Main-Stream Media. Out To Troll You

By: Darren_v | November 8th, 2011

There was a time where the entire world relied on Journalists for the news. World news, local new, fashion updates, entertainment and sports, if you needed to know something about anything that interested you, you went to the media in its various forms to get the latest. The radio would give you the most up to date news in brief fashion, and the newspaper would give you the in-depth version on your kitchen table with your breakfast before work. Listening to your favorite sports club on the radio where the commentators described each and every play with great detail that it sounded like it was edge of your seat stuff for the entire duration of the game. The paper was marvelous for describing your favorite players skill and how he could glide about the opposition without ever being touched. They told you all you needed to know, and it the masses were firmly situated in their grasp while the words rolled off the tongue and pan, all of us hanging and believing each and every word.

And then the Television came into existence, and slowly but surely each and every game was starting to be broadcasted into everyone’s home. Millions were then able to watch the 32342 games of major league baseball (poor souls) and entire seasons of basketball and hockey were on the tube to be watched by anyone. The NFL made it into a billion dollar business where the whole USA was actually worried they would shut down the season this past summer, that’s how large an impact the revenue make. In a game where the clock runs for 60 minutes and the game can last for three hours, the amount of actual playing time is only 11 minutes. Then came the glorious invention of blogs and twitter and the many other various online options out there where regular fans could easily communicate and spend time discussing their favorite past times, Sports. People would listen to their favorite and not so favorite pundits of their sports, and when something sounded odd, there was a place to ask what those in the main-stream media said and if it made sense or not to others.
MsmvBlogger

I follow my local hockey club closely (but not as closely as Arsenal, mind). The Edmonton Oilers are a club I grew up with and everyone I knew listened and watched and talked about them, and hockey in general. I read column and column in the local newspaper with my cereal every single morning, pouring over any stat possible and imaging how the greats stars played. Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Jarri Kurri, and my all-time favorite Paul Coffey were names I heard all the time, and it was a childhood joy. We all have our childhood heroes where we blissfully lapped up every word of praise about them. Then I started watching the games, and I noticed an annoying trend. No matter what, the local media was always praising the management, and the players. Even when things were clearly going sideways. And if a player would get criticized by the club, every single person in the media would churn out articles and discuss how terrible this player was. No one ever disagreed with the club, or with each other. In my youthful rebellious state in my teenage years, I simply started liking those players all the more as a result. Rasheed Wallace in the NBA remains one of my more favorite basketball players, as he had so much passion for the game, and everyone derided him for it. And its the same with every sport, and with every club and their local media. Nicklas Bendtner remains a relatively unliked player in the Gooner world, and why is that? Because he is cocky, and the media do not like that, nor his pink boots.

So why do I bring this up? Well the admirable shit that is TalkSport produced an article stating the current Manchester City club is a better squad than the Arsenal Invincibles of 2003/2004. Despite only being 11 matches into the season, they decided to compare that squad with the best squad ever assembled, The Invincibles. It was a shocking read, and full of terrible ‘journalism’. Let’s refute some of it:

Lehmann vs Hart:
They claim Lehmann would struggle to get a game ahead of Hart, which is clearly true right now, but is it true of the Lehmann of 2003/04? Using the metric of clean sheets for one season like they do would suggest so, but then let’s all remember that even Manuel Almunia had one very good season as well, racking up an impressive 15 clean sheets with a leaky Arsenal defense in front of him. A keeper’s worth is not dependent on one season, but many. While Hart is a very good keeper, Lehmann proved his worth over many seasons, something Hart still needs to do.

Lauren vs Richards:
How anyone could pick Micah Richards over Lauren is simply baffling. Let’s be clear about one thing, Micah Richards isn’t even the best right back at his own club, as OilCity has Pablo Zabaleta with that distinction. While solid defensively, Zabaleta offers very little going forward. Are you really telling me Zabaleta is better than Lauren?

Campbell vs Lescott:
We all know Sol Campbell and what he did for Arsenal. You could put Sol up against OilCity defender and he wins every time.

Toure vs Kompany:
They claim it was a close one, but give the nod to Kompany for ‘reliability and leadership’. Honestly now, if those were the metrics you are using for your center back, why are you not comparing Kompany up against Sol Campbell, the man who was the leader of the Invincibles back line? This doesn’t even take in account that I would be picking Toure over Kompany every day of the week to play alongside a defensive stud like Campbell.

Cole vs Clichy:
Arsenal have had both left backs at their club, and it’s pretty clear Cashley Cole is likely the best left back of his generation.

Ljungberg vs Silva:
They give this one to Silva, and it’s a toss up in my view as they don’t actually play the same position. Ljungberg was terrific on the flank, while Silva does his damage in the middle of the park. It’s hard to argue to be fair.

Pires vs Milner:
It’s surprising they put Milner in the line up as Na$ri is head and shoulders a better player. But Bobby Pires beats anyone anyways.

Centre-Midfield:
This is where it gets fun, and where you realize this who article is set to wind people up. They compare Patrick Vieira to Gareth Barry which is a clear landslide for the Frenchman, and then pair Gilberto up against Yaya Toure. This makes no sense to even the casual fan. Of the four players Gilberto and Barry are clearly the defensive minded two, while Toure and Vieira would be the men to go forward in their respective line ups. But if you compared Vieira to Toure, and Gilberto to Barry, Arsenal would quite clearly win both match ups. And it’s awfully difficult to justify OilCity as the better squad when you loose the battle in the middle of the pitch.

Henry vs Dzeko:
Even TalkSport wouldn’t attempt to troll Thierry Henry.

Bergkamp vs Aguero:
Now anyone with a half a mind knows that Dennis Bergkamp was one of the greatest players to every play in England. TalkSport say that themselves. They proceed to ignore that they are completely different players and then rely on stats of an out and out striker to award Sergio Aguero as the better player in this match up. It’s quite frankly football blasphemy. Bergkamp did so much more than score and garner assists. He made things happen, and he was graceful while doing so. As they said when comparing Henry and Dzeko, “let’s not kid ourselves he’s fit to lace the great Frenchman’s boots.” the same goes for this match up. If you say Bergkamp is one of the best to every play in England, how can you say Aguero is better after ELEVEN MATCHES?

The answer is simple, they are trolling us.

I would love to see Aguero do the things that Bergkamp did in his career…

Make a commentator loose his head? Dennis did.

Score one of the greatest goals of all-time? Bergkamp quite clearly did that.

How’s your first touch Aguero? Not this good:

Chip a keeper? A Bergkamp trademark.

Right or Left foot, doesn’t matter to The Iceman.

Touch touches, chipping over the keeper, with the ball never touching the ground? Dennis Bergkamp

No one doubts Aguero’s talent but come on…

How about a curler? Mr. Dennis Bergkamp

Some close control in the box? Only Dennis Bergkamp.

Dennis the Menace didn’t have his nicknames for nothing

Even in retirement, chipping keepers like nobody’s business.

How about world-class passing Aguero. Like this:

Want a long range beauty? Bergkamp’s got you covered.

Nutmeg a teammate as easily as waking up

Now here’s the thing. I actually like Sergio Aguero. I think he is a mighty fine footballer and was sad that he went to OilCity. But to go around saying things like a TalkSport do in this article is exactly why I rarely read the newspapers, and why I find most journalists just a load of hot air. It’s not just TalkSport either, its all of them. The day after the Chelsea win some guy (cannot remember which one) on the Guardian Football Weekly podcast stated that Alex Song was not a defensive midfielder. Not one of the others on the podcast even questioned him on this statement, despite Song only playing as a defensive midfielder his entire career, bar emergency duty at center back. Last year the Guardian was loudly clamoring on twitter that they had ‘an exclusive to reveal in a couple hours.’ The hype was huge. The exclusive?

Inter Milan are interested in Gareth Bale.

True story.

The late Leonard Koppett said:

“The secret of good reporting is simply being around. Hanging out, he said, is “how a writer learns to know what he needs, what and how to write about it, to evaluate relevance and fairness, and how to distinguish the important from the trivial.”

The problem is, reporters, journalists and pundits are concerned with building narratives that sound pleasing to the ear, with no fact checking. They are looking to draw hits and controversy in order get you to look at their piece. It doesn’t matter what you say really. Facts don’t matter, generating revenues for your company does matter however. Best way to do that?

Troll the fans.

MSM

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Category: Arsenal News

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Darren_V

It's being reported that Koscielny will be starting for France tomorrow.
Good for him.
Rico

Sorry to break the topic of the article, just read on SkySports Coquelin might leave us in the January transfer window. any thoughts?
Homey_Mills

What about Coquelin and 15m to Rennes for M'Vila?
Orion

Would M'Vila like to be an understudy to Song?
Homey_Mills

Potentially, they'd both play together, along with either Wilshere/Arteta/Ramsey in a more advanced position. But a rotation of those five guys in some combination would be pretty solid no matter how it worked out. Sometimes it could be just Song or M'Vila as the only true DM too. Anyway, just a thought... I'd still prefer a more attacking midfielder if we bought someone, but M'Vila would be a nice addition too.
Rico

Sounds like a deal to me. I don't know too much about M'Vila but aren't Real Madrid after him too?
Homey_Mills

Several thoughts:
1) Thanks for the interesting write-up, Darren. I'm normally not swamped with work, but I have been this week. So I haven't been able to blog or write many comments.
2) I didn't read the original article that you reference, which is probably best for me.
3) Still, let me enter the debate a bit on a few points. If you're trying to compare Man City for this one season with Arsenal for that one season, then I don't think you need to consider career reputations. If all their guys are named Joe Schmo, but they play incredible for a whole year and destroy the competition, then you have to give them their due for that one season.
4) While the distinction of going 38 games undefeated is unique and extremely difficult, I'm not sure any objective person could call that "the best squad ever assembled." It came up short in the quarterfinals of the Champions League that year, in a year when it was extremely winnable (Porto v. Monaco in the final). In addition, Chelsea won the league title the following two seasons with greater point totals than Arsenal's 90 in 03-04. In 04-05, Chelsea won the league with 95 points, and had a +57 goal differential. While they didn't go an entire season unbeaten, one could certainly argue that their team that season was superior to ours the previous year. And then when you consider the unbelievable accomplishments of Barca in recent years, I don't think anyone could say that the Invincibles were better than those teams.
5) While I wouldn't be able to compare player-for-player as well as you did, I would consider the immense quality of the Man City bench to be where they might have a true advantage. That's not mentioned in your analysis (and perhaps it wasn't in the original article either - not sure). But to be able to call upon players like Nasri, Johnson, Balotelli, Zabaleta, Kolarov, De Jong, and so forth, all of whom aren't listed in the starting lineup listed in the article, means that Man City has a lot of options for a long season.
6) Finally, it's very early to make these comparisons. The Man City team has won nothing yet, and might fall apart. But at the same time, if you could somehow extrapolate their success over the course of a season, they'd end up around 107 points, with a goal difference of about +100. Even if they mildly fall of pace, they could still be on track for a rather historic season. We should at least wait until 2012 before starting to make historic comparisons, but it's easy to see that they at least have the POTENTIAL to be greater than the 03-04 Gunners. So we'll see.
JG

Best part of Bergkamp's Newcastle goal (aside from the first touch, of course)? Pires' delightful through pass. Before Cesc, there was Pires. And he didn't tail off in his prime because wittle Puyol and Pique misssed him.
Lana Dawood

One night last year some legends of Dutch football gathered for dinner in an Amsterdam house. Around midnight conversation turned to an old question: who was the best Dutch footballer ever? Dutchmen have been voted European Footballer of the Year seven times, more than any other nationality except Germans. Yet Jan Mulder, a great centre-forward turned writer, chose a player who had never even threatened to win the award nor, at the time, a Champions League: 'Bergkamp. He had the finest technique', said Mulder. Guus Hiddink, the great Dutch manager, nodded, and so the matter was settled. Enough said.

Dennis Bergkamp is perhaps the greatest player to have graced the english game. You can't explain with words just how great Dennis Bergkamp was.
Chicago Gunner

Oil at Hawks this Saturday. I got tix. If your boys are smart, they'll play shorthanded all game. It's a great way to make sure the Hawks don't score.
Darren_V

haha, fortunately for you, everything always regresses to the mean... The hawks are too good not to start going on a tear on the PP.
Chicago Gunner

Sorry, meant Sunday. I can never pass up an opportunity to comment on a hockey reference.
Perry S.

Arsenal Fan (unregistered) wrote, in response to Perry S.:
"They are already much much better that the invincibles. They will be both the highest scoring and best defensive team this year. Mancini is an Italian defensive minded coach. Arsene would do just as well. Have always considered him world class, still do and always will. His and Arsenal's impediment IS money. They will never have the budget of City, Chelsea, or United. Without that, Arsenal will never compete for an EPL title..."

Where to start?
Perry S.

There was some poster in here last week or the week before that got into an argument with me about the current City crop and how they are better than our Invincibles. Glad you posted this, I'd like to see him chime up again.
Martin

This certainly isn't a criticism of you, or the article, which is good, but I have to say I'm always a little confused when people get really upset at something the media, or commentators, say. There are people on Twitter who seem to specifically watch Match of the Day for the sole purpose of getting mad and complaining about how biased the commentators are against Arsenal. The same is true of some people who listen to/read Talksport, Daily Mail, and other sources.

It just seems like there's a pretty easy way to avoid the aggravation -- if you don't like what the announcer is saying about Arsenal, or Wenger, or a specific player, hit the mute button and put some Wilco on lightly in the background (I find myself doing this more and more as I watch matches). If you don't like what an article has to say, stop reading it, and stop reading that "journalist." There is an upside and downside in living in the digital/blog age -- the upside is that there are a lot of people out there who are trustworthy, honest, and insightful about Arsenal, and their opinions and information are readily accessible at no cost. The downside is that there are, like Talksport, a lot of idiots and wind-up merchants who write things for the sole purpose of generating pageviews from people who disagree with their obviously wrong views on things. Maybe this is just my personal approach, but it seems like the best approach is to focus on the former, and just ignore the latter, because doing anything else at all just gives them the attention they are looking for.
little goooner

Are you suggesting Perry should avoid Homey's articles and comments?
Perry S.

Ha I somewhat already do.
Darren_V

I actually share your thought on this to a large degree. I generally just ignore articles like this; Rarely will I read a newspaper article without it being recommended by someone I respect first. I find myself watching Arsenal matches with the sound off more and more.

That whole 'Aguero is better than Bergkamp because the stats don't lie' thing just really set me off however. I happen to have an (un)healthy bias and love for Dennis...
Ryan

Agreed with your point, and not just because of the Wilco reference, which would have gotten a "like" in itself. We should ignore all the trash. But it's also nice to have someone, like a blog writer with a good number of readers, to remind everyone "They are still spewing crap out their mouths, everyone", and just not mention it for some time. So it's a good article as well.

Oh, and welcome to Liverpool, RVP (Media Controversy starts now. GOGOGO).
Cristina Oana

Great article Darren. I could watch those videos again and again, what a player he was.

“If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed.”
― Mark Twain
henry4life

THANK YOU! I hate that article so much and it's such a pleasure to see a counter article. City compared to the invincible? City got no chance at all. Even this year I still dont think City can win the league.

wonder why they didn't even bother to compare the manager. I totally agree with you that Lauren was way better than Micah now. Lauren was one of those defenders who were underrated because the other players took all the center stage. Kind of like Steve Bould in the famous English back four.

but the part where I got so mad is when they say Aguero is better than Bergkamp. I mean, c'mon. It's like comparing Pele and Just Fontaine. Fontaine was a great player, but you dont compare great players with legends.
FredJacob

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FredJacob

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FredJacob

http://www.arsenal.com/match-m...
Adboy

boy i miss the good old days
Gigi_man

Surely City made those journalists an (Brando's voice) "offer they couldn't refuse", or (Duvall's voice), they "got journalists in their payroll".
Mike Howells

Those videos make me feel warm and fuzzy.
Ian

forget lehmann, i think even szczesny could give hart a run for his money.

the matchups for that article were definitely biased. i think ljunberg and silva is forgivable since you can't exactly compare the two players to any1 else in the starting line up. but like you said why would you compare campbell to lescott and toure to kompany? campbell was clearly more dominant in the back line than toure. and henry vs dzeko? wouldnt there be more sense pairing henry with aguero instead?
Rico

I seriously can't believe that article was published, I could barely read through it because the amount of shit that was written!! The author should be embarrassed and stick to finger painting as the finger paintings must be better than this article.
I almost died when I read Aguero beat Bergkamp! Is this author even a football journalist? I would suspect not!
A big thank you to Darren V for the clarification, I only wish I could force the author to read your piece.
It must be a joke though? They can't be serious after 11 games, why isn't Newcastle being compared since they're unbeaten in 11 games also?
People wonder why Man City are the most hated club in the English Premier League!
LachlanS

Nice write up! I was actually considering asking you guys to do a blog on this exact topic earlier today, but gave it a miss. Nice work
Ziggy2633

ppersonally the spits writers are an uneducated lot and what they spew can be done by my 12y/o son after watching match of the day.Talk shite can't get anything to bash Arsenal with since we shoved their spittle back down their throats after the humiliation of Stamford Bridge, so they being available to the richest will now look for oil money and try to wind Arsenal up.As if we care?The best part is how they are going to great lengths to discredit themselves as serious sports journalists.The whole world is laughing at you TALK SPORT.
Ziggy2633

ppersonally the spits writers are an uneducated lot and what they spew can be done by my 12y/o son after watching match of the day.Talk shite can't get anything to bash Arsenal with since we shoved their spittle back down their throats after the humiliation of Stamford Bridge, so they being available to the richest will now look for oil money and try to wind Arsenal up.As if we care?The best part is how they are going to great lengths to discredit themselves as serious sports journalists.The whole world is laughing at you TALK SPORT.
Chris

Excellent piece. I never get tired of watching those Bergkamp goals!!!!!
Omglol

Fantastic write, damn i miss Bergkamp.