think we massaged his ego. I think, by massaging his ego, some of our board and backroom staff massaged their egos. It was a case of "Wow. Look at us. We have a great player and he's still here."

We really should have grown and developed. I like to look at Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes and think, wow... now that is football. In the premiership today we have absolutely quality players who watch what they eat, develop their craft and compete at the highest level in the world right now. We don't do that at Arsenal.

Is that wrong? Or... what is right?

I think... I will say... don't go to football looking for your moral compass or sense of morality. In fact, don't go to anything business oriented. It's ugly. It's devious. It's nasty and people do die horrible deaths because of the way we conjur and create and global market exploiting business today. This from the corner shop to the big supermarket and back again.

If we want morality we should... be honest... be truthful... be good... be kind. It's very simple. We all know how to do that. I know life becomes hard and the struggles become insurmountable but we can at least try and trying is the first step - or is doing the first step. Trying is always filled with effort while doing appears to be a state of nonchalant automation. Just do good.

Yet, as I read The Sun today and read Arsene Wenger has been having an affair (please spare me your criticism, I don't know how true it is - is anything truthful today?) I felt a slight sensation of content. For years I had looked up to Arsenal's words of harmony and integrity and balance believing we were a club who never went in the wrong direction. We had fans, many of whom applied and projected religious principles on the club and we wished to express that.

I don't believe there is anything wrong with that. As long as we hope for good - but not on the basis of hypocrisy I believe. Not at the expense of other clubs who also do good.

So I am saying, I hope we are seen as ugly as business is, where our players and managers are prone to extra-marital affairs and can't keep their todger firmly lodged behind grand sporting celibacy. I do. This is the ugly world of football as entertaining as it is so that the people of football, the fans can go out into the world and find good and hopefully never stop looking for it.

If I could say, I hate the fact people hide behind money and the arrogance and power that money gives people. Why can't these guys be honest. We gasp with horror covering our mouths with our holy hands at how dreadful all this is but it's happening everywhere. Are we so foolish. so hidden, so protected in our lives that this does not occur. I am not justifying it, I am not reasoning it, but my point is that this is wrong, this is brutal (if it occurred) and we should call it for what it is - the ugly image of football. The ugly image of life and gross, nasty, harsh, reminder of disappointment.

So I guess I have a life. I didn't know the caricatures created by The Sun were having affairs but I do know a whole lot worse in real life. Really ugly things. Really nasty ugly behaviour that occurs in real life.

Still, I take solace in the grand pockets of peace that exist around us.

My conscience is clear.

Death to Arsenal

2010-10-10T01:14:00.003+01:00

Basic Physics - Ghosts on a G6 (Deadmau5 // Far East Movement)
D-Sisive - I Love A Girl (Grizzly Bear: Hijacked)
Lloyd Banks - Start It Up f. Kanye West, Swizz Beatz, Ryan Leslie & Fabolous
Bedouin Soundclash - Brutal Hearts ft Coeur de Pirate
Deadmau5 & Wolfgang Gartner - Animal Rights (Kids At The Bar Edit)
The Temper Trap - Fools

It's time to kill Arsenal.

Arsenal was re-born in it's second life under the guidance of David Dein in 1996 which gave rise to lots of new baby activities and spending leading up to the maturity and sudden decline at the hands of the Eastern Bloc powers and all the money that came with it.

Odd that we didn't see this coming but it's also odd how we didn't care about it and didn't want to change or win.

It's time for Arsenal to die. Is there a future amidst this? Is there a possibility that Arsenal can win something sooner or later?

We tend to believe there is a way out of this and why shouldn't there be... I mean seriously speaking, why do we have to consider, incapability due to environmental factors or even financial and internal factors. Isn't this something we can overcome? Of course it is but we've been over-reliant on many things lately which are dead in many ways for us and we are squeezing them for all the juice that they have.

So what is missing is risk and trying. Taking a risk and trying. I believe this is out of fear and fear from failure. There seems to be some fear of embarrassment from losing and in Football that appears to be peculiar because you have to get used to losing in order to have respect for this whole world of football. This I feel is where all of our problems begin from.

There appears to be a huge expectation on the shoulders of the players. It's like we are sending out players who fear for their lives. I'm not sure what has been forced onto these players but I don't I've seen them play relaxed and for fun in many many years. There appears to be no camaraderie. Looking back, if you see huge players like Vieira, Pires and Henry disappear to be replaced with kids under the pretence and belief they will grow to be better is like hoping people will accept an inferior product in the belief it become the best thing ever.

All this faith in one dimensional strategies has brought some results because we paid for quality... didn't we but not mature quality unless you count Arshavin in this and look what happened there. Amazing.

Anyway... it's not about players it's about changing who you are as an individual and accepting that doing the same thing over and over again isn't going to miraculously bear fruits from labours of pointless hope and nothing else. So we can talk about this for hours on end and for days and days when the whole point is not as some fans do, procrastinate on acceptance or even whinge on selection and transfer but realise the club has shifted into mess territory.

If anything I have realised is fear, with the people I know around me, can make you break down principles, faith, ethics, morality and for all the rhetoric people, these great people who speak excessively, spout against politics, media, society, civilisation - isn't nothing more than a projection of the fragmentation of their own psyche? In the state of our present existence, bombarded with synthetic, artificial images of humanity and this is humanity in every sense from the extremes of happiness to sadness, conflict to peace, sex to abstinence, culture to nothingness - we don't know what is right for us and what is wrong for us but we're all so quick to tell the authorities, the mummies and daddies of our institutionalised "now" and institutionalised "society", they are wrong.

In respect of the above, what is right in football is to create a team that wins, and we will see that. We will see that and say, the club is not lying and the club is working on truthful principles because we'll see it.

We can't see it so it's a lie.

Please watch this (without prejudice or feeling): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f2fmnTfoTc

and - once again Godfrey Reggio's Evidence:

Whoops - Problems aint fixed!

2010-08-16T22:57:00.002+01:00

Kid Cudi - Mr. Rager
Menomena - Wet & Rusting
Royksopp - The Drug
The Pass - Trap Of Mirrors

Ana Caravelle - Black Canyon (Shigeto's As I Inhale Mix)
Ana Caravelle - Out of Road Rendered

Different things are important to different people.

This is dependent on a multitude of factors from, I don't know, culture, friends, family, occupation - absolutely anything could conjure up the importance. I think, for instance, a lot of our importance, in the west, is an excuse to have a party and a good jolly.

So... you support Arsenal or you support United... because our society equates success with happiness.

Then you get the lower league teams who have support and it's a good time, it's a laugh but there is that need to win and succeed. Amidst that you'll be left thinking, how long do you wait for success and what price does patience carry. Patience can be a heavy heavy burden you have to carry alongside hope and your thoughts.

A lot of my blogs have been around our financial situation and how we can use that to gain success but maybe football is more than that. Maybe football is about the game and wondering what player to play etc. But I laugh because we don't really do that do we. We've had certain problems for a number of years and I think I speak for a lot of fans when I say, we grow tired speaking of the same problems over and over again.

How dull and depressing must that be? Here we are with a multitude of solutions available and we don't try them.

Goalkeeper is rubbish? Change him. Spend the money.

Strikers don't score goals? Buy a better striker.

We're getting good money for a player? Sell him and buy some mature work horses!

For instance... Fabregas is a big big problem for us because he is miles, head and shoulders better than a lot of the players at the club but if we can't build a team around him then we're stuck. We had a good thing with Flamini but we let that slip by.

And now... whooops... there's another problem. Our transfers. Our player management.

Too many problems and you know what... just like our problems in life, even if we took small steps to solve them. Little steps in the right direction then it would give us hope. It would give meaning to patience but we're not. We repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

Are we going to win anything this year? No. We are not.

Does it matter? In the greater scheme of things it should but I think our fans have got used to waiting and hoping that it's nothing special. Which is worrying and saddening and upsetting because a club like Arsenal has had and does have a great deal of potential with world class assets and resources and we don't use them. We just don't use them. They are merely there for the balance sheet - to make Arsenal Football Club, the company look great.

Or maybe it's something else. Maybe, we have grown tired of football. Maybe so many deluded perspectives on a sport have been given to us, we've forgotten what it is. Maybe the commercialisation and hollywoodisation of football has tainted our perspective of the competitive nature of the game stopping us from seeing how we are in a clear position to win great things and how that opportunity has passed us.

A shame because wasted opportunities are a pain.

Free Cesc Fabregas

2010-08-14T21:10:00.003+01:00

Please visit the charities to your right

Ducksance - Barbra Streisand
Zero 7 - Futures (Error Operator Remix)
K.Flay - 2 Weak
Something A La Mode - 5AM (LaTourette Remix)

Camera Obscura - Forests and Sands
Camera Obscura - Tears For Affairs
Camera Obscura - Careless Love

We have reached a stage. A stage of no return.

Where lies are lies and maliciousness becomes vivid.

We're holding players captive and they need to be set free.

Yes we have control over these players. Yes they are our assets. Yes they must work for us.

But we as a club, for all our grand gestures of humanity and the Arsenal way are holding a player to ransom.

This club is dying and it's about time we released players.

We can see Liverpool and Manchester City as clear competitors. We can see Tottenham and Villa as rivals. The dirty game is arising and it's our pretentious, pompous arrogance that puts us in a position that we have forced ourselves into.

We are back to asking the same questions.

Is it too difficult to buy a decent player and pay him a wage with the masses of money at our disposal?

Is it too difficult to buy and sell players when we have a 30 million pound player being argued over across Europe and the world?

Why make life hard for ourselves?

Let's just face facts. We're idiots.

David Dein was right.

OK... forgive the melodrama. Who cares for all that right?

The point is to win things and for all the years of profits and for all the mind blowingly envious assets at our disposal we are merely acting like children when we could be world beaters.

The world has changed Arsenal. It will remain changed. It will not revert back to some never existed utopia. There will be no political revolution (and even if there was, we'd all change anyway)...

Just buy players. Just get them.

I'm going back to pondering why we behave like this...

Why... why... why...

Arsene Wenger is good - but he's not that good

2010-05-20T21:51:00.002+01:00

Gritt - Hell Yeah
Allure - Renaissance
Bat For Lashes - Use Somebody (Kings of Leon cover)
Teenagers in Tokyo - End It Tonight (Nightschool Disco Hijack Mix)
N.E.R.D - Hot N' Fun (Feat. Nelly Furtado)

Islam remains to be one of the biggest news stories in the world today. This will never change because muslims look out for number one and they know that if they support their own kind, if they continue to fight for the greatest achievement then people will listen - and people do, even though nobody believes them because in the greater scheme of things satisfaction is far more vivid than Religious faith.

The same can be said for our punters on Football highlights shows and sports channels. They go on and on about how great managers at the major clubs are - all the while people like Roy Hodgson and David Moyes create greatness at clubs that barely get a shoe in. They don't have the money and the commercial demonism of the big clubs but in the same way, the TV channels know the money is in the big clubs so you have to praise them as much as possible.

You won't find a drug dealer saying his supply is rubbish, will you.

Unless you're called Peter Hill Wood that is.

For this reason, this satisfaction, this lack of drive and looking into the abyss is a disease for the Arsenal fan. It's not realism, it's not positivity, it's a disease. We know the world of football works on money and we know we have money. You will have to be stupid to believe that Arsenal don't have money. Ever year we have made money for the last 20 years... where is all of that money? Do we burn the left overs every year?

We could be demolishing mountains and draining oceans but our support is too busy believing a marketing campaign that has brainwashed them into cult followers with a leprosy for the brand that is Arsenal.

The moment we can say, this isn't working. We're doing so much that is wrong. We're failing - is the moment that we will quickly see that there is glimmer of light in football where a team can achieve great things, just like Portsmouth, drifting into the Championship became runners up in the FA Cup, which is the non-trophy for a North London club that regardless of having a status of one of the richest clubs in the world has one eff all for 5 years.

We shouldn't be considering the logic of a manager and a team or a club, but just putting some faith and belief in change and realising that only if we spend money will we attain something because let's face it, you pay money to get into the ground or follow Arsenal don't you? That's where our answers lie.

Trophies, Passion, Support? Please stop boring me.

2010-05-18T22:46:00.003+01:00

Atmosphere - Sunshine
The National - England
Blur - Coffee And TV
Lady Gaga - Alejandro (Skrillex Club Mix)
Imogen Heap - The Song That Never Was (The Zodiac Social Version)

A lot has changed in football in the last 100 years. Football hasn't remained football. Nope. We have changed, the world has changed and therefore, football has also changed. Football looks at us and evolves in light of our demands.

I am getting the feeling we are a reflection of football. The football in our immediate area, in our immediate environment is a mirror image of who we are. So what does this mean?

It means, we're narcisisstic, vain, image obsessed, materialistic, angry, stressed out druggies finding it difficult to get satisfaction from life. Unfortunately the win is anything at whatever cost. We're in debt, we live beyond our means and we work hard, we push ourselves to extremes and far what? To fall further into a world of commercialism and materialism.

And the "good old arsenal" say it's ok. They say it's fine. They say they are harmony and balance and control. The "good old arsenal" say we're living within our means as long as we stay in the black and don't go into the red. But where is the fun in that? We are the materialistic, all flash and no substance, scrooge of football. Unfortunately, the world is collapsing and we have to spend big to gain big.

Dare I say it. We're probably one of the only clubs who are fighting against a world knee deep in money problems. If anything, we need to make big changes soon.

Football is officially dull and insubstantial. It has lost it's humanity. It's in coma and it's all because we lost sight of ourselves.

Let's blame Thatcher. Let's blame Reagan. Let's blame our own commercialism.

Unfortunately, it's all dead. The future does not look bright.

You see, I'm confused, sitting here writing about something that really matters little in reflection to the real problems in life. Let's talk about, for a moment, Peter Hill Wood's comments about Fabregas.

Cesc who is young enough to be his grandson is treated as a commodity by this idiot. Is this Arsenal? Where is the respect? Where is the dignity? Where is our character and our "special way of doing things"?

This is what is important. We should exude respect. We should be dignified. In a world that is collapsing around us due to extravagance and materialism, we should at least behave with some morality - not treat our bread and butter (and in Peter Hill Wood's case, his Father's money, not his) like they are objects.

This is why Arsenal are no different from any other club. We're basically knee dip in the rubbish and we will stay there.

I can't end on a lighter note because I think realistically, it's all very nasty and as much as I enjoy a win like the next man, I think we should remove the board and start again and this is where we will begin to behave like a club again.

Godfrey Reggio - Evidence

Arsenal need new manager to rebuild club from the lies

2010-05-03T20:37:00.004+01:00

Sleigh Bells
www.myspace.com/sleighbellsmusic

http://www.thecitizeninsane.com/2010/04/new-sleigh-bells-to-blow-yr-speakers-to.html

The Verve Vs Mgmt Justice Vs Kanye West Lupe Fiasco - Bittersweet Electric Sky Touch (GlowTape!'s String Cheese Mash Up)
Phoenix - 1901 (Customised by DLID)
LCD Soundsystem vs. Justin Timberlake - My Love (Diplo Mix)
Simian Mobile Disco - Aspic
Atmosphere - Sunshine

I've seen a number of idealist individuals bouncing around town centres recently. They just say the same thing over and over again, hoping, praying that people will listen and usually, a lot of people do. You see, if you sell yourself and present yourself, amongst friends and like minded individuals with a reasonable, reasoned idea - people looking for a "change" will follow you.

The problem is, these things aren't usually tested.

Say for instance, you have a problem with your car. It does something funny. What do you do? You take it to a garage who will give you a quotation to fix it. You could get it fixed - after all... they have a sign, they have cars getting fixed, they also have mechanics working too. Maybe, somebody has recommended the place too - then again, you could go elsewhere too. They give you a different price... then somewhere else, gives you a different price.

Now the problem is... how do you know the cheap place isn't just offering you what you need... or maybe they're giving you rubbish but it's an inviting deal. How about the expensive place. Maybe they are offering you decent goods and great workmanship for a respectable price. Then again, they may be ripping you off all the while they have their name up in lights and offer you smiles and winks to make you feel good.

This is, what I think has been happening at Arsenal. We're sold these footballers and managers as the greatest thing ever. Out of the blue, they may beat a great team 5 nil or 6-1. We may get fantastic goal, amazing set pieces - we will then think this is fantastic.

I might as well say it right now - we've won eff all.

Even the clubs below us win games, some great games. Blackburn Rovers beat us today and they also played some great football. The difference is, the Blackburn players aren't called Fabregas and Arshavin and don't have fantastic contracts at with major sports brands at amazing clubs.

All Wenger has given us is this way of playing football but as the Mastercard advert says, some things are priceless and that's how much I'd pay for Arsenal now - nothing at all. It's not worth it. We're seeing the same thing over and over again, sold by the same crap-merchants selling the same old idealised story. What can they give us? A trophy? Maybe two? What will 5 years of no trophies at one of the greatest clubs in the world give us now to justify this drought?

Are we really doing something special?

All we are sold are lies, lies and more lies.

It's about time we got in a new manager who did things differently and we have the money for this new manager. God knows why we pay Wenger millions and millions every year to sell the same old story over and over again. What a waste of money that has been.

A new manager will come from a different background, new experience and could possibly instil new ideas at the club. Hopefully we can kick out the crap at Arsenal too starting with Peter Hill "epic idiot fool" Wood and the rest of the crappy Carr legacy we have had to endure. Time to get somebody in to spend money and spend it well. We're not way up there in the rich list for fiddling the figures. We're a bankable club and we should spend well, re-build and throw out all this rubbish we have first.

Maybe Jose Mourinho. He's a better manager than Wenger after all. I am sure we're all tired of the same old same old rubbish.

Roy Hodgson is a better manager than Arsene Wenger

2010-05-01T02:36:00.005+01:00

Regina Spektor - No Surprises (Radiohead Cover)

Please take a moment to visit the Charities to your right.

Achievements echo far more in history than anything else. We won't be remembered for spending less money year on year at all. I doubt we'll be remembered for anything other than wasted opportunities.

In between all that, we will have the common myths in football that people who score goals and managers win games. In the same way that Arsene Wenger will be inaccurately remembered in history for winning Arsenal trophies, so will we be inaccurately remembered in history for playing great football.

Anybody who is a real football fan or a real Arsenal fan will know it is David Dein who made the modern team what they are and it is he who brought us to the point we are at now. Arsene Wenger was merely, commercially appropriate.

Commercially appropriate.

Footballers are commercially appropriate, just as much as Managers are commercially appropriate. By this, I am sure anybody with a decent MBA who has worked in a major corporation to make major decisions will know, that certain things are said and certain things are done in order to create a commercial success, but the real success isn't indicated to the public but left behind the scenes. The illusion of success is given just like they are given with footballers and managers. Club win - not footballers and managers

George Bush for instance is not an idiot. That's just a myth. It's just commercially appropriate to make him out to be one so people have an idiot to blame; just like Gordon Brown makes calamitous errors too before we get a hung parliament.

Yet, we are idiots. Yes I am an Arsenal fan and I am just like every other Arsenal fan an idiot. We all believe the lies fed to us by the club while they spend less money. Now the funny thing is, we're supposed to be happy about this but what is even funnier is we could save money until the cows come home but there will only be one club left around when all is said and done and because you can't run a league with one club (to cut a long story short) not many clubs will go under because there are enough idiots in football to pay for season tickets and follow teams and...

...the banks know this.

Arsenal now this very well too. Victory through harmony with beautiful football you idiotic fools!

So, we would have won the champions league a couple of teams at least by now and won other trophies too but money is a powerful thing. You know how fans think football players and managers think like them - no because if you ask yourself, what would you do for 1 million pounds and then ask yourself what would you do for 1 million pounds a year, you'll realise there's more to this game than the game.

It's a funny old game but how much of a fan are you to look beyond the obvious and see what is really going on? Do you love the football or do you love the glamour?

Come on, admit it, you like all the bright lights and beautiful colours because for a minute you can dream and fantasise that you're the one kicking the ball and winning and making the money - even if you try and make out that this is not the case.

Years and years ago (I'm talking 20s and 30s guys, not the seventies so you can sit down) football was a cultural thing related to the working week. Ever since we finished with World War 2 and all that economic change, it was all about glamming it up and being well funky to marketise and tax every little part of our lives.

Roy Hodgson is an amazing manager.

Arsene Wenger is a just a greedy man.

Only an idiot would be proud of Barcelona destroying Arsenal

2010-04-07T16:36:00.005+01:00

Broken Bells - The Ghost Inside
Hey Champ - Cold Dust Girl
Twin Sister - Lady Daydream
Twin Sister - The Other Side of Your Face
Twin Sister - Ribbon Bow
Twin Sister - All Around and Away We Go

http://twinsistermusic.com/music/release/color-your-life/

6-3 on aggregate and a defence that couldn't control one man with a manager (who is supposedly world class) couldn't prepare for a team who is supposed to be in the same league as us.

We have injuries - no excuse. We should not have injuries. Is this bad luck? No it's just bad customer services. Why aren't we better at managing players and their playing strategies? Why stress a player to such extremes?

Back to the game in question, I do feel there is an Arsene Knows Brigade response of proud like the word proud is some kind of instant viagra through neural linguistic programming. Every time a member of the Arsene Knows Brigade says proud they get an instant erection but the word Arsenal should be in the same paragraph or within 20 seconds of saying or writing the word Arsenal.

When you get to the quarter finals of the Champions League it is a moment to raise your game and prepare to win, so does losing 6-3 make you think the club raised their game or prepared to win? No. We got it wrong and with the team Arsenal have it was the same old same old in terms of failure.

Now I could go on and on at how incompetent our response was to playing this team but what do we need to do to stop this happening in the future?

Like I've said before - if a club like Arsenal behaved like a football club and not an investment opportunity for an old boys club from the city who are living off Daddies money then we'd have won a lot more trophies by now but they're too busy playing alpha males because Daddy gave them the money and they lose people who know what they are talking about and made them millions (David Dein) because...

maybe it's just a case of because.

Anyway... we're all used to this now aren't we. We're just a club who has the money to get players but we don't spend a lot because that would harm the price of the club.

(New Pictures of) Ramsay injury is the most important injury in the history of football

2010-02-28T22:44:00.004Z

I've inserted some new charities to the right. Please do visit the links.

Let's just show the man in action:

Jamiroquai - Canned Heat (Calvin Harris remix)
Snoop Dogg Ft. Kid CuDi - That Tree (Clockwork Remix)
Kisses - Bermuda
Tesla Boy - Electric Lady
Bella Ruse - Push On

I hope it is the most important injur in the history of football.

Now we have two players who have broken their legs and we are one of the biggest clubs in the world. Hopefully clubs will think twice. Hopefully players will re-evaluate their game. Hopefully kids will think

"Now I won't shag around because John Terry is a real **** and I'll improve my football because I don't want to break legs."

Hopefully for a moment and maybe longer things will change for the better.

Hopefully if we keep this aware for long enough then more and more people will notice.

When is clumsy malicious? In Football. When talent is over shadowed by aggression.

2010-02-27T23:06:00.005Z

Coeur de pirate - Printemps
Basement Jaxx - My Turn (feat. Lightspeed Champion)
Chromatics - Running Up That Hill
Afrojack - Pacha On Acid (Original mix)
Primary 1 - The Blues ft. Nina Persson
Phantogram - As Far As I Can See

I've changed the charities to the right there. Please take a moment to visit the links. - Thanks.

Watching the footballers on Match of the Day comment on Shawcross' challenge I realise how irrational logic is ever present in the game and why football will never move forward when it is grossly embedded in the psyche of football to dominate with aggression and not with talent.

Football is a fast game. So, how stupid do you have to be to play with aggression, with force with speed where contact is involved? Where is your respect and consideration for players in such a game?

Stoke, and all premiership football teams should spend far more time, responsibly expressing the importance of respect to players. I am sure, in fact I can guarantee most managers, if not all, encourage players to play with full force and intensity because that means money.

Football + Aggression = Money.

Another equation could be

Football + Talent = Money.

or maybe.

Respect + consideration = Football

an if that final equation was the case with billions around the world following the game through the internet or TV... then wouldn't the world be a better place?

I'm bored, I'm rich, I'm vacuous - give me a scandal (NOW!).

2010-02-26T06:34:00.003Z

http://www.myspace.com/coeurdepirate

Hawa - D.A.N.C.E. (Justice Cover)
Coeur De Pirate - Comme Des Enfants (Le Matos Andy Carmichael Remix)
finley quaye -dice From an advert! Don't ignore this!
Florence and The Machine - Hurricane Drunk

The Knife - Heartbeats

Broken Social Scene - World Sick

Do you know why people emigrate from their country? Call me controversial (or anything else for that matter) but do you know why they do that? Do you know why people take that step away from their

Home

Home being an operative word?

Boredom? Completely useless individuals with no life who need to exercise their brilliance by moving to another country or...

Money... no... no... I got that wrong.

Career.

What I am saying is, if you already have a career and big giant western company says "Dude, we're going to give you much wonga... come and get us!"

but most of these people are completely rubbish individuals who are boring and lifeless and they'll come here, see the women and give them unbelievable unreal stories that only stupidest of individuals would believe because, if you travel and you go to the countries they emigrate from you'll realise that these people are the dullards of their country. These individuals are their evolutionary effluence that have been forced upon us because we have this embarrassingly frightening need to populate our country in the hope our economy will magically transform...

and it does.

Which is why celebs, like John Terry, like Ashley Cole, like Terry "I write some whacked out magic mushroom nonsense" Pratchett love to get in the media limelight because they are eejits who need that exposure.

Question everything. Everything (unless you are a useless numpty). I know people really love the fact they are exposed to difference, something new, something out of this world because the daily grind of sitting at your desk really needs weird numpties from odd ends of the world to enlighten you

just like the gossip mags do

just like some random geezer who writes for the unfortunate geeks out there

just a new transfer...

(see we would have got to the point)

just like a new player arriving at the club, we get all excited... just to see the same thing over and over again.

Don't get excited when he kicks a ball folks - that's what footballers do... they kick balls.

What I'm saying is, we're all very much the same even though we do call people racist, violent, aggressive, funny - all that stems from the same things. We add the difference like we see in literature, art, fashion etc etc... because we're bored...

...but I'm sure similarity is just as exciting... unless you have an ego and insecurity to feed.

(just something that really pisses me off - people getting excited about the ordinary)

.
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I've been doing some weapons training because I've been told that inner city freaks on drugs feel no pain.

Arsenal's fear of failure

2010-02-18T23:12:00.002Z

NORA - Quiet
2AM Club - Worry About You
Mumford And Sons - Little Lion Man
Toro Y Moi - Master of None (Master of None)
Toro Y Moi - 109 With other Toro Y Moi tracks

Cut Copy - Lights And Music (Moullinex remix)

I am obsessed with people who get wrapped up in the world they exist in. This is especially the case in football where football means everything to somebody - now don't get me wrong here, I admire people who are grossly, romanticised in the game that they can see no ill whether in rivalry or result and I say this because I do negate romanticism at times. Yet, the case here is Arsenal have put themselves in a position where they can lose a lot of support if they tried something new and then...

...failed.

You friendships, your family, your partnership, everything you exist in, your company even, is built up on principles and behaviours that make what you have live and breathe and this is something that all those involved in the units you exist in know so well. Nobody likes anybody who rocks the boat because we all fear the person who rocks the boat since they will break barriers, topple walls, climb mountains and kill everybody you know because they can change at a whim.

Now I don't have a problem with people who change and adapt. Manchester United are built on this change and respect for the environment,...

...if you succeed.

Their system is built on a belief to succeed and if you are the best in the system, if you are the greatest in your culture then people, the economy and finance will always be interested in you because you make things happen.

In the case of Arsenal, the only thing making things happen for them is eccentricity and a need to pummel into their fans that uniqueness, beauty and difference is of most importance. If Wenger changed and evolved and he went out and bought players and failed - what will happen then?

Wenger is in a trap. He has played this game, with the board, for so long where they buy young players, sell players for a high wage, squeeze every penny out of every action that they've embodied this belief into their fans. If they change, just imagine the scene for a moment, that if they change and they fail, completely fail by not winning any cups or anything with numerous players bought for 10s of millions and high salaries on the back?

Well then finance will be a clear and visible annoyance, anger and frustration for their clientele...

by that, I mean, you and me. All of us.

Underneath all of this, we're not good enough. David Dein was right, we needed somebody who was willing to put a cash injection into the club. Is this wrong? Is this immoral? Is this unethical? God no. Football is built on money. Somebody put money into Arsenal in some way and somebody had to pay for it so what is wrong with it.

We're too afraid. We're afraid on the pitch if we get injured. We're afraid of spending good money. We're afraid of trying something new. - all of this, all of this fear because we have never tried to change and the man who never tries to change.

Dies.

Epilogue

But we all know, even if times go bad, we'll still be fans. Some of us will disappear but the rest will remain.

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Alexander McQueen humanised the Fashion Industry - who will bring humanity back to football?

2010-02-16T23:30:00.002Z

Chiddy Bang - Opposite Of Adults
Fear of Tigers - The Adventures of Pippi Longstrump (Edwin van Cleef Remix)
J Dilla - So Far To Go Feat. Common & D'angelo
Baby Monster - She Comes Alive
Ernest Gonzales - Dancing In The Snow
Calvin Harris - Stars Come Out

Dan Black - gorecki fix up my girlfriend some more LOL this is quite something.

Rosie and Me - Bonfires

Alexander McQueen was a fantastic fashion designer but not merely because he was so counter the industry in his designs but also as an individual, he was hardly representative of this tall supermodel, vacuous world. He gave the industry personality and character because he came across as an everyday individual and because of that, what stood out was this talent to make great clothes.

But he was still part of this industry that is superficial at best. Even for me, McQueen was still part of high fashion and then, he committed suicide.

Now... it was a very very sad event. It was unfortunate to lose somebody with great talent. Imagine if we lost, Henry, Zidane, Ronaldo at their prime - they just disappeared from the world and couldn't contribute anymore. How would that feel.

Then again, Zidane, Henry and Ronaldo have always remained part of the world of football.

When I heard the news, I felt the same way I did when Brittany Murphy left. Brittany Murphy's career spanned across animation, music, different genres of film and she was relatively unknown to the masses. She was only known by people who watched films on the films they enjoyed watching. For instance, people who likes teenager led movies or comedies remembered her for clueless, the average teenage boy or man remember her for 300, while those who enjoy drama remember her for Girl, interrupted and if you like hip hop or urban music you will remember her alongside Eminem in 8 Mile.

I think you get the point I am making here. She was versatile. She also had a part playing a recurring character in the animated comedy King of the hill too as well as singing on a massive dance anthem with Paul Oakenfold.

This is a legend but unless she got that Hollywood A rating, you wouldn't have known her, ever.

In the case of the fashion industry, Alexander McQueen's death made me realise how much humanity and reality exist for each individual in the world. Regardless of where you are and what you do, you could be a real sh*t, a grade A murderer or the best person in the world - your time on this planet is limited and you'll burn out. For some that burn may escalate unknowingly and that human-ness, regardless of who you are will explode out of nowhere.

In football, there is this nastiness, like in Fashion, where your image, what you can do with money is brutally evident from millions of adoring masses who travel for miles and invest years emotionally into something which is nothing at all. Managers and players invest this time in an industry if broken from the shackles of capitalism could feed the hungry, cure cancer, aid the elderly and revitalise education. All those billions floating around in football could make the world a better place - imagine if all that money was invested into real human causes instead of gratuitous pleasure.

All this talk in football about charity, to give an image of humanity, when we actually give a fraction of our time in charity, a fraction of the money to charity while the rest is spent on fuelling rivalry, division and superficial joy.

Once it was a celebration of your home, where you live, who you are. Once football was about the abode and the community that you share your existence with but now fans love teams miles and miles away. If you've ever been to Manchester you'll realise the are around Stretford and Salford isn't all that fantastic unless you love history, architecture and working class culture. Around Islington it isn't all that fantastic either unless you want to spend an evening marvelling at the cross-section of culture it has invited to the area.

Are all Arsenal fans cultural connoisseurs? No.

Tragedy brings some interesting facets of humanity to the forefront for an industry. Will fashion houses/designers now begin to use models of all sizes? Will we see a revamp of the pricing and some innovative steps towards clothings for the masses instead of choice artificial cultures of the unknown few? I know this has all changed for me. I like fashion but I've always known you don't have to spend big in fashion - maybe this will make the label hoggers think twice when buying fashion?

I doubt it.

In football, I would expect Arsenal to just change and think about their pricing. Practice what they preach. Maybe go to the RBS and say they will pay an interest rate on the loan that doesn't hit the tax payer as hard as the negotiation they made does. We could, hopefully get the truth.

Then again, nobody cares about death anymore. Everybody in the world is looking out for number one - nothing changes, because nobody cares, unless a team loses or wins.

How dreadful.

Hooray - We're gonna get money for Fabregas. Fantastic!

2010-02-14T00:21:00.003Z

This is quite amazing, with only like 900 views or so?

Kate Nash - I Just Love You More

Seth Augustus - Trickeries of the Great Emptiness
Sean Hayes - Garden

Crookers ft Yelle - Cooler Couleur Posted this before, but it is awesome!

Holly Miranda - Waves This is good.

Damian Marley & Nas - As We Enter Cool

I am sure people are screaming war and pillage with the recent Fabregas stories but let's face it - we've been here before haven't we. This is nothing new for us in every context of the word because when stories like this arise we go through the motions of getting angry, getting frustrated, kicking things, blaming life, the universe and the heavens and then reverting back to supporting Arsenal.

This is the age old cycle of players leaving and coming and eventually going, because they do eventually go, don't they... we can't stop that but what is important for me in all this is how, we always let them go for a lot of money and we make that money don't we. I'm not going to beat around the bush here so I'll highlight the fact, we tend to want to make a lot of money from out players a lot more so than other clubs

(unless it's the Thierry Henry anomaly where we can make a big whack of cash from shirt sales, publicity and TV rights when he hangs around for another year...)

...so, shall I ask, why do we do this?

Let me celebrate first because if I don't, people will start to wonder why I support Arsenal so...

Woo. Yeah. Fab. Amazing. We're making more money. (checks bank balance) Cor, look at that dosh - WONGA! Me so happy.

It's strange why we do this. The Arsene Wenger Brigage ( :oD ) tend to believe that one day this mountains of cash will be utilised to destroy football. Destroy all clubs. Show people you don't need Money laden Billionaires to prop up a club (anybody can tell you that...

For a moment, let's highlight that this obsession with billionaires is momentary and is not important to football. They bring in cash. That's it. What we should focus on is being better than them and failing to win competitions doesn't prove that. We can as a club do things without Billionaires and their money but if we don't win anything and just remain also rans, we prove that money works.

In fact (to get back on topic) we prove that over and over again don't we with our obsession with money. Our inability to spend and invest in football (instead of the club and company) shows that we are obsessed with cash and making money and catching up with them. In fact the Arsene Wenger Brigade argument that we are saving money to create a Babel like mountain of football power just proves we can't do anything without money.

We have, in fact never been able to do anything without money. That is us. That is what we do... we do things with money throughout. All our players, our manager etc etc - driven by a lot of cash.

So... let's just praise the Arsenal Inc. Gods for providing this opportunity to sell Fabregas for the mighty Wonga. It's what we're really good at. Making money.

SayCet - Opal AND SayCet - Opal (Error Loves Opalowsky Remix)

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

2010-02-12T17:10:00.003Z

Charlotte Gainsbourg - In the End
Charlotte Gainsbourg - Trick Pony
Charlotte Gainsbourg - Me And Jane Doe
Charlotte Gainsbourg - Heaven Can Wait (Nosaj Thing Remix)

Ennio Morricone - L'Estasi Dell'Oro(from-The Good the Bad and the Ugly) Bandini remix

Klaxons - No Diggity (Blackstreet cover)

David Guetta ft. KiD CuDi - Memories (David Guetta's Fuck Me I'm Famous Remix

OK... I concede, every club has to commercialise themselves

and then get raped by the economy?

No that can't be right.

Can every club be like Arsenal or is there really only one Arsenal amidst a magnitude of clubs in debt while we're knee deep major players in sending the Royal Bank of Scotland under by pummelling them with a low interest rate?

OK... I guess nothing is sacred.

If a club like Portsmouth goes under or if West Ham goes under with all their Pompey play up and Bobby Moore nostalgia - will Football die or will there be cheers all over the country because fans really love it when a club gets kicked hard because the big players, the big financial players like Arsenal have got a muscle that is rare and unique in football to the point of being corrupt and deviant? I'm beginning to wonder, besides trophies and good football and some neat passes and all that in your face nonsense - what do we have?

I think, every club should be in debt and therefore we can clean up football without being in debt. I think even Arsenal should be swimming in debt too so that they can clean up the sport. It's unbelievable that they've allowed a sport to get this way - completely submerged and drowning in the red while all a few clubs are just lucky to survive.

So the biggest problem in football is, why is it so nasty and tortuous to survive in this game? Why do you have to destroy the dreams of the fans in order to get by? People invest a lot of soul and emotion into this game and Arsenal's greatest achievement is "phew, not us". It's quite sick if you think about it because with money available, it's bizarre that one club is doing well while everybody else is struggle. Not very fair is it.

There is a lot of ugly.

A whole bunch of bad.

Very very few Good.

I'd love to look at it in a pleasant, woo, we beat Liverpool, dream like ignorant wonderland but I'm not drugged up fantasy.

Wenger is Rubbish - Selling sex to the lesser knowledgable Arsenal fan

2010-02-08T14:51:00.006Z

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/right-to-link/

This is Emma Russack :

Emma Russack - Sex On The Beach

The football blog sites make me laugh. Like seriously, grow up!

Oooh, Arsenal are so wonderful, ooh we have been at the top for so long, ooh I love our history, I need a new anorak!

You know what I find funniest? How you can tell by the language on these blogs in the back of their mind they are really thinking how crap Arsenal have been lately and how messed up it is that arguably the richest club in the world behave like a post-modern Scrooge. It cracks me up with all the "well, we played better than last time" and "ooh, X player was playing better, maybe he is improving"... Christ man, grow some BALLS! (or have Arsenal got them so you can ejaculate when they win a trophy in 3094?)

Somebody has to say it and somebody must say it out loud. Instead people tiptoe around the nonsense that he built a club, built a team, made us what we are... what a pile of utter cack that is.

We had money. This business is built upon money and that is what we did - built a business from money, from the fans, from clever marketing. Wenger is just a spokesperson and a very expensive one at that.

Anybody out there, any football fan out there who thinks that what happened over the past few years was part of some secret high IQ plan is utterly stupid. First of all, lets face facts that they are not real Arsenal fans. Just a bunch of numpties masturbating over symbol that has sex attached to it all over the place:

Footballers Legs - Sex
Spirit - Sex
Positive - Sex
Togetherness - Group Sex
Beautiful (football) - Sex
French - Sex

Sex Sex Sex

Any fan who excuses the club and Wenger is more interested in a projection of Sex than watching football.

The club has made a fool out of fans for far too long. Incapable of spending money that is visibly available for all to see and lying to fans over and over again. This kind of behaviour is escalated by an internet campaign led by people far too proud to admit their idiocy, stupidity and blind devotion to

faiure.

Wenger is rubbish. He has been lucky with the money available but all this club cares about is creating a product that can sell and people can invest in.

Anybody who thinks otherwise is not a football fan but a fan of pornos but too afraid to watch them so they base everything pornographic on football.

...and while I'm at it - why the bloody hell get back Sol but not Vieira? Duh!

I just youtubed sex football and this was at the top

Who can you trust?

2010-02-08T01:07:00.004Z

Massive Attack

Yeah... I know. Still a cool pic!

Massive Attack - Paradise Circus feat. Hope Sandoval (Gui Boratto Remix)
Massive Attack - Saturday Come Slow (Feat Damon Albarn)
Massive Attack - Girl I Love You (feat. Horace Andy) (She Is Danger Remix)
ThE hOmOgEnIc ChAoS - Teardrops Life [Massive Attack vs. Nine Inch Nails vs. Evanescence vs. Hans Zimmer vs. All Amarican Rejects vs. Foo Fighters]
unkle thom yorke rabbit in your headlights massive attack mix
Mighty Mike - Massive Fear (Massive Attack vs. Lily Allen)
Massive Attack - Psyche (Van Rivers & The Subliminal Kid Remix) (ft. Martina Topley-Bird)

Safe From Harm mixes;

And this is absolute Amazing!

Massive Attack - Future Proof (live)

Just like any other fan, I don't want Arsenal to lose or go through a bad streak. It's fairly obvious for anybody that a fan wants wins, success and all that.

But I have to accept now that football is not really cyclical or polar or parallel - it's very much a long term struggle. A fight. A never ending fight that inevitably ends in death. Maybe it's all about finding meaning amidst the chaos of life. As long as somebody can attach themselves to something, it all makes sense.

Football carries with it community. Maybe it is all anthropological because we're all looking for that state of fight and tribalism. Isn't that just crude?

The other day, while sitting down, a couple behind me were engaged in their own thing on a couple of computers and the man said to the woman something about a footballer. The mans language was natural while the girls was clearly from the books of Sky Sports and Match of the Day.

Oh what would somebody do to feel like they belong!

Can we trust Arsenal? How long have we waited? We're different to other clubs. We went through a stage of massive success over and over again but now we've attempted to win something and lost out completely over and over again.

The excuses... well, usually to do with money (but don't we have a never ending profit of 30 million plus year on year?) or the other excuse to live up to some higher belief of football where you believe in kids (oh F*** OFF!) and live with in our means (I think we're just stingy).

I mean, where does this c*** about developing kids come from? Who really gives a s***! Just get the F*** out there and buy some players, win some trophies under Wenger and get another 2 million fans to buy your shirts!

Is that difficult? Come on now, have I got this the wrong way around?

We just got beaten by two teams playing some outstanding football.

I don't trust a club who don't put effort into winning trophies when it is very simple. I think that's not only pathetic but pretty inconsiderate, irresponsible and unfair for the fans.

Greed? LOL... I think a bunch of suits outlining the desires and hopes of millions of "football"1 fans with outstandingly poor romanticised BS is Greed... :D

1. Football is a game where you try to win games and trophies on the basis of the available resources.

Disgusting narratives from blind broken creativity

2010-02-07T00:11:00.002Z

Zooey and Katy
Are they the same person

Groove Armada - Paper Romance
Yeasayer - O.N.E.
Lali Puna - Remember
The Walkmen - The Rat
Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Josh Millard - Where Is My Mind (Pixies cover)
Toro Y Moi - Thanks Vision
Kid Cudi - Do It Alone
LBCK - Start

like this

Timbaland - If We Ever Meet Again (Feat. Katy Perry)

AND!

David Bowie - Across the Universe

This has been on my mind for a while and so here it is presented.

We all love familiarity. Ever have that feeling of nervousness when something changes?

Say for instance you walk into somebody's office or house and somebody new is there. Nervous?

Say for instance you are in a town centre, near a road and a huge explosion from a car blows everything within 10 metres 50 metres into the sky?

Nervous?

Nobody likes difference. Nobody likes change - well not at first.

A few drinks always help don't they? Or the drug of somebody you can trust, believe in - is your own?

So I went out onto the Internet after the United loss last week to see what fans were saying?

And guess what, surprise surprise!

Sack him. Drop him. Sub him. Shoulda him. Leave him.

Same old same old? Gave me a bit of a chuckle. That sense of familiarity, that sense of the usual is so great. What do you expect fans to say? Break out into a Shakespearean narrative to change football with verse?

How dare he! Shoot him. Kill him. (or her)

If there is one thing in the world we can trust it's the usual nature of sport that we have a game, we have the presence of something we can trust that won't change and will not surprise us too much.

Pleasant, obvious and placid. Just a bit of stress relief I guess.

...so what I am really trying to say is, just like I've always said.

Arsenal needs more than one way to play football. (weren't expecting that, were you).

Morality and the question of football support - Mido?

2010-02-03T23:11:00.004Z

Chelley - Took The Night with some other tunes too
Chelley - Took The Night remixes
Lo-Fi-Fnk - Marchin' In Starts slow but builds
Kid Cudi - High's N Lows
Major Lazer - Halo Far better than the Beyonce version
Miike Snow - Billie Holiday
Camera Obscura - French Navy
Lady GaGa - Fooled Me Again (Honest Eyes)
Mr. Oizo - Erreur Jean - WOW!

Guilty by association.

We've all had the tag, or even heard of the tag that football fans are aggressive angry numpties who get worked up about the most superficial thing - and maybe, they couldn't be further from the truth. If you look around you, look how much is written about football. It is clearly the biggest fabrication in the world today. We're supposed to believe it is important, it carries merit, it has some use to the world but in fact it means nothing.

Or is that true?

When two countries, divides by walls and borders come together to play football they merge to compare merits of physical prowess. This merges two countries under the banner of sports, fairplay, character, attitude, personality, virtue. We can extend this to a local level where teams from towns and cities play each other to merge two groups of people together with their differences on the basis of colours and history to share a goal.

Isn't it beautiful!

(?)

No... or maybe it is. Maybe it's all about perspective?

We can look back at the handball from Maradona. The fighting. The spitting and aggression between Holland and Germany and our dislike for Germany too (unfortunately). Mocking race and culture on the terraces. Racism, prejudice, Stereotypically driven rage?

If anything, football just shows us what boundaries we have and the huge walls that divide us because we really dislike our fellow man for the most pointless reasons ever. Superficial nastiness based upon

History
Colour
Lies

Then we have the players. Shagging their friend's partners. Stealing money. Fighting to earn millions -

Then Credit's Crunch!

It's not surprising our kids are obsessed with material things and naked women.

(what did these footballers see in this French girl?... some easy locker room gossip?...)

Then there is Mido? What is this all about?

1000 pounds a week. For now I'll accept, amidst the fog of cynicism and scepticism that haunts our greedy subjective relativity - this is one of the few great things in the world today.

#

Liam Neeson using all those hybrid martial arts in Taken. I think in an interview he said it was Kapour that he used which is a hybrid but they were trained by Oliver Schneider who was trained in Wing Chun and the Indonesian art of Pencak Silat.

I've included a video below to give some idea of it

Is there a limit to football quality? Have United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal gone as far as they can?

2010-02-01T12:31:00.003Z

DJ Stroke - Dangerous (RHCP vs. Busta Rhymes)
Sleigh Bells - Ring Ring
Breakbot - Baby I'm yours feat. Irfane
Danger - 4h30
Lady GaGa - Retro Physical
The Knife - The Height of Summer

You know those films where a man has a dream as a child and wishes to become something or do something but his high school sweetheart pops up and they have kids - and then maybe the wife dies (to add some drama or sentiment to the story) and he has to raise the kids himself because one of them is an annoying brat and then he has the chance to live his dream but he says "No Kids, you were my dream!"

For a long time now (since we never won any trophies) some fans have been saying we need to get this player, we need to get that player - we need this manager or we need to do something differently. I have to wonder - what if that is not at all possible no matter what we try? What if, if you're lucky enough to get a player or get a good thing going that...

Is as good as it gets.

You reach a summit, you attain a height and then it stops. Life gets in the way.

Now this heightened for me when John Terry and all that story came out. It could be false. It could be - but how much does such a story affect a team? How much did Ray Parlour's divorce affect the Arsenal team and then the players disappearing? Alongside all the other snowball effects, what does this do to a team?

How important is morale?

I think sometimes, a club has a huge problem finding that missing link. One the surface, fans will talk about players and positioning and maybe, financing - but what about everything else? What if the club is in such a position that it is practically impossible to make a change?

Some clubs are just rubbish, let's face it... they could, as we have seen, get some dynamite player or some extra money but what does that do? Once the spiral begins, it explodes. Look at Newcastle United. Do you blame the fans? Do you blame the chairman? Who?

It's a lot of things.

I guess for Arsenal, money is a factor. We always wonder, with all of our money (and no matter what anybody says, a club that has made a profit for over 10 years, has money!) we still do not spend it. We have everything in our favour but we still don't spend it? In business, this is an organisation that is making itself, and keeping itself, investable.

That - may just me the problem...

Thought this was cool:

Jane Moore is Cheap and Populist - The problem with The Sun

2010-01-28T23:22:00.003Z

Jenny Tonge - Awesome!

Spoon
Monarchy - Black The Colour of My Heart
Crookers - Cooler Couleur (Feat. Yelle) Very good.
Beach House - Zebra
MillionYoung - Hammock
Holy Hail - Cool Town Rock

(overseas readers can find out about the oddities I refer to on wiki)

The problem with The Sun is, it is owned by Rupert Murdoch and all his goals are riddled with manipulating society to buy shoddy goods and glamourise nothing!

Jane Moore - who is on Question Time as I write this - is one of his many pawns. As she called the two boys who almost killed two other boys savages, she attempts to make the grossly exaggerated and dirty gratuity to say the country is broken...

Is it Jane? The same country that your boss makes a massive bulk of his money from and the same country that buys your articles that finance your home and your lifestyle?

Now... is it Jane or is it just that you are paid to write rubbish so that the Tories can come into power and do the bidding of your overlord and master - Rupert Murdoch?

I used to admire Jane a lot but there comes a point where you just give up when you realise that some people live off the glamour their career gives them to hide the insubstantial ambience they emit.

Football slant? Rupert owns Sky Sports and slowly but surely the fabric of football viewing and appreciation is changing in this country. People are realising they have less money (not a bad thing, we survive - we still have money) so they get their joy from sport that modern technology provides but this is cheaper and faster without Sky Sports and this is what Jane and Rupert what to fight against because Sky sell and the public are getting what Rupert and Jane sell far cheaper elsewhere.

Where does Arsenal's benefit lay? It lays in the changing media climate arriving in Europe and also in Sky Sports too. We need that money but we're different. We follow the climate and we watch the climate. One thing people miss about Arsenal is, we are not completely controlled by one facet of the economic climate around us - we change to follow suit.

We do not need cheap and populist puppets like Jane Moore to tell us that our country is rubbish.

If she hates it so much she can go live somewhere else - I am sure Rupert won't care since there are a number of people prepared to replace her!

....

Some comments from Twitter:

Jamie Bulger was murdered in 1993 under a Tory government. Does she blame them? Jane Moore? Jan Moir more like. Idiot. #fb #bbcqt
rpcompaneros - twitter.com - 4 minutes ago

"Don't accuse me of being cheap and populist" Jane Moore Sun Columinst. In other news: "Pope complains about being labelled a Catholic"
Briesias - twitter.com - 6 minutes ago

#YesWeKHAN #bbcqt Jane Moore is such a populist. Nigel Lawson is mad as a hatter.
jimmyfrith - twitter.com - 6 minutes ago

@mathewhulbert Jane Moore's support for the Tories is just the way the political climate is going at the moment #bbcqt
ThePhilNorth - twitter.com - seconds ago

Well - I told you so... isn't that strange? Maybe not.

2010-01-28T00:47:00.004Z

Caribou - Odessa
Efterklang - Modern Drift
Joanna Newsom - 81

Taken By Trees - To Lose Someone
She & Him - In the Sun

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Hmm... we aren't doing as well as we once were?

As I stated a few blogs back, I was thinking that a downfall was probably - just around the corner and now we have it. Now is this a bad thing or was it just, or is it just a part of the process in this thing called Arsenal?

Well... the answer is a yes and a yes - or a no and a no - so it's a bit of everything.

Basically, we're not in a bad state are we. We could get second even after a slump and we could win some other trophy - could we? Hmm... that could be tough then. Not good that one is it.

We are still a great club in the world today - but why do these football clubs look like cans of coke to me? So are we a great club or just some football team with a ton of money... I mean, say your local pub got a billion pounds... wouldn't it just buy some great player, get a stadium built so they don't have to play down the playing fields and then get loads of fans who want to see this glamorous well publicised pub team...

History? History... isn't that just achingly desperate?

We have to win something. Maybe the club doesn't see it as important or significant. Maybe we don't need to win as long as we're making money.

So to end with I'll say... you're running in a marathon and by some coincidence or magic, it's you and some African - now, are you going to say... fine, I've made it this far and I'll come second to a champion or are you going to put together that last bit of strength, that last bit of fight, that last bit of determination to win this and knock the African out to be the winner?

Yeah, I think Arsenal is option one and the clubs around us are option two.

Anybody else waiting for Arsenal to fall over? I need some familiarity

2010-01-19T14:24:00.004Z

http://www.right2link.org/support-our-campaign/
http://www.right2link.org/support-our-campaign/
http://www.right2link.org/support-our-campaign/
http://www.right2link.org/support-our-campaign/

Skee-Lo - I Wish Did Eminem copy this?
Beirut - My Night With the Prostitute From Marseille
Metric - Don't Think Twice It's All Right (Bob Dylan Cover)
Tiesto - Feel It In My Bones (Feat. Tegan & Sara)
M.I.A. - Theres Space For Ol Dat I See

Second place appears to be set in stone for us right now but is anybody else waiting for us to hit a brick wall then struggle like a fatty trying to get over it?

Is it destined to happen for us? Are some people out there really expecting us to do far better than last year - and those previous years? I think now is the right time for somebody to stand up and say - we could really f*** up around about now so seriously don't expect things to go exceptionally well.

The basis of the end of January assault is built around everybody fighting for some form of money in whatever guise it is. The bums on seat phenomenon is no more important as it is now when there is so much football to play for. Cup competitions come into their own, Clubs need to justify their approach in the January transfer window (whether they bought players or not) and the papers want to tell their advertisers "we will have football stories and they will be important".

The press will desperately be looking for all those shenanigans at club level from transfer dealings, to cup competitions to any old Dynasty/Dallas type scandals in the changing rooms or at board room level.

All this will filter down to the Arsenal because whatever happens at another club happens at The Arsenal too and can we counter that? I guess we could, couldn't we? All it is, is 90 minutes of football and the ability to win those games.

We've bought another embryo masquerading itself as a 17 year old so I am sure there is something monetary in our plans and hopefully we can get some silverware this year but in the meantime I am looking forward to a few losses just like the Arsenal we know so well. If we start to win - well that's too scary to fathom.

The promised land and all its tragedies

2010-01-17T01:29:00.000Z

Theophilus London - Humdrum Town
Barretso - Midnight Walk
We Were Promised Jetpacks - It's Thunder and It's Lightening
Religion - Religion The Night
MGMT - Closer (Live - Nine Inch Nails Cover) Listen to the screams!
Armand Van Helden - Funk Phenomena 2010 (Starkillers 2010 Remix)
Pantha Du Prince - The Splendour

I noticed the other day Nottingham Forest were on the verge of returning to the Premiership.

We all know the Arsenal history of a never ending run in the top flight but what tragedies does a series of unforeseen unfortunate events and how do you cope with that? It could literally happen to anybody and that is the crux especially as Arsenal has been second fiddle to economic change throughout its history when you disregard the jaunt earlier in this century and the 1930s.

Arsenal only do well because they see what other successful clubs do and follow suit in order to be in the running.

Is this a bad thing? Well I don't think there is any real innovation considering every point of success has hardly been down to entrepreneurial spirit but an influx of lots of money and well - money buys success for everyone.

One false move with this changing climate and Arsenal would be there among the dead waiting for a return to glory days of which there an infinite number in support trying to overshadow the dark.

This is why we come back for more. Maybe we all love the fight or maybe, secretly were all trying to hide the fact that we all share one thing if anything, we have to fight to survive as much as we need to come together.

I know all that sounds "gay" in the completely non-homo-erotic sense but cut me some slack; we all like to be introspective now and again.

.
.
.

The original videos to The Funk Phenomena:

Sol Campbell? Are you having a laugh?

2010-01-12T18:59:00.002Z

Thom Yorke - The Eraser (XXXChange Remix)
Florence + The Machine - Hurricane Drunk (Acoustic Version)
Tiesto - Knock You Out ft Emily Haines (B. Rich Remix)
Dragonette - Fixin to Thrill (COF+Anagramme Remix)

Are we so kind?

We're so good to people from our past or is this some conspiracy?

I'm unsure where Sol will fit in to our current team. Doesn't this just raise feelings of nostalgia and some irrelevant association of talent based upon that nostalgia?

I don't really know how good Sol is, now. It smacks of confusion. I'm thinking we don't want players who are over the age of 30 but then we bring in an ex-player, who left because he was nearing 30 (and other bizarro redtop driven reasons) and apparently we're going to use him in the team...

The question is, is Sol a great player. Has something happened to him between the time he wasn't around to guarantee him a place in the Arsenal team after all these years?

Apart from all the mumbo jumbo above, I am so happy that Sol is coming back to Arsenal and will probably play for the team. While we're at it, bring back Frank McLintock, Ian Wright, Nicolas Anelka, Dennis Bergkamp, Pat Jennings too - who cares if we lose. Let's have a nice fuzzy feeling inside.

The Snow brings a transparency that the media always lies - Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea, Premierships, Liverpool

2010-01-08T23:42:00.005Z

Here I was, thinking I'd posted some Ellie Goulding on the blog when embarrassingly I hadn't.

She not be here she be. She be some place else.

Very happy she won. I am.

So here is some BBC Sound of 2010 stuff:

Ellie Goulding Mixes and Collaborations

This is sooo sweet! Marina and the Diamonds - Hollywood
Marina and the Diamonds - I Am Not A Robot
Marina and the Diamonds - Mowgli's Road
Delphic - Counterpoint
Delphic - Doubt
Hurts - Wonderful Life
Drums - Submarine
The Drums - I Felt Stupid

.
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.
.
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Suddenly, the snow takes over and Patrik Vieira goes to Man City.

There's something strange about this deep freeze. We're going to be living between two worlds soon. Will we all be the same? Will we come out of this unscathed? Is this home for Arshavin?

I have no idea how I will view things after masquerading in some gallivanting style around this extreme white and black and blue wonderland is no longer possible. This is absolutely great I think and I hope it lasts long into January towards the February before some Flower springs forth and...

the Premiership will have to end in July... or be played once the World Cup is over.

How bizarre. Interesting how this affects us all and stops everything. Even the managers and players take a hiatus and the PR companies are not spinning.

Nothing at all is possible. Everything stops. So much relies on the weather.

Has Football died? Are the managers spellbound to only speak in weather other than Snow?

It's quite different to that. Industry dies in unknown weather. Industry depends on people and if somebody in the press office doesn't turn up then...

...nobody can spread the lies and Wenger can't complain, Fergie is no longer a media interest. Everybody basically

Fucks
Up.

The Snow has brought out the truth. This is the Ice Age. This is Global Cooling - Ladies and Gentleman, welcome to the biggest bitch slap Football, Sky Sports and the Tabloids every felt. It's below zero and nothing is working.

I doubt anybody cares - because we need the lie because otherwise, without an industry of Public Relations to tell us lies like the lies we all live in...

...we wouldn't be interested.

A sign of the times... or A sign of the times when Mother Nature doesn't Freeze us into Reality.

Arsenal are not the only team in the world - Richard Dawkins and the Psychological

2009-12-26T22:42:00.003Z

Explosions In The Sky - Your Hand In Mine
Shinichi Osawa - Main Street Electrical Parade
Lupe Fiasco - I'm Beaming
Fake Blood - I Think I Like It

I think vision, perspective and security are three things that cloud a person's direction throughout time. Anthropologists and Evolutionary scientists will simplistically, fairly reductivistically (to coin a word) say it's inherent of our tribal inheritance. I don't think it's that simple at all.

Psychologically we are (or cognitively) attracted to something familiar, to the familiar (to noun the adjective) and we are attracted to what is familiar because we have semanticised around that, whatever that is that is familiar. So to argue against the anthropological/Evolutionary perspective - look at the world today as we have the means, the ability, to move and travel or even for those stagnant, to view the world through TV and the stories inherent there - doesn't this just immediately disprove all the Evolutionary nonsense that Richard Dawkins so gleefully masturbates over?

OK, even my simple paragraph may not be enough in the world of academics where you have to scratch backs and lay obeisance to tradition and publicity of yourself but let's face it - even tribes moved and shifted so there is a contradiction in evolution there. Maybe, well I guess people just love to give the Religious amongst us a hard time because they are so happy and so ready to tell others how happy they are and flexible to mingle with those around them - especially those neglected.

Maybe this is what people really hate.

Don't we all in our little tribes just hate to be told that we are wrong? Especially when you are in a tribe it just makes it harder to swallow and I guess the life of a football fan is harder when all you have are the unholy trinity of football - win, lose, draw.

I, therefore, wonder when an Arsenal fan sees a great player in another team, behave and perform like Arsenal players, how does that feel when the club are continuously branding and exposing themselves as beautiful and amazing? That must hurt a lot considering Arsenal have not won anything significant for a while. It's a difficult logic to digest when Arsenal are feeding a different logic altogether. So I do propose that Arsenal, being unlike any other club is doing a gross dis-service to their fans.

All this will change when we have new owners and a new manager and in a couple of years time when the economy of the world is further away from the effects of the early 21st century.

Camera Obscura - Honey In The Sun

WAM VAN - ONE YEAR OUT! Persie Gets KO'D times 365!

2009-12-22T20:21:00.003Z

I just thought I'd post something since every numpty out there is posting something.

Huge shame.

Huge shame.

Sorry you have to read it again.

OK... something enlightening.

Injuries happen. It's a physical game. A man will rise, A man will fall.

But a team is made of 11 men - not one. Which team puts all their hopes on one man?

Arctic Monkeys - Dance Little Liar

How much information is too much information?

2009-12-22T19:53:00.003Z

The XX

You got the Love
The XX - Shelter (Graphics Remix)
The xx – Islands (Nosaj Thing Remix)

Sia - You've Changed
Broken Bells - The High Road
Silversun Pickups - Lazy Eye

Oh God; NO! TMI!

Gary Neville has decided to come out and say Chelsea were wrong, Arsenal were wrong - basically, wrong wrong wrong - no Gary, your FACE is wrong.

But Seriously, I get the impression it's just a case of Christmas stress for Gary. Why do we need to know what he is saying? Is he just "bitching" in the hope people will get wound up enough to say he is right? Now I have to rephrase that...

I mean is this just football journalism at it's most pointless? Do we really, really need to know Gary Neville thinks Chelsea shouldn't moan about losing players and Wenger shouldn't have complained about Wolves fielding a weakened team? Does it matter...

Hold on... Does it matter if Chelsea moaned about losing players to the Africa nations or Wenger (oh shut up man!) said Wolves shouldn't have fielded a weak team against United. Now... can we go deeper?

Should the press consider this news? Oddly, people want to hear what Wenger says. They bow down to his superiority although I see as much superiority in this statement he made as the superiority a rusty old screw has before a complicated bit of DIY work.

I'm beginning to think none of this is of any consequence.

Now what do you and I talk about after a game? We talk about the team, the formation and the occurrences in the game. Before somebody says "that's what the press do", I would say, No they do not. The press respond with a huge amplification of minor details - particularly because a large proportion of readers of Sports Writing want the drama and sensation.

Let's face facts - we'd all be Arsenal fans without all this drama, won't we... so why are some people so obsessed with it?

Simple things please simple minds?

I don't want to talk about - Surrogate families and Life

2009-12-22T03:12:00.005Z

Ou Est Le Swimming Pool? – Dance The Way I Feel
Matt & Kim - Lessons Learned - make sure you watch the video to this
Total Babe - Bearbones - Vewy noice
Metric - Help I'm Alive (The Twelves Remix) - ?
Drake - Little Bit ft. Lykke Li

Over time you will meet a lot of Arsenal fans and as I have stated in the past, a lot of people will define themselves as Arsenal fans not by the way the team they support but how they conduct themselves as fans. While some will completely posture themselves in front of other fans (be this on the internet or via some other form of communication (pubs, fanzines etc) like some mating ritual, others just go to games and that's it.

This fascinated me because as the internet came about a lot of fans appeared to be afraid and at times I guess, emasculated by all the opinions about football around them. What did these opinions (away from mainstream media's perspectives) say about them when it was grossly apparent that people did not agree with them.

Some fans can't really be bothered to talk about football. They don't have time. Does it really matter that Kreonke is buying into the club? Just like numerous older or learned Arsenal fans tell me, whilst working in the city, this was coming as the club fobbed off Arsenal fans with the sort of youth development, beautiful football, new stadium nonsense as they were really creating a lucrative investment for the billionaires of the world. Not something you will read in the papers because if they said this... they'd lose Arsenal as a story.

Or would it? I guess there is a difference between the media (be they blogs and arsenal sites like my own or the press) and the groups that fans exist within. I am saying that an Arsenal fan is just a fan without Arsenal. You need the Arsenal, the surrogate family to be an Arsenal fan. What do you need with that? Hope.

If you haven't got the hope that the youth will develop, that beautiful football will strive and conquer or a new home, a new beginning will bring prosperity - what do you have?

Small victories?

No, that's something for the lower leagues but I guess if anything, we can learn that there are more people in the world striving for success that has been raped from them by large institutions funded by the government while others learn young, learn quick that small victories matter so much more than the big ones.

.

USA! USA!

DeadMau5 - Faxing Berlin
YYY - Maps (guitar and strings)

Recessions changing Football not style - RIP - Brittany Murphy

2009-12-21T01:04:00.007Z

I thought I would start blogging again... not because of the football but because I wanted to post some music but (have I already said but... yes I have) I thought let's blog football instead of reporting or formulating an opinion about current affairs... that's so cliched and so obvious. And the music...

RIP - Brittany Murphy

Stars He lied about Death - I like this
Mr. Oizo - Last Night Herbert Murdered My Poodle - It's Mr Oizo
Adam Freeland - Rock On (Siriusmo Remix) - Trashy
You Say Party! We Say Die! - Laura Palmer's Prom
- Girl singing Eighties Synth

I guess we all see the ups and downs of our respective football teams knocking around in the hope of some achievement - you blame the usual and obvious subjects when things go wrong and praise them when things go right, unbeknown to the outside forces at play that put things into gear.

I guess, I have to say, what is fair in the world of football? Do we stop these billionaire investors from around the world from coming in? Do we cap their wages (who gets paid more and why)? Do we scale down on how much capacity we have at stadiums? Do we give a fixed revenue to a club?

Do we just keep everything unequal and as many Arsenal fans have been doing, bask and massage themselves with our fiscally brilliant schemes to win things? But then... aren't we just focussing on business and not football? Isn't that just silly?

I guess there is a fine line now between business, football, publicity and progression. How do we move forward when in truth it's not about football?

As an example, we all played football as kids and so, how many of you knew, when you went for a kick about who will win? You didn't and although you had good and bad players on a team - the outcome was always different, wasn't it... now is that what we find in professional football? Nope... it's all a gross inequality which results in loads of column inches and loads of gossips.

Loads of - absolute Loads and the Loads increase. :o)

I guess we fail to see the changes involved around us.

We're playing somebody this week and most people expect us to win :)
Julie Fader

What is Football? Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Aston Villa, Arsenal, Premiership

2009-12-19T12:25:00.010Z

Thrash Censorship! right2link.org

I was asked to link the following tunes. I haven't heard them - may be cool... Give it a spin...

Amanda Blank 'Shame On Me' (VIKING Remix) LINK
Cazals 'Life Is Boring' (VIKING Remix) LINK

And if you're really bored: http://www.gbh.tv/mp3/ :oD

Is football really that ugly?

Amidst this furore of obeisance we have to the media, how blind do you think we really are? Can we see that ugliness or are we bowing down to the behaviours of our clubs and accepting their rhetoric without thought or question? Are we basically lost and just following through?

One question resonates for me, over and over and over again. What is football? Is it what Sky Sports says? Is it what the BBC says? Is it some nostalgic nuance filled with romantic communal beauty? Is it hooliganism and rivalry and aggression and overpowering? What exactly are we looking for in all this?

Is it all just mundanely, a group of people, around the world, in their billions, filling their waking moments, simply awaiting to die.

I checked article after article regarding Arsene Wenger's recent fatiguegate narratives that wake up over and over again. Who tells him to say these things? Why do the press go to newly promoted clubs for a soundbite? I am sure every other club are hotly waiting at the phones to give a response as Alex Ferguson, chosen spokesperson for Manchester United (alongside spokesmen at other clubs too, like Benitez, Hughes etc) will be impulsively awaiting to do the job they are paid millions to do - be a figurehead to take the flack from the mistakes that others have made.

It's an equation you see. Your brilliance, your achievements, are clearly related to the clubs around you and also the work you put into a club. Quite strange then, that Arsene Wenger releases a soundbite, after years of experience in football, stating quite clearly the fatigue these powerhouse athletes feel when they do what they are paid for. Don't worry; I'm not being flippant or ironic. This is my realistic estimation of events.

Neither, am I, moaning. This is the gloss, the glamour, the prestige of modern football. We bask and look in awe at the soundbites that smother 90 minutes of athleticism, don't we? The internet, aflood with comments, opinion, debate, argument, rumour, gossip, supposition, conjecture that make up what football really is.

Football is nasty, it's ugly, it's projecting pain, anguish, anxiety, the frustrations of your family, the divorce, betrayal, dirty tackles and sensationalist spitting, messianic literary posturing, cliques, fighting - all the bloody horror of life.

Beauty is truth, truth beauty.

Fiction and nasty pain and all that stupid romanticism as we mentally bow down to the glamourous illusions from the football clubs is not real football. I think the internet, the media, they are all immersed in a world of exaggeration from the unseen.

Do we really need to talk about what we see on a football pitch? Does it have to be spoken out loud? Shouldn't it be completely hidden, secretive and lost...

Maybe it is...

Maybe, there are football fans out there, hiding from all this chaotic wordiness and all the ugliness of mass communication and emails and facebook and twattering. Maybe, there are people, like you and I or whoever you are reading this - thinking, maybe we're a lost group, who don't like papers, who don't like magazines, who fucking despise youtube and all this social networking rape on society and football. All the internet and all it's gross betrayal of the greatest piece of communication from the 19th Century that tells stories like no piece of mass communication could ever tell and could ever interpret...

that piece of communication is football and doesn't need adulteration.

We're still out there.

Publicity in Football - Kanye West speaks out for Masturbation material on Youtube

2009-09-16T18:46:00.003+01:00

I applaud Kanye West.

Somebody needs to take the limelight at a significant point in an awards show and speak out for guys who need masturbation material. Beyonce's video called "single ladies" (appropriately, what would a serial masturbator search for on Youtube) is basically her and a couple of other girls, in leotards jumping around, jiggling their bits for 3.5 minutes. Which is enough time for somebody to release a load...

Kanye West, the unfortunate man, saw Taylor Swift's video which is all innocence and nice. Girl, get with the programme. Lose some clothes, dance around with some girls doing a formation dance and lick your lips looking suggestively into the camera. That is a winning video - aren't I right Kanye? Yeah I am.

Oddly, people are at odds why this video is great. Some, pretentiously, pompously say it's the lighting, no it's the dancing (is that dancing?), it's the editing, it's the er... special effects but it's 3 ladies, a couple of cameras and a quick digital black and white effect. That's about it. Not much thought went into it.

But this is how I think it works. Beyonce's recent videos have been her lacking any flesh. While her stage performances get loads of hits on youtube because she doesn't wear much clothing. So the clever people at Sony BMG said, Beyonce, lose the clothes - grab some high heels and shake your body so guys would boost your video on youtube while they release a load and that kind of publicity girlfriend - you can't buy it!

Kanye (I saw his girlfriend at the awards) poor chap, spoke out for all the guys looking for a single lady out there. They basically would search single ladies - looking for love, looking for a companion in life and Beyonce and Sony BMG have given the perfect temporary solution - 3 women in leotards and high heels shaking their booty frequently for 3 and a half minutes.

I guess it won because it is symbolic of how desperate kids are these days. Or it won because erm... I have no idea. It's such a pile of utter garbage.

This basically works both ways. I think if you have good looking footballers, they will practically bring in women to the game. We have had a fair share of good looking footballers according to women out there. They don't know Arsenal but they do know Freddie Ljungberg. He was probably mentioned in a magazine. Arsenal basically want to get the word out about them. And if girls like Arsenal players? Guys like Arsenal players.

Then Arsenal sells, because sex sells.

Kanye West did publicity a favour. Now everybody is out there saying "why the hell is this best video of all time? It's crap!"

Quite rightly so.

The same Arsenal should be saying "Why the hell are we the best football playing team in the world? We haven't won squat for a number of years now!".

Maybe we will win an MTV award instead.

We need more Eduardo and Arshavins and Fabregas should grow a beard and concentrate on football.

Finance, Money, Avalanche of Arsenal fans and Manchester Pressure

2009-09-14T00:08:00.002+01:00

Could the pressure created at the bottom of the Arsenal End at the City of Manchester Stadium highlight why we went ahead with a huge stadium?

No.

It does highlight the effect of a passive prudent approach. The effect of clinical almost sanitary football building that was so fearful of the clubs around them - spending money wasn't an issue.

I've seen a lot of balance sheets and financial reports regarding Arsenal over the past 8 years or so and a great deal of analysis too. Although, I have never seen it like this as I thought about it yesterday.

Say we bought one world class player every year and played in him regularly, since the year 2000. If those players remained at the club until the year 2010, we would almost have a whole team of world class players and pay them... about 110, maybe 120 million a year in waged (if we compare that to what we have).

Of course, this would go way beyond our budget, whatever our budget is and whatever it is made of, but I am sure we'd survive. We are worth close to a billion pounds and this partly down to clever loan and mortgage agreements with a Bank that almost went over. We could be owned by the government... but... anyway... We may as well be owned by the British Tax Payer - well, 70% of us.

I think this is possible. Of course, it doesn't guarantee a Champions League trophy or a few but if Wenger can get us to the brink of the trophy with the prudent approach we've had - would this have worked? Say we had offloaded players, sold some of our embryos to other clubs and created a faster, fluent transfer system from the club... I can't say we'd have been as rich now, unless we won more trophies and sold more shirts because we had more world class players... right? Glamour players means Fans, means shirt sales, means babies in Arsenal togs with say... Ronaldo, Messi or that player called Henry on the back of them.

The player we didn't want who left us was Adebayor.

I am sure there were managers like Hughes around the world saying, wow, we need him or we need Kolo... they weren't happy at Arsenal - one of the richest clubs in the world. It's so bizarre how we're afraid to take the leap, the plunge to go deeper and faster and stronger. That kind of fear, that kind of trepidation...

...is a disease and we've had that disease for a while.

We can't ignore the climate in football today. Clubs are in debt. Clubs are struggling. They need to survive - so we can't be all prudent and cautious either out of arrogance, egoism or otherwise. We're in such a lucrative position compared to clubs around the world and we're wasting that.

So what went through the minds of Arsenal fans as they pushed themselves forward to the edge of the pitch on Saturday? What went soaring through their subconcious like an avalanche as Adebayor came hurtling from 100 yards to slide in front of them, like a repressed memory of a demon you were told of hiding behind the curtains or under the bed.

I bet it was the fear.

Adebayor just decided to put a face to it. He was the wake up call...

but that doesn't work when you have faith in a club.

You have to wonder if the risk is greater than the security.

I think in our case it is. We've got infinite solutions with the money at our disposal. We're the lords of football at this point in time and we're struggling with our own foot steps. Our players say it, our ex-players say it. A lot of our fans say it but we're missing out.

I despair at the lack of vision we have. One day we hear from the extremists among us who think this is it. What a disturbing view these kind of fans have. What is their life like when they are redundantly in the grip of caution. Without some fear and anxiety to take steps life means nothing - no matter how high your possession percentage or the number of passes in a game are.

If Wenger is worth anything as a manager, I'd like to see risk, like every other manager in the leagues around the world take but that being said we're at a loss because behind the scenes we've got some strange men in our boardroom justifying to fans that we can't spend, we have no money - what are we? Giving away tickets and shirts for free?

I need a time machine. I could go forward 10 years and listen to what fans have to say as they compare what we have then and what we have now. How much we lost. How the new resources, the new global economy - the digital investment has brought new opportunities to the world of sport - and we wasted our time as kings.

Unfortunate.

Commercialism, Amazon, Arsenal, Manchester United, Shirts and the misplaced protest

2009-09-05T17:14:00.002+01:00

When United started to make money from far eastern markets, everybody cried out in horror at their attempts of commercialising football in order to get a foot into the elite levels of the game. It worked, as it did for Arsenal and Liverpool as well and later Chelsea but with the help of the new input of money from a billionaire.

Commercialism appears to be a huge area of football. Wear it loud, sing it proud - what kind of a fan you are? Say it with a bobble hat, Coat, baby clothes or his and her perfumes. It appears now that commercialism plays a bigger part in the game.

The huge row over the Wenger song made me feel uneasy. Not for the obvious reason. I don't think thousands of people calling somebody a paedophile is funny or even clever. Then again, will our fans stop singing about Yids and the misfortunes of Scousers? Or even "Dirty Northern B**tards"? I know some of these are not in the same league but we are attacking a whole group of people on completely baseless grounds aren't we - just as baseless as the Paedophile comment as well.

Then again - isn't this just engrained in football throughout time? The mockery of players and managers. Or are we saying that calling a football manager, a public figure a paedophile is far worse than a man who earns about 15k a year in some town in England, who because of some misplaced rumour, loses his job and his livelihood as was the case after the Daily Mail and papers like it ran headline after headline for scaremongering and nothing more.

The Daily Mail... papers like it rejoice in scaremongering the masses. Now is this the newspaper of choice for Arsenal fans and Manchester United fans? Are we saying that we follow this papers view on life and not the almost level headed views we could find in the broadsheets about such issues.

Yet the crux of the argument for me - is Amazon.

Reading around the forums and such I saw comments like hit them where it hurts. Order a massive TV and then cancel the order and say it's because of a CD with a chant about Arsene Wenger on it.

Funnily enough, I know a number of Arsenal fans who knew about this CD for a long time. We knew it existed. It was always around - it was as obvious as "Ashley Cole is a Chelsea batty boy" - when he isn't but we've actually gone into recording studios to spend a whole day recording a song (or more) and then sold it in and around Highbury, the ground and elsewhere on the internet. Now isn't this homophobic? Are we insulting the player that brought us arguably 5 years of Arsenal's greatest piece of history? By being homophobic?

So hypocrisy...

Anyway, back to Amazon and shirt sales.

You see I feel this is now coming full circle at how commercialised football is and how the TV, the DVD Recorder, the Computer bits and bobs that are symbient of this glamourous, fruity, almost effeminate form of modern day football support reaches Amazon and we show our true cause by protesting and getting upset against the country's biggest online goods provider in terms of Football commercialism. Amazon makes a lot of money from it by selling HD LCD TVs and such so we can see a blade of grass, and stuff and we want to show them...

after the weekend we lose against Manchester United 2-1 and all the drama that surrounded it - by taking our angst out on Amazon... not Manchester United.

Kudos to Manchester United for saying they will try to rid the stands of such chanting but lets face it, after angry football fans, who are depressed over a loss (we've lost a lot of times if I recall correctly...? Have we? I am sure we have...) take it out on the internet.

Will Amazon care?

It all boils down to that famous U2 lyric, "will it make it easier on you now, you've got someone to blame" but if we were going to blame anybody for this, it would be Tottenham and some of their fans but United fans sing it more and why is that?

Let's not beat around the bush. Let's not delude ourselves. This is because we had a go at them in the media and they came back with this chant. As a club, Wenger loves his witty remarks, he rejoices in Press Conference gymnastics and it hits the papers.

Every manager has his achilles heel. If you want to aggravate those fans, they'll hit you where it hurts. It is wrong for there to be a chant about Wenger being a paedophile, it is but this is football and it is not pretty in every sphere. They may sell Baby goods in the Arsenal superstore but sooner or later your little baby will be screaming and shouting at opposing fans and damning them to hell while people are starving in Afghanistan because the Taliban are cloak and dagger about their massive Drugs agenda that makes them close to millionaires. They're loaded...

...but we have such a skewed perspective on football that it is the priority over everything. God what a world we live in today, a recession, a global crisis, Suicides rising hour by hour and a whole load of Arsenal fans prioritised one man who is mixed up in the obviousness of football culture and our chosen charities are those of ex-football players while collectively as a group, as a unit we could be doing so much more. Could we be so mad?

Now this is the bit I love. This is a blog from an Arsenal fan and people will disagree with something I say - now don't you love the irony there. Arsenal fans angry at each other because we all have such an obsessive grip on our own subjective view of the game? Isn't it utterly laughable; delicious in it's awfully mundane but delusional nightmare that is football support.

So we may delude ourselves that football is all wrapped up in cotton wool and that there is no commercial view but beneath our own cerebral cortex, the cognitive reality is - socially, collectively we are merged in this huge glamour industry of million pound advertising campaigns to make Theo Walcott the modern day messiah all the while the true problems in the world are laughably not an issue because the true evils are the billionaires - they cause problems to the world...

...how much are the tickets we buy again?

Big Brother fans remind me of Football fans

2009-09-01T19:08:00.002+01:00

I've been watching a lot of this programme for most of the summer and have also been reading some of the forums, especially the Digital Spy forum. I would advise anybody to read the posts on that forum if you want a really good laugh. If you want to see deluded people, this is where they are.

The funnier side of the forum is the fact the rules indicate you cannot be libellous or offensive to other posters, all the while every thread is libellous to somebody and offensive to posters - usually fans of housemates they aren't fans of.

This is why it reminds me of football fans. It is because just like Big Brother fans, a lot of football fans these days define themselves on the football clubs they hate.

There is a character (characters is a word I use loosely but also directly) in the house called Siavash. I have to post something somebody wrote about him today, which hits the spot. Called Vesna, he/she writes:

I've never warmed to him.

People keep bringing up what Lisa did the first month as if anyone could forget it but Siavash fans appear quite able and willing to forget what HE DID the first month and since so heres'a refresher, sorry no links I don't have endless time although I do have loads.

Spitting in the garden with Cairon. Wiping his bare ass on the kitchen counters with Cairon. Gossiping about Angel with some of the early walkers and evictees and Cairon... actually it wasn't gossip it was vicious lies.

Moving on....

Telling Lisa and Kris that he doesn't like Freddie he's only talking to him because he feels sorry for him. Basically pretending to be Freddies friend, which Freddie fell for.
Making out that he's mates with Marcus and then CUTTING MARCUS"S GRASS. Hiding from Marcus instead of talking to his "mate" either before , during or AFTER.

Moving on.....
Totally disrespecting his girlfriend. Noirin said to him over and over to stop, reminding him of his gf but didn't stop him. 5 minutes into the "relationship" he asks Noirin if he should move to Ireland and where did she see them in 5 years. ewwwww

Moving on....
Discovering the sympathy card. Well it worked for Freddie why not him. He used that woo is me card for weeks even though after the first kiss, first night Noirin told him she wasn't feeling it, nothing would come of it and if they continued it would just be a bit of fun.

Moving on... the scrunched eyes and prayers during evictions even when he's not up. That has really annoyed me LOL. HOW LAME!

Moving on... his DR attacks on Charlie for what he admits are also his motivations. As with most of them in there they think Charlie has always been the favourite and the favourite to win so that is Siavash's target. If he KNEW that Sophie was his competition I have no doubt that he would be trying to break her down in the eyes of the public.

Playing the game, No probs with it. Wanting the money, again no probs. Heck if I gave up a whole summer I'd want to win too!

Lastly, the shaving the eyebrow... hang on now THAT is funny. He looks so stupid with ONE eyebrow LOL. I don't care if he wins anyone in there deserves to win, they did the crime and the time. But I've never warmed to him and at this point never will. I'm not wearing Siavash coloured glasses!

.......................

Now as well as this, the funniest thing this person did was to lie about having a girlfriend on the outside. It's quite laughable because nobody knows whether he has a girlfriend or not. Neither does he. Depending on who he spoke to in the Big Brother house, he either fancies somebody, likes somebody, is dating somebody, has a girlfriend, loves somebody and if he has said he has a girlfriend, it's been from anything of 1 month to over a year, depending on which housemate he was speaking to.

Now his friend said it's been 7 months. His "girlfriend" appeared on the show and said she was his cousin. She then said she was his friend. She came on one of the shows recently and said that it was something they had pre-planned. Although this makes them both liars and betraying people in the house.

Yet, I say this because one of the reasons people say they like Siavash is because he is supposed to be genuine. This reminds me of Arsenal fans, or some of them I'm sorry to say and the horrendously pompous and camp "victory through harmony" we go on about. We're a club obsessed with making money. Ridiculously disgusting means of making money from stealing players, to stealing from the British Public to stealing from the banks when it benefited us.

We are hardly genuine and neither is this Siavash character. He has walked over everybody in that house and then plays people against each other. While other housemates have been loyal to each other this individual has been viciously nasty.

What is hilarious and utterly football related is how some people find him attractive. Let's face it though, the kind of people obsessed with Big Brother and vote on the show are the type who barely leave their house so this Siavash and his hairy body, hairy backside, bumpy nose, awful complexion and scruffy hair and beard that has never been shaved (he is only 23 but looks 50) is the kind of pin up a Big Brother fan in all their locked away from the outside world existence will pine over.

The threads on Digital Spy talking about his good looks are the funniest things I have ever seen. They talk about doing sexual things to him and in between all that, a number of sane and level headed individuals will speak the truth - he is ugly and they can't see anything attractive in him.

Yet even more like the premier league is how the forum are targeting people who speak against Siavash. Digital Spy have banned anybody who speaks against Siavash with warning letters stating their partners (probably the companies in charge of and related to Big Brother) are their priority. Considering the shows that have been pro-Siavash lately, indicate they want a scruffily scruffy 23 year old man who looks 50 to win. It's further strange how his Father is also working ferrying guests in and out of the Big Brother studios. Which links him with Siavash.

Coupled with the Premier League, it makes you realise all the favours they have with the big four. If the big four make money, then the Premier League make money and they must work with mutual and vested interest to promote and support these teams for the benefit of their survival and rising income.

So, the more fans the big four have, the more money the premier league. After all the connections the big four have and also the money from billionaires, highlights how much growth is available for these clubs and the premier league.

The same is true for Siavash and Big Brother, for anybody who has perspective enough to see this. The most extreme exhibitionist will bring the most money. Endemol (the company in charge of Big Brother) didn't hide the fact they were distraught when Mikey lost Big Brother last year and the laid back Rachel won it. Endemol spent weeks (as they are doing with Siavash and also Sophie) to boost the profile of an ugly exhibitionist hungry for money and fame as they did last year but failed. Spokespeople and producers spoke about how disappointed and angry they were that a sane and normal individual won Big Brother.

Yet this is how the media fool the fans. That's me and you but then again, the media knows that in such an alienating society, they will play to the lowest common denominator and their cash because they pay their bills and for the cars that Siavash's dad drives.

Of course without debate, where are we? Even debate, in this light, gets nasty, especially when somebody like Siavash or a big four club and the romanticised notions we attach to these individuals because of the force feeding the media (sky, the press etc) mould the lowest common denominator in society who will part with their cash for their hero.

And what a hero... moulded and made for the lowest common denominator. I think Endemol are desperate for a winner that can help them get a new contract but here's a clue for Endemol

Sack the fools that destroyed the show for you. If they want idiots like Siavash to win the show - that's your problem.

Thank God I didn't watch any Reality TV today - No Ferguson, No Wenger, No Simon Bloody Cowell

2009-08-29T23:56:00.003+01:00

Isn't Total Wipeout reality TV enough, or quiz shows for that matter? These are real people facing the metaphorical slings of padded powerful slaps in the face and elsewhere. Slithering through mud for that ultimate glory of winner and you know what I really love about the show. Nobody loses focus on the prize, on first place and that's what it's all about.

In football, you have to fill in the gaps for 9 months or so. How it happens, why it happens, oh dear grab your handbags the referee was a horror. Stuff like that.

Elsewhere on the X Factor, 50 more individuals who have heard singing for the past 5 years or so but with a different face and such pass through and Simon Cowell says in some form of active passive oratory - this person is the best singer he has ever heard and Louis Walsh agrees whilst smiling, Cheryl Cole (wife of Ashley Cole, ex-Arsenal left back) wipes a tear from her eyes or with all the knowledge, experience and wisdom of euro-pop songs written for them and sold with formation dancing - nods with a wry smile.

This is all that is missing from the world. From the higher heavens of LCD TV and HD; we have individuals sitting behind the desk (and all the metaphors it sends out in post-modern existence (usually of authority)) judging us and everybody at home screaming, acknowledge me, love me, attend to me.

How different is that to football?

You see, you have this cleverly edited footage where if somebody does something wrong, have a look at Fergie? Is he Angry? Cut to Fergie cam!!

But if Fergie was unwrapping a Wrigleys Spearmint gum, try cutting to Pat Rice, one of the subs or you can always count on Rooney to be rampaging around looking for an ASBO. Or that is what he would have been doing if he wasn't in football. I am sure he would have been in Media/TV land in some form or another had he not been in football and it may have been down to his time with old ladies.

So forgive me, please if I couldn't give a Wrigleys Spearmint Gum for all the hoo haas that occurred in the game today (yesterday). I've seen it all before. I can't seem to get excited about it anymore. As a team Arsenal have accomplished everything and here they are attempting to do it again. I really am beginning to think there is a gross futile essence to all of this bravado machismo nonsense we place in football.

Like Hooliganism/Thuggery for instance? Isn't the world interesting enough these days or not? This isn't some pomposity that I'm dictating at all. Hardly. There has to be something inately troublesome in somebody who has to resort to concocting drama and antagonism in their lives. Unfortunately we are fed it by the media, Sky Sports and yes, we tend to carry this into our lives and think it's part and parcel of life - so we may look for it.

This is why I can't care less. For me, we lost today and that's about it. I hope we win the next game :)

Reality, in the context of Reality TV, isn't as complex as the media world make out. It's about as simple as Total Wipeout for me. Basically, the world comes together, like the contestants on the show, they give it their best shot, they get knocked down and brush it off, feel sorry for themselves a little and get back to doing it again and hoping to do better and if they don't, it doesn't matter.

Of course people do try and make life harder for themselves in order to make it far more interesting, I could literally go on and on about that, from Religion to Politics etc but does anybody really care.

I do think Arshavin is absolutely brilliant though. Such a majestic player. We should buy another player like him, with experience.

Then again, if we don't - it doesn't matter. Somebody has to lose. It might as well be us.

Impossible Questions and Impossible logic of Transfers and Teams - My Manchester United Vs Arsenal

2009-07-27T14:15:00.002+01:00

Do you know when you're on a forum and you say the team's crap, the team's rubbish and somebody suddenly, well often but suddenly says, well who do you expect us to buy with the money we have? Then you could say something like, but we have money but the board are greedy and the person will retort, our board are not greedy - so says my never ending mental masturbation over this romanticised propoganda I wholeheartedly buy from Arsenal (or any other club for that matter) and then you'll say well look at these never ending accounts that shows we've got Gazillions of pounds.

I realised that this is illogical.

No matter how good a player is, they need a good outfit around them to perform well. A team that believes in that player and believes that player can change events. If this doesn't exist or if this doesn't transpire (which I feel is the problem at Arsenal, it never transpired for Fabregas or Sagna) then a team will continually stutter. It's that self doubt. This is where, lesser teams will beat Arsenal.

I haven't finished yet.

So, continually fishing through the media for tit bits of information and then glossing over numerous websites passionately could be deemed counter productive. I'm not denying that this is and can be a perfect passtime for the run of the mill arsenal fan over the Summer - but I do believe that this amounts to nothing. I know being a broken record in respect to changing the way the team plays doesn't help and I guess no team changes the way they play over night.

My clear example is Manchester United. Now, as much as I believe that they did not create this developing youth scenario - they bought it from other clubs, they're success in the 90s was not based upon developing youth. Logically, they would be able to get any kid and make a great player out of them. This did not happen. What United did was notice a money making scheme in kids. Which is something Arsenal are doing now. If you buy a kid, develop them and then sell them - the return is higher and if you have kids at the club for a longer period then the affiliation between player and supporter is also higher. Regardless of this - it was all about players who played together but played together well.

It was about creating a team.

Now that statement would mean all kinds of things to all kinds of different people. Of course, the other problem is, you need money in this light but for me, personally, creating a team is an unbelievably, in-explainable difficulty in football and for which you need a very good, but importantly flexible manager. For all our talk of bringing in new players and buying the best and paying for the best, what really is difficult is bringing a player in effectively into the squad.

Now the ugly part. Obviously, for me, the romanticism of football has died. It did die when Roman Abramovich entered the premier league and then buy outs occurred over and over again. It basically amounted to the price of assets and the unbelievably ease with which credit was available while millions of chinese create this illusion of money in the west. This has killed what we saw as football and in the meantime we have been sold fake plastic love from the clubs who try and gloss over the fact that the clubs have become money obsessed since Abramovich and all the other takeovers at club have occurred.

Now this isn't a gloating moment. As much as Kreonke and Usmanov have little effect at the club - they are still there. We are seriously not unaffected by this huge turnover that the masses of credit brought to football. After all, we did take advantage of all that massive credit by getting loads of money from RBS at a ridiculously silly interest rate. RBS. RBS.

So I must state where does team building occur here when you are fighting an obscure battle against the finances being pumped into football. I'd say the biggest effect on Football in the new season comes from the Setanta incident that has removed a big TV player in the whole scheme of things. The effects of Global recession is also at play as well - which opens the field for desperate board members to bring in money.

The creativity of football remains to be the case. A new player, or two, or three won't change matters - or will it? Well if we bring in 6 or 7 new first teamers it will.

Let's not faff about all this eh? It hasn't worked, or it hasn't worked as well as we could make it work. We had a plan but players are confused and bewildered. When such memories seep in, there is little you can return from. You have to try something new. For instance the, "Fabregas has been awful for..." doesn't remove the fact he isn't a great player. It is the same for others. There is something in our coaching and management that isn't working.

This isn't to say Wenger is a bad manager - but something isn't good around here and it's about time he had a good long look at what works (almost nothing) what worked and doesn't aid completely working system (i.e., it may work when things are bad, but it may not work, when all things are good), and what works and is a great key to a real push to success.

I mean, as fans, we may see something work on the field, but what if it's only working and only effective because things are so dire elsewhere? What if something that isn't working - once working could completely change everything, making what is good now - utterly redundant?

The focus on problems when so much is problematic, unconventional and counter productive in so many ways, doesn't aid us.

One of the great things that occurred at United, with Ronaldo was how this player came in as a player, a winger, a unit but was transformed into arguably the best player in the world today. Even I think Henry remains to be the best player in the world (but we sold him) but it's how numerous factors come into play to work for us.

What are our excuses? Money, anything?

For all the problems that a club faces in football, it's success is based upon how it tackles those problems and succeeds.

We have no success. We could look for silver linings but ultimately, we have failed to tackle our own achilles heels - ultimately, this is why we fail.

Of course, many would disagree, some would agree - but if I was the richest person on the planet and couldn't grasp or control the problems that had anchored me - what a futile existence it would be.

Phil Brown does Arsenal a favour: Could excitement turn to a big wet water balloon or a fireworks display

2009-03-09T00:31:00.004Z

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero
Charlie Ash - Come Back Lover
Little Boots - New In Town (Fred Falke remix)
Jong Pang - Small Cut Sensations
Katy Perry & Yelle - Hot 'N' Cold (Yelle Remix)
More Hot N Cold Mixes
Don Diablo vs The Ting TIngs - That’s not my rave
Mr. Oizo - Steroids (Mr. Oizo’s Remix) With Uffie I think...

So here we come - not long left now and so much to be decided upon with some big games coming up - players returning and a masterful plan needed to get things into motion.

It seems we've got all the ingredients to really quick start this situation. The players are high, the players need it but what more is needed? Our greatest problem has been consistency and continuity of goals? Things can go pear shaped at any point and overall, if that happens we'll be heading for another set of questions and fingers pointing.

But can it get bad?

Doesn't appear to be the case. At present the players are playing with a new fluidity and determination. I think what we have here is a blessing in disguise and that blessing came from Phil Brown.

Phil Brown's anger can only build up an impetus and a retaliation against everything. What he intended to do was wind us up but this kind of behaviour only brings a team together?

Did Phil know he was doing this? Did he do us a favour? I can't see how a manager can miss the element of siege mentality and the possibility of giving that siege mentality to a team when they need it must.

Somebody should light up the touch paper.

Premier League curse of Broken Long Term Strategies - Analysing Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal

2009-03-09T00:26:00.001Z

Royksopp - Remind Me (Ernest St Laurent Moonfish mix)
St. Vincent - The Strangers Mixed up epicness
Neko Case - This Tornado Loves You Cool - Morrisey meets YYYs
Little Boots - Day N' Nite (Kid Cudi Cover)
Kid Cudi - Dat New New (VIKING Remix)
Mylo - Drop the Pressure 2009 (Electro Bass Mix)
Alphabeat - Digital Love (Daft Punk Cover)
Mr Oizo - Positif (The Exo 'What The Fuuuck' Remix) JESUS This is GooD!!!

Everybody wants to be on the winning team. God knows why if I'm honest. Everybody wants to win. The whole "it's the taking part that counts", I get somewhat. It's like saying if you weren't there, they couldn't have won. Your representation counts towards somebody else achieving something but does anybody care? In this day and age most fans would love to curse other teams, other players, other managers and anything other than what they can justify with all kinds of strange reasonings than they are the best. Everybody wants to be top dog.

Maybe I could come up with same philosophical reasoning behind why - but maybe one reason why humans have continued to be greedy buggers for millenia is the fact we trample over the weak and make a big song and dance about it. For many many years.

We all want to be attached to that.

When United went on a never ending winning spree during the 90s, people called their fans glory hunters. I have to say right here, it's very easy to pull yourself off as a real fan these days. With an arsenal of internet forums, news sites, news channels etc etc, you can take sound bites and highlight how much you know about the club you are a fan of. You can talk strategy and highlight the games you have been to and if it wasn't for the inability to get tickets and/or the fact you live miles and miles away you'd go to more games to support the team, said with the ferocity of going to war. This supposed Glory hunting isn't some new design in the world today. Even the weakest team in the world has Glory hunters. Support your local team they say. I guess this is a badge of honour. An immense exhibition of one's defence of where they live. Just as stupid as supporting a team miles away (I say writing a blog on a football team) which is just as stupid as supporting a football team (I say writing a blog on a football team).

I guess, football clubs know this. They know we need to be winners. Whether you are a follower of a weaker, lower league team or a team known the world over by camera hogging football fans. Football Clubs know that, the more you expose yourself as winners or even in the weaker clubs case, you expose yourself as a strong club fighting against the world and the might of the world (so as long as you remain in ownership and make profit or whatever - you survive). So as it comes to pass, this is what United did and other clubs followed suit.

What exactly is the G14 but a group of clubs interested in a common interest to use their might to stay at the top of the game. This is done via the new Champions League. A money hogging Bionic Marketing scheme. And that's what it is. Marketing strategies.

If you can do something spectacular. If you can present yourselves as unique in some way or other then you can grip the public and therefore you can make money. Let's not beat around the bush about this. That's what this is about. For all the failures the world has - there is something we can grab to be a success and it costs money - or maybe the price of a football shirt.

The Arsenal problem arrived after the Invincible season. We had player after player demanding the club live up to their expectations to win things. Nothing special - but to win things. That's it. It's not difficult when you are a club like Arsenal who makes the money it does - unless you make it hard for yourself. After winning two doubles and then the Invincible season - Arsenal had to up the game to bring in more supporters. This was in my view, the winning with kids strategy.

This was such a brilliant strategy that, it had money written all over it. With all kinds of changes in the game, on contracts and fees and rights to players you have developed, Arsenal would make a killing.

Basically, Arsenal became too greedy and unfortunately, it was not in a footballing sense.

United had done the Treble years before. This was a huge achievement. A mammoth achievement. Absolutely huge. Yet, if you like at United and also Liverpool, they are clubs that have had a history that brings in the fans and if you give fans history then they will continue to come back for more. Liverpool winning the UEFA Cup, FA Cup and League Cup was one thing that gave them the impetus to hold onto fans. The fact that they had a future and were building towards something. All the board needed to do was show that - and this is what United did too. They just showed the fans and the players that they had ambition.

Arsenal didn't. Arsenal went for the kids strategy and the playing beautiful strategy. As I said before, there is no price for lost years. You lose years out of Stupidity or Greed or Both in Arsenal's case, then there is no turning back. You can only go forward. It's like, you can lie and once you've lied, you can never go back. The truth on the other hand is quite flexible because, it's real.

It did work to get fans. Arsenal continued the playing beautiful rhetoric and the talk about kids. It's all about saying a lie long enough and loud enough that everybody believes it and the fact that the papers and the fans and everybody on the internet was saying it - we all bought it. Because we're all a bunch of glory hunters running around believing all we hear because we want to be brilliant football fans who know our football. Just sound bites and rhetoric can do that.

So what is the new strategy? God knows. It all went weird when we stopped holding on to players. How mental can you get!? For the sake of looking good and being brilliant we went and sold real resources, substantial resources so the club can go for the new grab a fan strategy.

Personally, it has opened the new world of football (maybe the old world of football) for what it is. Broken and corrupted.

If it was all about winning. We'd see it on the pitch. But we don't see that do we.

There is no price for the years we have lost.... Arsenal aren't really a football club are they - we're lost our ability to be that good.

2009-02-18T02:12:00.005Z

Emiliana Torrini - Heartstopper ('stop Hearting' Mix By Mm)
Tiga vs. Jack Frost - Mind Shout (Tronik Youth Mix
Ladyhawke - Paris Is Burning (Alex Metric Remix) Some other good tunes here too
Jay-Z, M.I.A., T.I., Lil' Wayne and Ka… - Swagger Like Us (Grammy Awards 02-08-2009)
music go music - warm in the shadows Blondie type electronica
N.A.S.A. - Gifted Feat. Kanye West, Santogold, Lykke Li
Yeti Lane - This Day - Lonesome George Beck meets Cocteau Twins

Because if Arsenal we're a football club then, I guess we'd buy players or we'd make an effort to get back up there at the top.

I think we're just not as good as we once were. Ultimately we have lost our ability to be that good. We just have. We are a lesser team than before. It's quite an unfortunate outcome to be (after a year where we were dominating) languishing outside the top four and maybe looking at finishing sixth as well.

How can this be acceptable? We were idiots to be running behind Usmanov taking over the club. Now that was hardly a problem was it. We were talking about our legacy and we're better than others and here we are behind teams getting charities as sponsorship and being considerate and compassionate enough to lower ticket prices. Who are we? Quite pathetic to be accurate.

Now we've got supporters groups who are quite frankly more interested in generating atmosphere from a small corner of a 60k stadium (???????) and another group that thinks 1 share makes a big difference (????) and another that appears to be more interested in name rather than nature. We're hardly the club and fans we once were and our pandering to Wenger as supporters like some leader of a cult instead of being openly and objectively critical of him cost us deeply.

There is no price for the years we have lost.

We've lost it through greed of our board members. The arrogance of our manager. The arrogance of our fans. The rose tinted glasses of power hungry football fans.

The real football fans, the real Arsenal fans can stand up and be proud now. They stood up to the club and the board and questioned the arrogant xenophobia against Usmanov and Kroenke. The questioned Wenger when needed and used his words against the critics. It's laughable that we used the cheap credit that has caused a national and global catastrophe to build a stadium and fall down the premiership. What a complete and utter joke.

Yet we class ourselves as a football club. We think we're better than other clubs. We're not. I say this because I want to be great and I want to be the best and I want the greatest team in football to actually mean something because - where as clubs would bend over backwards and be beaten black and blue to have our money, we've merely glorified in accounts and finance and looked stupid as we disappeared into obscurity with only our vanity and arrogance to hold as trophies.

The good thing about having a good solid self sustained income (Thanks Danny Fiszman) at a Football club is you can take risks. You can be bold and aggressive and go out there and fight and this is intention. Intention to achieve and win. This is what we lack. How stupid. We can't even be a football club. We're blinded by business and suits.

We fail one year - (as we have done) then we spend again next year and make something of the money we have and you know what? We'll make money, we'll have left over as we sell players. It's so simple but our number crunching is nauseatingly sickening. I feel like I'm a fan of some Blue Chip company - not a football club.

Fat load of good our income is doing is. Sad and Pathetic.

There is no price for the years we have lost.

Three Months and Counting - This could get dirty

2009-02-18T02:08:00.000Z

Milosh - Awful Game (Troublemaker Remix) Very Neo-Radiohead like
Marina & The Diamonds - Obsessions
MSTRKRFT - Easy Love Giorgio Morodor Disco type
Newton Faulkner - Dream Catch Me (Don Diablo Remix) Pet Shop Boys meet Faulkner - awesome
Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career Scottish band like Stone Roses meet Cranberries
My Little Pony - Do You Really Love Me, Or Am I Just In Your Network?

After a complete turnaround of events and the acquisition of one Andrei Arshavin we have found what could be the team that will sail us straight into the Champions League finals. We could consider from this point our only obstacles.

At present we have

Van Persie, Eduardo, Arshavin, Vera, Adebayor for Striker duties and then the usual possibilities for midfield and what we could fashion from that. A strong set up but obviously it remains another season that has yet to find some glory but with this team we can get something. This looks very pretty.

I am sure other teams are looking on and realising while they weaken we're brimming with confidence and have a strong unit at our disposal. A very clear cut and laid back Champions League and FA Cup before the balanced chilled out end to the season.

For once we can be realistic in the fact - we're strong again.

At Arsenal is everything an International Incident!

2009-02-16T12:20:00.000Z

Matt & Kim - Daylight
LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great
Kid Cudi - Can I Be
Justin Timberlake - My Love (Diplo Remix) Using the same track to mix others.
Tiga - You Gonna Want Me Sounds Re-engineered
MarissaNadler - River of Dirt Not another girl with a guitar
The Notwist - Boneless
Metric - Help I'm Alive

Yes, we know, he has been out for almost a year and he had to have surgery and required rehabilitation etc etc and maybe this that and the other and you saw monkeys in a tree outside Highbury which means that Peter Hill Wood to all our benefit may explode with Piles - FOR GOD'S SAKE FOUR EYES PLAY EDUARDO!!!

Is he fit? Yes. Is he available? Yes.

Then play him.

Why in the hell is everything at Arsenal like a panic attack for? At other clubs, at every other club in the world it's a case of - wahey, play him, he plays for us. No messing around no pathetic drama - just play the player. We lose, we draw, we win - it's like it's the end of the world and if we don't give a one thousand man press conference everything will fall apart. It's like Arsenal as a club needs these couch sessions with reporters and PR men to keep breathing. It's our own personal tragedy over and over. We really need the attention.

I really do believe there is this need for Wenger to stand in a press conference and really feed these reporters with numerous little sound bites so that later he can say, "oh look, I saved the day - Eduardo didn't have a dangerous itching attack on the field. You know why -? It's because I'm fab and do a funky dance at the dug out."

And we lap it up. It's like Football really is an Arsenal fans personal Kumbay Yah - a gross need for all the Churchy songs we had in Primary School Assemblies to come true. First it was Adams and before that O'leary and before that Brady and before that any old sod and before that Charlie George - ignoring every other super player we had at the club at the time but right now every Arsenal fans Mini-Me, locked away in their sub-concious is singing "I was cold I was hungry in the North Bank, were you there? Were you there? I was cold I was hungry were you there? And some silly corner of Arsenal fans obsessed with Atmosphere wouldn't help me - were you there?" so we have to replace that "Kumbay-Yah Wenger, Kumbay-Yah" with little quotes and sound bites in our own little collection of the Bible called the RED TOPS!

Just deal with it. People are losing jobs - the country isn't growing, everything is slowing down. Our Greed - our selfishness - which is what Religion today is all about - Feeding the self and feeding it with rubbish and not reality, which has led this country to a downfall, doesn't matter right now.

Just show us football, Entertain Us and please play this player because God knows we've got rid of every other decent player who was worth a damn (with the most stupidest superficial Pseudo-Religious Nonsense excuses) but shush shush, we're not supposed to talk about... because he was right. He has the foresight. He is the master. NO! He is just a manager who likes to have a chin wag to the press about nonsensical nothingness and should be out there focussing on real football matters - getting players to shoot, to be this CREATIVE thing we're supposed to be!

Now we're still behaving like these guys have never seen a football before and Wenger has created an android who needs to observe, analyse, store the data then later process it for like 24 hours in some highly complicated Mathematical sub-routine before he can play football - and even then it would be a case of in true Wenger style passing the ball around just to get a feel of things. Oh Yes, we've seen it all before. Every new bloody player at Arsenal comes on the field to do one-two effing passes!!

JUST SHUT UP AND PLAY HIM!!!

Crunching at Credit and the gap between Rich and Poor

2009-02-11T23:56:00.006Z

Royksopp - What Else Is There? ft. Karin Dreijer (Thin White Duke Remix) Dancey
Andrew Bird - Oh No Simon and Garfunkely
Little Boots (MGMT Cover) - Time To Pretend Cute
WZRDZ - Smells Like Teen Spirit (WZRDZ remix) Dance mix for Smells like Teen Spirit
Gang Gang Dance - House Jam (Hot Chip Remix) Very interesting mix
Gui Boratto - Haute Couture Chilled out Trance

I'm watching and reading like everybody else and seeing all this talk about hard times and difficulties. I remember the last recession you see and it wasn't because of hard times - it was because it was defined as a recession and people talked about it and people blamed the Tories and I just carried on as I was and just doing my thing. I didn't feel it. I know a lot of people did, they lost jobs and things died down but not everybody felt it.

A lot of things go through my mind during this recession. It's I guess a matter of essentials and having the essentials in life and nothing more but then if you are still working and you're taking home lets say about 2 to 4k (plus) a month in wage then maybe (depending on circumstance) you won't feel it as much. Then other things come into play.

I think we create our distractions in life and for some of us it could be spending and being busy while for others you could be distracted by absolutely nothing - and everything else is an annoyance. Doing nothing is a welcome distraction while everything else is an annoyance. You see I met someone this week - the school bike that he was, now married and two kids but busy it seemed and for me it was a case of stepping into a role of getting busy and getting on with things.

This is on a par with somebody else I met, an ex-teacher who told, you get busy so quickly and then you realise you're almost dead.

Your life is supposed to flash by before you pass away and it made me wonder what really matters and when you have all that money what would you really miss? Have you heard stories of people who lose everything during down times and then re-build it during up times? It's this that makes me see that eventually it's very difficult to see what really matters around us and how subjective our notions of achievement are in the greater scheme of things.

For instance I have to renew my membership for a charity and I for the life in me couldn't find the membership renewal on their website so I clicked on "Vacancies" (at a Charity) for a laugh, and they were giving like 40k, 50k salaries and giving maternity leave vacancies at 40 to 50k as well - along with being according to some "quality" newspaper one of the best work places in the country. It had won awards.

The best? A charity paying so much and lacking volunteers? It was bizarre for me in this climate but I guess this charity gets a lot of money - well a lot of it goes on admin it seems.

Eventually, we all live to that ripe old, well the majority of us do, by hook or by crook we get there whether we are rich, poor or whatever, we all get there and we all have our sense of achievement but for me it's about what somebody does with their money. I realised that as we're all surviving during this period what would somebody do with money during this period. Like me, you could think and think a lot and wonder where your money is going even when Gordon is saying spend spend spend I'm wondering how bizarre that is.

I cut down because I thought it seems to be a bad time and so I do but I don't know many people who have lost their job... - well hardly anyone to be honest but I hear about it and it seems some businesses are there surviving making their way through in tough times and I guess it's all businesses changing what they do to accommodate survival and respect of wealth. You have to get by how you can...

So why is it with all our wealth at Arsenal we can't do this? The fear is very strange but if it's that bad - get in good quality staff and resources to almost guarantee success. Respect the wealth you have because many people don't have that and what would somebody without money do with that wealth. Would you squander it or do something amazing because those are the things that matter? Money must be respected rather than saved but what can any of us do with money?

I had the most strangest question given to me once - like, "do you ever go to restaurants?" It was said as though, "I know I do but I bet you don't". And it showed how ugly and dirty ambition is and greed and arrogance is but this is what some people do with money.

They go to restaurants.

And that's all some people can do, unfortunately.

O leary's impossible possible. Eduardo returns, Arshavin is new - Sell Adebayor - buy a DM

2009-02-07T06:36:00.005Z

The Bird and the Bee - Love Letter to Japan Some plinky plonky coolness
Futurecop! - Class of 1984 (Anoraak Remix) Sasha meets Underworld
Lykke Li - Breaking It Up (Pocketknife Loosefoot Remix - Extended Version)
Junior Boys - Dull To Pause Tales of the Unexpected electronica like
Snow in Mexico - You and my Winter Pet Shop Boys meet Suzanne Vega
FooFighters - Everlong (DiscoTech Remix)
Radiohead - There There (The Twelves Remix)

We've got problems at Arsenal and I bet we'll get top dollar for Adebayor. It's about time we just let him go on his way and played the lifestyle of superfly Pimp extraordinaire and let us get on with playing football. Eventually, for some reason the Arsenal fans will get on the back of one player and see him and only him as Arsenal and this is our problem.

We don't tend to see the massive efforts of the less notable players. We just let them fly by. Very few people admired Eduardo until he had to disappear from the game for a year - it was huge detrimental but it was also hugely detrimental because we made errors elsewhere. We sold huge important players - more important than Adebayor and we were left with a less able team struggling away for efforts that were unquestionable right merely months ago. That is funny isn't it.

That in itself tells you why it's a problem. Who would have thought Villa would be ahead of us with a Charity sponsorship, American owners and a in the large part, English team? Who?

SO funny. All the things a lot of our fans think are impossible, Villa have proved are possible and we say Wenger says it is impossible. O'leary and Villa have proved the impossible is Possible!

We can't do that. We have more money, we have more income and we can't do that. We make excuses - it's laughable. Slowly we are being found out for the fakes we are and it's a crying shame.

Time to re-engineer our team and stop lying.

Not playing Arshavin is like throwing away the skin at KFC

2009-02-07T01:23:00.006Z

Don Diablo - Black Heat (Whitenoise Remix) Electro Trash
Beirut - Transatlantique Morrissey meets Simon and Garfunkel
Beirut - My Wife, Lost in the Wild More from Beirut, but electronicky
Little Boots - Meddle (AC Slater & DJ Skeet Skeet Remix featuring Goldielocks) Little Boots meets Quality Grime
Dear Reader - Never Goes Fiona Apple/Regina Spektor but haunting
Bloc Party - One Month Off (Filthy Dukes Remix - Vocal) Nice mix
Enorma Sass - Japan
The Ting Tings - That's Not My Name (LA Riots Remix) Tings Tings Meet The Eurythmics

So we bought this player, we need wins and we need some change and then we go a player down and how do we respond - oooh, I know, we'll defend. Now somebody will come up with this logic that this is what you do.

But you don't do you. When you need points, you aim for points. Why buy a player and not player. What's all this crazy cautious player? Let's treat it like a business and say - a broken player is a leech on the club's finances so we're afraid a player will be injured and out. This is the accountant screaming down your throat.

So we're cautious - our possession. The accountants drive to get more goals in a cautious manner is to hold possession and hold it for a long time. The propoganda of beautiful football is in fact a finance office saying, look after the players - they are the club's bread and butter because if they're injured we will lose money.

The real reason behind penny pinching at a club. Not football - God who wins from all this? It's the Directors. My previous post highlights clearly that we've been fishing for free money in a credit crunch that would bleed dry the nation. Our board of Directors have let us down - make no mistake of it. There will always be people saying that Arsenal are the pinnacle and we know how to make money - like that is so important.

But until we give our sponsorship away to a Charity and lower our Ticket prices (like Aston Villa and Sunderland respectively) we will be behind the pack. Somebody pays for the low interest rate we got in a credit crunch. I am sure the accountant/business speech in getting that low interest rate was more jobs and boosting the economy in North London. Where as we will get somebody else in the country to pay the interest rate we SHOULD be paying by losing jobs and so forth.

Welcome to Arsenal's position, moral and ethical as it is, in the credit crunch.

We're nasty.

Everything is coming full circle and as much as I hate to admit it, all our critics regarding our finances and poaching young players were absolutely right but our rose coloured - or was it raspberry the colour of those shirts? Well rose coloured spectacles are just as close to blind.

One day we will return to being a football club. One day... No idea when but I am guessing with the way the economy is moving - 2010/2011 season. Or then again people may grab and run with their money.

Anyway, if we want to win we have to play our players but that depends on what those up in the crazy office will say and whether it's "cost effective".

Ashburton Grove's place in destroying the economy - EEK

2009-02-07T01:15:00.008Z

Pet Shop Boys - Love Etc Goldfrapp meets Vangelis
Figure – Steaks & Vodka (Jesse Jamz Remix) Like something Eddie Halliwell would play
Couer de pirate - commes des enfants (and remix by andy carmichael) Nice
Royksopp - Happy Up Here
Foals - Electric Bloom (The 9000 remix) The Clash meet Little Boots
DJ Shadow feat. Mos Def - Six Days (Remix) Brilliant (Hip Hop/Breakbeat)
Lil Wayne - Lollipop (Verdis Remix) Lil Wayne Electro Trash (ish) mix
Architecture in Helsinki - That Beep Another Great Australian Electro outfit
Mo Do - Ein, Zwei, Polizei (Mustard Pimp Remix) Excellent Electro Hard house

Just watching the Bankers who lent us money "apologising" on TV.

It just came to me that if we hadn't had this credit crisis and idiotic bankers throwing money around then we wouldn't have had the stadium at such a stupid interest rate. Let's face facts, some poor family around this country - some poor family? A lot of poor families around this country are suffering because of the low interest rate we paid on the 100s of millions of pounds we used to make a stadium that the board and the investors will make money from.

Hey, you know what is even more funnier? It's like Kreonke and Usmanov were thinking this all along. Forget about taking out a loan - why not leech and sponge off a Football Club that has taken advantage of a crazy economy instead - what a laugh.

And we thought we were a club led on moral and ethical grounds. The benchmark of the beauty of football. I'd give that accolade to Aston Villa and Sunderland at this present point in time. The Winds of Change and all that and what a kop out - it's all too good to be true.

Here we are - this is hilarious, in fact it's quite sickening. Here we are saying, wow Wenger, he's so shrewd, he's an ECONOMIST - :D, he is an ECONOMIST. He has given us this STADIUM. Oh God that is so funny - when in fact we took advantage of an exploding economy to build a stadium that not, that will not be favourable not to the supporters who wait in vain like Religious people wait for their respective salvation/promised land but the board of directors and you know what? This is why Peter Hill Wood always talks down about our players because he is there for the money and the investment and the ripping off of the little man with strangeness of strangeness that bleeds the populace via The City - that is where he and his counterparts were schooled.

It's all very ugly and nothing to be proud of, in fact it's disgusting. We look at Chelsea and laugh at the fact they have one owner or Manchester United and their debt and Liverpool's squabbles but they're not like us using somewhat immoral means. OK they were available and we took advantage but somebody loses out and at present it has been the fans and it has been the public who will pay for this with a crunch, losing jobs, falling house prices, rises in taxes and an uncertain future for their family.

OK, some people could say some football clubs did the same but not as bled and destroyed as we had done. Our advantage would be in the biggest and the best and spending tonnes of money in a time where everybody was spending money - especially the construction firms and other businesses we employed to make this happen. Everything was bleeding the economy of money that wasn't there - for our favour.

This is how you destroy. :oD

Arshavin, Tottenham and 20 years return of the North London Rivalry

2009-02-04T01:00:00.006Z

Metric - Help I'm Alive Kate Nash meets someone posh
Wavves - So Bored The Strokes Meet The Pumpkins
Sugarcoin - Acidly Royksopp meets Johnny Cash
Feist and Ben Gibbard - Train Song Simon and Garfunkel meet Kate Bush
Barzin - Let's Go Driving Slow acousticy song
Nil - Ma Disconica Justice meets Jarre
Beni - My Love Sees You (Classixx Remix)Kraftwerk meets Tori Amos

I don't think Tottenham have been our rivals since the late 80s or early 90s but now with more investment and a greater drive to turn things around, Tottenham have finally reached that phase. I know the table can be deceiving in this light but Tottenham are playing a thoughtful approach to a quick return to being contenders - well not at the top but important players in the premiership who can break a teams run.

On the other end, while Tottenham are able to make these quick changes with the aid of a huge support - we take things slower and buy one player. He's a great player, brilliant in fact but I think this is a player that will keep us at 5th place not move us forward.

Arshavin, I don't believe is a player who changes a teams fortunes but is an insurance player who can guarantee you retain your position. We should face facts that he is not a big league player but a Russian league players - a big difference. Apparently we have him as a playmaker and one has to wonder how he will grasp the teams he will be up against as well as the players. Some of these he has seen before, others never but he hasn't played against some of the brute reality of the game.

That's for the current top four though. Against Tottenham, I think they will be destroyed fairly easily as long as Arshavin and the players around him can find some balance and stability - at any point in the game. This doesn't have to be a 90 minute game. We just don't want to walk into this game and never gain even a glimmer of confidence.

Arshavin surplus to requirements or the new Jesus Christ?

2009-02-01T02:04:00.005Z

CLICK

Close Enough - Pain and Pleasure Coldplay meets Jay Z
Passafire - Ghost Man Some Nu-Reggae
Some 808 State
Heloise & The Savior Faire - Illusions (Modus Vivendi Golden Remix) Blondie meets Goldfrapp
Kings Of Leon Vs. Lykke Li - Knocked Up (Rodeo Mash Up) Kings of Leon meets Lykke Li
Coeur de Pirate - Comme des Enfants (Le Matos remix) Awesome - Cute French Girl meets Jarre meets Paul Van Dyk
Metric - Help I'm Alive (Acoustic) Lykke Li meets Duffy
Faded Paper Figures - Metropolis Crystal Castles meets Suzanne Vega
Depth Effect - One day or so feat. Cyne Lightning Seeds meet Def Jam
Mightyfools - Addict (Original Mix) Tony De Vit meets Fedde Le Grand
Technotronic Vs MSTRKRFT - Pump up the Jam
Technotronic meets Kraftwerk
Simian Mobile Disco - Upside Down Jamiroquai meets Mylo
Lil' Wayne - Ay Man feat. Pharrell (Neptunes) Action Movie music meets Hip Hop
Justin Timberlake - Better not Together Portishead meets Michael Jackson

I once bought a DVD Recorder and it was well ahead of the time it was first released. I thought it was the best thing ever considering the technology involved but then like 6 months later I realised it was pretty defunct and done for.

Arshavin is coming closer and closer to 30 years old and you have to wonder is this going to worth it? Forgive me for being confused, maybe being 27 isn't such a bad deal and it's the double speak from the club that makes me feel this way.

I do agree that we have to get em young (24/25 seems logical from learnings of Arsenal's calamities) and then get them into the squad to be blood for the future. We were either getting them too young (cause they're cheap) or too old (cause they're cheap) but now we get someone who is, let's say 28 by the time we can see his best.

It would be nice to see this guy to be the best ever and a turning point but there are so many issues to deal with, all the responsibilities on one pair of shoulders just makes me continue to wonder. It's a big ask. All kinds of things could go wrong from injury to no position, to adapting to Arsene's carefully constructed Heston Blumenthal footballing world (which isn't to everyone's tastes anymore).

I think it is kind of the step in the right direction. It is a risk, it is a bit dodgy, he is a very good player, we could take a different direction and hopefully build from this. We've got rid of like 4 or 5 kids to pay his wages so at least we're trying to do all things at once still...?

My view is defending is the new Counter Attack.

Suddenly we don't know what to do at Arsenal - Arrogance

2009-01-26T01:40:00.003Z

Dead Prez - Hip Hop (Diplo Remix) Tribe Called Quest meets Underworld

Yelle - Je Veux Te Voir (George Lenton Remix) Republica meets Carl Cox
Justice - Valentine (Plastic Fang Remix) Justice meets a Train Ride
Coconut Records - Microphone Old Travis meets Scissor Sisters
The Story Of - The Flock The Stone Roses meet The Smiths
Decimals - Retreat Big in Japan meets Yazoo
Nightmare of You - You're Very Dear To Me Strokes meet Stones
Hostage - Bring The Music Italo House meets Synthy BreakBeat (GOOD!)
Lily Allen - Everyone’s At It
Shinichi Osawa - Dreamhunt (Shinichi Osawa Remix) - Supporting Fat Boy Slim
In Step - Girl Talk American Mash Up artist - Quality!
Music For Animals - Rice Fields Sonic Youth meets Human League
Lykke Li - Tonight She should be big everywhere soon

Watching the game today I realised that we are just stalled. Teams had us sussed out years ago and we're still playing that game - arrogance, and we don't want to change.

You've heard it. We're saying we want to develop youth, we don't want to spend, we don't want to take risks, we respect caution, we think this is the way, we think this is the future, we think everybody else is wrong, we're fiscally oriented but not sports oriented. It's basically a big headed idiots game.

A whole transfer window highlights where we are. We spent all of it, chasing after a player at the end of his game soon, who hasn't proved himself on a major stage and this was supposed to deal with our major growing problem.

No other players bought, no caution, no risky or even clever buys to fill in when we're doing bad. Just somebody to bring on to defend leads or something.

Anything?

The age of investing in defence in now. If you look at teams, they've all got players with good strong defensive investment or defensive players, world beaters while we're chasing after a middle of the road attacking player and desperate to get him?

I can't see Villa giving up that 4th place without a fight and this isn't no rubbish team. I for one would be very surprised if a team of their calibre drops a 5 point lead. Have you seen their remaining games? They've played most of the big tough games and they've invested well and have a good quality squad.

We're doing the opposite. I seriously think we should be really wondering what we want because all we're doing as a club is making money and making no real effort to do well. Even all the clubs below us are making an effort but we're kind of happy with where we are. I've never known Arsenal to be like this Business where we haven't really got much to look forward and we stumble so easily and are caught unawares so easily.

It's nice to see we're coping ok without Fabregas though but if anything we're doing very little to cope in these times of falling short in terms of our ability.

Believing in Winning or believing in losing?

2009-01-26T00:49:00.005Z

Fausto Papetti - La Playa Ennio Morricone meets Beer
The Breeders - “Iris” Courtney Love meets Nirvana
Geographer - Can't You Wait A bit like Embrace meets the Verve
Little Boots - Meddle (Designer Drugs 80's Coke Jame Remix) Blondie meets early Depeche Mode
Matthew Ryan – American Dirt.mp3 Kings of Leon meets Damien Rice
White Lies - Farewell To The Fairground (Yuksek Remix) Armand Van Helden meets Daft Punk
Oh Shit! - Disgusting (Fat and Ugly Fuck That Remix) Metallica meets The Chemical Brothers
Mylo - I'm Back Sounds like Mylo but funkier
Anto - Fantasy Sounds like Jean Michel Jarre meets Eddie Halliwell and some distortion
Sufjan Stevens - You Are The Blood Sounds like Jeff Buckley meets Radiohead
Santogold (Prod. by Diplo) - Unstoppable (Drake ft. Lil Wayne Remix) Q Tip meets Kelis
Britney Spears - Womanizer (Benny Benassi Club Mix) Typical Benny Benassi but faster. Good.
Moulinex & Xinobi - discotexas theme (esto! rmx) Sounds like Justice meets Kylie
Kyle Andrews - Naked In New York Sounds like Muse meets The Like - Brilliant
Sneaky Sound System - I Love It (Fred Falke Remix) - Earth Wind and Fire meets Erasure

With so many people making music I could put up loads of great music here but I think thats enough for now.

So we drew against Cardiff and what is there to say other than what we have already said before but to put things into one sentence:

A team like ours should beat these guys 10 nil if we didn't have the problems in the background while we sell our best people and can't even tie up a contract if our bladder peeing calmly depended on it.

A lot of the news coming our way is the usual transfer stuff, getting pretty bored now but we do have Roma coming up which will be a nice trip over into Italy for us. Burn some fossil fuels and all that and maybe taste the life of those crazy Italian fans - maybe warmer there too - escape the cold and maybe that's something nice to look at while we ponder it would be better if we could win something, just something. After all that is what we all want isn't it or maybe a player we can believe in and a team full of players that makes us want to believe.

I think underpinning all this is a need to find someone to believe in. In this climate with a harsh economy where if it's not you it's your fellow man suffering and it makes you hope for utopia and if someone is winning, then it's good that someone is winning. Better than contemplating what the doom mongers contemplate and that is everyone is losing. How do they sleep at night? Maybe after the food they buy from the stories they write to make a living - the very living people are losing. How ironic...

I have to wonder what part football plays in this global hard time. I've always pondered what man wants to do with all the money one can harness in a capitalist world. What could happen? What could you do - there are all these glimmers of selling your soul in order to survive. Capitalism is a strange beast full of dreams walking into doors to nightmares and nightmares opening doors to dreams as the door to nightmare stays fully open - and the window to redemption seems a struggle to master.

One has to wonder what is worth living for in this age. I would think... maybe it's having something to believe in. I've met my fair share of cult religious types wanting us to follow them and everyone who has something to believe in wanting us to follow them instead and then there are others who just have nothing to believe in at all but are quite happy in that, because that way, you can change what you believe in every day.

Just like United fans want to believe in United, Chelsea fans in Chelsea and us in Arsenal and it's such a battle when we've got different things to believe in but in the end we all want the same thing. There's a bitter loss when only a few can harness the prize. That's capitalism.

So what I'm saying is - it would be nice to believe in somebody who believed in winning and not just being a football club making money. We've got far too much losing in the world today.

Has anybody noticed? Keep it quiet but we compare our selves to Chelsea, United and Liverpool

2009-01-22T01:17:00.004Z

Blonde Redhead - 23
diamond cut - teardrops (treasure fingers filter disco edit) 320
A Split Second - Flesh
Lykke Li - Little Bit (Death to the Throne Remix)
U2 - Get On Your Boots
Lily Allen - The Fear (Death Metal Disco Scene Remix)
Justin Timberlake - Bigger Than The World
Spoon, Harris & Obernik - Batitude (ft. Sam Obernik)
Lady GaGa - Just Dance (Make u Deff Remix)
The National - So Far Around The Bend

It's starting to be far less funny and pretty much pitiful now.

Being 5th in the league isn't good enough for Arsenal but it is a decent spot if you just see us as any random team - but we're not any old random team are we. Come on, you could say this is good enough but that's just sheer bollocks isn't it because with the team and resources at our disposal - top 2 should be where we are at every year, without question.

Year after year we keep saying we are working towards something new, we will change but it's embarrassing for not only as as fans, or the club but the footballing world that we can't encompass anything more and it doesn't take all that much in terms of intelligence to use money to gain success. Money which we have but we don't use.

We don't even have a decent management set up or a good organisational setup. Everything appears to have gone to the dogs because quite simply - we sold our best men. It's about as simple as that. We keep saying Arsenal are bigger than a player or a person but for fuck's sake - you don't just release people who keep the clocks ticking at the club and really make something happen. That's stupidity and idiocy all in one barrel mixed up with insanity.

No other club does that. I am sure at other clubs when they were going to lose Ferguson, Benitez or Rick Parry they completely crapped themselves and somebody problem blew their top and said "are you taking the piss or something?" it's the kind of power ego tripping that Roman did when he got rid of Jose :oD.

You just don't do that but it's obvious we have people at the club whose head is way up their backside that they can't see the wood for the trees.

And you know what's funny? Finding a good setup, just like the good setup that we had - may not be coming any time soon.

Wasting time on obscure Yeti Men from Russia - Can't Scout to save our lives.

2009-01-17T19:12:00.003Z

A selection of dance and indie tracks.
Wixel - outside your locked heart
Enzo Ponzio - Italian Boy
Burning Hearts - I Lost My Colour Vision
Does It Offend You Yeah - We Are Rockstars (Bloc Party Remix)
Sexy Kids - Sisters Are Forever
The Third Wave - Down On Me
Ladytron - Playgirl (Felix Da Housecat Glitz Clubhead Mix)
DeVotchKa - How It Ends
Lykke Li - Breaking It Up (Pocketknife's Loosefoot Remix)
This Mortal Coil - Another Day
Mightyfools ft Guerila Speakers - Amsterdam (Boemklatsch remix)
Max Justus - Love Lockdown

Well it looks like the deals off and who really gives a ****, now honestly what was the point in that. It would be useful if we bought somebody that we could use rather than hoping, praying, pleading that one of Arsene Wenger's dodgy blokes from backwaters may come good - and no I don't give two hoots that he won an award in Russia or he was part of the team of Competition in Euro 2008 (PMSL). Who really cares.

Now sorry to talk cliches but is it really too hard to just go out there and get some monster who will scare the crap out of players. Let's all accept that the board are afraid to spend money on players and their contract negotiations are a bit like a Geek playing Multi User Dimension gaming on the internet - in other words tedious, time consuming and life threatening - but just buy somebody who really has the balls to play.

Are we really supposed to believe that there isn't such a player out there? Hold on, we have Wenger don't we and he really finds players. My arse he finds players. What in the blue blazes do you think he does? He gets in some kind of teleportation device and watches games non-stop? Of course not.

In the background our scouting set up is probably crap and we play fat blokes to run around and sleep in posh hotels, eat in Michelin star restaurants only to come back and tell us he can kick a ball very hard, but sometimes very very hard. Wenger will put this in his computer and after 50 years of calculations (which we are told us growth, hunger, spirit, Gallas is alright) he tells us, we have nobody on the horizon.

Well that just means we're crap.

Oneof the richest clubs in the world and we can't find a decent player. This has to be a joke.

We, oh fellow supporters, have been waiting for this day of dominance all our lives and we can't find a decent player. How funny. You have to laugh for the sake of not hitting somebody. Usually that fan who says he is such a big fan that he is always positive - I'd like to hit that fan about 50 times.

Of course I have to leave some left over for somebody else.

Arshavin - that's a bit odd isn't it? Arsenal are scared. Prisoners to Transfer negotiations.

2009-01-14T01:46:00.008Z

Rolling Stones Remixes - Brill
Lil Wayne and Pharrell - Yes (and others)
Glass Candy - Stars & Houses
Kelly Clarkson - My Life Would Suck Without You
modern skirts - soft pedals
Hayley Daviss - Sex On Fire (Kings of Leon Cover)
Treasure Fingers - Cross The Dancefloor (Designer Drugs Remix)
the Prodigy - Omen
White Lies - To Lose My Life (Filthy Dukes remix)
Biggie (Big E) vs. Dr. Dre - Juicy vs G Thang
Royksopp - New Single and What Else is there
Obi Best - Nothing Can Come Between Us
Gorillaz - Broken
Surkin - Chrome Knight feat. Chromeo

Is this guy really any good? Or I mean worth it?

Couldn't we go for somebody else?

Here we are, locked in the harsh winters of the Arsenal contract negotiations. This is a bit like a long winded computer programme or an utterly obscurely written macro in an Excel Spreadsheet, that if Arshavin plays and scores a goal we will give the Russians, two bottles of vodka and a packet of Cheese and Onion crisps - but if he doesn't they will get nothing.

It's this things that are the niggles but overall - is there any point in this, will he make a difference, is there a return from Arshavin that we can get back?

Ultimately we're a scared. We've frightened ourselves with so many stories (that haven't happened, besides Leeds United) that we think terrible things will happen to the club. That's if the wrong people turn up but isn't that just once in a blue moon that something as horrendous as Leeds happens? It's bonkers to expect like for like when Leeds took unthinkable risks in football. Something nobody has ever happened.

If you're so afraid of the cold, you'll never step out of the house.

There is so much fear. We've become prisoners to transfer negotiations. We're in a jail where we're so cautious that we can't focus on the real things.

Here's a clue. If we changed the set up in the backroom, brought in new people and changed policies and training regimes and changed our attitude - maybe we wouldn't have to pay stupid wages to inconsistent players.

We pay more to our inconsistent players than we do to our consistent players. All our consistent players are on less than 50k a week (besides Nasri and Fab but they have other problems).

Our problems and our focus is in the wrong place. So silly.

This is what happens when you are afraid. When you're not in control and we've only got ourselves to blame. We became so obsessed (usually around the time Nina Bracewell Smith came in) with money and finances that we lost sight of the football. Strange set of events.

Unless Arshavin is a player who will change the dressing room (I doubt it very much) and is some positive role model who can change personalities, I can't really see him making much of a difference. The obvious fact is, we have problems in the dressing room, not arguments just lack of communication and camaraderie. We've got problems in the background (how much is this costing us financially) and we've got problems at board level.

No player and No Transfer negotiation will solve that.

Still no idea of signings as yet but the same old problems

2009-01-12T23:32:00.003Z

Look Book Believe the Hype
The Disco Villains - Jalisco Intro No.3
LCD Soundsystem
From Slumdog Millionaire - Jai Ho
Dave Halverson: The Agonist
Kylie Minogue Mixes
Squarepusher - Illegal Dustbin
Little Boots - Stuck on Repeat remix (GOOD!)

We could never survive if Bendtner was our only striker while our better strikers are off target. It makes me think of one thing and one thing alone - the way we play makes our best players/strikers work harder to get goals. If we came forward faster and we had a less lackadaisical approach to scoring goals we'd be killing teams with 5 goals like we used to do.

It's a shame that we are in a position where we assume that we need new players to fix things. Unfortunately our training system and our mentality is down in the dumps. We need to go back to basics and get these players working hard again but realise that although the way we play is effective to a point, it's not that effective in that it utilises our best to the best.

I remember some stats from last season that showed Flamini and Fabregas covered more of the field during the game then the whole of our team put together. The opposition (Liverpool in this case) covered more space than every one of our other players. How crazy is that? This was after we went crap by the way, after February.

I'll say it over and over again - if we don't change the way we play, we will remain stuck in repeating the same mistakes.

Then again, we could get a whole new team.

Ballet for the Working Class no more: Being and Behaving - Wrong side of a Big Club.

2009-01-08T01:15:00.005Z

Very Good Dance track produced by Justice
Ambient Track
M.I.A and Diplo - WOW
More Jaydiohead (Radiohead and Jay-Z)
Hot Lips - Pacific

I think we're just like any other club now. No turning back to the heights of brilliance until we behave like a big club rather than just be like a big club. There is no denying there is potential and resources at the club but unless we use those resources we are still on the edge of brilliance now.

It's all mathematics for me. Now if the club stay in cautious zone (question: is there a cautious zone?) then we can insure... not taking risks to the detriment of finance and the team but in my view, if there is detriment we can sell players and utilise finance to our benefit.

In order to successful one needs to creative in their risks - in that there is always a buffer to fall back on. I think the temptation of bigger and bigger profits just removes the possibility or the temptation to be business minded and take risks. I just can't ignore the fact that real brilliance comes not from opportunity (where even the rich lose their money) but from being creative. Give me 50 Richard Bransons for every Bill Gates.

Bill Gates took his opportunity of an emerging Computer industry and basically took ideas of the time and made them his zone. Basically a 70s version of Simon Cowell/Fuller. Richard Branson was more of an investor who built from the bottom up in the more riskier areas of multiple industries and pushed boundaries and fought competition rather than stole the competition.

We are more of a Bill Gates and it's boring. Reminds me of that scene in Mary Poppins where the kids go to the banks and are told their pound will be one pound 1 pence in a year or something.

One of the most insightful things, therefore, I have heard regarding our position is to invest in the team from all ends - youth, experienced and maturity. I think we have the basis for this as a team. There appears to be zero faith and belief in players and that is the frustration we see as they blame each other when they have no control or even any autonomy on the pitch when all aspects of the game are controlled to a clinical boredom.

This is more of a city boys sad playground - no money but lots of money to watch grow.

So we're not making any money. We're just accumulating it. No fun in that.

Back to Back League Cup titles for Tottenham? And us...

2009-01-07T01:19:00.004Z

Jay Z mixed with Radiohead - JaydioHead

I love this song. I am sure the God Squad will be up in arms about this contemporary logic Campy Affair

Eminem's probable new one Eminem Probable New

Kid Cranberry stuff Kid Cranberry Stuff

and for anybody who likes more earthy stuff - Marina and the Diamonds Marina

MIA Discotech Boyz Remix - MIA Remix

finally A Trak (Kanye's Scratch DJ) A - Trak

===================

You have to wonder how much we'd have celebrated if we had got back to back league cup titles after years of a lack of a trophy? Would you have rejoiced or maybe, would you have said, the league cup is unimportant, it carries no glory, it's a nothing mickey mouse trophy and we don't need it.

Kind of silly I would say.

Here we are still looking for players and we're still wondering, can Wenger make up the brilliance that the club made many years ago now. About 4 plus and we're still pondering if this club can muster up something that we know of Arsenal otherwise we're backwards - the Newcastle United of the South or coming that way. Big Stadium - no Football - all sorts of money and bravado.

I think the club could lie over and over again about finances and how other clubs have got it all wrong (let's wait for something wrong and then we'll say other clubs have messed up) and we're the ones running short of our potential while other clubs are living up to their capabilities or pushing further as further could be.

With all the money and resources we have, we're still stuck.

At the end of the day, you have to run the course of every race. We all do but there is only usually one winner at the end of these and we're becoming also rans with all our noise and nothing more without a key player in our midst we're losing ground so when will the change take place if even our manager or players aren't up to it - or our fans who accept everything under this big drug of positivity.

We have to accept very quickly and realise very quickly, we could masturbate over our finances for years on end but if we don't even attempt to try to win something because we think our way is the best way, we're nothing more than a cult of some sort, a strange sectarian drugged bunch of losers who don't realise that you have to make more than an effort to do something.

In most Businesses and successful as they are, huge risks were taken. An example of us is buying Bergkamp, Vieira, Anelka - what if that had failed and fallen over?

Now let's say, buying Flamini, Fabregas, Gallas, Toure - and what if we sell players, buy the wrong ones or that falls over?

Quite a straight forward comparison about our situation right now and how not taking risks leads to an implosition.

Congratulations to Tottenham - Bugger all to us.

We're looking for players but will the team's mentality change?

2009-01-06T02:50:00.004Z

Couple of tracks. A mix of a Lily Allen track - Fear :

http://pandatoes.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-lily-allen-remix.html

and a mix of M.I.A's Swagger with Kanye West and Jay-Z

http://prettymuchamazing.com/mp3/new-mia-ft-kanye-west-jay-z-swagga-like-paper-mick-boogie-remix/

And this guy Jemex

http://www.boomboomchik.com/2009/01/music-that-will-really-make-you-dance.html

Basia Bulsat

and this is White Lies

http://fmusic.sakura.ne.jp/white_lies_to_lose_my_life_fic.html

These days everybody is questioning how we change the economy or even get us out of this mess that we caused. In order for us to grow we had to spend spend spend - but it wasn't our benefit was it. It was for the benefit of Bankers in the city and then it was for the benefit of those who invested in those Bankers and everything they did. Somebody won in all this to make sure hundreds were losers.

It's a bit like the league, Champions League - even when some people look like losers, there is always a lot of winners.

Now I wasn't one to spend a lot during this because I wasn't so needy to be like everyone else. While people were so obsessed with this word "digital" - I guess you didn't need more than a brain cell to realise it wasn't making a big deal for most of us. I went to see one of the best Graphic Editing firms in this country who have clients around the world and on every table they had the old style what some people call "box type" monitors on their desks - simply because it's quality and also it's cheap.

It's not all about what you have. We could go out and spend spend spend but what are we going to do with that player? If we just continue to play the same or we don't solve internal problems in the team and quite stupidly sponge players from United or Chelsea - it's going to be foolish. If we just went back to winning and stuck two fingers at the press and FA complaining about us getting reds and yellows, we'd win. We'd be the Arsenal we've known for a century.

Now we've got a new breed of stupid fans positively (positive being the operative word) masturbating over needing more support and atmosphere - like it would make a fuck load of difference which it won't. It's all about how the team is managed and developed overall and we can't seem to do that. Most of the players look dazed, confused and anaesthetised and these guys are global superstars.

It would be nice if we had players who enjoyed their football - it appears as though we don't. What a shame eh...

We've got a lot of changing to do. No matter what anybody says, we're playing like complete rubbish and that's got nothing to do with problems. Our difficulties run deep.

Peter Hill Wood emerges from the Darkness to talk more rubbish

2009-01-03T00:29:00.008Z

Songs at the bottom!

Does this guy even know what he is talking about? I mean what has he even done for the club?

You really have to look into the history of the club and realise that our board was/is full of a bunch of people living off Daddy's money and Peter is one of them. You've got to wonder what he is doing there because his interest in football appears to be nil but his interest in causing problems at the club appear to be very high.

Does he even care if we win any thing or do well as a club? Is it possible he can just eff off to somewhere dark and pathetic? I've really had enough of him and it makes me wonder why we have to suffer him for longer and longer. He is such a complete waste.

The club has problems internally and God knows he hasn't said a worthwhile thing for us well ever but his ability to say as much wrong as possible is legendary. A breed of the Daddy got me a job in the city brigade. Very much the kind of breed who hired any Tom, Dick or Harry from any old University with any old collection of assignments stolen to give credit off the backs of world wide banks.

We appear to be the only successful club in the world who are suffering people who have nothing to do with the success we have. Our success appears to be built on the back of gaining money when needed and then filling the pockets of the board, doing that again and again - finding someone to blame for problems and then doing it again. Then we'll get rid of people who are useful to the club while we bring in somebody else we can use and manipulate for the benefit of the few.

Vive la Revolution. Get rid of this lot and lets get something done. Let them take their money and do all sub-standard aristocratic activities with it and run far away from the club as possible. While they're at it, they can take any metrosexual fan who loves Wenger in more than a Mother-Son relations we've picked up and send them to Chelsea where the West End awaits them with open arms.

All that colour and commercialisation at the club has really given rise to a camp like feminised attitude that is miles away from real football. We swear we're not like other clubs but we've got the handle of that the wrong way around because we're much worse. If anybody hasn't noticed, it doesn't really matter if a club is in debt or not because people are driven towards money like flies to dung and so football, especially the big clubs will stay alive - and no, I know a lot of people feel rich business men are like a incurable disease but seriously, that's not the way football works.

Where would we have been, Arsenal, without people who had money or connections in the city?

If our backroom staff can't deal with the players and we have a little boy over aged and foul mouthed over-excited by any attention from the press - we've got no chance of any really, civilised and credible success.

We must be the biggest insult to football right now but I am sure our press office will feed the metro-sexual needs of an over feminised society so we don't see the wood for the trees.

Longwave are a New York band and this is their song No I don't care

http://azltron.blogspot.com/2009/01/exclusive-10-questions-with-steve.html

and this is little brother, rapper from North Carolina with a track called Get away

http://www.myspace.com/littlebrother

and everybody wants to remix Kings of Leon lately too. This is a mix with Lykke Li - fairly cool

http://hayatbayat.blogspot.com/2009/01/metacritic-best-of-2008.html

But this is the best

http://www.myspace.com/gejius

and

http://www.myspace.com/rilokiley

and always

www.myspace.com/larouxuk

and this is awesome!

http://www.asianmandan.com/blog/2009/01/the-all-american-rejects-x-the-bloody-beetroots/

Things we may as well forget we were told that aren't true

2008-12-29T02:19:00.003Z

Songs at the bottom but you have to check out this tune by this guy

http://www.myspace.com/yoavmusic

called Club thing. Brilliant.

I heard the old "we need a player who will fit in and work well in the team instantly for the right price" the other day.

I met a guy the other day, not an economist but just some guy who has been involved in this for a while and he told me that if somebody become too insistent on detail and necessity for success, then they've got as much chance of succeeding than a cat is of taking down an elephant - and by that I mean a little teeny tiny cat - not a Lion.

Now we've heard a lot from Arsene. We've heard we need to get rid of certain players because they are surplus to requirement or that "their attitude isn't right" or they are too tired, too young, we need a winter break. It's a lot of moaning and whinging as other fans tell us. We lapped it up though didn't we. We thought it was all right.

I think Wenger is making excuses to mask so much isn't he. We have players in our squad who rush off to play for their national teams and are world class. They return to Wenger and become crap - losing about 50% of their playing ability.

So here is a list.

We can find players who will slot in and play well for us.
We have money if we need a player - no excuses if you really want something.
30 years old is not too old.
We do moan a lot and are not physical enough, that's our fault not theirs.
We do need players to replace players and we know there are better players than the ones we have, so they can be replaced and we can have them IF WE WANT THEM.

I could go on and one but the point is, there is no point believing a lot of the nonsense we believed in the past. One other I must mention is

We are not reluctant to sell players who are important to the team. We are just stupid and greedy.

I can't believe we fell for this. Importantly one of the reasons we all run around saying "support, support, support" is down to the fact, we're fed so much non-literal nonsense we feel only intangible patheticness can work now.

This whole PR ruled self destructiveness is destroying us as fans. It's nice to know more and more fans are realising we need change and we need change quick.

Let's take some risks.

Song at the top here is Don't be Angry by the organ

http://www.speedofdark-web.com/blog/2008/12/28/favorite-2008-songs-from-exceptional-eps/

This is really cool

DJ Cat NYC - Hot Pink

Also check out Melanie Pain La cigarette, MSTRKRFT Bounce (NONEWYORK Bassline Remix) and Sam Sparro

Failure is always an option

2008-12-27T20:12:00.002Z

Song at the bottom \|/

That's about where we've got to now. You've got to look beyond all the crap and think to yourself what exactly do you want from this club? If you're all too happy to turn up to a game and just follow things through then fine but if you want more, you have to outline it. There's no point turning up to a shop with no idea - although Apple made a tonne from people just doing that.

The modern business world.

In the end, all of us will question what the club are doing and our lack of input. We'll all point fingers and now I'm thinking, why hasn't anybody made logic diagram of our time with Wenger over the past two years indicating where Dein left and where we bought the stadium but including all the rational or illogical factors that are counter to achievement or even success.

All those that think there is a promised land (whatever the fuck that is) can always direct attention to sucking Wenger's toes.

We have to accept, it imploded, it imploded (not exploded) it imploded as hell would have it and failure was taken as an option. I say this because we can't say Wenger is a bad manager because he was part of a working unit that worked well. He was part of this axis of internal investment, Dein and great players and fantastic achievement. Things have fallen apart all over the place. I'd sack a whole load of people and replace them with a track record of success elsewhere and anybody without and an ounce of experience in a footballing or sporting environment should piss off.

I mean seriously, if we are a credible company why do we have people who have been successful in other fields, other than sports working at one of the biggests sports institutions in the world today? Who in their right mind thought that up?

On all levels we are in fact failing right now because no matter how well we are financially if we're not succeeding on the pitch, we're kind of crap. Another way of putting it is - we have invested so much in football and got nothing in return at all. That is a failure and we chose to do that with our choices. Some may see intangible benefits but it's all like saying my haemmorrhoids made me realise the pain of being human. It's really looking for Gold in a big pile of fresh dog poo.

So I'll be critical of that. If I had put a lot of effort into something like the club have into Arsenal and got bugger all to show for it, I'd sack everybody but Wenger. He's the only decent inhabitant remaining of the success we once had.

Bjork - Declare Independence (bit like bjork with thrash guitars through a synth)

http://themusicslut.com/2008/12/bjork-enters-the-world-of-venture-capitalism/

Shearwater - The snow leopard (a bit like Radiohead's Pyramid Song)

http://www.myspace.com/shearwater

Check out Beggin by these guys (slightly slow funk) http://www.myspace.com/timeboxsouldance

These guys are cool too (erm- gooood) http://www.myspace.com/thecocknbullkid

and maybe you can get Uffie to put "dismissed" on her myspace www.myspace.com/uffie

Finally the secrets are slowly coming out - David Dein was right...

2008-12-27T00:45:00.002Z

First things first. Thanks to everybody who downloaded the Jeff Buckley single. Stuck a good two fingers up at Simon Cowell and that load of bollocks that is supposed to be singing by Alexander the Berk.

Other real music worth checking out is, try Howling Bells. They have a new single coming out but in the meantime there is some stuff on their MySpace.

http://www.myspace.com/howlingbells

Other stuff I love right now is this girl. Unsigned - oddly...

www.myspace.com/mysoko

And then there is this song - The Black Keys : Psychotic Girl; try doing a myspace search for them. well the song is on their myspace

http://www.myspace.com/theblackkeys

That's that for now.

Now, I for one like many of you out there professing their anger have criticised Wenger a great deal recently but in these times you have to wonder if we are in fact, in one of those movies where some man or woman is doing loads of bad things and you're wondering why and then you learn later on. They made a lot of these with Arnold and Stallone in the eighties and they gave rise to the Islamic Terrorism we see today.

Now we all blamed somebody. Oddly, we blamed Dein but erm... he has gone now and then we blamed Usmanov but he is just an investor isn't he... (I have to add, while our fans were attacking these guys we had a board and a team doing the real damage) and then it was certain players but eventually all fingers were pointing out Wenger.

Now let's realise that board members are going, some are disappearing and players have disappeared and the new ones are either injured or underperforming or in the case of our best (intelligent) losing morale.

There is something wrong isn't there. Now you. Yes you in the corner walking out of the room. Admit it, come on, there is something wrong isn't there. Now don't be shy - nobody will bite. There is something wrong at the club.

Let me list them. Our backroom staff, Our manager, Our players, Our board (definitely) - well everything. Yes I know - whoopideedoo we are 5th in the league and could get into Champions League - isn't that fun. There's that little case of the Carling Cup and the Premiership too. Oh right, we've won things in the past - well yeah but we've got more money and better infrastructure now but we're more shit? How about that?

Any thoughts?

Thought not. Oh wait a minute - somebody has a thought there. What's that? We're building? Isn't that developing? Yeah - oh yes, it is, isn't it. Bloody hell, let's get the poles in if that's building and developing because the present set up is crap.

Now it makes me realise now it's not Wenger's fault. We've seen him at his best and he could do well with decent Board member (cough Dein cough) alongside him but since he went he has been lost with no right hand man.

Now that we've grasped that the club is struggling to find some form of progression and these dreams of being the best in the world were really just fairly foolish wonderland nonsense wasn't it because it takes more than a big stadium and filling it to do that. You need supporters and you need to win and you need to have an epic legacy.

Cocking up and never finding any grasp on your position won't do that will it.

All that being said, Wenger is the only really decent asset we have. Forget everything else - when the manager is used properly and not given restraints and control and the club has faith and accepts taking risks is part of the puzzle. Things can change for the better.

Put it this way. If we just stopped focussing on developing for the future and had one season of good buys, good solid players and then had a year of rest and recuperation - we would find our footing. It would be better than an untestable 4 or 5 year plan where every other club has a long plan. Even if we were to make a team from these players, we'd still have to compete against the players we can't buy.

Also managers out there are not stupid. If Wenger does something different, they will learn from him either by taking his idea and supplementing their own or developing their defence against him.

In fact, all this developing has just put our manager a few years behind now and all we need to know is buy some decent players and fans not to scream like little girls if we just bought a couple of expensive experienced players. It's not a crime and we can sell them on if not. It's a risk of a few million and it could be useful and these players won't be rubbish. They will be useful.

All we want are some players with some competent consistency. Tis all.

Or maybe we're just a bunch of fans who blame everybody but the club look to the future for the promised land.

Now that just sounds like a big stupid CULT.

Death, Journalism, Revolution, X Factor and the Credit Crisis - Manchester United Chelsea Liverpool Aston Villa Arsenal

2008-12-19T01:18:00.003Z

Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley is in second place on I-Tunes. He could make it to the top spot if we all come together and help him there, overtaking the spot Simon Cowell occupies by fooling the masses with a stupid TV Show every week. We can do it. Hallelujah is an amazing track. Not only has Simon Cowell and the X Factor raped the song by removing lyrics but they don't even know what it is about. It's just another step to make him money.

Download Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah this Christmas and beat Simon Cowell. We can do it if we try!

OK :D - now that I've done what some have told me to post, here is something else.

I wonder where all the journalists have gone. It's the end of the world. A long time ago journalism was about investigation and protest. Using your power as a writer and intellectual to beat the system. Now? Journalists are celebrities, working with agents and PR companies to help each other make more money. Nobody discovered the massive fraud in the US recently. Nobody questioned the credit crisis.

What I find odd about the credit crisis is, I knew it was going to happen. I knew people who knew it was going to happen. Some bloke who wrote "40 Billion Pound unsecured debt = BOOM!" on a dustbin knew it was going to happen. But who are we? I'm not a journalist. The closest I come to that is this blog and a pseudo-porn mailing list satire on modern day celebrity that I take part in. That's it.

The Financial Times which wastes no time in glorifying itself with it's awards and photoshopping their employees didn't say much or do anything about it. Sometimes I think The Sun and The Mirror should really try to protest there way into real economic and political problems rather than pathetic sap and sentimental nonsense. That's what will really help the world - not manipulation, fabrication and imagination.

This moves me on to this being a new industry. We crave these celebrities. How odd have we become. Our sexual gratification has moved from making children, lots of children to releasing our needs onto topless men/women and porn (said with a giggle) on the internet. Who wins? Simon Cowell. It makes me wonder how obsessed we are with status. Wayne Rooney has bought another car. It's quite bizarre that somebody of his talent needs these things to show people he has money. Well we know that but most of us really want to see his talent but it makes me think Money is their God, not football or music and how shallow a life that is.

When most of our needs are acquired quite easily in the west, we look up to people who use their money to show people how much money they have. How quite sad a world we are. Watching Survivors the other day on the BBC, a Systems Analyst had no talents after civilisation fell apart - it makes you realise when a world falls apart our needs are food, shelter and to a lesser extent - clothing.

We're now stuck with this massive industry football has? Do we care, or accurately, do we need all this information that is released through Sky Sports? Let's face it. Somebody up there realised we're a bunch of mugs who are suckers for any football news going - as fake and manipulated it is and with striking dramatic strings to tell us Sam Allardyce is the new manager of Blackburn. Maybe a journalist is required to keep him our of the premiership after his view of football is to break players legs. But as stated most journalists and media institutions are on the payroll of the new media - where we give more and more money to those control the most important media icons - those that create the most column inches and therefore the most money.

I guess the problem is society has changed. We've become pathetic. If we were given real news about the state of football I don't think we'd care because most of us are salivating over our new messiahs at the football clubs. We're back to idolising these fake idols. It's like we're animals having our behaviour controlled by carefully controlled psychological techniques. We blame our own fans if we don't sing or don't offer "support" or "aid the players". How sad are we becoming as people? It's like saying, we've angered the players because we don't sing songs or we don't wear our home shirt for home games and our away shirt for away games.

Nowadays it appears the days of the pen being mightier than the sword is over. Military activity controls the world. Journalists report news and actual or significant information in the world today is more or less ignored and for the few who want to know about these things like the changing economy in China and how their supply of exports is required less and less as the west has less money to spend or the state of Afghanistanis now that we've created a system where the Taliban can live off the country by increasing Opium crops.

I doubt very much that a lot of the things that come out of Arsenal matters to the majority of Arsenal fans. Where the few complain about atmosphere and directors taking over, the rest just want to support the team then go home on weekends. I think this is the majority. Ignorant of the press and only interested in what happens around the game. This is how I believe most of us are heading towards. This over saturation of media icons and new messiahs from the media, be it Nike or Heat Magazine tires people into boredom. I'm beginning to think it's a product of the credit obsessed society and should do with it.

As the world press has failed us now and also football clubs who insult our intelligence the legacy our press leaves in history is that of idolising sports entities and in history we will go down as praising people who were paid millions of pounds a year and spending our money on browning ourselves beyond any pure shade of human skin. Our own vanity based upon our obsession with money. Like the X Factor.

Download Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah and join the Revolution

The fakery of Football and the X Factor travesty - Buy Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah - Manchester United Chelsea Liverpool Aston Villa Newcastle

2008-12-16T18:13:00.003Z

First things first.

Buy Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley not Alexandra Burke. They completely changed the lyrics, ruined the song and now some manufactured nobody with the sound of a wildebeest is going to be number one.

I applaud the people who have started a campaign to stop it from being number one. Unfortunately, this will be difficult but, we do have Jeff Buckley's version in the charts as well which can only be a good thing overall. At least the kids of today can hear how it is supposed to be sung without the fake sentimental sap that Simon Cowell and his failure brigade of judges (Simon included considering he stole Leona Lewis) think of music and bring to the fore.

This brings me on to how fake football has begun. It's like we're force fed this manufactured nonsense that it becomes more and more difficult to see great players amidst the Nike nauseation in our faces. How disgusting that we're dwindling around with youth and has been players when we could be doing what other people do, not going down the X Factor route like Wenger has been doing, and just bring in some tried and tested players.

Annoying.

We're being told all sorts by boards when in fact we're more interested in agents and the manipulation of our industries. Could it get any worse? We're told that we're investing in youth with academies but these players end up playing at other clubs as we have little faith in them or we don't develop them effectively. I would just for once love to see a real effort and not a half hearted one.

Anyway - fight the X Factor for 69 pence this Christmas. Say no to Simon Cowell and money hungry talentless nobodies.

The effect of the black swan and the problems of doing the same thing

2008-12-13T02:38:00.003Z

I watched Newsnight about a few months ago and author Nassim Taleb was on the show due to his book The Black Swan, talking about the collapse of American banks and how to remedy the situation.

Newsnight has, well usually has this technique of dealing with hazardous situations with conservative individuals and for this occasion they had their pre-arranged, pre-planned, nicely boxed and packaged Oxford professor to say "well it's bad but they should bail out banks" using about 20,000 words? While Taleb on the other hand repeated the same thing.

Truth be told, I thought he was absolutely bonkers. This was not helped by a Washington video conference and Oxford Professor with Newsnight Presenter not really respecting what he was saying but he was making the most sense.

A lot of answers, solutions, actions have been taken since we've plummeted further down the spiral of self indulgence and high contrast football stadiums and girlfriends who need a vibrating hair straightened and skinny jeans. The shops are closing, town centres are quieter - credit is no longer available. You can't continue to do the same thing.

I think I used to post the Kanye West song, no it was a Nine Inch Nails, beginning "I believe I can see the future, because we repeat the same routine" and this was echoed numerous times that the definition of stupidity is to repeating the same thing and getting the same failed result. Over and over again and failing over and over again. For all our benefits and beauty of results we're still basically falling backwards.

Luckily we have a marketing team who can take advantage of credit card holding (God knows how many times Arsenal asked me if I wanted one or a loan even - I think they also asked me if I wanted to take out insurance too. I wonder how those fans who took out the credit card/loan/insurance feel now... *oops*) Arsenal fans and their addiction to football.

What Nassim Taleb said was, drop everything, stop saying that the government should do this and the banks should do this - it was time to overhaul the whole financial system and start to use different rules, different techniques, different procedures so that we re-imagine the financial culture in the world, not in one country but in the world today. He said that if we changed the way we did things, we stopped focussing on greed on futures and on self preservation, then only then will banks aid themselves in the future and economies will grow stronger.

Unfortunately nobody has listened to Nassim and we're repeating the same thing. As well as blowing ourselves up. Listening to the Radio today, I found that people living in New Delhi and Beijing (capitals of the newly emerging super economies) are akin to a 20 a day smoker. That's how bad the pollution is in these countries. One can only imagine how life was before they installed a metro system in Delhi but I remember hearing some horror stories of that time as well.

Yet these economies survived on the west. Will they be able to grow if they gave their own people benefit and ask them to grow internally? In fact it was the growing economies in these countries that helped increase the growth of credit in the west because we had the investment we placed in these countries to fall back on.

Now that those countries reached the peak, they started to invest in themselves and this, this is what led to the problem. God knows what is next.

This is my Arsenal analogy. We as a club have survived on other clubs and their youth. We never made anybody. We took everything from other clubs. Our investment didn't come from the board - no, it came from ripping off fans for years and years and then who benefits from all this, the board does.

Now the important question about success. We're behaving quite stupidly if we continue to say things will work out when they don't. We can't control anything. We struggle against meagre teams then beat better teams. We have good wins and then bad losses. We have silly injuries. We sell great players. We sacrifice cup competitions. Everything is quite silly.

It's quite ridiculous and I can't see it changing unless Wenger changes. The ball is in his court to take risks. Hold on. Risks? He has been taking risks and we've failed and fallen over and over again. How about we just play football? We just use these great players to play football?

Like the Taleb situation, all we really need to do, is stop taking risks, stop sacrificing and playing God with a team that could do better, and just for the benefit of us all behave like a football team. Amidst the whole league, you can't help but feel like failures considering we have vast resources, richest club in the world, arguably, and we behave like juveniles on a binge drinking session.

It's nice to know we're stable and we have a future. Nice to be in the Champions League and the Premiership but why all the stupidity. Why jumping out of competitions. Now, spare me the excuses like we have to rest players and it's not important etc etc. It really has become boring because it's nice to progress in cup competitions and go to the end win.

We appear to be the only club in this country, trophyless, who jump out of these competitions.

We either change by choice, or we will be forced to do so.

Arsenal, Einstein, Clinical, Academic and how simple it is to change Arsenal

2008-11-07T23:36:00.002Z

Recreation comes in many different forms. We can either take time out to escape from life and focus on other things or just go for quick fixes like drugs where nothing really changes, you just escape by altering the perception of your mind. I remember being told by numerous academics how spreading porn (at the birth of the Internet) around University sites was as natural as marking papers. People always need an escape to focus on things.

As Arsenal fans I am sure we can all agree that the majority of our time is spent being clinical about the game and masturbating over Wenger's way of playing the game. It's our last known argument in a pit of desperately awful football results. We have failed year on year but at least we have less fouls, at least we have more possession, at least we have beautiful football.

Then we say Wenger loves Football. He doesn't even know where anything is in London. He always watches football and that's all he does. For a moment, I'm going to believe him. I'm even going to believe him when he says having a wife gives you stability and focus in your life. I'll believe him - for now.

When Einstein was a nobody, he was a nobody almost out of choice. He basically got a job after doing bad at University. He wanted to do his own things (unlike Wenger who pleased men who made money - yes he did) and argued vehemently on theories that weren't working post the explosion of the industrial age and continued working in patents - he was happy and he used to spend most of his time wandering around parks having chats with his friends.

In his spare time, Einstein had numerous interests, one of them being physics. Yeah, Physics was in fact an interest of Einsteins - he wasn't a physicist. He was just getting paid to do something he loves. When Einstein realised upon his theory of relativity, he was walking through a park - and then, he had more of an easy life. He just spent it conjuring up more theories in - Physics. Establishing new ideas while he played the violin, rode a bicycle, contemplated God and Existentialism.

This was Einstein - it wasn't all perfection. It was all about what you don't know.

Let me not give Albert all the accolades. We all operate on these bases, even if we don't admit it. If you can't find a product in a supermarket, you ask. If you don't know the football results, you ask. If you're struggling, you ask. Our life is built upon asking and searching and resolving and this in the scope of escaping from our main focus in life. This on the basis of dealing with life - we deal with life by asking for help and tapping into the unknown on small parts.

I have been observing the common narrative between Arsenal fans on forums and a common narrative appears for me.

One is the obvious obsession with Wenger. That goes nowhere. That's where the weaker less secure fans hide.

The others are, why don't we defend set pieces and why don't we defend properly, why don't we fix these problems. The common narrative in fact revolves around our inability to do simple things.

Then we say, we play beautiful football. Then everybody else says we play beautiful football. Well not everybody else, just who we choose to notice because we're desperate for praise when we're being fucked over.

The truth is, we're not playing football. We're just passing it around, and if you pass it around enough, you've got a better chance of getting a slick pass - aren't you.

If Wenger was obsessed with football, he'd know, we royally get destroyed when we don't do the simple things on the pitch. On basic football behaviour, we are absolutely rubbish. We really are. We can't even win headers or even win tackles. We defend like a Championship side and we sell players.

Important players.

We're basically rubbish and if we didn't frustrate teams with our obsession with passing, we'd probably win trophies. :oD

I think it's time to really just play football and stop holding on to the ball so much. Get Wenger to tell these boys how to win balls, how to break their play quicker, faster and with more dominance.

It's so simple. Just tell them to play football.

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I don't think many Arsenal fans are making videos right now LOL, so here is what I found

Everton Fans - Please don't throw things on us at Goodison Park

2008-10-19T23:48:00.002+01:00

OK

I know there are a small number of idiots in our midst who carry the chimp poo throwing gene but we're not all like that. I've heard a number of reasons as to why this started. One of them that the Everton fans were fighting with the police or something or I am unsure.

That still doesn't justify our fans behaving like lowlife and throwing objects at other people. Oddly this occurred from the upper tiers. Probably bored of Arsenal's "beautiful football" so they primate like decided to throw objects at people. You know? You must have seen it at the zoo where the sexually frustated chimp throws poo around.

Genes eh... they don't disappear for some.

We're not all like that.

I don't want a Spray On Tan or a Five Blade Razor - I Want Trophies

2008-09-26T00:39:00.002+01:00

These days you're called a glory hunter for saying you want trophies and the world is left dumb founded at how illogical that is. When you try to muster words to the effect of the illogical nature of the stupidity of the non-trophies love passing football, football fan, you are directed towards the leader that is Arsene Wenger in whom all faith and belief must be devoted in exchange of a - leader, I guess. It's supposed to be genetic, DNA, a symbolic, idol, icon that signifies survival...

...and what is modern day football support if not a metaphor for survival of our semen yet these days survival does mean that and it appears we believe that. While the true beauty of football is destroyed because "we want to be entertained" and what is wrong with being entertained they muster, whilst forgetting there was hundreds and hundreds of years of non-Arsenal football where by ratio, by percentage, there were more attendees are football grounds around the world.

Football is now a spray on tan. Football is now a ditch your 3 blade razor because the new 5 blade razor is closer, not closests, is closer than the legendary, brilliant, dependable, Ryan Giggs, Frank Lamparard, Patrik Vieira, Paul Scholes of Razors that is the Mach 3 - that is the plain jane girl with no spray on tan - almost virginal but ultimately, substantial a better night out than somebody who paints themselves in the hope of grabbing a mate - or cheap sex... I don't know. Too old for that and too young to be drunk with Arsene Wenger love. or too old and too young... one way or the other.

There are some things in football you cannot change. It would be like selling your mother to idolise Sam Fox because she represented the surge of modern glamour in all things football. Be it whatever, we all want to look sexy and with it and Arsenal brand themselves as this beauty and everybody thinks bagging a girl becomes easier if you associate yourselves with the Gucci type Branding the hidden realms Arsenal PLC give us.

...but we haven't got any trophies. For all the plaudits we've given ourselves this week for fielding a team of kids that won 6 nil, we've seen it all before, We have. It has happened over and over again and it is nothing new. Even back then people thought this team will do something special because it was a first, it was new, it was fresh and it was substantially great football.

...but ultimately it was an advert to the world of football, saying "start your bidding now".

We must pay players. We must pay agents. We must pay sky high fees. We must kneel to the demands of all the furore that comes our way with a squad of sports company sponsored prima donnas which Arsene wouldn't do because he is a business man and he is limited in his abilities. He is not Alex Ferguson, therefore he cannot create a team like Alex Ferguson because Alex Ferguson is a far better manager. Dammit, the guys got Paul "ginger" Scholes and Ryan "woolly chest" Giggs who are hardly magazine and Nike fodder these days but they keep the beauty of football alive.

For all the fans calling United fans glory hunters, no you're wrong. You're the glory hunters because United have had an outstanding attendance at Old Trafford. Far greater than Arsenal could have imagined before David Dein revamped the club. So no it wasn't a bunch of benefactors who did it - but Dein. How pathetic we are in this light. We are nothing more than a very carefully branded and engineered machine to make money and we haven't won anything yet.

Right now to the point.

We could beat Chelsea, United and Liverpool. We could dominate teams and destroy people but if we don't win a trophy this season, we're in the shit.

Was the Ferguson/Wenger rivalry a publicity stunt?

2008-09-24T20:09:00.002+01:00

We should never believe anything we see on TV. In fact, we should never believe anything the media give us. I think it only takes the most deluded of football fans to fall for the massive media machine that clubs have these days. Imagine the advert. Wanted, Press Officer with a minimum of 3 years experience with High Profile media clients...

...and so we have this staff of people looking through masses of information. Papers, Satellite TV, press releases and Sky TV, Setanta and talking events over with other clubs. Come on... we can't be that foolish can we. Can we?

Information is of course power and a well run company, with a good flow of information that brings in money is what we need.

I would go as far as saying a lot of high profile games and their events are well orchestrated. Fights, scuffles and everything else. I think there is so much money involved in this and so many jobs and so much security of jobs and security of money it would take one stupid person at Chelsea, Liverpool, United and Arsenal to think... hold on, let's do things our own way.

The ability to break into the "top four" as they are called will take a massive clout of power and influence. As big as the money coming in from Russia and the middle east right now should just about do it. As we've heard from our own leaders at Arsenal that they wouldn't deal with Usmanov but the tact changed very quickly when the leaders at Arsenal felt the time was right to test the waters. Let's see what a press release with our true intentions - (to sell as a profit) will work.

It didn't go down too well and thus, Peter Hill Wood, oddly, bizarrely, confusingly, weirdly, changes his tact and says, "oh we want to keep things English...". Which just makes him look less serious than he once was.

The logic is, with the money coming into the game, it will and must happen at Arsenal. What is different at Arsenal is, we were in a transition. No no, not as a team from youth experience because we all know that is a business now (thank you BBC, The Times and Monsieur Platini) but the transition to a new stadium and the balance of finance.

Part of the huge transition of energy we have right now we desperately need the funds from that energy to be placed into the European Union in whichever way possible. 30 million pounds being placed into club and into work and to be spread into banks, multiplied by 100s and 100s of players we are talking billions of pounds being transferred through football.

So back to football - what an illusion. It's foolish for anybody to think that this isn't about money. It would be foolish for anybody to think that the players and the club aren't under business rulings. It would be foolish for anybody to assume this is all true and every loss and every win is constructed by hard work, when in fact we're stealing players from whatever scenario we can - as Platini put it. Quite rightly so.

Now Ferguson and Wenger are pals. How did we ever think that these two, grown men, would have an argument, immaturely, chilidishly in the face of the public? Whoever came up with this scenario is a media genius and clearly understood their audience very well. The rivalry of football fans on the TV between the leaders of the rival football fans.

Oddly such professionalism is all about money and how much money is in fact involved and therefore they need to expose sorry, exhibit behaviour that will keep football fans interested, keep the divide between fans stronger and therefore make us watch more.

It makes me wonder now - what exactly does this all mean?

All things considered, it's a case of told you so. This was outlined by numerous people but fans would hate to thing the whole footballing world is contrived to make money but if a club/team is making money I don't think they're going to ponder what next.

I do think Platini is right. With the whole G14 power at the top of European and maybe world football, the last thing they want is a new club coming in and making rules. Of course now, that team will be Man City who, well it's not just a case of money but who is providing that money and these people are powerful.

Big deal though. 6 nil. We've seen it all before.

Will these players make it into the Arsenal first team? Will they be sold? Is the Carling Cup used by the club as an exhibition of players for sale?

The competition in the world is rising and I guess it doesn't matter if you win 1 nil, 2 nil, 10 nil or 20 nil.

A win is a win, unless you want to sell some players and make some money.

Arsene Knows: You Reckon? Part 1

2008-07-31T15:32:00.001+01:00

This was sent to me over a month ago but since I haven't been checking my mail ( due to being busy) I never saw it.

By Stubby225

I have let considerable time pass so as not to be labeled a turn coat or dare i say an anti Arsene type. Yet there comes a time that one feels its time for an explanation to what i think is really going on at Arsenal.

Now you will say "what do you know" but we all know something about Arsenal even if its no more than watching them on TV but you get to see the ebbs and flows and can make a fairly objective summation of the clubs attitude and forward looking plans by the way they have panned out over the past decade.

Well here's mine, I feel Arsene is the classic example of absolute power corrupts absolutely. He has been given so much power that it has, i am sad to say, gone to his wonderful head. I believe he really does believe what he is saying and that worries me more than anything.

If this is the best technical team he's had then somethings up because why would he have thrown away the Carling cup and the fa cup? he would have done a Chelsea and gone for it all.

By not doing that he has shown he didn't believe his squad could do it and said i will chuck these and go for the two big ones. Now that "ain't faith"

That shows a distinct lack of faith in so many areas its not true.

One the squads not strong enough and two the squads not deep enough to go the whole way as constituted.

But my friend's the worst thing of all was his total lack of care for the fans feelings and goodwill.

Just allowing to throw the game to the spuds I will never understand but letting United hammer us and gain the ultimate phycological advantage i still to this day cannot fathom.

I believe that the real case against Wenger is the pushing out of David Dien and the subsequent falling away of Arsenals record as his influence faded. Remember he brought Wenger to arsenal not the board and hes the one saying Arsenes plan cannot make it in the post Abromavich era.

Side Bar (You need a Multi billionaire and with his or there deep pockets an entity would be able to bank roll the enterprise.

You see the income from the club pays the rich mans overheads while his money buys and increases value, ie players and assets.

Let me state one truth found while meeting with the world bank Representatives. Rich men never, never, never waist money, its always for a greater reason).

I don't know if i agree with his/Diens analysis but with my background of building international law cases i think he not Arsene is the one who is seeing the bigger picture. Why would a devout arsenal loving man sell his shares ( and don't say just for the money, please) to an outsider , because he is seeing the writing on the wall. Wenger is being outspent into obscurity and that's the fact of the matter.

Winning has to be consistent to bring sustained increase.

The old days of him getting first looks at players are over.

Now we are told we have plenty of money, but the clubs actions in the transfer market do not jive with a prosperous clubs rhetoric.

I will be writing my second part of this piece soon, relating to Hleb, Ade- couldn't trap a bag of cement-byore and the nightmare that is watching clubs just keep on spending and bringing in the best talent.

Like how the hell can the spuds just keep spending even though up to now they haven't panned out and united still out there buying.

Well till next time.

Stubby 225 Out.

NEW rubbish KIT and Ljungberg states what Real Arsenal fans have been saying

2008-06-04T15:57:00.003+01:00

We have been saying this for a while and this amidst the massive influx of commercialised hungry, Sky Sports masturbating football fans that have arrived to support their team. Actually scratch that. There are a lot of Arsenal fans out there who are well in their 50s and 60s who still behave like they're 8 years old and in a play ground - like puberty just did them no favours and football was the only release of testosterone they could get.

But you could never release.

I am glad Ljungberg came out and spoke. Yes we got the same response from the press office, like we did with Adebayor stating "oh he didn't say that, he meant this" but you can't really run away from facts and facts stated by fans, finally spoken by an ex-player. But this has all been said before but we tend to ignore it but it just echoes in masses after a few seasons of complete neglect where only the board members win.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2008/06/04/ufnfreddie104.xml

It's time to learn.

As stated above, a lot of fans will deny this because they don't know much about simple science. In fact, I know some Doctors in the NHS who are completely super thick when it comes to science? Why? Well these days doctors are glorified mechanics or spokesmen for pharmaceutical companies. A friend of mine, Arsenal fan, working in a private practice told me he was offered to return to the NHS when they started offering inflated wages and out of principle, morals and ethics - he did not. Also because he is his own boss and doesn't have to sell his soul to the devil.

So if people exist on self glorification built on the credit crisis we have now, we do have a lot of Arsenal fans who joined during this prosperous period we gained through the easy lending of money.

In simple terms - anybody can be wrong and anybody can fool you with a facade.

We all wondered why we messed up this season. Read some Arsenal fans who aren't afraid to say what they see. Who aren't afraid to point out something is wrong, when it is wrong and who are eventually right when it comes to the inefficiency built upon deceit.

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New Kit

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and something else

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Catenaccio and Catenaccio today - A Good Read (Ronaldo - Fabregas)

2008-06-03T00:44:00.004+01:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catenaccio

This is an article to Catenaccio.

We always complained about teams holding their own against us with our assumed "ten man defence".

It's technique vs technique. We have the money to buy the best. They have the managers to try and subdue the best.

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Nasri and all about the media - Caution or Risk

2008-06-02T12:18:00.004+01:00

I'm not really a great fan of this player, in fact any player that I am a fan of is very quickly sold by Arsenal before he can get a testimonial or become legendary. BOOM BOOM.

I do expect Fabregas to disappear in times to come. I expect the changeover of agent to Dein's son to be fundamental in this and I believe this is all down to how we do business as a club - more so cautious than risky. Although with big risks you get big returns, with caution you guarantee the same return, which we have had over the past few seasons.

The media knows this because as a journalist you will find that, not only will you look for information but people will come to you with information. Has Nasri signed? Well I guess he has because a lot of the media have reported this and it's been passed around through the right channels.

It works like this these days. That anything that is being passed around is done systematically. You all work in a modern office environment so you'll know about the file and check and forward and storage system that exists. Check being important as this guarantees that a piece of information is moving forward and due to this certain legal factors and financial factors have to be stamped.

But it is through this channel of file and check and forward and storage that somebody will get in contact with a journalist or a paper to earn themselves a quick buck.

Yet we have to couple this with the fact that Arsenal's contract negotiations are like War and Peace. I am sure everybody gets involved as boring as life is at Arsenal - as clinical as a renowned plastic surgeon's theatre before he goes to work on Michael Douglas' brow. Must look his best for the young and fair wife of Wales.

Besides that though... Who cared if we've bought a new player. Unless he has super human powers our rivals will be in that same position as us. They will be buying new players and unless you buy an outstanding player and you ALSO change the way you play as a team - you have no chance of making huge differences.

Nasri is a cautious buy.

The last time we took a risk was with Flamini but Wenger is far too cautious. He didn't expect Flamini to go the distance as a full back and I doubt he could cope with a player who grew so fast. He had to deal with a team of great players in the past (Vieira, Campbell, Cole, Henry, Bergkamp, Ljungberg, Pires, Wiltord) and it became beyond him.

He should really learn from his mistakes and work out how he could manage an elite unit rather than regrow from the bottom up again.

The important question is (besides saying the above players were greedy for money), were the above players hungry for success... I would think so right? Also are our current team out of their depth? They could be. Experience is an important facet in all this and unknown to us in a world of doom and gloom shrouded with "Arsene Knows" rhetoric - I think we said the same about Tony Blair and New Blair and many a Cult around the world live in faith.

But it's stupid to apply this Political Religious notion into football which is a game we all understand.

Do you know why people would only come to see the Arsenal? Well it's very simple and that is because we had some great players who would demolish teams. It's not how we play but it's these players who can perform so brilliantly. United have great players, Chelsea and Liverpool do too but we push our rhetoric just that little bit further because it's the most cheapest publicity campaign ever.

This is what the media knows but it doesn't make much of a story does it because Arsenal are cautious and when you're cautious, year after year, you will be the same team - unless we don't replace Flamini... but we have the money and remaining cautious is a factor in all that. You could use the money to take risks or remain cautious. Everybody knows big name signings make a difference in a team, even though you don't win the league, they will make a difference but the cautious route is to just buy any old player and cope.

The ultimate facet is - you can't make a story from all this - yet.

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Diarra points to players losing faith in Wenger

2008-05-26T14:19:00.002+01:00

Diarra is in a long line of Arsenal players who have left the club and have had to speak out at the manager hitting back at ex players. Soon as somebody leaves our manager has not given a moments thought before hitting back at players but in this supposedly passive message Wenger gave, illustrating Diarra was impatient (operative word), Diarra had to speak out at what had happened at the club.

If we look back, numerous players have had to wait in line and then been lambasted. Many fans believe players who leave don't do well but then again, we've only won 2 titles and three FA Cups with two different teams since the turn of the century. What I am saying is - let's weight up what we have done and let's also weigh up the fact there are only a handful of trophies out there for players to get.

That being said, our ex-players have done fairly well in the majority. Many of whom have won trophies or had international call ups. They do go on to play in the major leagues and most if not all, are in teams that are in the top half of their respective leagues - if not at the top.

So that doesn't really wash does it.

But the important thing is what this illustrates about the fans and what they say about the players. First of all, they hang on to, well not only hang on to every word Wenger says they also make that word their own in faith and understanding to the point of a deluded belief system that holds no evidence at all. Secondly it illustrated that the fans think we are the best club ever, that the world has to offer. We exaggerate and demonise the debt situation of other clubs (ignoring the credit crisis, property sales and debt we personally have - although in our favour) and also ignore anything that illustrates that clubs and football are based upon millions of people who will continue to pay into the system. Meaning the system of football, football as an industry will always be healthy.

In other words, it is the only industry in the world where debt appears to be a sensible approach - massive debt, to making quick money.

It's bizarre but oddly true.

This principle therefore is what keeps fans beady eyed and interested but also gives Arsenal the elitist tag.

Importantly, lets look at the players. How would you feel if your manager played a weak team in order for you to win the league and Champions League. In other words he is saying, you are incapable as individuals to win the title (after being 6 to 8 points ahead) unless you drop the League and FA Cup. When we won nothing, would you have faith in this manager?

Flamini has stated that losing out on the title was the most hurtful thing that happened that season. People lambast him for being a glory hunter. So does that mean if he didn't put in the effort, he is not a glory hunter and would stay at the club? Or would you have expected him to go to Birmingham because he's not Fabregas or Van Persie? Well most of Europe wanted him now so we can shut our pie holes about that one.

Diarra said things were promised. We have heard this one a lot of times from ex-Arsenal players from Henry to Campbell to Vieira to Ljungberg to even Pires, Ashley Cole - numerous ex players have said that they were told that experienced and mature players were coming in and the club would grow.

This not only points to problems of lack of professionalism at the club and obviously as titled, people losing faith but also how the players were told to train and develop and play on false pretences. In other words - they were lied to.

Let's face it. What else is there.

OK - I'll play devil's advocate. Either the players lied or Wenger lied but at present it is numerous ex-players to one man's (Wengers) press releases.

Now even Hleb is on the way out.

So let's cut to the chase. If these players had faith in Wenger, would they hang around? Yes. But if a manager does not deliver at all then what is that faith worth?

Let's really waken up what I am saying with... what if Fabregas leaves and also Adebayor? Are we really saying that the Nike relationship Fabregas now has will not drive him elsewhere if they think his profile will increase with a big move to a club that are building more so?

He is one of Nike's special guys now.

If, we had taken the view of people at the beginning of the season which wasn't good and just had won the league or FA Cup this season. Fine. Players would have been driven by the impetus to win more next season. But we are aiming high in a situation where we are losing ground. We are losing players. We have to replace players.

The only way we can make new ground is to win trophies. Not beautiful football. Nope. That will not do it. You need to win trophies. Runner Ups? Nope? Statistics about coming in the top 4 or Champions League football (Oh shut up, we wouldn't have even had Champions League football if they didn't change the rules!!)? Nope.

Trophies. That's all.

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It's going downhill but hey isn't it GREAT! Hleb Flamini Hleb Fabregas Flamini Eboue

2008-05-24T19:19:00.002+01:00

This has to be the funniest season ever.

You release major players and then you talk about building. You can't even hold on to them either. The whole point is... Hold on to them? OK, let's say, by the rhetoric we use - we made Flamini. We built him. We made him what he is (forget that he was great at Marseille and what he had done throughout his time at the club) so why are we selling him? Why has money become the issue here? Where is this principle about building a team?

Nike hotshot Fabregas is still here but I bet we sell him too... and how about Hleb? Another Flamini?

In a world of crazy Religious types, you will always have people who will go the distance to demonise them. Everybody wants to be that little bit closer to perfection and this kind of mentality has built nations, empires, Religions - everything. If you say to your people, you are the best, they are stupid, we're intellectually, technically, physically, mentally superior but they don't understand; you could fool the masses and the more people you have on your side - the further you will go.

I administrate a few forums and when I first got into this thing, I felt like this biggest B****** in the world. I had to do things to people, I had to treat people in a way and control them in a way to gain something for the greater good. There had to be damage and blows and control and dominance that made people look up to you as a controller and you were the worst of the worst because you were controlling people's lives and they were hanging onto your every word. It is also the same once in management or in any sphere of responsibility where, you have to pick somebody to lose. There has to be some collateral damage in every scenario to make things work.

Yet, to the people who look up to you,who think you are the God of the situation they will deem this as RIGHT, as CORRECT as MORAL and ETHICAL because it's like a form of ethnic cleansing. Where anybody who remains have been the chosen ones and those that are the better.

Now, ok, I can't deny there are some egomaniacal admin in the world and they strive on this and create different ranks and stratifications for their users in order to look down upon them from high and in their benevolent glory they give the same power to some of their users as well. Forgetting all the time that the true purpose of all this is to provide a place of discussion for the users. Forgetting that, you're supposed to be doing this for people in general and everybody is equal rather than instilling your own principles of human conduct on others.

It's this that is so funny about the Arsenal season. We will demonise the press, harass them and hate them if they say anything wrong to us but if they say good of us, we will say, yes the press are right, they are on the right track. They are doing good things and hallowed be their name etc etc. We are so unbelievably full of it, it's unbelievable.

Yet, we can't forget that this season was bad. It was real bad. Now I know there are some people out there who have found some reason that it was good, like "yeah but, we improved here and er... we're building and this is a transition and oh it was fantastic in defence". Oh it just makes me laugh even more.

Do you know who were better than us this season? Well Liverpool did better than us in most competitions, so did Manchester United and Liverpool. Portsmouth won the FA Cup and Tottenham won the Carling Cup.

OK... now this is the funny bit because some people are saying either:

a) The Carling Cup and the FA Cup aren't real trophies (LOL)
b) We played the better football
c) The officials weren't on our side
d) We scored more points on a cheaper squad then last year
e)
f)
g)
h)

I DON'T CARE!!!

All I care about is the fact that we are probably the most stable football club in the world and we hang onto every bit of twisted communication from the club and believe it and then we say "No we can't buy players. No we can't pay players more. Oh we are so heavely pure that our board are really great." It makes me laugh how not only the board but now even our supporter groups stick to charities controlled by ex-Arsenal players or staff like we're some disgusting insular cult.

People are dying from diseases and suffering from life threatening illnesses and can't walk or are mentally scarred or even unhealthy but when we want to choose a charity, we pick one controlled by an Arsenal player.

We could go on and on about the problems in our own train of thought but let's face facts. No we are not all that.

The club made massive mistakes, either be it by choice or otherwise and Wenger made mistakes but to cut a long story short - the next time Arsenal cock up, not Liverpool or any other club but when Arsenal cock up - it's about money because unless you're stupid and/or a deluded Arsenal fan - we have tonnes and tonnes of money everywhere and NO, we don't have to spend it all and throw it away but we can at least make it work for us.

Let me do the maths for you. Let's say we buy a player for 8 million. Let's say we play him but if it doesn't work out, let's sell the bugger and not wait around and see if he will develop for around 5 years. If Wenger is so shit hot - let's find a player at a club where they won't come running at us saying we're corrupt and unprofessional because we stole their clubs - I.E. Let's find a kid that is crap and see if Wenger can make him into the new Ronaldo/Pele Hybrid player.

But we can't do that. Why? Because if we bought a player for 8 million, we can only sell him for more if he is a good player - but hold on... didn't we do that with a number of our players like Anelka, Overmars and Petit? What happened after that? Well agents sussed it out and our contract negotiations started to go to pot.

But hold on - I just realised something else. If we're shit hot shrewd and we find some great talent - why don't we sell these great cheap buys Wenger gets for more money. Nope, we're letting their contracts run out now so we don't have to pay agents fees.

What a cocked up system we have. It's so deluded bonkers that at this point I think only the really brainwashed Arsenal fans are holding on to the club's every word.

Now we have problems in the board, we have problems between players, we have problems amidst the staff and I have no idea how this is going to get fixed but let's face it the only reason we have so many problems is because there are people at the club who know they are sitting on a big massive cash cow that was made by David Dein and Danny Fiszman. Not by the Carr family. Not by Hill Wood and family but by two people only and there is no doubt that anybody from the Carr family or from Hill Wood's family would have been down at the country club glorifying themselves in their own loved up world if Dein hadn't popped up and thought about making this club into something bigger and better.

We seem to forget amidst all our self glorification that there are clubs out there with fans as well and they are happy as Larry but they still work as hard as they can to make something good of what they have. Some of our fans jump on any little tit bit to attack other clubs but it's hilarious that with all our real, tangible successes, we can't make anything else of it. When Tottenham won the Carling Cup which is something we should have won - we mocked them on their night out. We laughed at Portsmouth players losing their medals. We mocked United for being in debt when the won the Champions League and Chelsea may go under if Roman disappears.

Who cares. Our, your problem is Arsenal. If they go under - somebody else will take their place and you'll mock them.

Logically, if we had won that Champions League this year then there would be nothing to mock but we didn't. We lost out. We lost out on every trophy and it wasn't of our own making. It was made of complete and utter greedy motivated stupidity but we ignore that.

The Champions League should have been ours, the Premiership should have been ours and if you think about it - it is not ours because we're stupid. So we quickly mock other clubs in order to greaten our own but dammit we're full of cock ups and we can't push that little bit further to do better.

The Champions League is important to every club, right? If so, why don't we give the money to Wenger to buy players or keep players in order to win it? What? Oh it's about the youth policy? Yeah right...

We have our flaws and it's all apparent in what we missed out in a huge way this year.

This unit of Hleb, Fabregas and Flamini just says - one thing.

We are not building anything.

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Wenger - Diarra was a big fan of Fizzy Sweets and Choccy Bars

2008-05-23T16:26:00.004+01:00

Wenger - known as a master of motivation and strategy and brilliant tactician and man manager was unable to subdue Diarra's spoilt tantrums due to him visiting the grocery shop across the road from the Emirates Stadium. Diarra became a big fan and couldn't let go of the idea of failing to make the Euros after too many Fizzy Sweets.

Wenger stated ""I came to the conclusion that Diarra could not cope with the fact that he was behind the other players here in midfield,"" Highlighting the fact that lots of sweeties and sugary products made Diarra into a Euro Finals obsessed monster which almost led Wenger to call in Super Nanny or Gok Wan to show him how to look good naked in order to take his mind off things.

Wenger added: "I bought Diarra in the summer because I thought Flamini might leave at the end of the season and if he was able to be patient, he would get his chance." indicating, maybe Flamini's super speed and endurance were due to his personal addiction to fizzy cola bottles and Lollipops - which he introduced to fellow French team mate Diarra.

"I did explain when he joined that he might have to be patient, and he acknowledged it, but he couldn't cope with the situation, and also did not want to go on loan anywhere either." said Wenger indicating Portsmouth would be a perfect destination in light of it's low adult to sweet shop ratio.

Diarra has won an FA Cup (which was duly filled with cola bottles and white chocolate mice as part of contract negotiations) and secured a place at the Euro Finals alongside fellow Sweety fan Mathieu Flamini who are now looking forward to filling the Euro Cup with a Mars Bars and Coca Cola mix.

It is yet unknown if Wenger can manage to entertain Nasri's craving of Bacon covered in fudge and sprinkles.

When asked whether Wenger was just doing another one of his shoddy reasonings for players he'd lost, he said "I am Wenger, the fans love me. They'll hang on to my every word anyway so, who cares"

EXCLUSIVE - Nasri contract negotiations!!

2008-05-23T15:58:00.004+01:00

Stardate 34534 -

Peter Hill Wood is gallavanting around the Stadium with Nina Bracewell Smith (hired nanny and carer) hurriedly running behind him with morphine, whisky and paint stripper at hand to subdue his madness.

"Where is this meeting!!? Where? We don't want his sort around here!!" (cue canned laughter)

Switch the boardroom where Nasri is seated alongside agent with optional extras of lapdancer, sack with pound sign and gold teeth, pimp coat, diamonds, jewellery and reject ladies with big asses from Hip Hop video.

"Rightee Ho! So let me get this right, Nasri will get paid 5 cans of lager and a signed Thierry Henry Football shirt to sign on. He will get paid 40k a week, in order to keep Fabregas happy and stop Matt Lucas of escaping from talentless David Walliams again. Now we're stuck on minors but...

- if Nasri scores a goal that is assisted from Gilberto - you will pay 3 thousand pounds and a goat from Adebayor's farm.
- if Nasri scores a goal that is assisted from Fabregas, he will get a post goal lucrative hug with Fabregas, a letter of condolence from Flamini for leaving the club and a lock of Sagna's hair
- if Nasri gives an assist to Eboue, you will guarantee his departure to act as messiah in a civil war of Nasri's choice in Africa
- if Nasri runs more distance than Flamini in any one game, he will get a bonus of 1 thousand pounds, a letter from Henry stating he loves Arsenal, he really loves Arsenal and he really wants to come back and a raised eyebrow from Wenger
- if Nasri scores a hat trick he will get an evening with Hill Wood and the Carr family at their home and then later a selection of hired women that are usually left for visiting Arabs to be used at his discretion in the Carr family mansion and Hill Wood's special wing at The Priory
- if Fabregas is pleased with Nasri in any game, he will get a free shopping spree at Harrods
- if Nasri scores the first, second and fourth goal in any game, that is an extra 5k for the week
- if Nasri does a press release stating the club is fantastic, built on great values and they play beautiful football and it's better than winning, he will get Adebayors parking space for the week
- if Nasri mentions the term beautiful football in any interview for the club, he will get 500 pounds
- if Nasri scores his own assist and his own goal, he will get an extra 3 thousand pound
- if Nasri does not return hired women after his hat trick, he will get an evening of Hill Wood giving him "what for" in his own private underground bunker beneath the stadium
- if Nasri even speaks to or looks at David Dein, then Danny Fiszman and the Carr family will not be happy and can deflate his tyres or swap his shirt for Adebayor's
- if Nasri does an Ashley Cole type goal save, he will get a smile from reptilian Peter Hill Wood and he will personally hug him and promise not to go anywhere near journalists for the next three months
- if Nasri mentions Charlie George at any point he will get a gold star
- if Nasri plays in a winning team, Wenger will cross his arms and look vaguely into the distance a la achilles on a mountain top
- if Nasri runs over to the fans and kisses the badge after a goal he will get an extra 7k that week
- if Nasri can develop a cure to stop Hill Wood coming within 5 miles of the stadium, he will get to own the stadium for a year
- if Nasri can develop a dialogue/rhetoric to persuade Arsenal fans that Usmanov is a nice bloke he will get an oscar and a bust at the stadium

Wenger strokes his chin and runs over to the whiteboard like an excited schoolboy as he has found a way to motivate Nasri

"if you do zis den zis den zis after zis and zat and zis zat but not zis - I will make sure you vill have 5 thousand pounds"

Nasri ponders the the scribble on the white board, scratches his head and says "we'll return tomorrow..."

Contract negotiations stalled for another day. Nasri goes to Mayfair to live it up.

Returning the following day Nasri states: "I cannot do zat... it is only a scribble"

Wenger strokes his chin and looks at Fizsman and Friar. Wenger nods his head at Fizsman and Friar. Fizman and Friar look at each other and shrug their shoulders.

"He is not ready for zee beautiful football"

Cue angry interchange in French and Spanish between Nasri and Wenger.

Contract negotiations stalled for another day. Peter Hill Wood returned to Sainsbury's to buy another bottle of whisky in order to avoid altercation between Hill Wood and Press and any occurrence of "We don't need his sort!".

Returning the following day Nasri states "zis beautiful football is foolish"

Fizsman jumps in and states "beautiful football is football woight? That's what Wenger tell us!". Unfortunately before Wenger can respond, Hill Wood enters the room, goes mental and talks about the war a lot, leaving Nina Bracewell Smith no other option but to hit him over the head with a bottle of Coke to sedate him.

Wenger adds Nasri must score 10 goals this season to get hugs and kisses from Adebayor and Fabregas otherwise he will use his mind games to make them say indirect demotivational slurs about him in the media but will offer him a flat in Highbury for enduring Hill Wood for a year.

After several Mon Dieus and Sacre Bleus, Nasri, his agent and several reject women from Hip Hop videos leave the room, leaving Wenger to concoct a justification, sorry, leaving Wenger to assess the situation and work out why it didn't work out, sorry, and work out how to shrewdly bring Nasri to the club.

Ring Ring - Wenger phones Nasri and tell him he can have an extra 1 thousand pounds for every goal, an extra 1 thousand pounds for every assist, 2 thousand pounds for every Champions League game played, 1 thousand pounds for every Carling Cup and FA Cup game played and 5 thousand pounds for every goal in the Champions League and 4 thousand for every assist and 2 thousand if there is a clean sheet.

Nasri is interested.

Wenger is back on the phone to Gary Lewin to make sure Nasri is injured for the rest of the season, because, he just is and the contractual factors are only binding for this season not the next and if his shorts are covering at least 2 thirds of his thighs.

The negotiations continue. Nasri is chatting up one of the birds from Girls Aloud, his agent just sent his bill to Wenger - Hill Wood doesn't know anything about it.

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Football is diseased. People who own clubs make it like that. More on Ashley Cole and others... Jens Lehmann

2008-05-23T06:08:00.005+01:00

If anything makes football as pleasant as it is, it's the fans but when a fan falls for spin like it is coming from the closed environments of a boardroom - then even we become puppets for multi-millionaires. What I am saying is, I don't believe that a lot of people care about the finances or the politics of football? No...

In recent times, since the sexual revolution people have created demigods, idols of footballers as they've openly used beauty enhancing products - be it brylcreem or some nice threads. Prior to this not even black and white chic can save how ugly footballers were.

There are two factors against Ashley Cole. One is he asked for another 5k a year. The second is he met Chelsea as arranged by his agent.

For the first one we made that scenario just as public as anybody else and we have a very long routine of how we treat players in the game. If we can't hold on to players we will make it known in the press that they are judas' like we are our own version of the gossip mags at Ashburton Grove.

As for the second, it's unbelievable for me to consider that people don't believe that negotiations and meetings between players and agents and other individuals don't occur on a regular basis. There are a few really good books out there about this and if you go to a local bookstore and check the sports section you will find them.

So was I surprised when I heard that Ashley had met staff from Chelsea? No.

It was another story the press grabbed hold of but the most surprising factor in all this is how the press knew about this because somebody must have tipped them about this. The ultimate problem in this is, the contract negotiations and how we're either not very good at it, but our shrewdness is in fact quite - diseased.

Before the Ashley Cole meeting with Chelsea, a contract had in fact been signed but (now this next bit is important - it might not seem it but it is) Arsenal didn't want to pay the agents fees.

Now the problem with this is - they would have had to pay them anyway. Now, whether on suspensions Cole's agent got the fees or not is another question. Maybe he didn't. It does deeper though... This is what I mean about diseased.

Not so long ago there was a problem at United with agents fees going to Alex Ferguson's son - and therefore this being a problem then we had Sam Allardyce's son and then Dein's son in the Thierry Henry saga. OK, it's all sons and it kind of bites Dein on the bum considering what he always talks about but this is how diseased football is when you keep it in the family.

So the problem is, since Arsenal didn't want to pay the agents fees but had already signed a contract with Chelsea and stalled because of that - how much was all this in Arsenal's favour? I'm not sure. Well you always have an inkling though... try the sports section in your local bookstore.

Gallas' agent is Pierre Frelot who is also Drogba's agent as well. Now in the end the agents fees appear to have gone in Gallas' agents favour as well but also Cole's?

Odd?

So when Cole says "they hung me out to dry" and the problems with libel these days, it makes you wonder what is going on and what do we mean when we say the word "shrewd". Does shrewd mean Wenger is some form of Jedi Master in the board room able to say "these aren't the players you are looking for", and then be on his way? Or is it that you can go into the whispers in the corridors of power and get people to work in your favour with the promise of favours at a later date.

This is why, Flamini who went on a free, made me wonder a lot more about this. What did Arsenal get from this? Probably zilch but Flamini's silence spoke volumes because the law was on his side and Arsenal only had the press to go crying to - again.

The inevitable extension to this is Vieira, agents fees for over 30s we have sold. The extending of contracts to see how much Arsenal would have to pay in terms of agents fees if they bought other players in. How much if they sold players. How many would be favourable to them in the long run.

On a simple footballing level though Cole like other players at Arsenal weren't happy with the mass exodus of players that was occurring. A club that was doing dramatically well was suddenly selling important players upon whom a lot of success was based. The constant shout of experience and more experience with some players even being told that experience will be bought in but left dwindling when nobody arrived was also a regular story.

So quite simply we were releasing talent. We all know that football is ugly behind the scenes; in fact scratch that. Not all of us, just some of us. In our case, we sold great players and didn't even replace them - so rather than the fans saying "what the f*** is going on?", we were saying, "oh, we're going through transition and rebuilding". In a squad that is barely a 2 years old and we're still selling players?

OK at this point I hold my hands up. Since the releasing of Edelman it appears those of us realistic (or cynical, however you want to put it) enough were in fact right about a lot of things going on but how right is yet to be seen.

The next time you start to attack ex-players, be they Anelka or Cole or others, try to read between the lines and do as much research as you can on the subject.

Or you can just understand that Agents exist because players got crappy deals.

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Why Mathieu Flamini? Why Ashley Cole? and the massive piles of denial -- Juventus Eduardo

2008-05-22T23:22:00.004+01:00

Manchester United don't appear to be buying. Chelsea don't appear to be buying but we're associated with a lot of players but have as yet bought nobody. One player we believe we need (another youngster) appears to want to go elsewhere?

Who have been our most important signings over the past few years or even in Wenger's time? Most of them are either established players or even well known players. Henry and Vieira were well known - it was extremely strange that nobody had heard of these players and fans were saying "ooh, Wenger has unearthed a gem". What? Didn't you watch the World Cup Final in 98 or were you just avoiding it because England didn't get through?

We could say it's strange but... we're just in denial. There is no denying football is about socialising but it's when that socialising overtakes the football. Where is the football that remains? Many of us, know people in our lives who aren't even Football fans.

One of the strangest things I noticed lately was on Graham Norton when fans of the TV series, "Hart to Hart" were on the show and they followed "the Harts" everywhere. Now when you heard "the Harts" talk, they talked about their average life, doing everyday people things. The fans on the other hand, knew the shows better than that Harts, had some strange questions about their lives and adored them, put them on pedestals and believed they were demigods.

In my experience, a fan has been, well the real Arsenal fan I have met are those that don't take it too seriously but understand the football better. They understand the team and the club and they know the club are in it to make money. They know there isn't much of a legacy there other than people in the board room who are looking after their investment. They know that the club will evolve over time. They know that players will move on and change. They accept that.

Then you have other fans who are completely, psychotically it has to be said, "if you're not with us, you're against us". A surrogate family of sorts develops. Anger at their own family. If somebody is at the club, then they are alright and have never done any wrong. Soon as they leave, they're evil. Religious terminology of demonic type characteristics and behaviour are given to them. It's completely the chav level approach to football. The lower rung of the ladder and a complete display of the lower end of football and not what built it to what it is today.

Flamini, was a player that was needed by clubs because he was bloody good. You have to blind or staring at Fabregas far too much for comfort to think he wasn't. He played a huge part in numerous cup competitions and when he wasn't in the squad we struggled. God knows what we will do without him but the reason he was wanted by many clubs was because he was shit hot and this is why he is in the France squad and Gael Clichy is not.

Gael Clichy was a mistake. OK, he's good but he's not great. Unfortunately we're stuck with him now. The belief has been since Flamini stopped playing at left back that he said he doesn't want to play there? Is this another one of Wenger's post occurrence character assassinations? Flamini's behaviour post leaving has been impeccable. Previous players who have left Arsenal, after hearing what Wenger has to say have attacked back in the press but Flamini simply said, nope, that didn't happen, this is what happened and was done with it.

On the one side we have another Wenger character assassination but on the otherside you have a player saying, well think about it, a lot of clubs wanted me, they gave me more respect - Arsenal were more interested in securing Fabregas until they can make 10s of millions for him, so I went where some of my heritage is. Makes sense to me.

But if you are a fan who is completely engrossed in projected the demonisation you have for a mother or father who didn't parent you or a guy at work who got promoted ahead of you, or the girl who spurned onto football players and staff members that leave Arsenal - then you'll murder them. Now come on, your life isn't so completely important that these people are vicious animals who have done complete wrong. We all live under the economy built on blood that is the Western World - so none of us are that innocent.

The other player is Ashley Cole. What the hell did he do wrong? It's become completely apparent, evident, that our contract negotiations are a complete sham. Over and over again. So why blame Ashley Cole? In simplistic terms, the scenario went "Can I have another 5k please?", our club (as per usual) run around to every paper and say he is a greedy bugger and concoct some nonsense about the player and then "no, we'd rather pay a defender that is struggling to get passed our plus 30 ageist employment rule, 75k a week instead". Yes that makes complete sense and give Gael Clichy (somebody who people don't want to say he does a thing wrong because of all the venom they have for Ashley Cole).

The thing is, being introspective is very hard in a world that is full of alienation, where people do struggle to find surrogate families that they have to be drunk and around a false illusion of romantic lust with a football club to have one. If you're introspective, you're going to fall over backwards and you'd probably stop being an Arsenal fan. I read a while back how some Arsenal fans questioned another Arsenal fan for letting his son become a Liverpool fan.

I always thought, well, it's nice to let your kids or force your kids to be Arsenal fans but this is just an extension of how you're trying to replace a family that spurned you to become football fans. I reaised this when I met an Arsenal fan whose Dad was a United fan and he was one for a while but then he became angry at his father for his relationship with his mother and his grandparents and spurned him by becoming a United fan. The funny thing is, he had a unique perspective of football and atmosphere and that Arsenal fans didn't create the atmosphere that other fans had.

In time you realise, this is who you are and it's not about atmosphere (although fans who invest a lot of time in this, will tell you otherwise. A bit like people who invest their time in anything in life) an anything else. It's like that bit in the Empire Strikes Back where Luke is sent into the Dark Energy part of the Dagobah swamp and he asks Yoda "What's in there?" and Yoda says "Only what you take in there..."

There is obviously more to life that encompassing and finding all of life's needs in football, but like the film, the Nanny Diaries, if you keep your eyes and ears open, Football will give you an insight into life and people that you will get nowhere else and you'll find a lot of insecure people trying to meet their "goals" in life by lots of possession or different ways to attack a defence - depending on what team you watch or which manager you would date if you were gay.

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Manchester United 3 - 0 Arsenal (Tottenham 4 - 5 Arsenal)

2008-05-22T11:43:00.003+01:00

Now if Chelsea had won it, it would be Chelsea 1 - 0 Arsenal.

We still haven't won the Champions League. For all the plaudits and the praise we give ourselves and all the credit we have and we say how great our football club is, we have not won the Champions League. Let's face facts here. I have heard a lot of praise and vindictive attacks on Chelsea now that United have won it but we're forgetting that they are in the final and because of our unprofessionalism (shown by lots of dancing, giving away penalties, lapses in defence in an important game) we weren't there.

So it's very strange to see the behaviour of some fans who are more interesting in mocking Chelsea than looking at their own club as though mocking another team is far more interesting than what is occurring at their own club.

To add to this we are associated with more kids and more players and obviously, they are fairly decent but how is a player going to change the team so much? How? We lost because of the way we played not because we didn't have the players.

Most of our players came onto the pitch demolarised and made absolutely no change to the way we were playing. When was the last time a player made a difference to a team? Well I do remember Flamini coming on in the last season for Justin Hoyte a lot but we could have put on an empty pint glass for Justin Hoyte and he would have made adequate difference.

The other problem is, faith. We have faith in our keepers. I like Almunia as well, just like the next Arsenal fan because he's a nice guy but I'm not going to put Barack Obama in our goal just because of that. We need a good quality keeper.

What I think would be interesting is, if we spent the money but do we really need to? What we have been doing is, not shrewd but cautious. We have been cautious and therefore we buy A LOT of players who will be good instead of buying some great team players with the odd outstanding world class player. Far too many egos who now want more money as well.

So a lot of the transfer news is boring me. We won't know what is what until these players play and show us what they've got OR if Wenger changes the way he plays the team and plays them differently. On top of this we still have United to contend with and Chelsea and a stronger Everton team and we have to see how we cope with Flamini and other players who leave as well.

How is this all favourable to us right now? We don't know anything, nothing at all until the next season starts, well until 2009 now when the season is well under way. Until then, we're just buying players but unless we get some decent defenders and a decent keeper - I'm not going to be completely sure about this at all.

Arsenal Double 0102

Tottenham 4 - 5 Arsenal

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Then What? Kreonke, Dein, Usmanov, Henry, Reyes, Edelman, Flamini, Hleb, Adebayor, Fabregas - Then What?

2008-05-14T19:14:00.005+01:00

Like anybody reading this, we're all football fans but in football, it goes beyond kicking a ball around now. So much is involved in the game when everybody is buying, everybody is selling and everybody is trying to survive by mainly buying and selling.

If it's not the Manager buying and selling it's new investors and if it's not our manager, it's somebody elses.

First of all, I want to question, how good is Wenger, in all honesty? What about our club? Are we really worthy of being at the top when we can't even win the Champions League? Are we worthy of giving ourselves accolades of being big and mighty when we sell great players, we use excuses that we have replacements to sell great players. We don't even attempt to win games. Managing Directors leave due to a slump in the season. Players leave because, let's face it, they have no faith in the manager.

I think if we go back to Kreonke, we have to work out, why was Dein interested in him?

OK, let's go back to Dein. Dein came to the club and transformed our fortunes and we started to pump money into the club and win trophies. We got George Graham on board and he started to win things for us. It started to become about money. We transformed the North Bank and brought in more money, for more players and success and profits were ours.

Wenger came in and spent a load of money and the days of profit returned (after spending loads on Bergkamp and making losses after Bung 1990s, we returned to making profits and building and developing which has been Dein's basis after being the main catalyst at a club that was dominated by Carr and company and Hill Wood looking after their investment.

Like all things, the more the money came in and the success, importantly the success came in, more and more people became interested in the club and wanted a piece of things.

A group of individuals like this, with Edelman at a later date - started to raise the value of the club - importantly, at the detriment of the supporters and the fans who have gained in return 4 FA Cups and 3 Premier League trophies and a huge stadium to enjoy Football in. Bar that, Ticket prices have increased again as we report record breaking profits year on year with no help back to the supporter.

Henry was paid a huge amount to stay for one year, orchestrated by one, son of David Dein which led Henry to Barcelona, in total gave us 6 million if we take off what we paid him for that final year.

Oh yeah and as Dein was removed because he brought in Kreonke and after leaving he brought in Usmanov.

Any which way we look at it folks - the truth is - the next step, the whole attack on the club has all been about, where the club goes next.

You'd be stupid to think it doesn't get confusing here.

Let's say we won the Champions League this season. No, I won't start there.

Hmm... let's say, year on year, we'll make 40 million pounds, over and over again. We'll actually make over that sum every year. Now... some of this will go on transfers. We will also sell players too.

So let's say, on average, we will spend 10 million on transfer buying and selling every year. That leaves about 30 million pounds doing nothing every single year. But hold on...

...everybody says Wenger does it on the cheap. If he does it on the cheap, then there is money somewhere because we have made profit after profit after profit, besides a dip in and around 02 to 04 where we lost in total 24 million pounds in total but don't worry about that, we've made about 70 million pounds over the last 14 years.

Don't believe me? Thought not.

Let's take a look at this here from http://www.footballeconomy.com/stats2/eng_arsenal.htm :

In total, pre tax this is - 84.456 million between 93 to 06 and then we could add the 30 million we made over the previous tax year, then this tax year too and we're talk a lot. :)

Maybe this 75 million is the war chest they're talking about if we need to spend it but we are losing players. We are actually being taken to the cleaners by players too and as much as we are trying to decrease the wage on our players, some are asking for more and more?

We have lost Flamini now. We lost Reyes who was fantastic for us and I guess he went after having problems post the Aragones incident. Now Hleb may be going too.

Soon, I do believe, Fabregas will go too.

Now the above for me is a management issue, not merely for Arsene but for the board as well. How do you keep a balanced, tight, ship shape company if you can't keep everybody happy? Do we have the intention to keep everybody happy or to just fob them off until they start to complain?

Then let's consider, the problem could not be with this player situation but what we pay them because our best players are invited over to other clubs with promise of more money. Now this is business. You unsettle your competition and make them release players and it won't only be the club who is buying your player who will be laughing but all your competition too.

That's business. You have to hold on to your players. You have to keep them happy and how you do that, with trophies or with other things - who cares, just keep them happy. This I think is the key to success at the club. We need to hold on to players who will bring us success, or make them happy among each other. Make a good unit... if you can.

The last few weeks have shown a situation that is not favourable for us. How will we return next year? It all depends how we plan out the coming season and how we intend to win games.

I'd sell Adebayor. He's becoming like a player who is too big for us and may give us trouble later on but apart from that, I'd get rid of Eboue - he's the only person who does that stupid dancing with Adebayor. Try and get Flamini back and give him Adebayor's wage. Use Van Persie, Walcott, Bendtner as our major strikers. Try and hold on to Hleb. Buy a Winger, buy a defender and hope for the best.

Pay the players. There is money around. Get some success, in any form whatsoever. If you think about it, we could have won both the FA Cup and the League Cup this year.

People talk about hindsight. Wouldn't it have been great and all that, thinking it's nice we got 83 points. Well, we would have got 90 plus if we played our cards right and didn't make school boy errors.

I'll give you a what if though? Would you have accepted a Cup double of the league and FA Cup? Would you have accepted the the Premier League on the back of the success of that?

Three trophies that could have been definite. So stupid. Fighting to achieve one definite trophy we lost everything - that's why this season has been so stupid, so anybody who says this season has been a success, is very thick or is the manager of a football club trying to put on some spin.

People are ignoring that Edelman has gone, Fiszman has gone, Henry has gone, Flamini just went and nobody talks of a crisis.

The power of publicity and spin is quite evil isn't it.

Strange

More Strange

Is a Mercedes a status symbol?

2008-05-12T13:04:00.002+01:00

Or does it just clearly show what you don't have?

I saw a guy the other day and he was short but groomed, dressed as well as he could and he was getting into a Black Mercedes. Never had a Black Mercedes looked so less appealing and a family car look so inviting.

All this reminded me of a quote from the new Apprentice series stating that one of the characters had small man syndrome, meaning they were trying to compensate for something they didn't have.

By showing something that shows what they don't have?

Another way I could put it is all these different types of one type of product that exists. For example, if I wanted to buy a DVD Recorder, I would look at all the options and all the extras and then consider what I need and pay accordingly.

In a 70mph road and gridlocked cities, what use is a car other than to show what you don't have, or is that what you do have or is that what you don't have.

You buy a Mercedes to show what you do have, right, but it shows what you don't have as well - right? It shows that you wanted more and what you had to settle for instead?

This may just be because Mercedes are quality but if you balance it out - who cares?

Say you bought a new house, in the best of areas. Everybody around you has a status level job. Doctor, Consultant, Lawyer, Businessman - blah blah. This shows you where you are, who you are and what you have.

It also shows you - where you are not, who you are not and what you don't have as well.

For instance - a big yacht or maybe a nice community that is based upon knowing rather than knowing because the price in the area is relative to each household.

So... I think this encompasses everything about life (and football for that matter) that our observations and assessment tell us everything about what we have and what we don't have and what we want. In a world lacking community, it's all about selling yourself. I think I jumped the gun there. I mean in a world lacking community, it's all about trying to work out who these other bipedal people are what you are being the first thing you do to make a community.

In recent weeks we've heard two things for Arsenal

What we have

What we don't have

Some say we have points, we have wins, we have everything.

Others say we should have points, we should have wins, we should have everything.

So on the one hand we have people who say this team and this club can be better while others are saying that we should be happy with what we have.

I think the fine line is, as a fan, you are happy with what you have which makes me question those who say that others should be happy. Because I don't think they are happy and they are completely controlled and tested by those who have a criticism who have the nerve to analyse.

Some people will boast about what they have but soon as you advertise yourself like that, you are open up to people saying, but you don't have that.

How often have you found people who say, they have this (think Gossip columns) suddenly being scrutinised for their failings?

For many years now Wenger has been his own publicist and exhibited himself in the light of no tangible success, by illustrating his own personal intangible benefits the club have. Yet, while we see Ryan Giggs, a 30 plus football score a goal to keep United as winners of the Premiership - it makes you wonder why Wenger couldn't do this - consider our finances have been very good for many years.

What is our status symbol?

Three Doubles? Unbeatable season? FA Cups?

Or no Champions League? Complacency and Arrogance and lack of fear of other teams. Losing out on Titles and trophies. Disrespecting the FA Cup and League Cup. Disrespecting players and also only having one way of playing and arrogantly saying it is the best way?

Is this our status symbol?

When the gloves are off and the papers speak - we haven't won anything for a few years but the money that made us is being heavily guarded.

That is our status symbol. Financial Reports.

Tomorrow You may be Dead. but Football will never die.

2008-05-08T21:06:00.003+01:00

Looking at the devastation in the world today, it makes you wonder what somebody may do with just one more day to live. What would be your dying wish? What would be the last thing you wanted to do before setting off into the great unknown of after-life - if there is one... What is that one last thing you want to leave as a legacy?

One has to wonder where our money goes at Arsenal. There is no denying that we spend big. Since Wenger arrived we have bought many many players. I think in his first year or so, he acquired over 10 to 15 players. That season we won the double.

Arsenal have never really been in any major financial difficulty. Living in a world where mass debt is not uncommon at major companies, in whichever industry, there is little worry about debt unless you can make the payments and continue to make money and pay yourselves. Amidst all this, everyone wants cash from all this. The one thing that makes me wonder is - Arsenal chose a debt, while the rest of the clubs that exist didn't do so and either forced themselves to go into debt or it happened to them over night.

This is the desire to win in football. The belief that you must win or you will die and if you have to die numerous times, then you will die numerous times. The difference with this is, some people can cope with dying because they aim to live forever. It's a bit like the Highlander, the quickening, where - you may lose but you also return, you can return to fight again - at all costs - where money is not an issue. The only issue is to win, to kill, to destroy. Just like everything else in life - we want to continue to survive because, who knows when your end will come.

This year we saw what Arsenal were all about. We're not really that great a club are we, if we're absolutely honest with ourselves. We didn't play to win. We went to major games, where fans travelled either late at night to major historic rivals or even 100s of miles away to see a mediocre game - to watch a team that had intended to lose. After this, there was no desire to win. After this, the club that gives itself many platitudes sold major players - after making massive gains.

In business, in capitalism, this is the ugliest side of football. To betray your client for monetary gain and to ignore the most important factor of sport - to win.

Tomorrow you may be dead. Tomorrow there will not be anything else. If that was the case, then, will Arsenal play football? I am sure some people would say yes, but I am not so sure. After seeing this Arsenal, I am thinking, if tomorrow, there was no life and it was the end and death would take over...

...Arsenal will sell up for whatever price was available. Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United and all other clubs will fight for the prize and for the final season in football Arsenal will either fight it out or the fans or whoever is in charge will fail to buy players as they all disappear to the big clubs in Europe. While our major directors - who have considered profit over wins for many years disappear for a final year of wealth.

I don't think we care about winning any more. In recent years, a number of things have made me question the new Arsenal. A few of these are the loss we made in 0102 when we gave massive bonuses to our players and when it was discovered we were exploiting a loop hole that brought on a major fine and having to pay back the Inland Revenue. The reason why I questioned this was, journalists, I felt were dealing in cheap journalism, manufacturing, regurgitating each other's quotes. Nobody was questioning how a club like Arsenal with massive season ticket sales, a bond for many of their fans and with expenses involved, can be deemed a club that is doing things on the cheap - when we're not.

We may applaud ourselves after selling Henry last year but year on year, considering our wages and the sales and buys we make, other than a few of the clubs in the premiership - when we add up how much money we spend on players, we're not far off the top of the table in these terms. We spend just as much towards our players as other teams - the difference is, we also sneakily attract young players and we also do a lot of other shady dealings to hold on to people. We also just a lot of corporate mind games with our human resources by taking our contract negotiations into the press with some cloak and dagger character assassinations.

But, after seeing Flamini's fairwell, I think players have become wise of this. As Wenger over and over was quoted in the press about Flamini - nobody heard anything from Flamini. Nobody could get hold of him. I am assuming in past years, players have given their rebuttal to Wenger's constant press releases about players and fallen for the trap and become the criminal. Flamini on the other hand, didn't. He didn't answer back, he said nothing. He just remained himself.

In recent years we have insulted winning and the drive to win at Arsenal. We've masturbated obsessively over training and development, like we have some divine right over these things, that we are better, stronger and wilder. Are we fuck. We haven't won anything in recent years and when we did, we won by playing some of the best players in the world, a squad full of world class players like Ashley Cole, Patrik Vieira, Sol Campbell, Thierry Henry, Freddie Ljungberg... all players who have disappeared.

All of these plaudits can't really be given to Wenger. In fact, it was the club that did it by spending money. It's all about mind games. I say this because there is a silent majority in the boardroom controlled by the Carr family and the tilt and turn depends upon the majority shareholders and how they are controlled by this family. Let us not forget, that it was in fact a lone David Dein who was removed from the club but there were other board members who have remained silent about this. One has to question their intent with the club.

One the last day of your life, you will ponder what is important. In the world of football - the most important thing is to win. Do you know how important that is? In every corner of every part of this world, where football is played, it is played to win, to win something, or just for the taste of glory to achieve.

Commercialisation has raped football regularly and many clubs have taken advantage of this but most have not made it, it's master. Everybody still believes in winning, to achieve, to gain power and to cope.

Arsenal hasn't and for me, this leaves a bitter taste.

Do we intend to lose? I don't think so but what do we do to win? Do we do anything to win? When we say, we are in transition and we are building - do we go in every game practicing? Everything at Arsenal contradicts itself. Building is a lie when our players are leaving and we have to rely upon new names, new faces to keep this lie of building and developing up.

In fact, in Wenger's time, for all the money we have, the 3rd richest club in the world, we haven't achieved all that much that we weren't achieving before Wenger and with Wenger, we achieved by constant, rapid, buying before each major trophy.

Does anybody even calculate this or are we so in love, in maya and illusion at the glamourised celebrity status, idolatry obeisance we give to TV entities that we've lost what football is about. People say we must support the team, but is the club supporting the team? Fabregas was given a very long contract and in my view, he will leave soon for a record breaking contract elsewhere too. What sense does it make for us to give him a long contract when he is worth more elsewhere - everything about that long contract states, he will go.

In the end though... who cares. I don't.

because I know those in place at Highbury now are not as big as the spirit that football has and they will be looked back as nothing when the real power of football returns and takes over.

I don't mind that clubs are in debt. I don't care but if you can go into battle and die fighting to win and never stop trying to win - Football will never die.

No replacement for Flamini - Flamini Stats and; no point running around if you are in the wrong place

2008-05-06T11:49:00.005+01:00

I think a lot of words have been bandied around about the club in recent years. Mainly building and developing and faith in youth.

I think we can throw those out of the window now can't we, as more and more of or players move on and let's face it - we just get some great players and give them the experience to play in the top flight and then sell them on. Hardly a long term plan is it. More like, just buying players to make a profit.

The difference is, for now, what to do about Flamini? A lot of people are looking for replacements in our team and well... I think that may not work - completely. There is no denying Arsenal will be up there fighting for the top spot next season. I think the club will be in a position to cope with this adequately after this season and with the finances in place - cope with any circumstances that may present themselves.

But you can't replace a player like Flamini. He has moved on to a club where he is being paid very well. He is obviously somebody who is in demand and he was wanted by a lot of clubs. The thing with Arsenal is - if you want to make these players, what are you prepared to do, to keep these players. Nobody thought about this, did they.

I think Wenger, will have to in all circumstances, change the shape of the team. Flamini covered a lot of ground. He was not merely talented as a footballer but he had stamini but also a great reading of the game. There is no point running around if, you are in the wrong place.

We can use this analogy in many different ways. For instance, say Arsenal take on a team from league one and league two. I bet they will run around but all that running around is nothing if you're playing a team, to stand and run in positions where clear goal scoring chances are.

In the say way, this is Arsenal's problem (and where Flamini alleviated us), that we run around a hell of a lot of the time but we are playing teams who know where to stand - we counter negate our own view of football. It doesn't work like that. So that's where experienced footballers come in.

Wenger has a choice after losing Flamini. He would either train a person, a new player, into the Arsenal pass and move against teams trained to stand against us (something Flamini alleviated by complementing Fabregas and Hleb but also operating as a defensive shield) or, revert back to the passing and moving with somebody like Kolo, Song etc playing as we have done in the past few years.

As per usual, after the first few wins in the season, we will go off the boil in the 2nd quarter of the season and eventually finish somewhere near the top and just hope to clinch that titles.

I guess the stats speak for themselves and it just highlights, there are some players we can't replace. Flamini was just under-used over the years and all we have got left is to ask ourselves, what are our weaknesses and how do we alleviate them.

Well, Flamini alleviated them but all we need now is a stronger defence and a greater attack that can score goals from different corners. I think during the Invincibles season our major scorers were Pires and Henry because the rest of the team covered for them and Ashley was defending as well as attacking with them... Ball winners in the middle, alternating play making by Pires and Vieira, ball winning by Vieira, Gilberto and Lauren.

Freddie, just to run around a lot and use his pace to cause problems.

I guess that's about it.

Another great player lost by Arsenal's Inside Problems - Arsenal Leeds Everton Ladies.

2008-05-05T21:15:00.005+01:00

Videos of highlights at the bottom

If we look back at Ashley Cole, one of the best left backs in the country and how the club and the supporters villified him - with the loss of players recently it makes me wonder why the hell we were against him. He wanted another 5k. People called him Cashley...

He only wanted another 5k to stay at a club he was at for most of his life... so why did we attack him for? It's because, well I feel we fell for what the club were doing. We were entranced by the building of a new stadium and all that, that would bring us. New membership schemes that made fans feel a part of the club - everything else. We could go on and on but people don't notice these things because, well we all fall for it don't we.

Now we've lost a player that AC Milan have paid a hell of a lot of money for. A fantastic contract and again, like Ashley Cole and many other players that have moved on from a club and done well, we have given up on him. We are supposed to be building but we live in a strange myth that these players don't do well upon leaving. Says the club that barely scraped into Champions League qualification after being invincible for a season getting an FA Cup and have won nothing... since, but become a club that manufactures excuses and reasons for blame instead of fixing problems.

But we say we can fix problems.

Nobody wanted our other players. I hear about replacements. We think we can replace Flamini. Flamini was one of our most even present players for a number of seasons. Important in Carling Cup campaigns. A great substitute. Touted as the next big thing from Marseille but we wasted him like we do many other players. Again this is something only Arsenal can answer. People talk about other players replacing Flamini, that he isn't as important and that he's not that great. That's complete rubbish.

AC Milan could take the pick of the crop of the world's footballers but chose Flamini at a salary that is comparable to the World's elite. Either AC Milan are stupid (won more trophies than Arsenal) or they think they have a great player.

If we really think AC Milan made a mistake and should have took one of the other players we have that are being touted as great...

Simple question. Why didn't they? Why isn't anybody else interested in Song, Diaby, Gilberto, Denilson. Why isn't anybody interested in the other players? Only Hleb is a factor in place but even he could be leaving soon as well.

So let's stop making excuses as fans. Let's stop blaming the players who lets face it, may not have a career soon and are talented and deserve the wages they are getting. They entertain billions around the world so let's have a reality check shall we. This is the money that is involved so live with it because, if we weren't all interested in it, writing blogs, reading papers, watching sky sports. They wouldn't earn this money.

We should compare ourselves to other teams. After all, we are the third richest club in the world. Yet we spend as much money as a Championship club. Some people would think we're in trouble, but hold on, we spent 10 million to hold on to Henry for a year - eventually releasing him for peanuts if we consider the miniscule games he played for us for that 10 million.

Then he comes out with the BBC when he has a DVD coming out.

We will soon discover what a great player we've lost and I guess we will then make excuses, more excuses then some more excuses and we will continue to do that. It's because, this is what we are fed from the club. People believe the excuses because it helps them support the team because without excusing the frailties of a club, they wouldn't be able to support the team. God knows what they would have been like if we were mid-table.

Thankfully to us, we've never really been out of the top flight so we can't say we've had it bad, but we have had it stupid and this is one of the stupidest periods for Arsenal where, becoming Great, truly Great has been knocking on our door for 10 years now but we ignore it to sell football shirts and make money from membership packs.

Arsenal fc v Everton fc
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