Eboo-gate has, I think, rumbled on long enough. Enough mud has been slung across these forums and it has again shown the many fractures and rifts which exist across the Arsenal fan-base, and how quickly these come apart. On these, I share many of the excellent thoughts of Goonerholic. Enforcing labels for groups of fans who may be particularly pro-Arsene or otherwise smacks of a perverse tribalism which can only harm the club as a whole.
And you know who’s really to blame for all this? T*ttenham. No, they didn’t infiltrate the stadium to cause tension, nor (believe it or not) are they paying Eboue on an each-time-he-plays-a-delightful-through-ball-for-the-opposition-midfield basis. No, they caused this whole sorry affair by being really really shit for such a long time. If they had even a scrap of quality you’d soon see the Gooners closing ranks, but as they have been crap for such a long time now, we lack a common foe and those Gooners with aggression to vent are increasingly turning on their own.
Unlike Grabber (see yesterday’s post), I still feel the booing was destructive and pointless. I’m not really interested in arguments about whether your season ticket does or does not entitle you to a few throaty grumbles over the season. The main point for me is that the booing doesn’t help the team, of which Eboue is a part, and so it’s probably a bad plan. It pisses the team off, and when you’re having a difficult season it’s made a whole lot more difficult if there is significant beef between the crowd and the team.
Right. Enough on that, I’m drawing a line under it (so to speak).
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Champions’ League Wednesday ahoy! Despite being one of the most universally poorly punctuated leagues in the world – the League belongs to the many Champions from around Europe, so surely UEFA should enforce the apostrophe with greater rigour – we have generously agreed to contest the competition regardless. Calling it the “Champions League” is confusing for all of us and sounds suspiciously like these “Champions” are a corporate sponsor a la “Barclays Premiership”. Maybe they should call it the “League of Champions” or something to clear up the whole sorry saga.
Undaunted by the governing body’s basic grammatical failings, Arsene’s boys have marched to the top of the prestigious Group G and have 2 points on Porto going into the clash tomorrow. Easy-peasy you cry, we duffed them at the Emirates and we’ll jolly well duff them on their own patch. Hurrah! But what’s this? Arsene says he isn’t going to try because he doesn’t give a hoot if we’re first or second:
It makes a difference to win the group because it makes you feel you have done your job better than to finish second. Does it really make a difference in the outcome of the last 16 tie? I do not know. Maybe there is an advantage to play the second game at home, but if you look at all the groups, there is not a big difference between some teams finishing first or second.
Now, is this really true? Firstly, yes there definitely certainly undoubtedly is an advantage in playing the second leg at home. We’ve seen it time and again. Secondly, if we finish top we are likely to be playing someone like Panathanaikos, Sporting, possibly Atletico, Villareal, one of Bayern or Lyon and Real Madrid. If we unleash the Song/Eboue strikeforce and lose to Porto then we’d be more likely to come up against teams of the calibre of Roma, Inter, Barcelona, Juventus and (again) one of Bayern or Lyon.
So on balance, topping the group would surely be an excellent idea. No points for originality, I’ll admit, but it needs to be said.
Other news: Ade says we need more goals and less pretty fannying about. Of course, more goals sounds like an excellent plan to me, though I am partial to a bit of Goonerish fannying about now and again. I also think this really hasn’t been our problem this year. Very rarely have we played a team off the park but not managed to make our chances count, certainly not as much as we used to, say, last season. Against City, for example, the problem wasn’t that our dashing cut and weave brand of Wengerball was cruelly thwarted by our own penalty-box vanity, it was more that we were utterly utterly mince and got shat on by the better team.
Transfer whisper: I note that the repulsive reptile that is the Daily Mail has linked the similarly tough tackling and reptilian Esteban Cambiasso with a 17 million euro move to Man City. My ingenious plan is that he should reject their vulgar overtures and instead sign for us! Cambiasso is an excellent player and the thought of him sitting selflessly in our midfield egging Captain Cesc on to more box-busting forward runs makes me salivate openly. Like the cheeky bloke who ran that headline yesterday about how Arsenal were going to sign Michael Owen I have no grounds whatever for supposing that Arsene is in any way interested. But at least we’ve got hope.
Grabs
Tags: Arsenal, Champions League, Eboue, Emmanuel Adebayor, Esteban Cambiasso, Porto, UEFA
December 9th, 2008 at 11:35 am
“Firstly, yes there definitely certainly undoubtedly is an advantage in playing the second leg at home. We’ve seen it time and again.”
But have we?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/fink_tank/article3731430.ece
December 9th, 2008 at 11:55 am
James, I see your Finkelstein. And I raise you this summary of the investigation he is talking about http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a781793320~db=all
It says: “Examining data from three different European Cup football competitions spanning 51 years, we show that the second leg home advantage is a real phenomenon. The second leg home team has more than a 50% probability to qualify for the next round in the competition even after controlling for extra time and team ability as possible alternative explanations. The second leg home advantage appears, however, to have decreased significantly over the past decade.”
So it’s diminished, but it remains “a real phenomenon”. It sounds like Finkelstein controls ‘team ability’ (what does that mean anyway?) on top of their findings, but they seem to have already controlled it.
Liverpool last season springs to mind as an obvious example.
December 9th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
yeh cambiasso would be awesome
December 9th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Cambiasso, meh.
*shrugs*
December 9th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
I’d take Alonso over Cambiasso. Although I’d be happy with any signings this January…
December 9th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Hmmm…
Its impossible to make any conclusions on this without reading the paper in full, but Finkelstein states that Page’s findings show that “for years there was a real, statistically significant advantage to playing home second, but that from 1986 this advantage ceased being statistically significant.”
Page’s summary says that “we show that the second leg home advantage is a real phenomenon” but this is over 51 years.
He doesn’t say that it remains “a real phenomenon”.
“The second leg home advantage appears,” he says “to have decreased significantly over the past decade.”
I suspect that when he says that the “seond leg home advantage is a real phenomenon” and the “second leg home team has more than a 50% probability to qualify for the next round in the competition” he is mis-using his tenses (as scientists are wont to), and simply concluding his study by saying that the secong leg home team has advanced more than 50% of the time.
I am merely speculating, however.
Either way, I see your Liverpool last year, and raise you one PSV the previous year!