2010 FIFA World Cup: Arsenal's Disagreements with the English

Good afternoon. Sometimes when you're struggling to get through a bit of a hangover, God sends you a little gift to make things that much more bearable.

Like this.

I'm not a particularly religious man, but I'd like to thank God for that one, it did the trick quite nicely when I was stumbling through Coventry earlier.

Right then, on to today's Arsenal news:

And that about sums it up for today, more tomorrow.

Oh, not sufficient? Well in the absence of any real news I'm going to do my second "blog response." You may recall a little while ago I did a response to an excellent piece of blogging by Lady Arse. Today I'm going to respond to a blog that I didn't rate as excellent. I didn't even agree with it. It is in fact, not even an Arsenal blog. 

Try to bear with me when I tell you it's a Stoke City blog and written by someone using the name "Northy." Now, I know we all love Stoke City dearly, and our last encounter with them was basically a friendly kick-about, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to take issue with this article.

Entitled "Arsenal FC – Is their style ruining the English game?" the author seeks to take Arsenal to task for their part in the downfall of English football, and the England national team.

As those of you who've read my stuff before will know, despite being English, I am not a fan of the England team. I just don't see why being English and being a football fan means you must support England. Attitudes like the one expressed in Northy's article are a good example of what stops me from supporting England.

Patriotism is a strange concept in England. You don't tend to see a lot of people flying flags or showing open pride in their country. Unless of course, there is a World Cup on. For me it goes the opposite way. I'm very proud of being English, I'm proud of my country despite all its various faults, except where the national football team is concerned.

This means I have very little patience with England fans who try to scapegoat Arsenal for England's problems. In the first part of his article, Northy says:

"After watching the disgraceful capitualtion [sic] that was england’s world cup tournament and seeing the bloated cash rich whinging players moping round the pitch constantly moaning and groaning it seems to beg the question, is the style of arsenal football club ruining the game in england.

"England seemed to think it clever to pass the ball around in their own half, buliding [sic] up possession statistics like they are the important and win games. Arsenal’s fault, the tippy tappy culture in full effect. Everything about the north londoners contributes to the poison spreading through the english game."

Personally, I see very little similarity in the way Arsenal and England play their football. And one reason for that is that there are no Arsenal players in the England squad whatsoever, long may it continue. How can Arsenal be to blame for something they have no direct influence on?

Arsenal's shortcomings come in some part from over-reliance on small, technically gifted players who sometimes struggle with the physical side of the game and sometimes aren't direct enough when in possession.

England's problems are very different. If anything they are over-reliant on tough tackling, getting in opponents' faces, and are often too direct. They lack players of outstanding technical ability, and one reason for that is the diabolical way youngsters are trained from an early age in England.

The way it is with England and big tournaments is that when they fail, it's always got to be someone's fault—the manager's tactics were wrong, the referee's decisions were wrong, the player's attitudes were wrong. Arsenal aren't giving English kids a chance so it must be their fault too. All nonsense.

England didn't win the World Cup this year, four years ago, four years before that, and so on because they are not and never have been good enough in 44 years and teams have gotten better and better at playing against them.

Teams like Germany, Spain, and even the USA have all worked out what they have to do when they play England—keep it at their pace and use their superior technical ability and discipline to hit England at the right times. To use a phrase English pundits and fans like to direct at Arsenal when we have a bad result in a physical game, England have been found out.

All of this has nothing to do with Arsenal, no matter how much England fans would rather blame someone than face facts.

Our friend Northy goes on to say:

"Arsene Wegner, the epitomy [sic] of a bad loser, constantly filling the media airwaves with his dangerous propaganda every time a team dares to give his side a game, trying to protect his oh so precious babies with a constant tirade of bile. The main problem is that referees and people at the FA seem to be brainwashed by this rubbish and for teams who play honest football this can make life difficult. Lock him up for crimes against football.

"Then you have the players themselves, falling around like they have been hit by a flying oatcake full of bricks, surrounding the referee like a swarm of locusts protesting that someone dare tackle them, then in a dirty underhand fashion laying in the boot themselves and getting away with it, under the counter tactics.

"The dirtiest team in the premiership and don’t you forget it. Fabregas, a lying cheat who would get off with a caution if found in possession of 10 kilo’s of amsterdam’s finest. Wake up and smell the coffee before it’s too late folks."

Now, sometimes I have an issue with Arsene Wenger when he complains about our team being on the end of physical treatment. After the game against Blackburn at Ewood Park last season, for instance.

He complained about Blackburn's tactics, but Blackburn are a team of predominantly large blokes who are good in the air, playing against a small team who are poor in the air with a dodgy goalkeeper. Of course they'll play a long ball game based on set pieces, and of course they'll be physical where they can as well, and so they should.

The thing is, all fans will back up the way their team plays. When George Graham was Arsenal's manager, our fans would have defended having a strong defence and scraping 1-0 wins.

Now we have a very different style and we defend that too. We criticise the styles of teams like Stoke and Blackburn because our team can't do it, and they do the same to us because their team can't do what our team does.

I'm sure some of Northy's comments here have a lot to do with Arsene Wenger's response to the Shawcross/Ramsey incident. I don't wish to open that can of worms today, so all I'll say is calling a tackle which leaves a teenage lad on the floor with his leg snapped "unacceptable" is not a "tirade of bile." It's simply correct and a well-restrained reaction.

As for the allegations of Arsenal's cheating, no team is whiter than white, and if it's Northy's suggestion that Arsenal introduced cheating to English football then he (or she, I don't know) either doesn't know what he's talking about or is ignoring a hell of a lot of history.

In his final paragraph, Northy says:

"If only they would learn some lessons from their far more superior neighbours tottenham hotspur who have top supporters and a team who get the ball up the pitch in a determined fashion and don’t fanny about looking for the perfect ISS pro style goal. There are so many things that are wrong with the english game, a great proportion of the blame lies at the emirates stadium."

I think that passage exposes the author's desire to find someone to have a go at; someone, or indeed anyone, to blame for England's shortcomings. "Getting the ball up the pitch in a determined fashion" hasn't served England too well lately, has it?

In the end, there is a question I'd like to put to England fans who seek to scapegoat Arsenal for their teams problems: Even if everything you accuse Arsenal of was true, and our club is destroying the England national team, why should we even care?

What is our obligation to England? Why should we care if England ever lift the World Cup again? Why should we change anything to help a national team that views us as the "black sheep" in English football?

England can sort their own problems out. I'm sure when Jack Wilshere and Kieren Gibbs and the other young English players are ready, the national team will be quick enough to take them, and there'll be no whinging about Arsenal if they go on to do well for England. But that's as far as Arsenal's effort for England should extend. Arsenal have no obligation to England and nor should they have.

And that will do it for today, I'll be back at the normal time tomorrow morning. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.