Piss Poor Punditry & Journalism

If it isn’t one it’s the other.

There is only one thing I hate more than anti-Arsenal punditry and that’s frustratingly bad and terribly researched articles written by so called journalists. Being an Arsenal fan myself I have to, more often that not, put up with a blend of negative punditry and infuriating articles.

Equally annoying are gullible and fickle football fans who believe everything they read and base all their opinions of other teams on 2 minutes of highlights from Match of the Day and Alan Hansens ‘analysis’. I’m tired of people coming up to me and telling me Manuel Almunia is rubbish after they saw his mistake on Saturday but what they fail to take into consideration when making their comment, however, are all the good things he has done not only over the past couple of weeks but over the past season and a bit. And this is merely one example.

What people must also realize is that the club does pay good wages and that we can hold on to our ’star’ players. Contrary to popular belief, Arsenal pay considerably better wages than Liverpool, pay the same as Manchester United and pay considerably less than Chelsea. After reading that, you tell me now that Arsenal don’t pay substantial wages.

Another buzz phrase that has been thrown around by pundits for the past couple of seasons is how young Arsenals team is. There isn’t a more lazy thing you could say about Arsenal. A quick look over the starting XI tells you everything you need to know: Almunia: 31, Clichy: 23, Sagna: 25, Toure: 27, Gallas: 31, Nasri: 21, Walcott: 19, Fabregas: 21, Denilson: 19, van Persie: 25, Adebayor: 24, Average Age: 24. Perhaps it isn’t as old as it could be but the backbone of the team is still one of the most experienced in the Premier League, with Adebayor being the only one who hasn’t played in a Champions League final.

And lately, it has occured to me that journalists and pundits will slate Arsenal for absolutely any reason what so ever; they will even ignore the obvious facts just so they can do their best to have a go at the team. From our apparent lack of ability to play on rough surfaces to how the cold weather can effect our performances, people will say absolutely anything to put the players down.

We play the most beautiful football in the world and instead of applauding us, we find ourselves on the end of harsh criticsm from pundits and football ‘experts’. The world needs more clubs like Arsenal.