Photo from The Daily Mail.
Morning all.
Forget ‘Set Piece FC’, Arsenal have won the title without ‘115 charges’ lurking in the margins like Man City, without buying their own women’s team like Chelsea, without petro-dollars behind them. That should be celebrated.
The words of Ian Herbert writing in The Daily Mail and he has a point. A valid one. The club has spent money of course, lots of it but then so has every club in the Premier League. Like most though, Arsenal have respected the rules. Our women’s team is in a healthy place too, WSL Champions in the making I’m sure and as said before, the only English club to win the Champions League. Twice I hasten to add.
Liverpool did similar last season, yet no one was calling them the Penalty FC or Last Minute FC were they? Their football wasn’t the best but over the ten months, they did what they needed to do in order to win the league. No one cared about how many decisions went their way did they, certainly not in the media but even if they did, their fans wouldn’t have cared less, just as Arsenal fans don’t now.
I love seeing all the videos of the players celebrating, they obviously don’t give a flying fudge what others are writing, why should they as it’ll be their hands on the Premier League trophy come Sunday evening.
I found this part of Ian Herbert’s article interesting: “Data published earlier this year revealed that since the Premier League’s launch in 1992, its clubs had lost a mind-blowing £4.99billion between them, with Chelsea racking up £1.2 bn worth of red ink and City and the Abu Dhabis registering nearly £600m of losses according to their officially published accounts. Arsenal had commanded an overall profit of £132.4m. ”
Yet still both clubs spend…
As Ian Wright is quoted as saying: “We’re chasing down a City side where we’re still talking about charges. How have they got to this? How have they done that? They’re able to buy these great players – Semenyo, Guehi. Arsenal can’t construct their team the way that they can.’
The bitter folk in this footballing world can voice their disgruntlement all they like about VAR, pushing and shoving in the box and decisions which appear to favour Arsenal but the real question is, do they look at their own clubs and judge them the same way?
The officiating in the Premier League is poor in general, why else would there be “ref watch” on Sky Sports each week? Yes, Arsenal might have one or two 50/50 decisions go their way but over the course of this season and those before, they’ve been on the receiving end of many many dreadful decisions. Decisions which have cost the club points and even prizes. No one had something to say about that did they? Two wrongs don’t make a right I know but one shouldn’t pick and choose which wrongs matter more. Because they all matter.
One thing nobody can argue about though is that The Arsenal are Premier League Champions 2025/26.
As Ian Herbert wrote at the end of his article:
Yet for all that, a trophy with red and white ribbons will be paraded this weekend. It will be one of football’s better days.
Indeed it will Ian, indeed it will……
Catch up in the comments.