Anti Gunners Media Agenda? Or Simply Arsenal Fans Paranoia as Club merely gets the treatment it deserves?

There is no agenda by the media.
Enough of the paranoia

The media aren’t stealing your thoughts. No need for the tin foil hat.
Look, there is no “media agenda” against us. They don’t hate us, nor are they all closet Tottenham fans reveling in our “demise”.
I see numerous fans online who make these points, and in my own estimation, they are false and frankly paranoid.
These are some common points that some fellow Gooners bring up:

We get crappy refereeing decisions

Every team does. Even decisions which are fairly sound are disputed. Look at Klopp on the Mane incident. Our semi-final win vs. City had a legitimate goal ruled out. Didn’t Pires, in our unbeaten season, dive vs. Portsmouth at home? I don’t believe any team has the monopoly on bad decisions. There is no evidence I can see that we get the bulk of the bad decisions. Maybe the referees’ association or the Premier League has them, I don’t know. I’m not sure if such stats even exist, or if both bodies would be interested in compiling them.

And the Lacazette “goal” vs. Stoke was offside per the laws of football. FIFA’s Laws state that any playable part of a player’s body can count as being offside, inclusive of the front half of Lacazette’s foot. It may have been a guess by the linesman. Nonetheless, it was correct.

I don’t think we’re unfairly singled out for this, and to suggest such is paranoia.

The pundits pick on us too much

It seems that on every network, whether BT Sport, ESPN FC, Sky, NBC, Bein Sports, etc. we’re called out. And there is a continuous narrative that Wenger needs to go, or that we lack the balls, or that we lack tactical acumen.

But hang on….don’t many of us (me included I will say) state/believe the same things? So it’s OK for us to say it, but then not pundits?
We are the topic de jour on many networks. But for a good reason, and it’s not based on “bullying”.

It’s because we’ve set a high standard, and we’re not meeting that standard.
We also exhibit the same failings time and again. We have not progressed. People remember the Invincibles, or the Doubles. People remember great players such as Henry, Bergkamp, Pires, and Vieira. So then it stands to reason why MANY are bemused at our regular failings.

Man United were poor from 2013-2016, though they have improved this season and could well win the league again. Liverpool has changed holistically since FSG took over. Spurs have also, and Chelsea has won leagues with two different managers since 2013. However, we’re still the same, in style, backroom personnel, and on the pitch personnel. Of our starting eleven vs. Bournemouth, four were present in 2013. Many others were on the bench, such as Giroud, Coquelin, and Theo.

So our issues are not the same as other clubs, and other clubs have not set the same standards as us. Spurs haven’t won the league since 1961; we haven’t waited that long. They haven’t won a decent trophy since 1991. Our last decent trophy was literally four months ago. Liverpool, despite winning a Champions League in Premier League history, has only won one trophy in 11 years (League Cup).

City and Chelsea have been successful of late, and have less need to be critiqued. Again, our failures are unique, and others cannot match our backdrop.

So is this a fair scrutinising, or just pundits singling us out since they hate us?

 Other clubs get bad defeats too

Yes, they do. United lost 6-1 to City when Fergie was there. But then he won the Champions League twice, and never lost 10-2 on aggregate to Bayern. He also won the league back to back on multiple occasions, and didn’t bottle it in the same manner at crucial moments.

Liverpool lost 5-0 very recently to Man City, but don’t have this on the same regularity as Arsenal do.

We’re not being “bullied”, but again, our situations are unique.

The media hate us, as do pundits

Well Represented

All of the top networks have an ex-Arsenal player among them. Some are prime anchors, while many are generally accepted legends of our club, including:

– ITV (England games) – Wrighty, Dixon
– BT Sport (Premier League/Champions League) – Wrighty
– BBC Match of the Day – Wrighty, Keown
– ESPN FC – Mariner, Robson
– BBC 606 – Wrighty, Parlour
– Talksport – Parlour
– Sky Sports Super Sunday (Champions League – Henry, Smith
– Sky Sports Soccer Saturday – Merson, Nicholas

Many of the non-Arsenal pundits tend to speak highly of us, and (to reiterate again) the sexy football Wenger years. It’s why they call us out as much as they do. Check out Steve Nicol on the Gooner Ramble podcast as an example.

Tottenham legends like Hoddle also praise us, though it may be in part due to his initial association with Wenger at Monaco. Craig Burley on ESPN FC is often harsh, supposedly, but he has said that he enjoyed visiting Highbury as a Chelsea player since it was very classy. Moreover, he has said that Wenger was a great manager, and that we’re a great club being mismanaged. Are those praiseworthy points, or condescension?

Ozil has taken issue with them, though as many top pundits once played for us, then how come they’re among the most scathing?

No evidence, no agenda?

So the evidence for any media “agenda” against Arsenal is scant.

It’s based on half-logic and flagrant paranoia.
For instance, Spurs (to our glee) have not won anything since 2008. But then there is a reason why the media don’t scathe them for not winning, which they did to us between 2005 and 2014. It’s because we set a higher standard. This Spurs team under Pochettino is the most consistent they have had in MANY years, possibly since Pleat, and he was their manager LONG ago.

Kane, Alli, Alderweirled, et al will set the benchmark for future Tottenham teams, if anything, since King, Anderton, Keane, etc. while good players never did much for Spurs. It’s not a double standard whatsoever. Spurs have only won two League Cups in Premier League history. This is paltry, and their last true trophy was in 1991. Kane and Alli weren’t even alive then, and that’s saying something…..

Arsenal has been, and is, a more consistent club than Spurs. We’ve won more trophies, have more all-time top division wins and points, haven’t been relegated in many decades unlike them, and have had historically higher league finishes than them. We set an agenda and a standard, which they never have, despite their new “Fed Ex” Stadium.

So enough of the “agenda” nonsense. All clubs and teams are unique, and thus how we have performed is so. The pundits, if analysed more objectively, do say many of the same things we fans do. Let’s not say that a club with no league title in 50 years, as well as no trophy whatsoever in nearly ten years, is getting off Scott free while we get the hit. We DO get the hit since we’ve set, and always performed at, a higher level than that lot. In a weird way, it’s like Spiderman’s tagline “with great power comes great responsibility”.

We’ve had power, and now we are responsible for sustaining the standard. Tottenham have never had power, so the media are intrinsically less critical of them.

Marble Halls

MarbleHallsTV is an Arsenal social media account on Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. Been a Gooner since the 90s, inspired by Ian Wright, then Bergkamp, Vieira, Henry, Pires, Campbell, Rosicky, Koscielny, Ozil and Sanchez. A digital marketer/entrpreneur by profession, born in UK living in the Americas now.