Morning.
Moments later, Mikel Arteta will meet the press ahead of the first of three away games before the next Interlull. Tomorrow we go to Turf Moor to take on a Burnley side who have won their last two games, and I can almost guarantee that if/when he is asked about the opposition, he will talk about their tough opponents and the fantastic job Scott Parker and his coaching staff have done there.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard Arteta say anything other than complimentary about the upcoming opposition. We could be playing against a team of one-legged nuns from the Outer Hebrides, and he’d say something like, ‘Well, they’ve got a lot of quality, and player-manager Sister Agnes has a great left foot.’
It’s pretty clear why he does that. He doesn’t want to give them any further motivation before the match. It’s actually common sense. Why liquidate the opposition if it is not necessary? In the past we have seen him use things that other people have said about Arsenal as a way to boost his team. ‘A nice kickabout with the boys’ was a tweet that Ivan Toney came to regret the next time we played Brentford, for example.
I suspect this is probably the way most managers do it these days, partly because we’re in an age where they have to be hyper-aware of the way things are presented in the media. I remember very early in Arteta’s tenure we were about to play a North London derby when Jose Mourinho was in charge of it. The old trick of asking a slightly out-of-context question to the opposition manager during a press conference was guaranteed to hit the jackpot when it came to Arsene Wenger and Mournino. It didn’t work for Arteta though, he just played it all with a straight bat.
Media savvy, yes, but that is also his personality. I think we’re also in an era where the big personalities of yesteryear don’t really exist in Premier League management anymore, but that’s a discussion for another day. Anyway, to get to the point, it was interesting to see Scott Parker asked about Arsenal’s style and ‘reliance’ on set pieces during his press conference yesterday.
I think it’s a fair topic to ask him about as his side will have to deal with our threat tomorrow, but the way it was presented left open for fuel to add to the absurd ‘Arsenal are killing football with set pieces’. However, he was having none of it and said:
I’m not sure I see it that way. When I look at them, I honestly see a fluid team. I see an incredibly well-coached team, a team that solves situations. This is certainly not a team that only depends on fixed game situations.
And when it was put to him that this Arsenal was more George Graham than Arsene Wenger, he didn’t buy it either and said:
No, I wouldn’t say that, but maybe I see it a little differently. When you look at teams and you see the level of detail that clearly goes into certain parts of their game, it’s very, very clear where those details are. All credit to Mikel, because as I said, there are many facets to a football match.
Fair play. I think part of his answer is related to the way managers interact with the media: don’t make unnecessary headlines. But for all the story, discussion and debate, however you want to frame it, the bottom line is that this Arsenal team is really, really good. The team at the top of the table is in the spotlight, which is completely normal, and the reality of the media landscape we live in is that compliments are actually quite boring.
What kind of traction does your outlet get if the discussion is:
Presenter 1: Arsenal are good, aren’t they?
Presenter 2: Yes, yes they are.
Presenter 1: I agree.
Presenter 2: No doubt.
So something we are good at becomes a stick to beat us with. In the same way, if we were weak in something, they would use that too. I know I’ve written about this before and talked about it on the podcasts, but as long as we remain competitive, these are things we’ll have to deal with in the wider media. What we should point out, however, is that consumption of said media is not mandatory, even if it is second-hand.
You may not actively listen to an ex-Sp*rs asshole whose IQ is lower than his shoe size, but you also don’t have to watch the clips when they appear on social media. I get it, it’s really funny to see the guys who have the receipts, who can call them up and provide proof of their hypocrisy, but it doesn’t change their fundamental dishonesty. And I think part of the problem – and not just in football – is that we are bombarded with unfairness every day, and it is becoming more and more normal.
Even with the takedowns, it happens way too often. It used to be a case where lying and nonsense were dismissed, and the perpetrator was considered an idiot not worth paying attention to. Now it is often the most important means of communication. I don’t think it’s healthy, in football or otherwise, and as I said above, fair play to Scott Parker for not taking the bait.
Okay, I’ll leave it at that for now. We’ve got an Arsecast for you below if you didn’t get a chance to listen yesterday, and later we’ll be looking ahead to the Burnley game on Patreon. For just $6 a month you get exclusive content and support everything we do at Arseblog. Sign up here.
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