Can we get on with the football now?

Good morning.

First up, congrats to Arsenal Women who demolished Hacken 4-0 last night in the second leg of the Champions League qualifier. Having lost the first leg 1-0, there was some real pressure going into this one, but the team came up with the goods and go into the draw which takes place at noon today. You can see the goals in the match report, and read Jonas Eidevall’s reaction over on Arseblog News.

Today, Mikel Arteta will meet the press ahead of our game against Leicester tomorrow, and I really hope there aren’t more questions about the ‘dark arts’. As I said earlier in the week, we should take it as a kind of compliment that people are making such a fuss out of it, but it’s all very boring now. Sure, make it your talking point after a big game with Man City so you can wring every click out of it with your engagement-bait coverage, but can we come back down to earth now please?

Every team does it, every manager does it, every player does it. Trying to gaslight people into thinking this is something unique to Arsenal is both tedious and patronising. Everyone knows better. There have been lots of people in glass houses this week throwing lots of stones. The absurdity of some ex-pros sticking the knife into our second half display on Sunday when you consider some of the stuff they got up to in their playing days is off the charts.

I actually think it’s something Mikel Arteta will quietly enjoy as a way of further fostering an ‘us against them’ mentality within his squad. He’s a man who keeps receipts, as we know. Ivan Toney’s ‘nice kick about with the boys’ Tweet festered with him until we next played Brentford, at which point he used as motivation for his team. I’m sure there are countless other examples that have never been made public, and this could well be one of them.

He might worry about how this stuff being relentlessly regurgitated in the media means we play under a kind of spotlight which isn’t always helpful, but…

Source link : https://arseblog.com/2024/09/can-we-get-on-with-the-football-now/

Author : arseblog

Publish date : 2024-09-27 06:22:15

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