The Mailbox begins with a poignant note around how to carry on after the death of the person responsible for your football allegiance. Also: have Spurs been sussed; and blues cards…
Get your views in to theeditor@football365.com…
It’s only football
On Monday, my brother died. Now that isn’t the most cheery start to an email, but the reason I am starting with that fact, is because he is the reason I support Arsenal. When I was a skinny kid, he held me over the stair bannister and asked me ‘which football team do you support’ and I said, ‘whoever you support’ and so my love for Arsenal was born. He told me he liked Arsenal because he saw black players there, he saw himself reflected, he liked how integrated they were. He loved Wright and Rocastle.
As the years passed, we were lucky enough to share Wenger’s Double winning side, and then the Invincibles. We were together when we lost the Champions League final, and the other finals we lost too. I’ve got photos of us celebrating our FA cup outside the Emirates with thousands of others after our trophy drought. They are some of my most precious memories.
But now he is gone, and I won’t be able to watch a game with him again. I won’t be able to celebrate. I won’t be able to send him gossip about players Arsenal might be signing. I won’t be able to send him tweets mocking rivals. I don’t even know if I can watch a game without him. He never got to see these young Arsenal players lift a trophy. But he was an optimist. Whenever I would be like ‘its over’ 60 minutes in , he’d always go ‘plenty of time’ and even at the end of games he’d be like ‘only takes 12 seconds to score a goal’. But he’s gone now.
If Arteta takes this side to great heights, if he wins things, for me it will all be coloured by the absence of the person who made me love the club in the first place. I think Bill Shankly was firmly tongue in cheek when he said ‘Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.’ As many have said, it is only a game, but it is a game I love because of someone very special who is no longer here. Can my love for the game persist? I know for a fact if Arsenal do win – my celebrations will be muted because of his absence.
John Matrix AFC
Spurs sussed
Your recent takes on Spurs’ performances is bang on – they haven’t been as good as the results. But your analysis as to why is more than a little odd. You’ve claimed they’ve been ‘worked out’, and now in your mood rankings you announced that
“there was a slightly complacent – on their part and everyone else’s – assumption that when all their players came back from injury/suspension/AFCON/Asia Cup that it would magically be like the autumn again. But it hasn’t quite worked out that like that”
Erm, Son and Bissouma haven’t even started a game yet. Sarr has started one. Maddison is understandably not quite back to his best having started 2. Bentancur is working his way back to form. To decide that this means spurs have been ‘worked out’ rather than completely understandably taking some time to re assimilate players seems more than a little harsh. Let’s see if they’ve been worked out over the next few games shall we?
Phil, London
Read more: Giddy, overcelebrating Arsenal leap back to top spot in the latest F365 mood rankings
Villa optimism vanishing
3 ACLs, 4 of our central defenders injured, had to sell squad players to satisfy FFP (or whatever called now).
Safe to say that the 2023 optimism is down the toilet.
Paul
Feeling blue
To put it simply, the standard of refereeing in the Premier League is nowhere near good enough to make blue cards anything but a disaster. How can anyone say that it’s needed to stop tactical fouling when tactical fouls currently don’t automatically draw a yellow? Tactical fouling is a blight on the game but a sin-bin isn’t going to fix it if players aren’t sent to the sin-bin. It should be used to stop the likes of Rodri clotheslining a counter attack but if he doesn’t already get a yellow for that then why do we think he’d get the sin-bin? Bruno Guimaraes “forearming” a player in the back of the head isn’t a yellow card according to the world of football.
Refs already have all they need to stop whatever egregious thing they feel they need to correct for the first two weeks of every season, they just don’t use them because the responsibility for not spoiling the spectacle somehow lies with them. I mean, we have rules, a game needs rules and if someone breaks the rules then the responsibility for ruining the game lies solely with them. Having predetermined rules and agreed punishments should be a deterrent to those players who would otherwise happily break them. That’s not the case with football, we have rules that we don’t enforce because players consistently break them so it’s the tail wagging the dog. Nothings going to change until that attitude does.
Sports like rugby are very clear about responsibilities, that’s the core of what’s wrong with football. If a player gets a yellow for a shoulder to the head or a no wrap tackle they take full responsibility for their actions. No other players surround the refs, no pundit spends a week posting on social media about how the ref spoiled the game. It’s a collective agreement that it’s dangerous, there’s a rule against it and it’s the player’s fault for committing the foul. If a football referee enforces the rule that there should be no shirt pulling in the penalty area it’s somehow their fault?
There needs to be a radical change in how officiating is approached with more emphasis on collective responsibility. Managers need to be cautioned or sent off for consistent rotating tactical fouling because that’s a practiced tactic and part of his game plan. If there’s consistent wrestling at corners the captain needs to be warned that the next player who does it gets a straight red. Every tactical foul, every studs up tackle, every suplex at a corner is spoiling the spectacle. All those classic goals we’ve missed out on because of a cynical organised campaign to game weak refs.
I’ll leave you with an example. It’s a straight red if you try to influence the referee when he’s called to the monitor to review an incident. How many times have you seen players and managers do this? Marco Silva tried it last year and was immediately sent off but I can’t think of another time it happened. Well defined rules with consistent consequences change behaviour, there’s no point giving refs additional weapons if they use them like they use what they already have.
SC, Belfast
Read more: Blue cards have left John Nicholson swearing more than we thought possible
Hullraiser
I know it’s only the lowly championship and not the greatest league in the world, but anyone who hasn’t seen the Philogene rabona for Hull is really missing out.
It’s a thing of true beauty, Michelangelo himself would view it and weep, such is the level of the lads artistry.
I couldn’t do that on FIFA in practice mode with an empty net.
Villa fans, just imagine that fella mixing it up with your already tasty frontline! Oh, what could have been…
Ta,
Dave (not kidding, it’s awesome) PVFC
THE Jaden Philogene goal…
Goal of the season? 🤩🤩
pic.twitter.com/mTUm0uhxlN— Second Tier podcast (@secondtierpod) February 14, 2024
Bring back the ECWC
Folks, I can’t stand by and watch any inaccuracy around the glory that was the Cup Winners Cup. It was not the precursor to the Uefa Cup, it ran alongside it before being merged into it in 1999.
This was the tournament of chaos. Two legged knock out games the whole way. Some great sides in it, until the Champions league came along. I’m not an Arsenal fan but their runs to the final in 94 and 95 were spectacular. Stefan Schwarz smashing in a free kick against Sampdoria to sneak into the final on away goals. Then came Nayim. Domestic cups were still a bit more open, meaning anyone could end up in it. You’d miss the chaos.
They should bring it back but on the proviso that qualification for it would supercede Champions league qualification.
Kevin (a nostalgic pedant)
Leandro Trossard is reminding Arsenal fans of an old favourite…
Trossard made a fool of Stewie
I’m a Liverpool fan, and I don’t have any great love for Arsenal (to put it mildly) but watching Leandro Trossard score another lovely goal for Arsenal the other day suddenly reminded me of a mail sent by one Stewie Griffin after Chelsea snatched Mudryk from Arsenal. Mudryk played well for 45 minutes on his debut and afterwards Stewie wrote in to use this as yet another example of why Arsenal were such a joke club (please editor- help me look up that mail). Look at how amazing this Mudryk guy is! If only Arsenal had done everything they could to get him in, but alas they had once again cocked it up.
Arsenal instead went for Trossard and I think we all know who got the better of the deal. Trossard is so much better than Mudryk that it’s almost embarassing trying to make a comparison. Mudryk has basically been crap since his debut.
In the end, Arsenal buying a much much better player for about a third of the value of their original target turned out to be a masterstroke and Stewie ended up looking very foolish. Seeing as Stewie loves to write a lot of ‘I was right’ emails, it’s funny how this never seems to have come up again in his correspondence.
Turiyo Damascene, Kigali, Rwanda
