Arsenal and Chelsea pathetic in their celebrations of boring football | OneFootball

I watched quite a bit of German and Italian football this weekend; Der Klassiker was particularly superb. Celtic v Rangers was an open game of two halves and Inter Milan’s 2-0 win was close for a while. Later, Roma v Juventus was an exciting 3-3.

I also watched the Arsenal v Chelsea match (16 Conclusions here). In contrast to even third-tier German football on YouTube, it was much less entertaining – as was the Manchester United clash – and I wondered why that should be.

They’re not terrible players but they’re boring. Or rather, how they’re instructed to play is not gripping or creative or interesting in any way. And the reliance on scoring from corners seemed nearly obsessive. Some call it ‘medieval football’.

The top two in Germany, Italy and Scotland were all more open and took more risks and that made it interesting. They didn’t crowd 16 people in the six-yard box but that’s all Arsenal and Chelsea did. It seems like football clubs here have forgotten or don’t care that it’s supposed to be entertainment. It’s become so pragmatic that everything is sacrificed to the result, including fun.

Is this sustainable? How long will the neutral pay handsomely to watch this dreck? The ‘A great advert for the Premier League’ lie used to be trotted out after any good game. Surely it was an advert for football and not the league; I mean, how stupid do they think we are? Even that’s rarely said now, though ironically it absolutely often is an advert for what the league is actually like.

Football has always been tedious a lot of the time but there was enough excitement to provide balance. In Europe there still is.

Because they are good players, the fault must lie with the managers’ systems and tactics. Some try to micromanage from the touchline, looking like competitive dads, apparently unable to trust their ability to coach throughout the week or trust the players to recall them for 90 minutes.

Is this because of pressures from the ownership? Does the huge money spent on wages and transfers create pressure? It all certainly seems to be about the result, never the performance, but they seem to have forgotten people want to be entertained. And those 18-man six yard wrestling matches are no fun.

It’s not like European teams and players are superior, but they do seem to play with much more freedom and with some exceptions, you see much fewer micromanaging coaches.

I remember the idiot press used to berate Sven for lack of ‘passion’ just because he didn’t shout at players until his eyes bled. Is that attitude still at play? Being a whining touchline jack-in-a-box shows you care? It wouldn’t surprise me. Moments of fun grow less frequent. Long stretches of nothingness are more frequent.

This shift has been underway for a lot of years. It was less noticeable for a while but it’s reached a nadir now.

As if to illustrate the malaise, all three goals in the Arsenal game were exactly the same six-yard box scramble from a corner and to see them all celebrate like they’d scored a proper, magnificent goal looked ludicrous and a bit pathetic. It’s not cheating but it feels adjacent to cheating but worse than that, my God it’s boring. I started dreading every and any dead ball.

Maybe Arsenal and Chelsea rely on it more than most but it’s a clear trend. They’re just the worst culprits and the worst exponents of the trend. Coupled with all the childish bitching and moaning, it was horrible. Don’t players understand that their diving, feigning and reflex moaning makes us think they’re weak and pathetic?

It’s about the fun and entertainment and not the result but the Premier League has somehow got it the wrong way around. Even clubs further down are often tedious or rarely entertaining. Have you watched Spurs? Christ they’re awful.

If each game is getting progressively less interesting even than the four-way title race for the Scottish Premiership, they’re killing the goose that lays their greedily cherished golden eggs because, coupled with VAR, they’re making the Premier League much less of a premium product and their endless vaunting of the football look absolutely ludicrous.

“Arsenal are going to just get over the line…and that’s all that matters,” said Gary Neville and there’s the problem, right there. It isn’t. And no amount of dishonest Peter Drury hyperbole can dress it up as a good thing.