From Laurence Marks : quality?
I read your page regularly- the complaints, the compliments, the fixes and the confusion.
But, having watched Arsenal this season, something occurred to me that I believe hasn’t been said in any of the columns:
These Arsenal players are just not of the very highest standard.
There is a myth that if a player costs more than a Van Gogh he has to be “Premier League”, but this is quite patently not so.
Would Ozil, Giroud, Coquelin, Ospina or Wilshere find a place in Europe’s top eight sides?
They are Premier League players and the Premier League is NOT the best league in the world. It isn’t, in terms of quality, not in the top four, so let us not continue to build up English teams and their players as if we were watching something special, something worth £100 per home game.
What we watch, by and large, are not top quality players, not headliners, but “supporting players” and were we asked to pay Arsenal prices to watch any other form of entertainment for second-rate talent we would walk away and find somewhere else we could spend our hard-earned money.
I wish fans would stop blowing up out of all proportion the calibre of what is on offer at one of the most expensive theatres in the world.
If the Arsenal board weren’t quite so greedy and heavily reduced their prices, then we wouldn’t have as much cause for complaint, and could just accept what we see for what it is – a so-so football team containing OK players doing their best.
Myles says:
You’re right, Laurence.
The £5.1billion TV deal should be used to subsidise ticket prices.
But uber-kapitalist Silent Stan Kroenke wanted to hike season ticket prices by 8% till Ivan argued him down to 3% .
Those five players wouldn’t get a game for Juventus or PSG, let alone Barcelona or Chelsea.
The biggest star at Arsenal is Wenger and the arrival of the humble Alexis Sanchez didn’t change that.
If Wenger starts Ozil tonight, they’ll lose at QPR. And Loftus Road isn’t one of their happy hunting grounds anyway. On their last six visits, Arsenal have lost three and drawn two.
New centreback Gabriel came from a very good club, Villarreal, and has played against more gifted strikers than Charlie Austin. But Charlie has a knack of finding a small pocket of space in a crowded penalty area. Watch that space.
It will be fierce and noisy on a small pitch.
And QPR have started playing better since Redknapp left and Chris Ramsey took over.
If QPR lose tonight, I think they’ll go down.
PS. Thanks to reader Daniel Denev for tech tips.
Wow! Compared to this old beatnik, you’re a genius.
Where are you in this wide world?