Gwen's off anyway isn't he? Apparently he's pissed over something or another, or he's fucked up in some way. Can't remember. Saw it in passing. Torreira was talking about pissing off too I think.
Gwen's off anyway isn't he? Apparently he's pissed over something or another, or he's fucked up in some way. Can't remember. Saw it in passing. Torreira was talking about pissing off too I think.
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Don’t know if he’s definitely off, but he’s supposedly got a bit of an attitude and he’s been told he needs to grow up. I wouldn’t be surprised either way, tbh...
i think the Torreira thing was about Emery, but under Arteta he was getting more games so not sure that's a live issue, hadn't heard about Guen other than that one-off incident when they were on pre-season tour or something but i think that was dealt with and they all moved on?
I'm more worried about who we can't get rid of given there probably won't be so many transfers, namely Xhaka and Mustafi, althogh maybe our being cash-strapped will finally make the club see sense and stop trying to get silly unrealistic prices for them.
It all seems incredibly trivial now, starting with Wenger and then moving on through each of these brat kids wondering if they will stay, go, whatever. Just shows how much of a distraction from the real world sport can be. We end up following the every move of those who might as well be living on another planet. Finally, I couldn't care less who will be coming or going. Let them get on with it, provided it's not funded from my pocket in any way.
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I remember following football when I was growing up in the 80s - back then you had 95% of the games at 3pm on Saturday, maybe 1 live match on Sunday, and that was it really? Perhaps the odd mid-week cup game. All football demanded of your time was 90 minutes on a Saturday, while you had the vidi-printer on in the background on Grandstand, and an extra 90 minutes here or there , IF your team happened to be playing. And the rest of the week was yours!Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
These days it's a completely different beast. You have 2 or 3 live games on Saturdays, 4 live games on Sundays, games on Monday, games, on Friday, cup games on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, European games on Wednesdays and Thursdays. You have 24hr sports news channels, Club TV channels, websites, news sites, gossip sites, online newspapers, twitter, fan forums, illegal video streams, radio stations. And if that's not enough you can watch the Spanish or German or Italian football, or any number of other leagues too!
You can't even get away from it when you leave the house because of mobile tech! It's a monster that literally wants your attention 24 hours a day, 7 days a week now, and I don't think many fans have realised that they've gradually become addicts?
Think about... if something makes you miserable most of the time (and it does, if you listen to most fans), but you can't walk away from it... if you've started spending all of your time and money on it to the detriment of everything else in your life... that's an addiction. And like all addictions, when the come downs start getting longer and worse than the highs - when you're only doing it to take the edge of the withdrawal symptoms and because you don't know what you'd do without it - then you've got a toxic relationship with that thing and you need to walk away.
This is where I'm hoping that the lockdown might - might - just turn out to be a positive thing for football: it's literally forcing the entire football-sporting world to detox, take stock, and get a taste for having their free time (and money) back. At the moment fans still seem very angry about everything - for the first time in decades they're seeing clearly just how one-way their relationship with the game has been, and I think they've started to resent all of the disappointment and misery they've had to endure, and the colossal expense of it all. They've started weighing the costs and rewards, and the scales are looking massively out of balance.
But mostly, I think they're angry with themselves for putting up with it for so long. I expect most of them will still want to go back, but hopefully this pause might have been enough to make a lot of fans realise that they can actually walk away at any moment, if it's making them unhappy - that they don't just have to sit there, hand over their money and eat whatever shit sandwich they're served. And that's got to make for a healthier, more equal relationship with the game.
Last edited by I am invisible; 09-06-2020 at 08:34 AM.
i've very little faith that any attitudes will change towards anything tbh - the queues of morons at KFC and Ikea as soon as they open tell us that
the right-wing press will continue to foam at the mouth about any progressive ideas and also going on about football ad infinitum, and all the stupid masses will continue to swallow it
Agreed. As things return to normality most people will revert to many of the same patterns.
When will things return to normal, though? Autumn? Next year? It's a long time for fans to get used having extra money in their pockets, and enough free time to spend it (if they're lucky enough to even still have jobs at the end of this). It's a long time for fans to get used to having a lie-in at the weekends, and being able to choose to stay warm and dry when it's shitting down with rain outside. Anyone who has other commitments / friends / dependents will surely already have noticed how much easier every other part of their life is without the hassle and expense of following a football club around.
Being a ST holder isn't a casual undertaking - it takes years of relentless effort and commitment, and that kind of effort eventually takes a toll, even if you're unaware of it. I have no doubt that some fans can't wait to get back to it - those real die-hards, whose entire life and social circle and self-identity revolve around following their club - but for others, I can see this enforced break hitting them like a ton of bricks, as all of those years of effort suddenly catch up with them.
Has anyone else on here commuted for years? And have you found that you've really been struggling to wake up in the mornings, no matter how much extra sleep you get, now that you've finally been allowed to stop? I certainly have. Honestly, I'll start doing it again if work tells me to, but if they give me the option of WFH then I'm 100% working from home, no matter how much I might miss my colleagues and the office atmosphere. If nothing else, this whole experience has highlighted just how exhausted I was and how much I need a break from it...
Ps. Remember Ceefax and Teletext? I used to watch those pages for 90 minutes, hating having to wait while it cycled through all the lower league stuff and the Scots league, waiting for the 0 to flick to a 1.
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I won't. I'm already twice as fit as I was before this, and have a taste for it now that I won't go back on. Changed my diet. Cut down on the stupid hours I used to spend working, staring at a screen. Stopped buying anything unless it is essential. Haven't missed sport one bit, even though I joke about it. Cut down on the booze. Still smoking 20 packs a day but that's because tobacco smokers seem immune to this virus (has nothing to do with addiction, fortunately). Spent more time with family and actually enjoyed (some of) it. Talked to family a lot more. Etc, etc. Many changes, all for the better, like hopping the track and leaving the rut.
Not sure we're ever going back to "normal" life anyway. The fallout from this hasn't really even started yet.
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