Arsenal’s rise to the top of the Premier League has given the media a tricky conundrum. Praising us would mean admitting they got it wrong when every single one of them said we’d be lucky to get in the top six this season, let alone mount a serious title challenge. Writing us off would look like a serious bout of sour grapes. While tipping us to win it would simply go against their anti-Arsenal stance.
Fortunately for them, our less-than-convincing route to the top, combined with Chelsea dropping points like Simon Cowell drops fat women from the X-Factor, means the media can fall back on the “Arsenal aren’t winning it, Chelsea are losing it” get-out clause.
Lawrenson and Hansen have adopted this approach on the BBC. Lawro and Al are each paid a staggering £1m a year by the BBC and are each chauffeur-driven - in separate cars, despite living a stone’s throw from one another - to and from their Scouse penthouses.
And what do you get for those extortionate salaries, paid for by our licence fee? Asked recently whether Arsenal have enough mount a serious title challenge, Hansen offered the following insight: “No.”
That’s a million pounds well spent.
Others have adopted a different approach. TalkSport have been largely ignoring the Premier League, focusing instead on the failed World Cup bid. At least Arsenal are saved from criticism there. Oh, apart from Adrian Durham saying Andrey Arsharvin “shouldn’t be welcome back in England for what he did to us” – namely, supporting his own nation’s bid and, when they won, sitting respectfully so not to antagonise the England delegation seated next to him. That’s the same TalkSport that wanted Eduardo banned for ten games for what is a yellow card offence for every other player, though. And the same Adrian Durham who said the only thing Eduardo ever achieved is to make himself a hero by breaking his leg. So let’s not bother ourselves with them.
Over on Sky, the mocked-up penthouse overlooking a picture of Stamford Bridge was this week’s location for the four Sunday Supplement journalists discussing title credentials. Their approach was to point out that Chelsea’s meltdown, combined with the lack of any other genuine contenders, has left the door open for Manchester United to storm away with it. No mention of the Arsenal at all, other than from one idiot who said of our defensive clash of heads for Fulham’s goal: “Koscielny has a lot to answer for. He takes a slight knock on the head and simply stops defending. Tony Adams would have brushed it off and carried on.” That’s the same Laurent Koscielny who was stretchered off, went to hospital, and will now miss a month with severe concussion. But yeah, he should have played on.
Amid all of this, though, is one voice of reason. And from an unsuspecting source. Gary Lineker, albeit probably driven by the embarrassment of Hansen and Lawrenson failing to give any genuine insight, can regularly be heard probing away on why Arsenal can’t win it.
Lineker is even openly tipping us to mount a credible challenge – something unheard of in media circles: “Will [Man U] improve massively on last season? Unlikely. I've got a sneaky feeling for Arsenal. They will have a chance,” he says.
Lineker, it seems, is breaking the mould of the traditional “say the popular thing people want hear” pundit in favour of genuinely trying to stir up a debate.
Apparently, it was Lineker who shouted his mouth off that England had gone out at round one of that boring World Cup bid thing – the BBC ran a breaking news strapline that said “Lineker tells BBC that England have gone out at round one”, before swiftly changing it to “An England source tells BBC that England have gone out at round one”.
And he’s combining it with some genuinely candid views: "The night before the vote I was ushered off to hang around the hotel lobby where all the Executive Committee were and to speak to the ones I knew. You feel like some sort of stalker waiting to pounce. We waited for our prey. What concerned me though, was that none of the Russians, Spanish or Dutch were doing the same.”
Lineker at least seems to have an opinion that isn’t just what he’s heard everyone else saying or something designed purely to stir up controversy. That may be because he’s an anchor (I’ve called him something close to that before) rather than a pundit. But either way it’s a bit more refreshing than the idiots on TalkSport and Sky. Let’s hope he’s just as good at predicting Arsenal’s chances of mounting a serious title challenge this year. That’ll wipe the smug million-pound smiles off the faces of Lawro and Hansen.
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