Sir Alex retiring - the loss of an unpleasant bully

As much of the biased Manu-luvvie media sings the praises of the retiring Sir Alex Ferguson, it is worth remembering just how unpleasant and nasty a human being Sir Alex is.  No one should forget the bullying and intimidation of officials, the control of the 'free'press and his nasty side in bullying his own players.  I also thought this was a good moment to educate a few people on the real Sir Alex, the bully who has a lot of corrupt dirt to hide:

"Having researched the background to the feud between Alex Ferguson and the BBC, it has become pretty clear that Alex Ferguson may well have created this feud as a smokescreen to obscure our view of the real dirt. They key to the whole affair lies in a racehorse, the Rock of Gibraltar.

Firstly let's go back a few years to 2001 when John Magnier and JP McManus first began buying shares in Manchester United. Alex Ferguson was friendly with these men and was a keen dabbler in horse racing. At around the same time the racehorse, the Rock of Gibraltar, was carving out a reputation as one of the best around. Interestingly the 'gift' of 50% of the Rock to Alex Ferguson occurred at around the very same time that Magnier and McManus began acquiring their first shares in Manchester United. The fact that a senior manager in a PLC should be accepting such a large gift from a major shareholder is dubious in itself.

Whatever the truth behind the Rock, Ferguson was the 50% registered owner and as the horse's value skyrocketed with his success, it became clear that the potential stud value of the Rock would be huge (up to 10million/year). Whether Ferguson had any claim to the stud money was the root of the long running and ugly dispute which would ultimately see Ferguson sue Magnier for 50% of the stud fees.

There is some more interesting background to this affair. Magnier and McManus (via Cubic Expression Ltd) acquired another big chunk of Manchester United from BSkyB; Murdoch's company had their takeover of MUFC blocked which then resulted in them relinquishing their 9.9% stake to the Irishmen. It would therefore appear that Magnier and McManus are on pretty decent terms with Mr Murdoch, no wonder the Murdoch media empire has been so quiet on the Magnier/Ferguson/BBC saga.

Thus the informal gift of the Rock led to a dispute which turned friends into bitter enemies. Magnier was not going to give in easily, he vigorously denied Ferguson's claims and immediately hired Kroll Inc, Wall Street's so called 'private eye', to begin the digging into Ferguson's dodgy dealings. Kroll dug the dirt and this led to the infamous '99 questions' for the board. These 99 questions exposed Alex Ferguson and his son, Jason, as well as casting doubt over the honesty of 13 Manchester United transfers.

As the ante was upped by Magnier, Ferguson realised he was out of his depth and buckled by accepting a tiny settlement fee, of note this was significantly less than he had previously been offered to keep things away from a court. This was in March 2004, a key fact is that this was two months before the BBC's program that detailed some of Magnier's infamous 99 questions.

Ferguson was clearly rather scared that his dirty linen was to be aired in public. This was because neither Magnier or McManus had a seat on the board, meaning that they could at any point have called an emergency general meeting to discuss the 99 questions in front of all shareholders. Ferguson clearly had a lot to hide, he had bitten off more than he could chew in taking on Magnier, Magnier had found out things that Ferguson didn't want to see the light of day, Ferguson didn't want the 99 questions to be made public and he quickly dropped the lawsuit.

The BBC program was actually a bit of a damp squib, they were just feeding off Manchester United's internal review which had been forced upon the club by Magnier's 99 questions. Even the club's own internal review found significant problems and irregularities in numerous transfers, as well as breaches of FIFA rules. The release of this internal review was moved forward to reduce the impact of the BBC program 'Ferguson and son' which was initially due to precede it.

In reality Ferguson is probably deflecting anger towards the BBC because he is still fuming that he was completely outmanoeuvred by John Magnier. A man that is used to bullying people into accepting his way was bullied into submission by a more powerful man and made to look very foolish in the process. Alex Ferguson came very close to losing his job in the process, he was also very close to having all his dirty linen washed in public. Magnier and McManus walked away with a huge profit, selling their stake to Malcolm Glazer in 2005.

The wonderful irony of this whole affair is that so much rage is now being directed at people who do not deserve it. Firstly Ferguson's rage with the BBC is completely misplaced, he should be looking long and hard at his own dodgy dealings, he also should never have taken on John Magnier and the muck raking would never have happened. Secondly Manchester United fans direct so much rage towards the Glazers when it is likely if it were not for Alex Ferguson's lawsuit then they would have far more benevolent dictators in charge, it is Alex Ferguson's greed that is really to blame, still it is easier to be angry with anyone other than your beloved bully of a manager.

This story really does have it all, blackmail, dodgy dealings, corruption, horse racing and football. Strangely the Premier League, the FA and FIFA have never looked into the dirt that Magnier exposed at Old Trafford.  It is likely that the 99 questions and Kroll's investigative findings have been locked in a safe somewhere in Ireland, just in case in the not too distant future someone needs reminding who their daddy is."

Lucky Arsenal? Not at all

It looked like being another Blackburn, although we did not deserve to go behind, the domination in the first half had not been converted into clear cut chances and goals, albeit we did have two decent half chances which were narrowly missed by Giroud and Gervinho.  Norwich were pretty well organised on the whole and then took the lead completely against the run of play mid way through the second half and this sparked the game into life.

Norwich should never have had a free kick, their player tripped himself up and it was an extremely dangerous position for the dead ball, right on the right hand corner of the penalty box.  Credit is also due for the excellent delivery and header, some may blame Vermaelen, truth be told it was a brilliant set piece that is extremely tricky to do much about.  Norwich then proceeded to do some of the most tedious and pathetic time wasting, every goal kick, every free kick, every single throw in was taken as slowly as possible, it really was anti-sportsmanlike.

Then the so called 'controversy' - Giroud had his shirt hauled half off his back in the box, replays show this convincingly, it may not have been a great position for him to do much given where the ball was, but it was utterly stupid of Kamara to commit such a blatant foul.  The linesman on the far touch line called it from a distance and fair play to him, it was a spot on call.  The behaviour of the Norwich team was pathetic and symptomatic of the complete lack of respect shown to officials in the modern game.  Clearly they felt vulnerable and they would have done better to get on with the game, instead their anger and aggression worked against them, it gave our players more belief.  Norwich had chosen to destroy themselves by lamely trying to blame their own stupidity on the referee.

Norwich then crumbled.  The introduction of Podolski, Ox and Theo had certainly introduced some more pace and directness, and it was the Ox's excellent burst and 1-2 that saw Giroud tap home, credit to the Frenchman for being in the right place to take advantage though.  Podolski's excellent 20 yard blaster made the game safe.  It was a cracking show of character from the team and a really important win, we now move ahead of Tottenham and Chelsea with only a handful of games remaining.

The grapes are certainly sour in Norwich and the context of their spineless whining is very very amusing indeed.  Firstly their goal came from a free kick that should never have been.  Secondly Theo had a very good case for a penalty just after he had come on.  Thirdly replays show that our penalty was undeniable, Giroud's shirt was hauled half off his back.  Fourthly Norwich bottled it mentally, their childish dissent was like surrendering, they should have taken the decision like men and got on with the game, rather than aggressively trying to blame the referee for a good decision.  Fifthly their time wasting was poor.  I am sure that certain anti-Arsenal sections of the media will unfairly try to make Norwich appear unlucky, objective context shows this not to be the case, Norwich got exactly what they deserved from this game, and that is zero points.

Mike Riley has his head up his own derriere

 

I was casually reading through the newspapers last weekend when I stumbled upon this interview involving the PL's refereeing chief Mike Riley and fellow referee Martin Atkinson.  I was absolutely flabbergasted at some of the ignorance, delusion and complete denial shown by these men.  This was especially true as regards the 'respect' or lack of it for officials on the football field.  Mike Riley said:

"But we’re now seeing 50  per cent fewer yellow cards for dissent than we were five years ago. We’ve got drastically reduced numbers of players being dismissed for using foul and abusive language to match officials. The respect between players and referees has never been better."

Shocking that the man running refereeing in this country is so utterly wrong or so completely corrupt.  The number of yellow and red cards is a terribly poor marker for the 'respect' shown to officials.  The reason yellows and reds for dissent has dropped so significantly is that dissent is now just tolerated by the officials, things are so dreadfully bad that referees cannot consistently punish dissent, as it would frequently lead to games becoming 5-a-side.

Referees get little support from their governing body, they are often hung out to dry, they also get no support from modern technology, despite the fact that virtually all other major sports have incorporated the use of technology to help their officials.  Dissent is so so rife that I feel sorry for the officials, players are always kicking the ball away, constantly time wasting, routinely swearing and abusing officials, referees are far more frequently surrounded and intimidated than in days gone by.  Managers like Alex Ferguson are allowed to bully referees with complete impunity.

Mike Riley is a pathetic weak man who is covering up a cancer that is eating away at the modern game.  The fact that crime is not punished in a stateless country does not mean crime does not occur, it just means that there is no enforced rule of law.  Diving and violent tackling are also other issues that need to be properly tackled with consistent disciplinary action that can only come with video technology.  Football is being run by a group of utterly incompetent fools, who else could honestly think footballing discipline had improved in recent years:  

"Inevitably we always focus on the things that go wrong, but we don’t see the 95 per cent of really good respectful behaviour that happens during a game."

Predictably depressing

Sadly this was just what many of us feared.  We were not outplayed, far from it, we controlled long periods of the game and dominated possession for the most part, the problem was that we didn't quite have enough cutting edge going forward to turn this into goals, and Tottenham, like many sides in the last few seasons, realised they could kill us on the break, our defensive vulnerability to the counter attack has been an obvious Achilles heel of ours for several years now.

Our midfield were generally excellent, Ramsey having a particularly outstanding game, Spurs couldn't keep hold of the ball for long, the mediocrity of Parker was obvious.  The problem was Tottenham just defended so much better than us and we couldn't make out midfield superiority pay enough.  Our defensive naivety was summed up by the terrible defending for the two Spurs goals just before the half time break, there was no cohesiveness, the unit was all over the shop, Bale and Lennon respectively both had acres and this was when the game was lost.

The pushing up of the centre backs was particularly suicidal and to blame for both goals, Vermaelen was also caught ball watching pretty badly for the second.  The only mitigation was that the first could easily have been called offside.  The problem was our offside trap was too aggressive, it meant we ignored runners and when it was sprung, we were totally sunk.  Really we should have focused more on the men running through, we have good defenders, and gambling like this with the offside trap is surely suicidal?

The goal from Theo's free kick early in the second half was almost the catalyst, we came very close to equalising on several occasions, Lloris did very well to claim an excellent Jenkinson centre, the excellent Ramsey shot just wide late on.  Spurs also could and arguably should have made the game safe on the break, we were very open at times, Bale missed a sitter, as did Sigurdsson.  I also don't think our substitutions worked that well, we could have done with some more pace in attack, the problem is our squad is short in this regard.  Even still, we showed character, kept pushing a did create a few decent chances late on, Podolski's deflected shot could have gone anywhere near the end.

Overall I think we have just become a tad predictable, both defensively and offensively.  We are too vulnerable to counter attacks, we need to wise up to this fast, and we are not the counter attacking force that we used to be.  I honestly feel we have the better players than Spurs, Bale and Lennon were excellent though, we could do with this kind of pace on both attacking flanks, but in many other areas we are significantly stronger, central midfield for example.  We now have it all to do, Chelsea and Tottenham are catchable but it will take a very good run to claw back the deficit.

Negativity of a nasty minority is not helping

Firstly as I know some rather small minded individuals will be reading this and looking for another needless fight, I shall explain myself clearly and simply.  Yesterday saw us win a game of football against an Aston Villa side that were on a fairly reasonable run of form.  I know it was far from perfect, and yes, several of our recurrent problems, most notably our defensively susceptibility to the counter attack, were obvious.  However the side did show a lot of character, they rallied when it would have been far easier to let their heads drop, they fought back to get a vital win and the three points which keep us well in the race for the Champions League spots.

Some seem to think that games against Villa should be 'big games', the breathtaking arrogance shown by this kind of Arsenal supporter is demonstrative of a quite remarkable hypocrisy, as this brand of Arsenal fan is often quick to accuse our own players of complacency, their complacency is assuming that not every league game is a big important three points for the taking is so deeply hypocritical.  It is also this breed who never gives any credit to the opposition, any game not won in style is always to be blamed on someone from our own camp, it is the blame game, never show humility and never show any respect for the opposition.

Villa did well, their tactics were spot on, and although one can make a very strong argument that we should have been far wiser in our dealing with their swift counter attacks, credit must go to them, they also defended well for the most part.  Lambert does appear to be building a good young side and it will take him time, if they can stay up then they will only grow, the problem for them is that it is very much touch and go as to whether they will stay up, their lack of an ability to hold on to leads has cost them so many points in recent weeks.

I think Arsene needs to wake up and realise that the way we have played 4-3-3 is defensively extremely naive.  My personal view is that we do not have the correct players to play 4-3-3 adequately, and that Arsene has used it because it allows him to play numerous attacking central players.  The problem is that this has meant our side has frequently lacked defensive balance and often attacking width.  We were simply leaving ourselves outnumbered at the back on too many occasions yesterday, defenders were bombing forward and the gaps were not being plugged, so Villa often countered with a numerical advantage and this had to tell at some point, it has been a recurrent problem at the Emirates for many months now.

Whatever the manager's failings and whatever the inadequacies of certain players, it certainly does the team absolutely no good to get on their backs, everyone would benefit from the support of all the fans for all of our matches.  Unfortunately this isn't happening and a negative minority of our own support are really harming our chances.  Players like Gervinho may not be good enough, but do people honestly think it helps anyone other than our opposition to boo and barrack these individuals?  It is so so depressing and so so counter-productive.  I wonder how many of Bergkamp/Pires/Anelka/Wiltord/Henry/Toure would have been booed by this current crop of spoilt supporters, it is worth remembering how many of our greats took a long time to find their feet and benefited from the patience of our 'supporters'.

One player that it is absolutely vital the supporters get behind is the goalkeeper, especially when this goalkeeper is young and relatively inexperienced.  Some would do well to remember that Wojciech Szczesny has only player just over 70 first team games, and overall he has done a damn fine job for one so young.  He is the best young keeper out there for me, of course he has made errors, even the best experienced keepers will do this and every keeper goes through a bad run of form.  His error against Blackburn was poor, however he was not to blame for Munich's second goal, and yesterday he was given far too much criticism for Villa's goal, it was a belting low shot from Weimann, maybe he could have saved it, but it was certainly not a howler.  Our young keeper needs our support not the fickle criticism that he is getting from some of our 'support'.

So there you have it, I am sorry if I am short circuiting some of your 'Wenger Out' brains by criticising the manager and also urging you all to support all of our players all of the time, but frankly I am fed up to the back teeth with the fickle arrogance that some of our spoilt supporters are showing.  It is not big, it is not clever and most importantly is is not helping the club, in fact the only people it is helping is Tottenham and Chelsea in battling us for the CL spots.  So grow up, support the players when they are on the pitch and stop moaning like spoilt babies.  I have no problem with criticism of the manager, players and the board, but is must be done with respect, and at the right time and in the right place.  Abusing our own during home games is simply not on.

Brilliant Bayern deserve applause and Arsene doesn't deserve ignorant abuse

I had a feeling that we were going to lose, Bayern are simply a fantastic football side, packed full of classy athletes, so cohesive as an attacking and defensive unit, they were simply a class above us on the night.  Sometimes one simply has to hold up one's hands and give immense credit to the opposition, and I think last night was one of those nights.  Bayern were top notch and must have a great chance of being champions this year.

I haven't posted much recently and there has been a reason for this, although our recent form has been distinctly mediocre, this hasn't been the reason.  Frankly I am sick to the back teeth of the way that the media and some Arsenal fans have been treating our manager, Arsene Wenger.  As many of you know I am a regular critic of some of his tactics, signings and overall management.  Still, nothing is an excuse for the rank lack of respect shown to him by so many people who should know so much better.

Nothing can excuse this lack of respect that results in disgusting abusive vitriol, that results in a really negative atmosphere at home games, that results in people laughing and joking at someone who is giving his all for the club, that results in factually incorrect news stories being printed because people can't be bothered to check the most basic of facts, and that results in some ridiculous hysterical comments which are so deluded they have absolutely zero grasp of reality.

The last few years have most definitely had their problems but is is ludicrous to see them as a total dismal failure, and it is equally flawed to ignore what has been achieved on a relative shoe string budget in recent years.  Practically there are many things that Arsene would probably do differently if given another chance, the problem is the reality of the situation: several other clubs have almost infinite budgets, Arsene has had his hands tied in the transfer market, the support Arsene has had from the board has been grossly inadequate and Arsene has been let down by some rather dishonest ungrateful individuals.

In all honesty I am absolutely fed up with the attitude of many journalists and some of our own support.  It is irrelevant how badly one judges we are doing, even if we were near the relegation zone, it would never excuse some of the pathetic vitriol that is being dished in the manager's direction.  Bayern are a great club and gave us a lesson, let's give them credit, and let's stop acting like spoilt toddlers, if one can never appreciate what's in one's glass, then one becomes a  fucking miserable pathetic bitter individual and that's not nice.  Football is a sport, Arsene is a good human being and let's just show a little bit more respect for each other.  Let's support the players on the pitch and treat our greatest ever manager with a bit more respect.

Alex Ferguson abuses with impunity (again)

 

"The stand-side linesman [Beck] didn’t give us a thing all day. For me it was a poor performance by him. Why he never saw the penalty kick from Wayne Rooney, some other decisions, we remember him well from his time at the Chelsea game when Drogba was three yards offside and he gave onside."

“He had a shocking game. I’m disappointed in his performance, I really am. He had a bad game and we never got anything on that side of the pitch. But you’re 1-0 up with a minute to go and comfortable at that stage.”

 

The above quotes are yet another example of the disgusting behaviour of Sir Alex Ferguson.  It seems that this nasty man is allowed to bully, abuse and intimidate officials with an impunity that is not afforded to anyone else in English football.

 

All other managers are charged by the FA when they criticise officials in such a fashion, in a way that is deliberately designed to intimidate and influence future decision making.  For example Sam Allardyce was charged last week for some similar comments on officials, arguably his were much milder than Ferguson's.

 

The FA's inaction on this is a disgrace and shows that football is overtly corrupt in this country.  Manchester United have too much power and have a free reign in ways that other clubs do not.  The referee selection process is just part of this, the systematic bias in Manchester United's favour is beyond a disgrace, and the way that Ferguson gets away with murder gives their game away.  The title might as well be handed out by Sir Alex, this would only be slightly less fair than the current system.