(The not-so-temporary quite-official) Gooner Thread (Part 3)

Holding was sharke too, but he'll get away with it because he's the great white hope

Quintessential Arsenal that match.

Agree on Holding & Ceballos.

Ozil begins his redemption, but equally highlights that when he leaves there isn't anyone of that kind of creative talent in the squad. 

Did you see Xhaka's response/statement last night?

Swiss Ramble pointed out the German version is more apologetic, and on the assumption he wrote that first before translating it it might be more apologetic. But if we're at the point of arguing over version interpretations we've lost site of the core message entirely.

Tomorrow will be a big day; key questions for me:

1) Does he make the squad?

2) Does he start?

3) Does he wear the arm band?

4) Does he write the programme notes?

5) Assuming he's involved how does the crowd respond?

6) Does the club doing anything for the fans in calling out crowd behaviour?

It's a fascinating side show but ultimately the real question is:

Can we unlock the attacking threat of Ozil, Pepe, Lacazette, and Aubamayang to run riot at home?

Saturday was such awful viewing. Can't understand why Ceballos starts ahead of Pepe. When we need a goal he subs a left back.

He looks a man out of ideas.

It was weird that Pepe got dropped, his form has been on a consistent upward trajectory.
It was weird that after all this time he started Ozil in back to back games, and played him 90 minutes in one.
It was weird that he subbed Torreira for Saka.

The Tierney sub wasn't unexpected, given he's returning from injury and was backing up from starting a few days earlier, but the others were bizarre to me. 

Something Gary Neville has said stuck with me, and has been on my mind since that last game. 

He was saying that as a Manager, you can't go away from your ideas and principles when things aren't going well. That's how you concede your power to the players, and almost certainly lose the dressing room. 

I feel that Emery has done this in the last week. He's been under a lot of pressure, and then all of a sudden boom, Ozil is back, in behind Laca and Auba, a complete change in formation, he's basically gone back to the front 1-2 thing that Wenger was playing when he finished. It feels like he's conceded to the fans and the playing squad to try and ease the pressure on himself. What else can it be? You can't tell me that coincidentally, this week, Ozil did everything the Manager had supposedly been wanting, and so finally cracked the starting eleven. The timing is too weird. 

I can see why Emery did it, and we wanted Ozil to play so theoretically that pleases us fans, but abandoning your beliefs that way, even if they might have been wrong, is a death rattle for me. It shows a lack of power on the Manager's part, and a concession to the players, and the pressure from the fans. 

He's goneski... it's now a matter of when - and whilst I could never wish a defeat (and nor do I), the sooner it is the better.

The big question is who's next?... My concern is that we end up with another "easy" appointment, rather than the best/right one.

who would be the "right" one? 

Can someone please explain why Emery is trying to play Torreira has a number 8? It's absolutely baffling

He's got no one else to do it. Ceballos, Xhaka, Guendouzi all want to be on the ball and drop deep to collect. Torreira is the only one with the fitness & control to do it.

He's essentially playing the big guys deep who can collect the ball and win headers.

Do I agree with it? No. It's daft. The Xhaka-Torreira axis last year worked really well and I don't understand why giving up on that.

I also think he's over playing Guendouzi who wasn't that useful on Saturday.

I think Guendouzi is un-dropable at the moment because of the energy his is bringing to the team. No one else is showing that willingness to run themselves into the ground. shark, id almost chuck him the captains arm band and build the team around him to be honest. 
But i think the whole midfield is lacking structure and having clear roles and responsibilities or if they have them, theyve been issued to the players who dont have the skill sets to fulfill them. 

well we have had a change in captaincy, but not as i called it. Auba is the new leader of leaders. probably a good move, but Unai dicked it around a bit by going to other players behind Xhaka's back before telling him that the players were to vote on a new captain. That's gonna ruin the mans confidence in Unai. And after such a shark time of it, I wonder how long Xhaka will stick around. 

what a cluster fudge of a situation. No one comes out of it looking good. 

Shame it had to be done this way but correct decision in the end. As a player not really good enough to be playing with any regularity for Arsenal but in this issue his position was untenable. Hopefully we can get some money for him in january 

What ever value he add in the transfer market has been erased.

Still a good player on his day, just constantly exposed by a shark system.

As for Guendouzi and his 'energy' we're looking at this through the wrong lens. That 'energy' doesn't always lead to productive use of the ball. He's normally caught at least once each game in possession, his speed of passing isn't always great, and he doesn't have goals in his locker yet. He's also produced one assist this season to Auba in the NLD from memory. He also never wins arial balls - averages less than 1 per game and it was he who missed the ball in the air that Liverpool scored their winner from.

I like him, but let's not be blind to the fact that he's still young and needs more to his game.

Very true; I like Douzi's all-action nature, and it's something we've needed - but he's not quite the all round player we want yet. Obviously to be expected; it's easy to forget he's only 20 (!)

sounds a lot like Iwobi up until last season before we got rid of him. Heaps of potential, energy and pace just not a fully rounded player that we needed at the time.

Does he get much game time for everton?

Why was your Europa League game on today?

made nine appearances, three as a sub 1 goal. this season.

Something to do with Braga and Vitoria not being able to play home games at the same time, iirc. Admin stuff.

Their stadiums are like 15 minutes drive away from each other. Local infrastructure like police and public transport just couldn't handle it.

3.50pm KO for those of us in the UK. Nightmare to watch but by all accounts didn't miss anything.

As negative people will be about the gave the Mustafi redemption story continues hahaha

Played 9 times so far

We suck.

Emery out.

Terrible defending (again) for both goals (2 x nutmegs), and I can't believe how slow we are moving the ball, and how static we are off it. 

Give Freddie the job to revive things but don't appoint him permanently.

We've seen some shark in recent seasons but this is be far the worst Arsenal side I've seen. There's no creativity, no leader, no fight and just absolutely no idea. There's just nothing there aside from some young players with potential who'll no doubt be off as soon as they get the chance.

Torreira, Auba, Laca will leave by next season if we don't change something ASAP. Complete toxic atmosphere around the club now, there's no going back.

Clubs come out and backed their man. Hard to know if that's the kiss of death or the real thing.

Watching the City v Liverpool game RN and it's highlighted how lethargic we are across every area of the field - it's such a stark contrast.

Hoping it's the denial whilst putting the plank in place before forcing him to walk it. Interesting seeing some rumours of Luis Enrique... I'd like the idea of him but I'm not sure it's the right time... When emery goes part of me thinks we need to take a step back and consolidate similar to what Chelski have been forced to do - getting our identity back, our club, what we stand for, etc... I'm not convinced that means one of the Invincibles (or even Arteta) - but if it isn't I struggle to think who it would be, mainly because the Wengerist was there for so long... interesting times; I just hope this is (or very near) the bottom. 

But whether it is, or it isn't - this is my club... so COYG!!!

I don't really like the Luis Enrique rumours. I fear we will run into the same issues we have with Emery.

Enrique's only success has come with the inheritance of a world class Barcelona side. Nothing to rave about in his spells at the helm of Celta and Roma. Not much evidence for me that he can build a team, or take an existing team and improve it.

What's his english like?

As much as we all loved it when Emery took the bull by the horns and jumped right in with learning his english, it seems that that is actually a major issue right now. Lots of reports around about the players not understanding him well enough.

Of course if an Enrique appointment was to come about I will be giving him the benefit of the doubt and backing him all the way.

But at this stage I'd prefer Allegri, or an "Arsenal option" like Arteta, Ljungberg etc.

Whoever it is they need to be able to get buy in from their players. Klopp, Pepe, and arguably Rodgers have been able to achieve that well.

Interesting reports from Ornstein overnight that Xhaka didn't apologise to the playing group which was the one thing he had to do to keep the arm band given how liked he was. Then it turns out the Auba appointment wasn't communicated internally, and thus players only found out via the press conference. Auba's also not as well loved internally as he's formed a weird bond with the AFTV guys and has been involved in liking content from them he shouldn't (posts about selling Xhaka and how much a muppet Emery is).

All is not well.

Sounds like nothing is well and we're on course to be the next West Ham

How many of you guys have signed up for The Athletic?

I havent but from what I have seen and people have talked about it, there is lots of good quality content by knowledgeable writers on it.
Might get a subscription soon. 

Yea pretty much the cream of the crop of football journalists got hired en masse, and now they're all paywalled.

It's been very frustrating but it's working, because I'm on the verge of subscribing... angrily...

It's either pay a nominal amount for good content  or continue to bemoan clickbait. I choose the former, and will pay for the Athletic.

People have happily paid for newspapers for decades but expect good journalists to do their work for free. It's not sustainable.

I took the free trial and was hooked within a couple of days. Then Ornstein jumped on board and I was throwing my cash at them.

Their app's pretty decent too, you can zero in on what you're interested and find some good interesting content. Their daily emails are pretty decent too.

Would definitely recommend it. Between them and some of the video content the guys at Copa90 produce about different fan experiences around the world I find it really helps broaden your perspective of the football world.

I realise you shouldn't bow down to player pressure as a Manager or Club, it's essentially a death knell to do so, but at what point do we remove Emery because of the state of our dressing room alone?

In the last couple of weeks we've seen deliberately planted agent noise from Aubameyang, Lacazette, Bellerin, Xhaka and Torreira.

We've already lost Ramsey and Koscielny, and done everything imaginable to Ozil to force him out.

At what point does the state of our squad get treated as more important than the vision of our current Management Team?

You would think now, before we lose all these guys as well. 

I agree with this in general, but I don't think it's quite that simple.

One point is not correct - no one is expecting journalists to do their work for free, and they aren't doing it for free on free websites. They got paid before, they're getting paid now, they'll get paid in future. They can get more pay with this model it seems, since they've all headed there en masse, so all power to them.

A lot of journalists these days are making a great living without needing to be employed permanently by any publication at all. With the advent of social media they can self-promote and gain a following that way, funding themselves via patreon style apps, as well as more traditional routes like one-off guest pieces etc. For example I'm sure Ornstein and people with that sort of notoriety could easily go down that route. Not sure about the rest of you but most of the stuff I read is through shared posts etc rather than going to websites/apps and browsing.

We should also consider the role that adblockers and the likes are playing in this market. The revenue is 100% advertising if you aren't charging subscriptions. Advertising has become less effective as people employ software to shut that out, diminishing advertising cut-through, and therefore cheapening what advertisers are willing to pay.

When making the direct comparison with newspaper subscriptions, there was no such thing as an adblocker, advertising was guaranteed to be there in the readers' face. Plus there was little to no internet competition up until this century, meaning the advertising was fairly exclusive, highly seen, effective, and therefore expensive, meaning higher revenue for the publication.

And surprisingly in the old model, there was more financial flexibility for the reader for the most part. For a dollar or two you could just read the Saturday newspaper over the weekend. Signing up for 6/12 months was a much larger undertaking, and only accounted for a small percentage of the total newspapers distributed. These days on the internet you can get short trials, or you can sign up for a month, but that still doesn't rival the financial flexibility of purchasing one newspaper at a time, when you want it. Obviously the internet is more flexible in pretty much every other way, but it is an important point. For example if I see a good article on the Athletic, I would love to pay $1-$2 just to read all the content made available on that day, which is a more appropriate comparison with the old newspaper industry.

Also, unfortunately it means very little when it comes to clickbait. What incentive is there for the Athletic NOT to produce clickbait? I'm not saying the content won't be better of course, but essentially the human mind reacts to a headline and picture in the first instance, and that's what all outlets have to work on to get you in, regardless of charging or not charging for subscriptions. There's no way that the Athletic has some kind of ethical stance where they don't produce clickbait as a rule or something, just because they charge subscription fees. In fact you could argue that clickbait will be more valuable for them, since people without subscriptions literally only see the headline and a picture. A disturbingly large percentage of people will share something based on that alone, and to the Athletic, it's still a share, so it's value.

Lastly, the main thing to note here is that people's aversion to it is simply change. You make the comparison between newspapers and the internet, which is fair, but that's not the comparison people make in their minds. We compare the internet... to the internet. When we have been getting things for free, that is what we think about when they want to charge. Our point of reference is simply free versus not free. The recent paywalling of the Herald is a great example. Pretty much negative coverage across the board, and it was never going to be any other way - the content never mattered one bit.

Having said ALL OF THAT, I still agree with the overall sentiment! I am happy to pay a reasonable amount for value, and I am likely to take the plunge on the Athletic if I continue to see articles that make me feel like I am missing out. I am also hopeful that if subscription charges start to become more common, then we might see higher standards of journalism and less click bait as you say. It will really be up to us to talk with our feet when it comes to that though, we have to show these outlets that we don't want that. I'm not optimistic about it, since it is human nature to react to the first impression. That would be very a tough nut to crack...

You wrote a lot without saying much there, to be honest.

Basically, advertising is no longer enough to sustain any decent publication or journalists - there also aren't enough people to go around for every journalist out there to launch their own Patreon.

So...The Athletic makes sense. People have slowly gotten used to paying for this content, and in 10 years it will be seen as the norm.

Clickbait isn't just using a headline to catch peoples attention - it's using a headline that is quite obviously false and oftentimes not even related to the content of the article. This will happen less on the Athletic because if the content doesn't line up with the headline, subscriptions will drop. Pretty simple. They have to answer to the consumers of their content directly, unlike 'free' publications who answer to their advertisers.

Let me summarise my post in bullets, leaving out the examples/evidence:

1) I don't think it's as simple as you make out

2) I don't think newspaper vs online journalism is a good comparison for this discussion

3) I don't see any incentive for subscription-based websites to refrain from clickbait-style journalism, in fact I see incentive for them to do more of it

4) I don't believe people's negative reactions to paywalled websites is due to a comparison with the old newspaper industry, it's based on a comparison with the free content they are used to digesting

5) Despite making the above points, I agree with your overall sentiment i.e. I am willing to pay for better content too

Your response only addresses no.3, and I think you're incorrect there, in my opinion. Your definition of clickbait (headlines as blatant lies, basically) is not correct, it's more extreme, and relatively rare. The real definition is a headline that is designed so that you click it. What we normally see is the sensationalising of one particular point within the content, not blatant lies.

The suggestion that this type of clickbait-style journalism won't happen on a paid site otherwise the subscriptions will drop, can actually be applied to any free website as well - just substitute "subscriptions" with "page views", which is what drives their advertising revenue.