Giroud is quite good and four other Good Friday thoughts

I've written up a few thoughts that were too long for Twitter but weren't worth blog posts of their own. Some are more developed than others...

Calling for Giroud to be sold is odd
There's a bizarre tendency amongst some fans to both call for 'greater squad depth' and then decry players such as Olivier Giroud as 'not good enough'. Presumably if Giroud were to be sold and a 40 million pound striker to be bought in his place, the same problem would remain: a strike force of top striker, Yaya Sanogo, Joel Campbell and Theo Walcott as an option would still be putting an enormous strain on the top striker signed.

The other point is that Giroud actually has a very good record against smaller teams: he's probably not going to score the winner at Stamford Bridge; he might well score ten goals in fifteen starts against bottom half teams, giving whoever might normally lead the line a well-earned rest. I'm all for keeping him.

You have to be able to kick the ball
I find it quite strange when people praise Yaya Sanogo's running and the positions he takes up without mentioning one thing: he is bloody awful at kicking the round thing. Not just in the net but even close to it. Admittedly he's only played a few games but if you can't kick the ball, you're not going to score many goals.

How good really is Brendan Rodgers?
I know Liverpool are very much flavour of the month and they have been on an exceptional run, but I do get the impression that Brendan Rodgers has had far too much credit. In his time at Liverpool he's bought nine players for substantial fees:

Fabio Borini
Joe Allen
Daniel Sturridge
Philippe Coutinho
Luis Alberto
Iago Aspas
Simon Mignolet
Tiago Ilori
Mamadou Sakho

Of those nine, three are out-and-out flops (Borini, Allen, Aspas). Tiago Ilori is largely unknown but spending £7 million on a defender to not play him once for five months before sending him on loan to a bottom-half La Liga team where he has played just four times is hardly encouraging. Luis Alberto might be good but has hardly played; and Mignolet and Sakho are just average players, with Mignolet no improvement on Pepe Reina. Sturridge and Coutinho are both good signings but spending almost £100 million for two very good players and a couple more average ones is hardly brilliant management.

Top managers such as Arsene Wenger and Alex Ferguson have always built teams so that they can make up for the loss of one player. Rodgers has done some good things - Jon Flanagan has improved enormously and Jordan Henderson is becoming the player I thought he might.

But if Liverpool fail to win the League and lose Luis Suarez (a player incidentally not signed by Rodgers), I think they'll be in a fight for fourth next season. Rodgers has certainly done a good job. But the hyperbole about him being a brilliant manager needs more evidence.

Very few people seem to actually understand tactics
For years, the tactic of derision was zonal marking. Now, finally, most people seem to have caught on there's a reason that most top teams use this system and a large proportion of the people criticising it were failed managers.

But there do now seem to be some things which are considered normative goods: things a football team just 'should' do. Pressing is one. Playing a high line is something considered a normative bad.

And the truth is, like in most things, it's much more complex. (NB You can see the value of my nine grand a year social science degree here). It's plausible that playing a high line against Chelsea was the wrong decision. But there was an obvious thought process behind it: push the game higher up the pitch, put pressure on John Terry and Branislav Ivanovic who aren't especially good on the ball and try and get Cazorla et al in positions where they can be most effective, particularly when Arsenal's movement off-the-ball is nowhere near as good as it was a few months back, due to personnel changes.

AVB's failure combined with how bad a high line looks when things go wrong means people don't like it, whereas its advantages are less overt.

Similarly, two of the most successful managers in recent years have been Pep Guardiola and Jürgen Klopp, both of whom have consistently picked teams which press very hard. But the idea there's no downside to this is just ludicrous. There's a reason that Guardiola teams repeatedly tire in the final quarter of matches, something exploited by Arsenal both times he came to the Emirates with Barcelona.

My point isn't that Arsenal necessarily should play a high line or not press, but that these are legitimate choices with benefits attached to them.

In fact, that Arsene Wenger changed things for the Chelsea game shows he does indeed do tactics. When people say 'Arsenal always play the same way' they're either not watching the matches, or they actually want Arsenal to hoof aimless long ball in a way reminiscent of the England national team circa 2000-2006. Quite why that would be a positive thing is lost on me. But at least Arsenal would have played a different way!

Oxlade-Chamberlain nails it
I read somewhere - I forget where - Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain making a fair point that while Arsenal haven't won anything in a long time (yes, all media outlets, I'm aware how long it's been - you don't have to mention it every ten minutes) this current squad has only really been around for three years max. It's a fair point that losing is not some sort of long-term endemic thing at Arsenal, despite what the media might have you believe. A good point, well made by Chamberlain - now go and learn how to pass the football.

Who's to blame for Arsenal's injuries?

In recent weeks much has been said and written about Arsenal’s injury list. Nobody denies that injuries have had an impact on Arsenal’s slide in form. But the question which every man and his dog has an opinion on is who is to blame?

The answer I keep on reading is Arsene Wenger. I simply don’t think the answer is as simple as that.

The first thing worth establishing is that the problem is not nearly as large as it is generally made out to be. People say “it’s the same every season” and it’s simply not true. Last season, Arsenal suffered from relatively few muscle injuries; the season before a similar situation arose, it was just unfortunate that so many of these injuries were clustered amongst all the full-backs at the club at the same time. Even this season, while Arsenal are top of the ‘injury League’ this is mainly because of long-term injuries to Abou Diaby, Theo Walcott and Jack Wilshere, none of which are muscle injuries. There's a case that Arsenal have simply been unlucky this season. Nonetheless, it is true that Arsenal have suffered from muscle injuries this season, and while I am not a medical professional, these are allegedly preventable.

The criticism of Arsene Wenger stems from the contention that his “out-dated training methods” are causing these injuries. The logical corollary of this is that Arsenal used to suffer from an abundance of injuries, it was just that other clubs also did and so this was less noticeable. This is simply factually untrue: in the 1997-98 season, just fifteen players started ten or more League games for Arsenal. If it were the case that the training methods were out-dated, they also would have caused a multitude of injuries fifteen years ago. That they didn’t suggests that unless humans have markedly changed physiologically in the last fifteen years (something I’m going to say is unlikely), Wenger’s training methods cannot be causing more injuries.

Arsenal’s injury crises are actually a relatively recent phenomena, beginning after the stadium move. My theory is that it stems from two things.

First is squad size. Arsenal fans are quite insular and are therefore more likely to notice injuries at their club, compared to at other clubs. Manchester City have been without Matija Nastasic, Sergio Aguero, and Stevan Jovetic for large parts of this season. The difference is that City’s squad is so large that it is far less noticeable when they have a few players injured, even if they are key players. This is comparatively harmful in of itself for Arsenal in terms of picking up results: they simply have fewer excellent players than Manchester City.

But the smaller squad size means that once Arsenal pick up a few injuries, it becomes necessary to keep on playing the same players, often when they are in the famed ‘red zone’, increasing likelihood of further injuries. In other words, it is a self-perpetuating cycle, which it is very difficult to do anything about. Although it is a repeated problem, it is very difficult to fix because of resource considerations: Arsenal simply cannot afford to sign players of the caliber City do, simply to sit on the bench. This part of the problem is therefore definitely not Arsene Wenger’s fault.

The second thing I think Arsenal’s injuries stem from is the type of player they pick: lots of small, skillful nippy players. Arsenal have forsaken the power displayed by players like Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry for more skill-focused players. For a start, the powerful game intuitively seems less likely to cause muscle injuries because it entails far fewer sudden movements. This is born out by the evidence: Vieira and Henry suffered very few muscle injuries in their time at Arsenal.

The short, sharp movements required by the Arsenal game are more likely to cause the sort of muscle strains witnessed. So while there was little that could be done about Walcott or Wilshere’s injuries, those suffered by Aaron Ramsey and Mesut Ozil seem more preventable. Not necessarily on an individual basis, but if Arsenal bought taller, stronger players these players could drive the team forward, giving the skill players room to work their magic. In a sense, the greatest tragedy of the last five years at Arsenal is the impact Abou Diaby would have had if he had been regularly fit. He is exactly the sort of player Arsenal need at the moment – but unfortunately, there is nobody else comparable to him in the squad. This is certainly a failing on the manager’s behalf in terms of recruitment.

Biology was my worst subject at school so I’m not going to sit at my laptop and arbitrarily blame the Arsenal medical department for injuries. Nor do I think it is reasonable to peg all of it on Arsene Wenger: if he were so laissez-faire with his training as to let players get injured easily, I find it unlikely that so many players would say he was the best manager they ever worked with. I do think changing the style of the team somewhat would help to prevent injuries, but there is a question of whether big, strong players can be found who are also technically sound. That’s a job for the summer.

Keep the faith.

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Sometimes continuity is better than change: Arsenal 1 Man City 1

Arsenal 1 Man City 1

At half-time yesterday, Arsene Wenger was faced with a tactical conundrum. Jesus Navas and Pablo Zabaleta were over-powering Kieran Gibbs due to Lukas Podolski's defensive incompetence. TV pundits advocated substituting Podolski and replacing him with a more defensive player. And yet Wenger did nothing of the sort: in fact, he doubled down on Podolski.

Attack-wise, Podolski had probably offered more than any other Arsenal player in the first half and Wenger recognised this. Arsenal played even more down the left in the second half, committing more bodies to that part of the pitch and created three terrific chances from that position: first, Podolski put in a brilliant cross which Olivier Giroud might have done better with; then, he put in a cross that Mathieu Flamini did put away; and then he himself had a chance as a result of a lucky ricochet and probably should have scored.

It's a really important lesson: sometimes continuity is better than change - conservatism (with a small c) has its place. The response of the armchair tactician would have been to become even more defensive. Instead, Wenger and Arsenal went for it and were rewarded.

The ludicrous media depiction of Arsene Wenger as some sort of tactical neanderthal who only knows how to play one way is just stupid. Sure, his teams tend to play a similar style. But if you think that means the tactics are always the same, you really shouldn't be allowed to express an opinion about football. Here he was, making a tactical tweak against one of the best tacticians out there and getting it right. Still though, it's all about narratives and this is an established one.

Yestersay's result also underscores the fine margins in football: two weeks ago, Arsenal were able to play defensively at White Hart Lane because of Tomas Rosicky's goal; last week, if Giroud had taken his early chance, Arsenal might well have mirrored those tactics: instead it turned into a clusterfuck. Against City, it could so easily have gone 2-0 early in the second half because of Arsenal's continued attacking mindset. Instead, Arsenal equalised and were perhaps unfortunate not to find a winning goal. On such small margins do whole seasons change. Just look at Dennis Bergkamp's penalty in 1999 against United as proof of that.

Keep the faith.

Wouldn't you expect Arsenal to lose to Chelsea?

In Charles Dickens' David Copperfield, the titular character’s personal shortcoming is one of a weak heart, falling for Dora, rather than the more suitable Agnes. I’ve now saved you reading 700 pages of Dickens’ awful prose but more importantly, Copperfield’s shortcomings are similar to those of Arsenal fans: always believing the grass would be greener on the other side, always wanting the allure of something new regardless of how it might go wrong, turning down sensible Agnes for beautiful Dora.

The aftermath of any Arsenal defeat these days is usually characterised by the return of an abundance of people calling for Arsene Wenger to be sacked, talking about how he is past his sell-by date etc etc etc. It’s boring, I’m not going to recant it all. There’s two odd things about this: generally this season Arsenal have been very good; the odd defeat, such at the one to Stoke is what makes football exciting. If the favourites always won it would be exceptionally boring.

But the second is that the response to other defeats – particularly the games away to Man City, Liverpool and Chelsea – have been followed by an outcry about the results. It’s very odd to me: before the match, people usually concede these teams are better than Arsenal and predict a defeat. When defeat follows, there is then a huge display of faux-shock of ‘how could this possibly happen’ despite it being predicted by most people.

People depicting all these games as being exactly the same and this season as being “same old, same old” need to open their eyes. Arsenal have been far more consistent this season. They’re in the semi-final of the FA Cup and there is still a chance they will win the League. Do they have the best squad in the League? No. Do they have the second-best? No. Do they have the third best? Yeah, probably. Where do I expect Arsenal to finish? Third. It’s almost like they’re performing about to the standard I’d expect.

But I’d still be wary of taking the three away shellackings as being evidence of tactical negligence. Simply because all three ended in heavy defeats does not mean they should be conflated into one. At City, while I might have set up more cautiously, Arsenal could easily have won the game, and this despite an injury to their best defender mid-game. At Liverpool, the opposition performance was the finest 20 minute spell any team has produced in the Premier League all season. There’s a peculiar insistence among Arsenal fans that the opposition can never just be better. When Arsenal were terrific against Napoli, they rightly received much praise. Similarly, another very good football team can sometimes be excellent against Arsenal. It’s why they’re good, and it’s more than likely to happen on their home ground with their supporters cheering them on. This isn’t some massive conspiracy theory: it’s how football generally works. It’s why cup ties played over one leg can often see surprising results when a bigger team plays away to a smaller team.

And against Chelsea, it’s also hard to see that tactical negligence was to blame, so much as individual errors. Even at 2-0 down, Arsenal had already a brilliant chance in a game that looked very open. It was not inexplicable that they could get back into the game. I’m not entirely sure what Arsene Wenger was supposed to do to stop Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain suddenly deciding he was a goalkeeper. Intuitively, it seems unlikely to me that he was told before the match to do that. When footballers do stupid things, blaming the manager seems an odd response.

Like other Gooners, I’m very disappointed. It’s obviously very embarrassing to lose 6-0. But the rational part of me says it’s difficult to blame the tactics when you play with ten men for 75 minutes away from home against a better team. Perhaps the bigger reason for a downturn in form has been the loss of Walcott, Ramsey, and Ozil, three of Arsenal’s very best players. Having them in the team might well have led to a better result on Saturday and better results in the last few weeks. Of course Podolski isn’t brilliant: but tell me who should play instead. Everybody complains we have too many wide players; it’s a shame that so many are injured.

I’d love Arsenal to win more of these big games. In particular, the two matches against Man United were a huge let-down. But in general, I just think Arsenal are still about the third-best team in the League. All the people criticising the transfer policy seem to think that Arsenal didn’t try and sign a striker or holding midfielder last summer: they did. They bid more than three times their previous transfer record for Suarez. Given the comparative success Arsenal have had this season, the argument that it would have been worth signing another striker of Giroud’s caliber for circa £15 million and £12 million wages over four years is odd. I’m struggling to see where that would have brought more success, even if such a player existed.

Nobody predicted Arsenal would win the League this season; not having to battle it out for fourth place is a welcome improvement on the last two seasons. The team can improve this summer and come back fighting next season: Arsenal are no longer a selling club and there’s a lot to be optimistic about.

Another of Dickens’ novels opens with the famous line “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times”. I’m happy to predict the best of times are returning to the Emirates pretty soon.

Keep the faith.

Five thoughts on Arsenal 0 Bayern 2

Arsenal 0 Bayern Munich 2

The referee took a massive punt
Whether the rule of giving a penalty and a red card for denying a clear goalscoring opportunity is fair or not, it was entirely moot last night: Wojciech Szczesny did not deny a clear goalscoring opportunity. He fouled Arjen Robben, certainly. But before any contact was made, Robben went to control the ball and a reasonably heavy touch pushed the ball away from the goal, well to the left of the goal-mouth. As Szczesny brings Robben down, two Arsenal defenders come over to cover the goal-line, so that even if he had stayed on his feet and managed to get the ball back under control, it was far from a clear goalscoring opportunity. It was, without a shadow of a doubt, a terrible decision.

But here's the really important thing: even if you buy the argument (which I don't) that it's incredibly hard to judge these things in real time, the ref still then took a massive punt on deciding it was a clear goalscoring opportunity. Given the disproportionate harm to the defending team of taking such a punt - not to mention that he was wrong - it seems a very bizarre thing to do.

And at risk of sounding like a broken record, it continues a long, long run of highly contentious decisions going against us in the Champions League.

Sometimes there's not a lot you can do
There's a completely absurd column from Tony Cascarino in today's Times criticising Arsene Wenger for being tactically inflexible and basically blaming last night's result on this. I know this will annoy a lot of 16 year-old tactical whizz-kids, but sometimes there's not a lot you can do.

An Arsenal win was the least likely result going into the match, before playing 55 minutes a man down. The idea that it was Wenger's tactics which made Arsenal lose is frankly ridiculous.

In reality, by playing very narrow for most of the second half, we actually kept a very good shape. A 1-0 defeat to a brilliant goal while playing a man down would have been quite a good result. Should Mesut Özil have gone off instead of Santi Cazorla? Maybe, it's very hard to say. I think Özil provides more of an attacking threat and you need to continue to offer a threat or the opposition will just throw everybody forward.

The second goal was a disaster
After playing really very well for 87 minutes, the second goal was a real hammer-blow, killing the tie competitively with one swift flick of Thomas Muller's head.

It's particularly galling as it came from our most atrocious phase of play of the night. Laurent Koscielny drove forward from defence, winning a free kick just inside the Bayern half, finally giving us some breathing space. To pass it sideways and retain possession would have been a reasonable option - Arsenal were tired and running the clock down, at least a bit, would have been a reasonable option. To commit five or six players to the box, pushing Bayern back and giving us a goal threat would also have been a sensible choice.

Instead, they chose some sort of middle way - Koscielny went forward, there were maybe two other Arsenal players in the box, and it was easy to defend for Bayern. The lack of defensive organisation then stemmed from it taking Koscielny an age to get back into defence and in my opinion, almost certainly contributed to conceding what was a very soft goal. Bill Clinton might have advocated for a 'third way' but on this occasion it was a bad, bad decision.

The sheer absurdity of the away goals rule
I'm not one for inductive reasoning and obviously four matches is a very small sample size, but in all four Champions League games this week, the away team won, furthering the case that playing away in the Champions League really isn't that great a disadvantage. Given all the other reasons which Jonathan Wilson has gone into about it being a misguided rule, isn't it time it was scrapped?

The myth of Bayern 0 Arsenal 2
The narrative promulgated by the media about Arsenal's victory in Munich last season is that it was borne out of complacency. This really is utter bollocks. Bayern had 21 shots to Arsenal's 8, 9 shots on target to Arsenal's 3. The idea they weren't trying is just untrue. So to therefore claim Arsenal have no chance in the second leg as "Bayern won't make the same mistake again" is just unfair.

What is true is that it was a freaky result - there is no way on the balance of play Arsenal deserved to win 2-0. But Arsenal are now much improved. Score the first goal in Munich and they might get nervous: they were certainly rattled in the first twenty minutes last night.

Keep the faith.

The strange case of Lukas Podolski

There was a point towards the end of August, when despite Arsenal's only summer signing being Yaya Sanogo, the papers were insistent that Lukas Podolski was about to move to Schalke in a swap deal for Kyrgiakos Papadopoulos. Even ignoring the press' obsession with pretending that real life is like Football Manager and that swap deals are a regular and realistic option for clubs, it raised a very important point: Arsenal bought Podolski for around 11 million pounds, a cheap fee because his beloved Köln had been relegated. He then proceeded to have a successful first season and in August was 28, in the peak years of his career.

In other words, it would have been fair to value him at about 20 million pounds. And yet I couldn't think of one team who would pay that and I would be upset if my team did for a player of Podolski's calibre. Therein lies the problem: people speculate about him being off this summer but who is going to pay his fee? Maybe that means he is worth less than 20 million - typical Tory argument about the market always being right - but if so, the benefit to Arsenal of selling Podolski is diminished.

More to the point, at which top team is he going to get more game time than he is currently getting at Arsenal? All speculation about him leaving is entirely contingent on him being happy to go back to being the best player at a mid-table club, and that sort of club being able to afford him. I think it's unlikely.

I find the idea that the manager doesn't "fancy him" slightly fatuous. If you look at how often he has picked Podolski when he is fit, it suggests that he is indeed a player who is highly rated at the club. That he hasn't come off the bench in certain recent matches is more an indicator of how in a tight game, introducing a player as defensively incompetent as Podolski is a big risk. It's not that he doesn't attempt to track back - he does, that's why he's always knackered after 65-70 minutes - it's just that he's not very good at it. He doesn't understand defensive positioning and consistently helps to leave his full-back exposed. The contrast with Cazorla is vast. Santi wasn't especially good defensively when he came to the club, but has improved enormously. He was even making slide tackles against Man United - my friend Chris has nicknamed him "Santi the enforcer".

The idea that Podolski is subbed off for any reason other than fitness simply does not explain why he is consistently subbed off. If Wenger simply "didn't fancy him" why would he start Podolski and play him for 65-70 minutes before taking him off? Even the argument that he wasn't subbed off much at Köln has little substance to it - at Köln he had far fewer defensive responsibilities as a central striker, and hence played a less tiring role. And As Köln were relegated, striving to emulate them is probably misguided.

It's certainly true that Podolski has been subbed off less for Germany than for Arsenal, but that's probably just because he has played alongside players with even worse stamina - Mario Gomez, Miroslav Klose and Thomas Muller stand out here. Given that the vast majority of substitutions are made for physical rather than tactical reasons - and Wenger consistently replaces Podolski with another left winger - it's reasonable to surmise from all the evidence available that the main reason Podolski is subbed off is because of his fitness.

With regard to the wider question of how good Podolski is, I think the answer is not as good as his record suggests. People who compare his conversion rates with Giroud's miss the point - Podolski almost only shoots when a goal is likely. That's not a criticism of him. But if the entire team played like him, the 'SHOOOOOOOT' brigade at the Emirates would get even angrier, so comparing the two strikers' conversation rates to work out who is a better player is absurd. In general, one stat on its own reveals almost nothing and quite often actually points you in the wrong direction.

People rave about his bullet shot but guess what - opposition managers watch Arsenal too. The reason he's not banging in brilliant goals the whole time is that opposition teams know to close Podolski down when he gets the ball in a shooting position, a job made considerably easier by - how shall I put this delicately? - Podolski's less-than-brilliant anticipation. He grabbed the headlines as he scored the winning goal, but there was more than one occasion during Sunday's match against Liverpool where I was screaming "run Lukas, run" as Mesut Özil held the ball up for what felt like an eternity for Podolski to catch up with the play. Even when he's up with play, his movement in terms of getting into positions where he can actually pick the ball up and look threatening, without team-mates' producing moments of sheer brilliance to assist him, are few and far between.

This might seem like a hyper-critical take on Podolski, and to an extent, it is. But the value of a player who both struggles to play centre forward in Arsenal's current system, and also lacks the defensive nous to protect his full back effectively as a wide player is limited. Certainly Podolski gets lots of goals and assists, and in a way he reminds me of Theo Walcott three years ago, in terms of being able to point to end product. The difference is that Walcott's pace was an added advantage for the team as it made difficult for the opposition to commit vast numbers of players forward; Podolski doesn't have a similar attribute.

Realistically, I expect Podolski to remain at Arsenal in the summer and continue in roughly the same vein: contributing a reasonable number of goals and assists, playing regularly against smaller teams where his defensive lapses matter less, but playing in fewer big games than some pundits might like. Podolski is a very good player but not a great player. And he should be viewed in that light.

Keep the faith.

Why I hate Manchester United so much

I had something of an epiphany around September 2010. For many years I had attended Arsenal matches and gone home raging when Arsenal failed to win, moaning about refereeing conspiracies and how the other team cheated. To this day, my mother continues to check the football scores to find out what my state of mind will be like.

But that autumn I started going to the pub after matches. This might seem like a benign addition to the matchday experience, but it actually fundamentally altered it. From being pretty much the only part of going to the football, the actual match became relatively insignificant. Sure, I prefer it if Arsenal win but ultimately I acknowledge that football is played by 22 mercenaries kicking a bit of rubber around some grass, and that they probably only play for my team because they cannot earn more elsewhere.

I accept that any meaning football has is purely constructed and so while I derive enormous enjoyment from seeing my team win, I also enjoy seeing them draw or lose. Afterwards, I go and have three or four pints with a group of friends and by the time you’ve been chatting for two or three hours, it’s unlikely we’re even discussing football anymore and the result has probably become incidental. So I’m far less likely to go home angry and moan about referees, even if I still do the latter quite a lot.

Except with Manchester United it’s different. The visceral hatred remains. It’s hard to put my finger on exactly why. For other Gooners, they hate Tottenham or Chelsea the most but for me it will always be Manchester United. For one thing I’m a child of the 90s and the first seven or eight years I spent attending matches involved Arsenal and United being by far the best teams in the country.

But I think much more importantly, the hatred has always been spurred on by knowing a comical amount of United fans. Coming from a Jewish family in North London, you’d probably expect me to know many more Spurs fans than United fans but that’s genuinely not the case. It might seem like a tired joke about United fans coming from the South – hey, it is a tired joke – but it also remains true. Not only do they come from the South, but they make up absurd reasons for supporting their team rather than just accepting they’re glory hunters: “It doesn’t matter I lived in South Africa until I was 8 and then moved to North London because Great Uncle Herbert once flew over Manchester and was so captivated by the view of Old Trafford from 30,000 feet that it was simply impossible for the whole family not to support United. Despite broadband internet not existing then and a lack of satellite TV, I remember watching every single of the treble-winning season”.

I’m not even exaggerating and it’s enough to make anybody retch. It’s the same with the wearing of the yellow and green scarves until they continued to do quite well under the Glazers. Manchester United fans literally do not care about anything as long as their team wins.

And that’s probably the second reason I hate Manchester United so much: the countless refereeing decisions that have gone in their favour. If you’re tired of being told that Arsenal haven’t won anything in eight seasons, just remember the comical penalty and free-kick United were awarded at Old Trafford in the title-deciding game in 2007/08. Or the impact Wayne Rooney’s dive had on the 2004-05 season.

More generally, Patrick Vieira was right to call Ruud Van Nistelrooy a cheat and when Arsenal and United were the two best teams in the country, United repeatedly set out to cheat against us. Witness the Neville brothers’ malicious attack on José Reyes, Ole Solskjaer feigning an elbow from Sol Campbell to get him sent off, and the general attitude of United players that it was okay and within the rules to kick Arsenal players, an attitude encouraged by the consistently favourable refereeing United received in matches against Arsenal. And this is without even mentioning the number of questionable decisions United have consistently been given against other teams.

This is why when we play Manchester United I still care enormously. Patrice Evra continues to irritate me more than anybody else in football and there is something particularly satisfying about beating United, as well as enjoying their demise this season.

If nothing else, even fifteen years on, I still have nightmares about Ryan Giggs’ phallic chest-hair design. That alone is enough to make anybody hate Manchester United.