That was the Week that Was (Mar 10-14 2025)

Monday Mar 10:

It’s got to be tough being an Arsenal fan right now. Everywhere you look there are people taking the piss out of them. They might be the most laughed at team in the history of football, it’s absolutely everywhere. It isn’t just their rivals either, it’s everybody. That scene in Airplane when everyone is lining up to slap that hysterical woman across the face, and even a nun is in line to take a shot, that’s basically Arsenal now. I’m seeing all sorts of stuff online ridiculing them and it’s really funny. Paddy Power did something today on their excuses that was fucking brilliant. 

There’s also some hilarious Arteta team-talk clips that have been dusted off from their Amazon doc. They wouldn’t be doing the rounds if they were top, but because they’re so far behind us they’re getting it from all sides. Hardly anyone in the football media is talking about us today, it’s all about Arsenal’s failings. Is it their mentality? Is it not signing a striker? Is it that Arteta is a Spanish David Brent? All anyone is talking about today is Arsenal. I even saw Craig Burley blaming the fans and saying their weak mentality rubs off on the players! As I said, it’s everywhere. And it’s great.

There is no one single reason why Arsenal are miles behind. It’s lots of things, some of them beyond their control and others that are entirely their own fault. A lot of the things being said at the moment are way off, such as Keane saying the points they’ve dropped recently is because of their weak mentality. No, it’s because they’re playing with a front three of Trossard, Merino and Nwaneri! Good luck stringing wins together with that forward line. I said this as soon as they started losing all of those forwards. You can’t continue to win games when you don’t have forwards. You can grind out some wins, but ultimately it’s too much to overcome and so it has proved. They weren't great when they had those forwards, so 

Let’s get it right though, this isn’t the reason Arsenal aren’t winning the league. It is the reason why they were unable to make a decent fist of at least challenging for it though. Keane loves a rant about not having the right mentality though. Tell you what though, while that isn’t the reason they’ve dropped so many points recently, there is definitely something in the mentality discussion. They aren't winners.

The over-celebrating they do has been a hit button topic for a while and sometimes I think it is overplayed, but there's a reason for that. The Lewis Skelly thing was fine in isolation and I can see why Arsenal fans felt the reaction to it was a witch hunt. The reason people jumped on it was because Arsenal have prior for this kind of thing. Remember Odegaard and his fucking camera? 

There used to be an expression used in the NFL when players over-celebrated a touchdown. The expression was "act like you've been there before". That's gone out of the window now as rampant egos have taken over the game and you've got players doing stupid dances even when they're losing by 30 points. That's Arsenal behaviour. They never act like they've been there before. I know they haven't been there before, but that's the whole point. Act like this is what you're supposed to do, not like you've achieved something great when you haven't.

Look at what Nunez did when he equalised on Saturday and then compare it what Rice did when he equalised yesterday. If you want to see the difference between winners and losers then that’s a great example. 

The irony is one of those players is regarded as being “thick as fuck” by sections of his own fanbase, while the other is seen as England’s greatest leader since Churchill. It isn't about those two as individuals, it's about the culture they are surrounded by. Put Rice in our set up and Nunez in theirs, and you can probably flip how each of them reacted to the goals. It's all about culture.

It’s also worth pointing out that Arsenal fell off a cliff after Everton put Arteta on the front of their match programme for the derby and threw their support behind them. So there is that.

Meanwhile, Trent and Mo had a fake shoving match in training today, which is a clickbaiters dream. Mo is laughing the whole time while Trent has his game face on and is making it look like he’s serious. They both knew they were being filmed so what does that tell you? Yet so much content came from it. You’ve got some making it out to be real, and then others doing stuff to shoot down the fake news about it being real. 

I don’t know what it was about, we didn’t see what led up to it, but my guess would be that Mo’s team won some daft little training exercise that meant nothing but Trent being Trent probably felt wronged somehow. Mo is a wind up merchant and Trent is easily wound up as he’s such a sore loser (which to me is a compliment, not a criticism. Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser etc). Mo will have been 100% arsing around and Trent was probably 20% not joking. 

Also today, “Sir Jim” has been busy doing interviews. I’ve not paid much attention as I’m not wasting an hour listening to that cunt telling lies and making excuses. I’ve seen some quotes though and it’s a train wreck. That club is completely fucked, and given how little opposition there’s been to the shit he’s been pulling, they fucking deserve everything he inflicts on them.