An exclusive 5 star London Hotel. The great and the powerful of Arsenal Football Club have assembled for the annual end of season awards night. In a fitting end to their documentary style coverage of the season, the Amazon cameras were there to cover the event live with the beautiful Catherine Whitaker acting as MC for the evening. Wearing a dazzling sequined black dress she radiates professionalism combined with personal charm.
As the camera assumes her perspective and pans slowly from one side of the room to the other we are dazzled by the style and fashion of the Arsenal players, coaching staff, officials and their respective partners. In Oscar-like fashion the glitz and the glamour are eye catching, yet in a tragic and somewhat embarrassing breakdown in communication, the top table, containing the Brotherhood of Arsenal’s Sincere Trusted And Really Dedicated Servants (B.A.S.T.A.R.D.S) have all forgone the opportunity to dress formally and are instead wearing white t-shirts. This propaganda stunt has the hallmarks of being planned weeks ago as printed on each t-shirt in large letters were the words’ ARSENAL: MOVING FOURWARD’. A clearly annoyed Mikel Arteta is whispering furiously to his director of football Edu.
MA: Cunts! We look like stupid fucking cunts! Bad enough we are the only idiots with these things on us but now we look like premature wankers!
Edu: (consolingly) It’s not that bad boss, we’ve gone from 8th to 5th, that’s serious progress. I think the shirts capture that.
MA: They spell forward wrong deliberately you illiterate peasant! It’s a pun on our success in qualifying for the Champions league.
Edu: (confused) But we didn’t qualify for the champions league boss.
MA: (Spittle now beginning to mingle with his ‘whispering’) Do you think I don’t know that you Brazilian beach bum? Why do you think it’s so fucking embarrassing? It’s like we’re actually taking the piss out of ourselves! Who the fuck came up with this anyway?
Edu: No-one knows boss, they arrived first class from FIFA headquarters but we don’t have anyone in the club working there. Josh was thrilled with them and insisted we wear them. (A suspicious look appears on Arteta’s face as he considers these words. Just at that moment the lights dim and a single spotlight focuses all eyes on the beautiful hostess).
CW: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Arsenal football club end of season awards. It is my great pleasure to be here and bring a fitting conclusion to a fascinating year in which we at Amazon have followed the progress of this wonderful club both on and off the field. I am honoured to have been asked to help present these awards this evening as we capture the golden moments of the season that was.
(Arsenal assistant manager Steve Round is immediately impressed)
SR: Fuck me, she even kept a straight face, what a pro.
CW: Before we begin, I would like to call upon your beloved chairman Mr Josh Kroenke to say a few words. (Muted applause as Josh walks to the podium in an incongruous ensemble of shoes, pants, white t-shirt and baseball cap).
JK: Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to stand here before y’all on this wonderful occasion. I know we’ve a busy night ahead of us so I won’t delay y’all for long. (Speaks in hushed tones) I just wanted to say that when Mikel and his team first arrived at the Emirates and began their revolution of our club we could see immediately the huge difference that they would make. We had just missed out on champions league football by a point and though our heads were down, our spirits remained unbroken. (Raises his voice and points his index finger at MA) But I could see in Mikel a passion and a vision to turn things around and to return this footballing giant back to where it belongs. There were those who doubted he could do it. Those who said it was beyond him. But not me! (Shouts) I was excited! (Points at the audience) I told you to be excited!! (Roars) And now…here…today…we can finally celebrate the culmination of those dreams. Yes it took 3 years and hundreds of millions of pounds but look at us now. (Raises his two arms in the air and screams) LOOK AT US NOW!!!.
(Absolute silence as Jk’s climactic oral orgy ends)
SR: (to Edu) Do you want to tell him?
Edu: (shaking his head hopelessly) Nope.
JK: By the way folks, the bar tab is on me tonight. (These words are followed by an explosion of joy. Kieran Tierney was seen sprinting unhindered to the bar with Thomas Partey in close pursuit. Lacazette was spotted ordering 3 bottles of Dom Perignon and with a lady either side of him it looked like even he might score. Granit Xhaka who had been about to pay the barman for hid drink instead flicked his middle finger at him, picked up his drinks and walked defiantly away. Only Aaron Ramsdale failed to take full advantage of the situation, having dropped his drinks on the way back to the table. Meanwhile Catherine was restoring order).
CW: And now if I could ask Mikel Arteta to come up for the presentation of our awards. (Arteta sullenly approaches the stage trying to contort himself in such a way that the writing on the t-shirt is hidden) Mikel, would you like to say a few words? (Arteta takes the microphone).
MA: (Tries for a smouldering, philosophical look, but fails. Looks like a constipated action man being controlled by a ventriloquist). When the season began we had a lemon. I squeezed it for the juice. But I squeezed it too hard. Now we have bitterness. Thank you.
CW: (Confused but persists) Thank you Mikel. We will now present our first award of the night. This season’s top goalscorer whose lethal conversion rate has helped his club to a champions league place, ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for the one and only….Pierre Emerick Aubameyang. (A beaming PEA approaches the stage in his Barcelona shirt as a snarling Arteta is forced to present the award).
Our next award, young player of the season goes, not surprisingly to a man who has already been declared the finest young player in his country, congratulations……William Saliba (Saliba climbs onstage in his Marseille shirt).
MA: (Angrily) Who the fuck are you?
WS: William…William Saliba.
MA:Yeah, sorry, means nothing to me. Next!
CW: Okay…Time for this year’s goalkeeper of the year award. Now originally the winner of this award was Aaron Ramsdale from the first half of the season. But as no-one has seen him since Christmas we have asked Aaron Ramsdale post Christmas to collect his award (Muted applause as Ramsdale appears on stage wearing his Sheffield Utd shirt and receives his prize) Now in a similar theme our next category is save of the season and this year’s winner is…Josh Kroenke! (A delighted Josh runs up to grab his trophy and parade around the stage like a 1966 Bobby Moore. Throughout his theatrics Catherine gives the audience a running commentary). This year Josh has saved his Dad a fortune by convincing Arsenal that they could let all their players go and not replace them resulting in a huge reduction in the wage bill and no need for any expenditure as other top 4 rivals strengthen in the January transfer window. And put your hands together for his assist king…..Edu! (Edu runs up and collects his award from an infuriated Arteta who has developed a series of stress related twitches which are causing his arms to point in random directions. This is causing chaos in the audience as many of the players, clearly conditioned to react to such gestures, are running pointlessly from side to side in an effort to placate their manager).
Now for our next award and this year we have a real cracker for you. Our goal of the year came at a time when despite failing to make any progress in the cups, overseeing the great giveaway of many once valuable players and indeed failing to strengthen the squad thereby ultimately jettisoning a top 4 finish, manager Mikel Arteta went to America and secured his goal of a new 3 year contract!! (Camera focuses on Arteta as Catherine presents the goal of the season trophy to him. He cannot disguise his pride and as he lifts it in the air with both hands their is audible relief in the audience as the players can resume their seats).
Our penultimate award tonight is to recognise the player that puts in the work on the training ground. The type of player who stays behind for extra practice when all the rest have gone. Yes it’s our “last to leave” award and this year we simply couldn’t separate them. So ladies and gentlemen put your hands together for Granit Xhaka and Mo Elneny, both of whom will be in Arsenal’s engine room long after the rest of us have stopped trying to fathom why. (Applause, loud at first but slowly dies down to a whimper as it takes so long for them to get to the stage and back again)
And finally, the one we’ve all been waiting for, Arsenal’s P.O.T.Y, Propaganda Of The Year. Now this year there have been some incredible manipulations of the truth to pick from but we have whittled it down to three. In third place came the assertion that because the club is moving in a chaotic, rudderless and leaderless direction we should start again and call this season one for no other reason than the previous season’s were humiliating and no-one wants to take the blame. A sprinkling of words such as Covid and deadwood has taken this little gem into 3rd place (A large round of applause). In second place this year was the idea that failing to qualify for the Europa last year was actually a clever ploy orchestrated by our manager. The key to this particular piece of spin was that by not being in the Europa league the club would have less games this year and therefore have a huge advantage in their quest…..to qualify for the Europa league. (More warm applause from the audience)
However, this year’s winner and our P.O.T.Y is our ‘Project Youth’ and here to accept the award and explain his vision is our very own Director Of Fantasy, Edu!! (Tumultuous applause as Edu proudly steps forward. The lights dim and silence settles on the room as Edu takes his captive audience back in time).
Edu: (In deep hushed tones) When I was a little boy in Brazil, my Moma she raised me to be a good Catholic, devout, faithful. And every Lent she would say to me ‘Edu, what will you sacrifice for our Lord this year?’ And every year I let her down. No matter what I chose to give up I always relented. 40 days is a long time, no? (The audience react sympathetically). But then one year Moma didn’t ask me what I was going to sacrifice until Lent was almost over. I thought hard and realised I hadn’t eaten cauliflower in weeks and so I chose that. And even though I was overcome with an unnatural desire for cauliflower in the days that followed I made it to the end of Lent for the first time in my life. And that’s when I discovered it, post planning. So when myself and Mikel were asked what the fuck we were trying to build after all the random purchases of last summer we sat down and had a think. I realised that all of our purchases happened to be under 25 as no-one in their prime would touch us with a fucking barge pole. And it hit me, we had ‘project youth’ on our hands. Once Mikel told Willian to fuck off and withdrew Mustafi’s contract offer we were on a winner. People swallowed it by the bucket load. Some even forgot we had just paid 80 million for Ben White and Aaron Ramsdale as if their youth was proof they’d become world class or something!!
CW: Well it certainly was a brilliant initiative and worthy of this wonderful award (she presents him with a large framed and signed picture of Xhaka telling the fans to fuck off).
Well that’s it for another incredible season ladies and gentlemen. It only remains for me to thank everyone here tonight for their contributions and Arsenal Football Club for allowing us such access to the club, (the camera begins to move closer until all that can be seen on screen is Catherine’s elegant figure) but above all I would like to remind Arsenal fans that for all their disappointments, hope is never too far away (she begins to fiddle unsuccessfully with a zipper on the side of her skirt and briefly, very briefly, smiles at the camera).
[Satire] is a collection of brilliance from one of our readers Almuniasaynomore, who can be seen lurking in comments often. If you are a gooner by heart, is saddened by the current state of Arsenal Football Club, this section tries to have a laugh at expense of some.
If you feel offended, remember, they’re just jokes. We’re all gonna die soon and there’s no football in hell or heaven, so remember that.
Feedbacks are welcome in the comments!
This is a theory Marc touched on recently and although I’ve never seen any proof, I would not be surprised if it had an element of truth, ie that Arsenal may be shite on the pitch, but they do a brilliant job of controlling opinion via stooges like Attwood, Pedro and all those other apologists. Basically, we’re all being had by PR men and spin doctors.
To change the mood a little, and to irreverently remember that old tax evader Lester Piggott, here’s a wee joke at the end of the weekend.
Q:Who is the only 20 stone man to have ridden a 4 time Epsom Derby winner?
A:Lester Piggott’s cellmate.
I’ll get my coat.
Have a good week lads!
Kroenke
When I made the comment about Pedro etc being paid to talk utter bullshit it was tongue in cheek – the problem is they push such bullshit it’s difficult to see a reason they’d do it unless they’re being paid!
Marc
I also doubt that hard cash is being exchanged. For me it’s about favours. Throwing them the odd bit of stilted, biased bullshit in the hope that it gets disseminated amongst the gullible. If I was Gonnella, I’d see that as a perfectly viable strategy if it meant keeping an already docile fanbase fully tranquilised and acquiescent. Pedro and Attwood have gone full ‘poacher turned gamekeeper’.
Kroenkephobe
“ I would not be surprised if it had an element of truth, ie that Arsenal may be shite on the pitch, but they do a brilliant job of controlling opinion via stooges like Attwood, Pedro and all those other apologists. Basically, we’re all being had by PR men and spin doctors.“
Had said as much quite bluntly on that Bog ( pun intended) a few times . This is exactly how the ruling party been winning in India . There is a managed opinion which is relentlessly drilled particularly on grove . The average Joe of limited intelligence takes it as gospel truth.
You are absolutely right
AFC with their lazy owners and a geriatric Board who are only intent to stick to lucrative positions, have yielded absolute power to the Manager. There are unquestioned finances to spend on influencers. This situation is from Wenger. Emery was not fluent to bullshit and joist into those positions.
Hi Hoopah
Good analysis – ‘managed opinion’ as you so brilliantly put it is ubiquitous in the media now, so why would Arsenal be immune. It’s a thoroughly crap state of affairs, and pretty sinister to get your head around if you’re an old bastard like me who’s used to at least a modicum of pluralism. Le Grove is shot, frankly. For India, read the UK too in terms of media control and bias not least at the BBC which has fucked itself.
Kroenke
Seriously mate don’t get me started on the media over here.
Hoopah
You’re dead right about the club putting too much power into the hands of the manager and that’s not about Arteta it’s about any manager. It’s another example of Pedro being completely full of shit. What happened to Pedro pushing the “modern setup” where a manager fits into a structure so you can change manager without the club needing a complete rebuild? He was on that for years now you’ve got a Tech Dir who’s subservient to the manager when the manager is supposed to answer to him.
We are so fucked as a club the Spud’s are now better run than us.
Almunia a legend as always!
Hi China (and Killroy, and TRVL if you’re a reader).
I’m very much enjoying your collective efforts to kick against the pricks (as it were) on LG. A bit like shooting fish in a barrel but you all do it with good grace, style and compelling evidence.
I was intrigued to see I got a mention this morning as I’ve was banned by Pravda Pedro months ago for pursuing his bullshit takes on the club and his numerous alter egos. Arguably his most awful apparatchik Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnut seems to have had his cage badly rattled again. Karma I guess for going on an Arsenal site and being a Spurs fan in reality.
In terms of tone and content, it’s much more jocular over here and, importantly, Ambarish (or Mb as you might know him) seeks balance and fairness. And there’s an embargo on Kool-aid. You should pop in when you get time and when you fancy a breather from the, err, mouth-breathers.
Me old mate Almunia is still working wonders by bringing sanity to the madness that infects the upper echelons of the club, and Marc can be relied on as a passionate ST holder to keep Arteta’s mincing little feet close to the fire. Lots of other good eggs checking in too from all over the place.
PS – I hope your hours are getting back to sensible levels China.
China,
Thanks. Mb gave me a place to continue writing the sketches without upsetting too many people. There’s a folder created for satire in the main menu. An old favourite of yours will be making plenty of appearances this summer ( if he can get time off from his hectic FIFA workload). I hope you and yours are well.
Morning Kroenkephobe,
Seems you are still in people’s heads, quite the impression you can make! Hope Wales is offering you a glimpse of that rarest of sights in Ireland….the sun.
Take solace from the fact that while you are lounging in your garden with a Welsh version of Long Island iced tea, Edu and Tets are trawling the known world for the talent required to take us to ‘the next level’. You know it’s true!
Almunia
Hiya mate. I assume it’s half-term on your side of the Irish Sea too. I hope you and the family are enjoying the sun. It’s getting positively tropical in this part of the world isn’t it?
I think Pedro is channelling the Tufnell Funnel cortex in his brain to dredge up old confrontations. I know you still dabble over there (so to speak) so maybe it’s a cry for help to get us back over there writing stupid songs in the off season. Or not.
Hoping to watch Scotland-Ukraine tonight. It might not be the sentimental choice at the moment but I’m hoping for a sweet McVictory to set things up for Sunday.
Are you taking an interest in the TW? The only name getting my ducts flowing is a certain West Brom reject (Gnabry). I bet we didn’t even include a discounted buy-back option. Now he would give me a bit of pre-season optimism.
The only talent Bunga Bunga Edu is pursuing right now is horizontal on an agent’s yacht with lots of white powder feathered around her nostrils. Lucky bastard.
I can never understand how people who believe and or promote something as amazing (I use the term loosely) and then either ban or are outraged by any criticism. This goes from religion to politics to football, ultimately if something is that good isn’t the criticism irrelevant?
Pedro by banning people who aren’t being truly offensive (the abuse towards Emery included outright racism but that was borderline encouraged) just shows how naked the Emperor’s is in his new clothes.
https://youtube.com/shorts/RXtMEXPsq38?feature=share
In other news, Son Heung-Min has announced the opening of his and Harry Kane’s equine rimming enterprise.
Marc
ultimately if something is that good isn’t the criticism irrelevant?
It would be on a sane blog.
Kroenke
Insane doesn’t get close – Le Grove has turned into the thing it used to feel nothing but condescension for – Untold!
Was perusing the different sites for what is happening on the transfer side and came across this quote from one of the readers that sits right with me.
Arteta has treated fringe Arsenal players badly who possibly could have taken the club back into champions league. The man simply doesn’t know how to manage players. The best profession that suits such kind of behavior is that of a headmaster or boarding master.
The perception by others is there Arteta is a headmaster or boarding master and NEVER a manager.
Killroy
Prison Warden or Lighthouse Keeper might also suit as his chosen metier. One calls for being a pointlessly cruel bastard, the other working alone in the middle of nowhere for long periods of time. Given his psychological flaws (among many others), he’s a terrible fit for managing one of the world’s wealthiest football clubs.
Are these Hickey rumours true? You wait 50 years for a Scottish International full back to join Arsenal, and then two come along…
KP
You remember that after EL disaster Pedro changed his tune and almost came to the point of doubting MA’s abilities but it only lasted a few days until a dizzying pirouette.
Noticed that in a recent post it looks like we have a few come to Jesus moments on LG”
Nigel Tufnel
“My hope (rose coloured glasses) is that the addition of …”
Nigel confessing he is wearing rose coloured glasses and not looking at reality, a shocker 😆
Pedro
“The Mavropanos fee was pitiful considering the talent as was agreeing to sell Guendouzi before we saw how good he’d be at Marseille.”
Looks like Pedro is agreeing with what many here have been saying for awhile our Deal Making Dunce and lighthouse keeper are really bad at spotting talent.
Killroy
Quite. I argued vehemently with Arteta fanboys for months about Guendouzi. The guy is going to go far, just not with us. We could have done with him at numerous points since Tets had that pissy fit about him after the Amex defeat. It beggars belief that Stan and Josh cannot see Tets’s repetitive tendency to absolutely trash player values and consistently make deleterious decisions.
Yeah, Pedro’s ‘report’ post Villareal was a treat. I think I wrote at the time congratulating him for seeing sense (you wouldn’t know I was a diplomat for 30 years!) An all-too-rare and short-lived epiphany. Wenger Eagle and I both reminded him of it – I could sense him squirming all the way across the Atlantic. But hey, he’s an Arteta fluffer not a journalist so he’s a stranger to truth, consistency and reality.
Killroy
Which makes Pedro an even bigger tosser – only he and those few who adore Arteta can comment on his cockups, anyone else is still delusional and can’t see that Arteta is moving the club forward.
You have to wonder whether Pedro has either always had a serious mental flaw or some recent event has traumatised him. At some point his behaviour will comeback and bite him in the arse – either a perspective employer or client will pick up on how he now runs Le Grove and want nothing to do with him.
Almunia
Looks like my hopes of seeing the Tartan Army taking on Wales in Cardiff on Sunday might be going up in smoke.
Kroenkephobe,
It’s not going well. I was going to say that at least you’ll be saved having to choose but I think you were comfortably in the Scottish camp. Will be shouting for the Welsh myself but Ukraine might be too good for them also.
How did McGinn miss that? We have Ukraine in that league thing next week. Hope they’re resting a few!
Game on!!
I have had a long break, but I’m back. Missed you all..
Ambarish
Hi. Did you go anywhere fun (say on a 50 metre gin palace in the Mediterranean with Edu, Joorabchian and a bevvy of women? ) or have you been back on those 20 hour working days?
In any case, you’ve not missed a great deal. We’ve not signed any players, and our crappy manager is still in a job.
If you’re looking for ideas for another article, I was thinking that it might be worth doing a piece on what that dreadful World Cup in Qatar is going to mean for AFC and the Premier League, ie the disruption, the sad deaths of all those underpaid builders, what it’ll do to players and those not attending, the poor fans (40 plus fucking degrees centigrade – even hotter than Wales and Ireland right now! ) and the possible consequences for Arsenal. One thing we simply must not tolerate is any Artetapologist baloney about how it affected us more that other clubs. I know it’s not exactly close to India but are you or any of the other regionally based readers on here planning to go?
My own view is that international football is a stain on the real thing (despite my getring excited about seeing Wales this weekend… Cough, splutter..). This has been all about filthy lucre and corruption with no cash reaching the grass roots. Moreover, I suspect it’s going to diminish league football all over the Northern Hemisphere this season. Disgraceful really. Blatter, Platini and all those other ballbags should be in jail for fraud. Have a good one mate.
“One thing we simply must not tolerate is any Artetapologist baloney about how it affected us more that other clubs.”
Yep that’s ones incoming for next season plus you can’t expect Arteta to compete for CL places when he’s playing in the EL. Conte’s a shit manager who’s spent his way to finishing above us – same for ManU.
We should actually have a competition on who can predict the most ridiculous excuse that’s posted on Le Grove – two winners one for the excuse posted by Pedro and the other for the excuse posted on the comments.
KP
Haha, I have been spending some time with my family, I live only about 50km from my village and I had to climb some trees to get those mangoes. Did a better job than Edu I must say.
World cup in Qatar? I will have a look. It’s about same temperature here (40 degree) and foot ball is the worst thing you wanna do as a player.
Unfortunately, there is corruption everywhere. No one in their right mind will accept that.
Lads
Some hot news off the presses – well, Kroenkephobe Junior’s social media instagram thingy. It suggests Gunnerdouzi might not be staying at Marseille and could be coming back to N London. Would be fantastic news if true. I rate him and admire his spikiness, but it could also pave the way for GX to leave N7. Win-win.
It’s probably tosh but you never know.