Tony’s blog on the Luton match
There are those who are never satisfied; those who in considering last night’s game away to Luton Town note that Arsenal should have put the game to bed long, long before Declan Rice scored and showed real life joy and happiness (as opposed to mindless running about arms akimbo, or simply screaming which is what most players tend to do).
It’s a point of view – the standard journalistic point of view in fact, but imagine it was carried out in practice match after match. With no last minute excitement where would football be? The scorer of the first goal would tell us who would win the game for sure. 1-0, pack up and go home.
In this world view Arsenal should have a better defence so the fun and games never happen. Arsenal should also have a better goalkeeper, with the media suddenly deciding that maybe taking Raya on loan wasn’t such a good idea (although most of them seem to have forgot Raya is on loan, and how negative they were about Ramsdale).
So, if Arsenal had a perfect defence that worked all the time, yes maybe they would win each game 1-0, and that would take us back to the days of George Graham…. Who was, as I recall, vilified by the media for not being adventurous enough in his football.
Thus when I read, as I have this morning Arsenal should “have won this without recourse to a drama,” I pity the poor journalists in their dull, dull world in which everything is predictable and there is no excitement, no magical moments, just an endless blame game in which by implication the journalist is always right and the football players always wrong.
Was David Raya “directly at fault for two of Luton’s goals, flappy and uncertain throughout”?
That’s not how it looked to me, but whether that was the case or not, is that what I take away from last night’s game? No it wasn’t. I took the joy, the fun, and the excitement.
Or maybe it was the fact (to which a lot of the media alluded in general terms although few journalists could be arsed to look up the details) that between February 1986 and October 1988 Luton and Arsenal played each other nine times and Arsenal only won two of the games.
Or should we have been mindful of how Aaron Ramsdale appeared, rather than perhaps simply noticing in passing how utterly professional he has been during his time away from the spotlight – except when the media keep thrusting him back in the spot for not being in the spotlight, if you see what I mean.
This time he was “doing his best to look inscrutable when he was picked out by the cameras after each of Raya’s mistakes”.
And really, was that what this was all about?
I seriously do begin to wonder about football reporting and football journalism. Sitting in front of the TV with some members of my family and watching this game I was enthralled. I loved every second of the game, and having watched all the home games in the ground this season, kept the belief that Arsenal would come through this even when Luton were pegging us back.
Yet the journalists seem to be doing nothing but moan, moan, moan. And it struck me that maybe that is because they are NOT fans commenting on an event that is watch by FANS.
Now I know some fans love the stats that go with football (the winner was Arsenal’s latest winning goal ever). And the media like the anti-Arsenal stats (“a 10-game winless run away against Luton in all competitions”).
But if they must do this, surely they could make it more interesting. How about “The first win at Kenilworth Road since Winston Smith prowled the streets. (That refers to “1984”).
Or to be less literary how about the fact that Arsenal touched the ball more times in the opposition box than in any game in the last eight years.
And oh yes at let us not forget that Kai Havertz has scored three in his last four games. It’s a good job Arteta doesn’t read the media, otherwise he would never have appeared last night because he would have known Havertz was a total waste of money and should never have been bought.
So what am I left with? A sense of great fun from last night, and a feeling of just how awfully dull life must be as a journalist, sitting there as that 96th minute winner went in, and thinking, “OK how do I turn this into something negative?”
Pictures – John Williamson
Blog –Tony Attwood