Arsenal_AM_Episode_23_Celebration Police out in force

Arsenal have been portrayed in a negative light in the media for a long time, we were rarely the cool kids, we didn't have the best players and when we did they came from the wrong place or couldn't stand up to the rough and tumble of the British game. 

Well we could have and are doing so again, I respectfully tell the media (the disingenuous parts of the media at least to shove their narratives up their holes) 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Good Friday morning. We are still in the Champions League final. We still play PSG. And Palace made it to their Conference League final. Which means we will likely see a strongly reduced team against them on the final day of the season. Sadly, Villa also made it to their Europa League final. And that means they will be absolutely no good against Matt City on the final day of the season. But I don't think it will need it. It would just be nice to see the master of the Europa League get knocked out after giving the first points. Nobody needs that. But in fairness to them, it was an emphatic win over Nottingham Forest, who just didn't have the squad depth, and we know what that's like from last year. But still, God, I don't want them to win. So as there's not much Arsenal news today, other than us being in the Champions League final, being top of the league, which I know people are very, very um upset about, especially the celebration police, etc. Um I was gonna talk a little bit about Arsenal and the media and the media landscape where it's primed to poke at us, not give us the due credit that we deserve, and there's been a historical slant to it. So I'm gonna look at it and see what a bit of AI comes up with, and we go from there. So I think I've long been aware of uh anti- anti-arsenal bias in the media, but about three years ago when Antipos the coggluo was you know it's who we are mate, um and Spurs went down to nine men and got beat by Chelsea in a hilarious game. 1.76 acres, who was on Twitter at the time, has since left, but can be found at uh on Blue Sky at 1.76 acres, all spelt out, did ask the AI a piece of what would the headlines be for if it was Arsenal versus it was Spurs. The the general sentiment was plucky Spurs with nine men face Chelsea and brave you know defeat or whatever it is, and on the other side, then it was you know incompetent Arsenal throw throwaway points or something like that. Again, it just e even the AI, based on what it was fed and what had what it had available to it, was basically seeing a bias from the media against us. That bias is long known, I think it's long held. I was on the Ars Blog Discord earlier on, there was a bit of conversation around it and different people, and again I I played the clip last last week of George Graham from 1990 after we had points seducted at all after the Battle of Old Trafford, and he was like, Oh, they want to get at us, they want to do us, and he created a great siege mentality. But his title-winning teams had the best defence and scored the most goals in both seasons, and the 1991 team was a phenomenal outfit with Alan Smith win winning the the golden boot, Dave Seaman winning the golden glove, and we were tight. They hated that we were tight in Misley, but we could also put teams of the sword. You know, we put Liverpool, I think we bet them 4-0 off recollection. Might have been three, and we absolutely pummeled them, and they were they were the best team around at the time, and the credit that we got was probably nil. We went up to Anfield later that season, got a 1-0 win. So over the course of two games, we gave up nothing. We got a plus plus six in the points and plus four in the goal difference, and that was Tony Adams' first game out of prison, um, and that was just not you know, it wasn't done, and you know, the the praise was not good. I think the only compliment I can really remember was that they kind of decided that Dave Seaman was the best goalkeeper in the country, and he was for quite quite a number of years. Uh again, kind of got gets maligned over the getting lobbed a couple of times during the course of his career. But again, I think that happens to most keepers over the course of 10, 15, 20 years, however long you want to go on. But yeah, just looking back at I I asked AI um about an anti-i anti-arsenal bias in the media, and they said it's uh staple of the of our fan base, it's all it's all our fault. That's um uh around the perceived double standards, etc. So we are currently in the celebration police era from tw from 2022 to present. So again, this is the Richard Keyes and others, you know, saying uh over celebrating, and the theme is Arsenal celebrating like they've won the league, despite other teams doing the same. And uh again, we have the celebration piece. I I do quite like the celebration piece on social media, it's uh it's funny. Um yes, so we had we kind of have that at the moment, and we're I think we're seeing that a lot this week after making the the Champions League final that oh we over celebrated, we've won nothing, you know, it it means nothing. You know, PSG also got there, and it's not their first time in 20 years, funnily enough. And what they they had fireworks, they actually had 127 arrests. Um that is a good night out um in prison or for prison, but again, you have a lot of of that narrative that is pushed at Arsenal for the very simple reason is our fan base tends to respond. I don't know whether that just means we have a young fan base, whether we have built up that fan base through things like Arsenal TV or not, but the media do it for a reason, it sells, you know. It's a little bit like the the American news, if it bleeds, it leads, and we probably have something uh a bit like if it uh if his arsenal lies, it's it's it's gonna survive. I I don't know, I'm not good not good at the alliteration. I had a better one in my head about two seconds ago and it's gone. But you know, the we have that fan base, and I witnessed recently a couple of guys doing their content creation, and they had a a bit of comparing the 2016 Arsenal team with the 2026 Arsenal team, and who would you pick, who would go over? And they you know they picked kind of Hector Bellarin versus Timber. Now we loved Hector Bellarin, but in a like-for-like comparison, you you couldn't overlook Timber and what he's done this season, you know, and you know this this team are going to be champions. Um would you pick Martin Odegaard over Meser Ozil? And for me I would. I would pick Odegaard over Osil because I I think as good as he was and the magic moments he provided how Osil left the club and how he's behaved since I think taints him for me. Again, I was proud to witness him, but did he live up to everything that he could have done? No, not for me. But again, they were kind of picking Ozil and kind of talking him up and doing things like that that you are there to garner reaction and poke poke poke the bear and hope you get criticism, debate, kind of how could you pick Ozil or anything along those lines. And having witnessed it, I was like, yeah, we have that all over the place. And again, we're in the celebration police era era and I nearly enjoy the jibes that come out of it at this point because much more much like Nick Hornby said in Fever Pitch, you know, we don't win for us. We don't care if it's ugly, we don't care if it doesn't entertain you. This is for Arsenal. It's it's it's for us, it's personal, it's private, and if you don't like it, you're not one of us and we don't care. We're still gonna sing our sing the songs, we're still gonna be champions, and you can shove it up your holes. Um I think Nick Corby put it in a much more succinct and polite way than that than that, but again, that's that's not uncommon for us. I think during the Wenger era or the early part of the Wenger era, where we changed from being Boring Boring Arsenal and just a cup team, and probably a poor enough team, I suppose in the latter George Graham days, you know, with all due respect, Chris Kawamiya and Glenn Helder were limited players, and we were we were shopping off that cart, and you know, it kind of tells you probably where we were. We were kind of still above spurs, but anyway. Um the we Wenger changed it, he brought in you know players like Vieira, Petty, Overmars, and and got Burkham playing at a level that was just spectacular, and then you garnish that with Honori, uh Anelka, Robert Perez, Freddie Jungberg, pretty much everyone up to the Invincibles, and we were able to mix it with the physical teams, we were able to outplay the other teams, and we got some praise, you know, Arsenal were nice to watch, we were great to see, and you know, we it was just brilliant up to about 20 2002 in 2003 there was a change when we saw the likes of Sam Arlite and and Stowe kind of oh they don't like it up 'em, and you know, giving all that, and the media putting the the Wanger taking off his tie at Bolton. And it became a it led to the the soft the soft Arsenal or the same old Arsenal narrative. Now again, AI thinks it was from 2006 to 2019. I think that stuff started that day at Bolton, and you know, we had a lot of a lot of days and a lot of injuries were caused by that narrative. You know, Abdiabi's career was seriously impacted, Aaron Ramsey was seriously impacted, Jose Antonio Reyes was seriously impacted by this narrative of they don't like it open and were allowed to kick the shit out of them. And if you j if anyone wants to look back at anything that day when we went to Old Trafford for the potential 50th unbeaten game, and we were robbed and assaulted. I mean, just looking back on it now, Jesus VAR would have been absolutely spectacular at the time. United wouldn't have had a player left on the pitch, and we would have absolutely hammered them. You know, the the very first incident of Rio Ferdinand cleaning out Freddie Jungberg as he would go through on goal, not even a free, and it was clearly a right card. It's that media narrative that is dangerous because the media like to have that, and they like to get those moments from the Arsenal fans and the Arsenal fan TV where we were essentially turning on ourselves over over time, over the latter end of the Wenger era, and it created a very, very toxic fan base for everyone, really, even not going to the stadium online was toxic, the stadium was toxic, and I spoke yesterday about how well Arteta has done to heal that. Again, Arteta experienced that from the pitch, knowing that the fan base was broken apart by things, and I think as Arteta has built the harmony of the squad again he he asked everybody to get on board the boat, everyone to get on on board with the process. He called out the players who were not on board and were unhelpful. There was a certain element of the fan base where we you know it was cited, oh we want an an Ozzle, we want a you know, Team Uzzle, Team Arteta. You know, Team Opa Team Obamayang, Team Arteta, so on and so forth. I always thought the I believed in the project that Arteta was doing, and I always felt that it would take time. I saw what he was doing in getting the the bad eggs out of the club, and I saw what he was doing with bringing the young guys in, and again another great example of that was George Graham when he came in and the 1989 season what it led to. Now, it's probably taken Arteta a little longer to get to where we are than maybe he would have liked, but at the same time we had two eighth place finishes, no Europe, and we were competing against Nation States, Chelsea, and Liverpool who had Jargen Klopp. Now I was just looking at Jargen Klopp's um honours list. Now I don't rank the FIFA Club World Cup, and I don't rank the UEFA Super Cup as anything really to brag about. Again, that's that's personal opinion, and it's not belittling any clubs who've won won them. But aside from that, in Jurgen Klopp's nine years, he's won one league title, one Champions League, and one FA Cup. Arteta having should he win those two this year, and again, not saying he will, but will have equaled Klopp in six and a half years. You will not hear that said outside of our fan base, and you probably will not hear that said inside our fan base either, for the very simple reason is one we're we're told the narrative and it gets our backs up and we don't we we kind of think a little unclearly. So with that, you know, I kind of want to just point that out. And if anyone hasn't seen the movie 89, it is a great example of what George Graham did, and there are parallels to what Michael Arteta did. Yeah, we don't have that same back four, but again, we have an incredible back four right now, so let's enjoy that. Um and just looking at the other aspects where we've been beaten over over the uh head. You know, we had the foreign arsenal in the late 90s, early 2000s, you know, then Wenger kind of brought in the British Corps, which didn't really work out. I think you know, we we saw injuries to Jack Wilter, another guy whose you know they don't like an album, really hindered his career, and that that's a loss to the English team because he was a magnificent player. Um and again they they kind of signal out on the uh AI that Granite Jacca and Arsenal were were targeted too. Again, I think Granite Jacca, when you see him at Sunderland, hasn't got the yellow cards, hasn't got the red cards that he got with Arsenal. There is a huge thing of, well, you know, it was a Granite Jacques and he was impetuous, he did this, he did that. I thought, you know, there were times he made some poor tackles, but there were some times where the tackles he was sent off for were ridiculous. Uh there was one one that comes to mind in midfield, and you know, he was kind of deemed I was a pure cynical foul and so on and so forth. It was no more cynical than any Man City foul at the time, but the difference was we weren't winning, we hadn't won. So when it comes to the media and their celebration police and the comments to to royalous, the but the best solution is to laugh at them because it is laughable. Again, even even Ian Wright said you know after the after beating Athleti the other night, you know, the celebr celebration priests to come first, be warned. I would not give up a moment of my celebration for anyone, and anybody who wants me to to do that, nah uh. And I think with that I'll give about 38 seconds over to the other guys to to to give a prime example of what the the media want us to be.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Stop humming that song. I can hum if I want to. I know you can. I'm asking you to stop. Well, if you're asking, then I'll stop. Thank you. Could you not smile like that? Now you're asking me to mask my emotions because of how it makes you feel. That I will not do.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

That we will not do. We're gonna celebrate and we're gonna win and we're gonna shove it up their holes. You know, we've got an incredible season, and it has felt very, very long. And I think a lot of that is because the media have been portraying us as anti-football, you know, we're bad for the game, PSG must be at Arsenal for the good of the game. Nothing about Man City, 115 charges, nothing about Chelsea and all their charges, nothing about you know PSG being a Qatari state-owned club now at this stage, right? But we're we're the ones who are bad for the game because one we bite, two it's easier to paint on paint us as the bad guys. I don't know why, because we are the hope. The hope that you can get. Your club together and go and win titles and Champions Leagues. You know, we during the early part of the Arteta time, you know, we were like, well, we've got to be be like Liverpool. It's very hard to be like a Liverpool. Again, they were selling well, Jordan I was fifteen million when fifteen million was a good sales value. Now we are on the precipice. And I think the club have done remarkably well. The manager has done remarkably well. And the fan base has come together and just enjoy every moment, lads. And look at the haters. Haters gonna hate.

SPEAKER_02 22:52

Parsonale! Stop the gun! Get to my day! Parsonalia! Break me with the rock! I'm ready again! One more hit in the red and one! Stop my day!

SPEAKER_04 23:14

Well, Arsenal uh the game and the defended. And I felt like a victim because we couldn't score like we used to. It was really sad.