You ever wake up and feel you’re in a weird kind of purgatory? Like your life is representative of Arsene Wenger’s neverending contract situation? Everything is ok and swimming along, but also shite?

This my friends, is what happens in an international week when there’s nothing to write about.

Back to football. There are no British refs at this year’s World Cup. Is it because Russia hates us? No. It’s because our refs are terrible.

Here are some thoughts that I have had before, but will repackage for you because I am a solutions-oriented person with ideas.

Pay them the cash:

Why the fuck would anyone normal take up a job where everyone hates you and the crowning glory is £90k a year. That is pitiful cash, especially when you consider the money swirling around in the game. Give elite referees the money they deserve, £500k a year. The byproduct of this:

• You get a better calibre of candidate coming into the game
• You increase competition for the top places
• You lower the possibility of bribery

Additional ideas:

Accountability: Refs hiding behind their PGMOL bullshit simply isn’t acceptable. They need to be accountable to the fans via the media. We need to know the thinking behind big decisions and refs need to have a voice in this.

Punishment: We have so many refs that are consistently shite. Yet they hang around. It’s like PGMOL buys into refs being part of the entertainment of football. For me, a ref should never be the star of the show. I don’t want to know someone’s name because of drama, because they consistently go to war against certain teams, because they are bafflingly poor. If you are shite, you should be moved out of the league.

Rotation: For the life of me, I do not understand how it is legal to say only British people can ref in the Premier League. It is a disgraceful policy. UEFA should rotate the best around Europe. It’d take away the clear regional bias that exists in football culture in the UK, it’d give our refs more experience in different leagues, it’d increase competition. It’d also make the job more exciting for young people coming into the game.

Guys and gals, did I just solve the UK refereeing challenge? I think I did. I’m listening to new opps at the moment, hit me up PGMOL.

Steve Bould dropped some Arsene Propaganda. The Arsenal manager, ill, or jetlagged from travelling to Qatar to chat shit on Ivan G, missed the prezzer.

“He is remarkable,”

“Behind closed doors, I’ve never known someone who’s as hungry and determined to win football games. It’s as big as I’ve ever seen, for sure.

“I admire him immensely. He takes unbelievable stick off an awful lot of people and he’s just one of the great managers. It’s a pleasure for me to sit next to him. I understand that he’s doing a great job, as far as I’m concerned, and has done a great job for an awfully long time.”

Come on Steve, we know the truth. You’re on the football equivalent of Fishbowl, dropping shit bombs on your boss.

‘I hear Arsene goes home at 4pm on Friday and he drinks on the job’

Here’s the thing with statements like the above (the real comment), we’re constantly reminded how much Wenger wants to win, but at the core of it, he doesn’t know how.

Who really gives a fuck about misguided desire? Sport is about producing. Wenger isn’t producing, so really, the emotional backstory is a total irrelevance when you’re looking at 15 years+ before we can win a major honour again.

Anyway, Stoke this weekend. EXCITING. We’ll be back on the pod trail again, sorry for the downtime.

FINALLY: Please put your hands in your pocket and give The Gooner Fanzine some upfront money so they can survive next year. It is essential we keep publications like this alive. Genuinely, one of the happiest moments for my family was when I had a piece in The Gooner. It’s iconic. An institution. DO NOT LET IT DIE. All you need to do is pay them £32 a now, to land 6 editions next year.

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The Arsene Wenger international break propaganda machine has clicked into overdraft. That he needs to earn even more money at his age on his salary shows how much the man lusts for money. Even more than money? Power. Listen to this carry on when talking about the famous summer review.

“We sit down at the end of every season & see where we go from there. I have a 2-year contract & will always try to (reach) the end of it. But I always have the honesty to sit down with BoD & to see where we go from there. If I see no progress, we can terminate it.”

(more…)

via @t0wey (instagram)E

I’m FURIOUS this morning.

Why? Rapha Honigstein told the Totally Football Show Tuchel wouldn’t come to AFC because we’re not CL contenders AND he said he’d heard AFC are going to give Wenger his final year.

To be totally fair, that’s the only news I’ve ever been told. That it’ll take something quite bad for the manager to go. We’re pushing into middling ground for performance. Ifsemi-final semi final of a European competition, which is looking pretty nailed on, Wenger will be able to call the season a success.

For me, I don’t quite understand how Stan K can jive with another year out the Champions League. But I suppose that massive cash pile has to be used for something, and why not propping up your bro for another year of absolute pish?

@JcDaGunner sent me this link about Stan’s Rams.

In 14 months, Rams have turned from perhaps NFL’s biggest afterthought to the most compelling team in league. SHOWTIME

— Gregg Rosenthal (@greggrosenthal) March 26, 2018

I wondered why the American billionaire would want to stick with a shitty manager over here when his new setup in LA is earning so much great press for being progressive.

Then it clicked.

HE DOESN’T CARE.

Out of sight, out of mind people.

I mean, maybe if he hands over the keys to his son, ol’ Josh will jump in and make some tough decisions. That’s the only hope.

BUT COME ON. Are the club really going to let Wenger see out his final year, knowing what happened the last time around?

Totally possible. Wenger is Teflon. He’s Trump. He’s a cat with 18 lives.

HE AIN’T GOING NOWHERE.

The absolute apathy I feel for the club at the moment is so disheartening. Knowing I’ll likely have to suffer it another year, well, that’s top of a roof kind of chatter.

A weak owner. An impotent board. The most patient CEO of all time. A group of players who can’t even muck in to go properly rubbish to push the manager out.

Still, at least the Rams turned it around pretty quickly after they binned off their average 70 year old manager.

Also, there’s only so long the old bugger can go on. Sorry, I didnt mean old. Arsene, no, I was just kidding! COME BACK!

I did read an NFL pundit say that Stan had to make moves on his Rams team because in LA, you can’t be boring and shite.

That’s where Stan K is winning with the Premier League. We could be in League One and we’d still have 50,000 people in the ground everyweek. The Brits are just too married to their football clubs. Tribalism is a bitch, you know, because you can’t ditch your tribe unless you want to get seriously ostracised by the group.

In GREAT news. We’ve signed up Mo Elneney. Wenger had this to say:

“He is a fantastic team player and he is a credit to your country if you are Egyptian. He is a fantastic boy, we love him here.

“It took him some time to adapt to the intensity of the games and I think he was not aggressive enough for the Premier League [initially].

“But now he has added that to his game. People forget that Elneny is 25 years old.”

A lot of fans grumbling about this, but I think he’s a perfectly acceptable squad player. I’d take him over Xhaka any day of the week. Is he a world beater? No. But he does a job.

I listened to Wenger talking to BEin, advising PSG to keep Emery.

‘Personally I believe Paris St Germain need to have stability and that Unai Emery has suddenly been ejected by the whole media. But that decision is not to be made by the media but by PSG.’

You gotta love Arsene, sticking up for one of his own. Those comments right there are why he won’t ever work for PSG. The media haven’t decided to remove Emery, PSG have. Take a read of Carlo’s book. The whole reason the Italian chose the project was because he wanted to be there for ten years. He had a few bad moments, and he was out the door.

That’s how big clubs work. They don’t need stability, the idea that a constant state of ‘ok’ is acceptable just doesn’t rub. You get two years. 1 year to let your ideas settle, the second to show progress. Arsene Wenger critiques the lack of stability in football, yet the most unstable clubs are out there winning the biggest trophies in world football. Look at Chelsea’s trophy cabinet every year. Look at what Manchester City are doing this year. Look at Barca and Madrid.

They are not building their clubs based on stability. They are building them based on the best ideas, and progress measured over two years, not 22.

Right, that’s it. Back to the drawing board. By that, I mean, back to the #WengerOut banner design drawing board. I’ll send you the link to my Shopify when they’re ready.

Have a good day! x