Wenger's "failed" youth project

Three months and a decent revival later, Arsenal have now well and truly gone some way to establishing themselves at the right end of the league table. The nightmarish start to the current campaign, although not yet a distant dream, has now been replaced by a string of solid if not elegant performances. There is still no guarantee that we will finish in the top four this season, but then, it looks like we've given ourselves a bloody good chance. The added experience in the squad has no doubt played a huge part in the resurgence with the likes of Gervinho, Arteta, big Mert and Santos adding some steel and calm to a flamboyant and young team. There seems to be a notion doing the rounds though, that Wenger's investment in experience, has meant his youth project of many years has failed and that he has abandoned his youth policy. I'm not quite sure about that. 

Need it Here, Now, Today!

I was guzzling down a pint of beer on Friday evening and engaged in a casual conversation on football, cricket and rugby with my boss. He's been having a great few months with England thrashing India in the recent Test and one day series, Wales faring well in the ongoing rugby World Cup while also taking pleasure in reminding me (maybe once too often) of the not-so-pretty performances of the Indian team and of course Arsenal. We've never got to the point of aiming blows at each other, so it was all in good spirit. We wound up the discussion quickly and soon I was on the train, heading home and all I could keep thinking of was about the way the world of sports has been transformed in the past decade or so. What I'm referring to could have happened earlier, but of course I'm speaking from personal observations and whether I'm right or wrong, I think you'll agree with me on some level.

Of Number Crunching and Joey Barton

It's that time of the weekend. Premier league games are going to be hitting our TV screens in a few hours. It's about now when Twitter time-lines start filling up with previous match-ups between teams, win-loss records, goals scored against this opponent, goals scored by Mr Soso etc. While a lot of these statistics are quite interesting and give us a way to use up some time before the actual games begin, this number crunching has gone way too far nowadays that sometimes I find that some of it, actually most of it, is just useless. 

Stats are good, but at the end of the day they're just stats. I'm not completely blind to suggest that all stats are useless, but the thing about this overdose is that now we have stats not based on actual events, but even on hypothetical situations, that are probably playing out in some parallel universe. The irritating part is that you can manipulate these numbers to make a good situation better, a bad situation worse or basically any way to prove a point that you want to prove. Now if you ask me why I'm coming up with this anti-stat rant it's because I started thinking about it when I saw this USELESS stat that I'm going to talk about.

Thoughts from inside the Emirates + Arsene still Knows Best

Walking into the Emirates yesterday, to watch the first home league game of the season, my emotions were a mix of cautious excitement and of course like a lot of Arsenal supporters, a feeling of anxiety which has surrounded the club over the last few months in particular. Wenger's dealings in the transfer market, or the lack of it, have left a lot of fans disgruntled, and this was evident as the match wore on or rather as Liverpool edged closer to sealing the three points at the end. 

It all started quite brightly, to be honest, and the atmosphere inside the stadium was great, although it wasn't extraordinary. The announcement of Nasri in the playing eleven invited a few boos (as expected), but I think the majority realized that the team needed him there (and he proved that with a very good performance), with the squad being stripped to its bare bones through injuries and suspensions. The first half didn't inspire a great deal, apart from a couple of chances on either side. Frimpong was having a great little spell and he seemed to be really up for it. He got a great shot on goal, then turned around to all of us in the stands and egged us on to make some noise. The crowd reacted and there was suddenly a wave of loud support. There was a genuine sense of appreciation for the Arsenal as they headed off into the tunnel at half-time, for the fight they had put up with the resources at their disposal. 

The red card for Frimpong in the second half of course changed what could have been a well deserved draw to an unlucky defeat. We were not shown replays of the tackle and to us it just looked like they had run into each other. I think most of those who watched the highlights on MOTD would have realized that it was in fact a bad challenge. The goals for Liverpool heightened the sense of frustration around the Emirates, and a section of the crowd broke into the "Spend some F***in money" chant. I don't see a place for this during a game, when you have 11 men playing their heart out for your club. Such chants while it might not affect the players too much doesn't help them either. The encouraging fact was that it didn't gain momentum and a couple of those in front of me who started chiming in, stopped as soon as they realized that most of us weren't interested in joining. Another section of the crowd then brought back the "We love you Arsenal" chant which garnered more support and that was good to see. It was a bit disheartening to see a number of people leave before the game ended but then for all of us who stayed back, it was a chance to applaud the team for putting up a spirited display and show them that we were behind them. 

While the defeat hurt, I liked what I saw of Arsenal's young guns. I know a lot of you might say we have to spend and the usual lets sign Cahill/Samba/whoever the media links us with. I too am not blind and do realize we need a few reinforcements but I have a lot of faith in the manager and at the end of the day I think he knows what he is doing. We can go on and on about what has to be done, but I'd rather have Wenger decide what's best for the club. The man is an absolute genius and immortal IN MY OPINION. 

I dream of a day when Arsene Wenger has his hands aloft with a trophy in hand, after having won it with a team that was made with his vision, and those who wrote him off running around the streets naked with their unmentionables covered (I don't want to see that bit) with print outs of all their criticisms of Wenger/Arsenal strung around their waist with a piece of thread. I really hope it can happen soon, not for the sake of Arsenal winning a trophy, but because I want to see that joy on Wenger's face for all that he has had to face in what has been his most challenging time at the club. Whether that day comes at the end of the current season or a few seasons later, I'm prepared to wait and continue to support this great club. If it does miraculously happen this season, remember, you heard it here first. 

Defence of the Arsenal Defence

In case you missed the CL qualifier, I just want to start off by saying that Arsenal actually won the match against a relatively fancied Italian opponent, clean sheet intact and all that, although some newspapers might have you believe that winning nowadays is not the point. The media have been banging about on how Arsenal just escaped, how SZCZ's saves barely rescued us from embarrassment, how frail the team was and so on. It seems to me that most of these nut-cases who wrote these reports had started with an already planned agenda before even watching the game. Now, while I acknowledge the fact that there is frustration in Gooner world around Arsene Wenger's reluctance to splash the cash in the transfer market, those wearing the Red and White on the pitch did a lot to lift our spirits and gave us a win. 

Please let the football begin

Aren't we all fed up with all this transfer talk? I don't know about fans of other clubs, but if you're an Arsenal fan who sees a blog on Fabregas, Nasri or even Wenger or Gazidis you probably just go - Oh no, not again! Maybe we should just have like a social network for clubs to conduct their business and make it public for the whole world to see. Now that would be fun. Okay, not so much for football journalists, who'll have to actually think of something creative to write about when there is no football on, but it would benefit the footballing society in general.

It should be something like a combination of Facebook, Ebay, YouTube, Twitter and emm... okay let me throw in Google+ as well, just so that it doesn't feel left out. It should be made mandatory for all managers, players, coaches, scouts etc. to join (yes, even Arsene Wenger will need to create a profile even though he prefers to do his transfer business privately in  a dark cave in the French Alps). 

Show Me the Money

Moneyball

I hear a lot of talk that is ridiculing Arsenal's refusal to budge when it comes to player wages. Samir Nasri is of course the subject of this speculation. He tells us through his Twitter feed not to believe the papers, but we all know the truth don't we? He wants some extra cash and based on his performance in one... err.. sorry half a season, he thinks he has somehow earned it. He's an excellent player no doubt, but now the situation is quite dicey. I still think he'll stay but his image has been tarnished. Even if he stays he'll find it extremely difficult or impossible to get into the good books of Gooners again. Anyway if he can perform, thats all we would really care about.

A lot of fans (especially opposing fans) are saying "Oh, just give him the little extra cash and get him to stay". But this view does not consider the larger context in which it must be seen. The amount of money Nasri seems to be demanding is in no way unaffordable for Arsenal Football Club. But again, there's more that needs consideration and its by no means rocket science. Lets look at this in a slightly broader perspective, shall we?

Needle in a haystack

Wake up in the morning nowadays and all you see in the papers, at least in the football section, is about which player/manager might be going where, what fee is expected, what fee/wage is on offer, players' wage demands and then you'll see some of these players emphasising the fact that they were moving for "footballing reasons". Yeah right! The was precisely the reason why, in my previous post, I said I was flabbergasted when it was reported that the Hiddink-Chelsea deal was finally down to money. Of course, it was down to money. If Chelsea were to offer significantly less than what Hiddink was being paid in his role as Turkey national coach, I have no doubt that he would at least see out his contract before thinking of the next job. This is not to undermine Hiddink's integrity or his lack of interest in the Turkey job. It is just the way football works these days and is just one of a million examples.

Another story that has consistently been in the news for the last couple of weeks is the Nasri situation. It is turning into one of those protracted transfers that helps no one, least of all, us fans. Whether he will begin next season in a United or Arsenal shirt remains to be seen, though I am quite convinced that Wenger will not let one of his best players leave to a top, rival team. Nasri and his agent are just looking for that extra cash and if he does leave I am pretty sure it won't be to United. One good (half) season and he has demands. When Cesc says he wants to leave, or wants a pay rise, its understandable and as a fan you feel he has served the club well and has been loyal. For his age he's shown great maturity and handled the Barca situation extremely well over the last two seasons. 

Truths, untruths and things in-between

Have any of you heard of the quote "Nobody ever sees truth except in fragments"? Well I haven't either. And I'm not an ultra creative person, who can whip out a funny or thought provoking line in the blink of an eye and therefore I can confirm it's not mine. I relied on Google and found this one after a search that lasted approximately 0.23 seconds which fits nicely into what I'm going to harp on for a little bit. Now just look again at the quote as I'm quite sure you've forgotten what it was in the middle of all the drivel that has followed it. 

Lets start with Robin van Persie shall we? So we heard that he asked the players of Spain and Chelsea to concentrate on football and stop complaining about the referees. Well not exactly in the same manner as I, but using some of the English language's choicest words. Then we had some of the Chav blogs reacting instantly, some obviously saying that RvP was a c***. That is expected of course and proceedings were fun for a little while on Facebook, Twitter, blogs and even some otherwise boring news websites. Then all of a sudden Robin comes out of the closet and says he never said anything like that in the first place, spoiling all the fun in the process. So someone said he said it, he says he didn't, we believe the version we feel is best suited to our egos and life goes on with the episode registered in memory for use in future discussions with opposing fans.

Nothing you didn't know

It's that time of the year. There's not much football on and life is well, not boring but then there are time slots on weekends that need to be addressed. Since doing something constructive with my free time does not come naturally to me, hours and hours are spent reading things of very little importance on the internet. Thankfully I have a job now, which takes up my time during the week. 

Image Courtesy: Vetty Pictures

It's a time for reflection, especially since I'm an Arsenal fan. Think of how things could have turned out last season, how things could turn out next season and how things could turn out in the season after next when the next one doesn't go to plan. This is also a time when I get excited about any shred of transfer talk related to the club. First I read an article, then try to find at least three or four more to try and validate whether the first one was pure garbage (which it is nine times out of ten) and then think why I read it in the first place. When I'm tired of doing that, thoughts go to the upcoming season and a renewed, over optimistic sense of hope sweeps across me before it all comes to a grinding halt. That's when I suddenly remember that what I'm going to witnessing at the end of July will be a bunch of unheard of players with un-pronounceable names taking to the Emirates pitch for the Emirates cup wearing the Emirates, sorry Arsenal jersey, playing to rules that increase our chances of winning, then winning and finally pledging that THIS is going to be THE season.

What made you support your chosen club?

I come from a country where cricket is a religion. Oh wait, there is another way to say it now. I come from THE country whose cricket team are currently the World Champions. While cricket has been, still is and will be a big part of my life, I consider myself a bigger football fan than cricket fan. To be more specific I'm an Arsenal fan (those few souls who read this blog probably know by now). Until a few years ago, a lot of my friends looked at me like I was an alien when I said I supported a club team which I was in no way associated with geographically or otherwise. As the years rolled by a lot of the very same people are as passionate about their own chosen football club team.

My fascination for Arsenal started with the advent of cable television at home (I say home because it was only a few years after cable television entered India, before it became a standard norm in many Indian households like mine) and the fact that Arsenal were there or thereabouts when it came to winning championships. The English league was the most televised at the time (it still is) and I developed a taste for it, as I already had a deep inclination towards sports.

I say, “KOP-y this”!

Now that all the hype over Fernando Torres' move to London has died down it's time to shift focus to another interesting development concerning one of English football's biggest clubs. Liverpool FC now has an online version of ‘The Kop’, which is a development in the social media sphere cannot be ignored, especially from a sports marketing angle. It is a proper social media hub developed by a football club just for their fans and it is the first of its kind that I've known of. It is interesting from a marketing perspective, for the club and other football and/or sports clubs and organizations and also for the fans.

Looking at it from an internal marketing point of view, creating their own branded closed space for fans and bringing them together as a community, gives Liverpool FC a chance to capture information about their fans and get to know them better, therefore giving them direct access to their fans without depending on a third party network. This will also let them easily shape conversations around Liverpool FC. Most of the top Premier League clubs now have a presence on Facebook, Twitter or both, and this has allowed them to get closer to their fans and also gave clubs an idea of how many people were actively following them online. Also, since the Premier League’s popularity has become global, a social media presence allowed clubs to get a rough idea of their following outside the UK and actively monitor what was being said about them. Even after these advancements, there are certain areas that are lacking. It is common now to see fans commenting on clubs’ Facebook posts, but the level of interactivity between fans is minimal if not non-existent,

Lessons for Mainstream Brands from Two Sports Celebrities

I am not going to use superlatives to describe two individuals who I greatly admire, as no amount of it will be enough to express their greatness. It will also definitely not make sense to compare the exploits of Roger Federer and Sachin Tendulkar on the field of play either as they both are masters at sports which are as comparable as chalk and cheese. This article just aims to point out a couple of simple points on their social media presences, which are useful for businesses.

Both Federer and Tendulkar  have an enormous fan following (Sachin, probably to a lesser excellent due to the not-so-global reach of cricket) across the globe. They both handle the celebrity status with the utmost humility and they're both wonderful human beings who set excellent examples for those who look up to them. Being a fan of both Sachin and Federer, I follow them on Facebook and therefore I check for updates from these pages. Tendulkar has a Twitter account too, which I follow. When it comes down to how they fare on Facebook, I think Federer has an edge over the little master. I'm not saying that this will cause Tendulkar any distress, as he and also Federer for that matter, have better ways of getting people to talk about them. Federer has 5.7 million 'Likes' compared to Tendulkar's 1.9 million, but these statistics hardly mean anything and cannot give a more inaccurate reading of the number of admirers they have. 

"We do all of these things" @VodafoneUK

A couple of months ago, I was doing some groundwork on the social media strategies of some of the top brands in the mobile phone operator market. I was initially looking through each of their social media pages. There were some of the questions I wanted to try and get answers to. Does the brand have a specific strategy on a particular channel that is identifiable from interactions on the page? Is there two way communication or is it just the brand shouting in to deaf ears? What is the brand trying to achieve through their presence on these social channels? 

One of the brands I happened to be looking at was Vodafone. I landed on the @VodafoneUK Twitter page and found it interesting. There were the names of the staff designated to handle the interactions on the page and a quick look at the page would have told any person that Vodafone were basically answering their customers questions and issues they were experiencing with the service. The page just screamed "customer service". Nevertheless, I decided to scroll down through almost a week's tweets just to make sure I wasn't missing anything obvious. At the end, I just confirmed my initial assumption that the page was being used primarily as a customer service channel. 

Then I read what they had mentioned in the 'Bio' section. It mentioned that the page was meant for promotions/offers, competitions and product news. It didn't say a word about customer service. I found that strange and decided to ask them. 

It's probably a good thing that Vodafone were saying they were doing just what their online audience was demanding of them. Still, I wasn't entirely convinced because when you have a majority of the tweets answering customer queries and complaints, something related to customer service ought to be part of the bio section. 


The company's headline on the page is what a lot of people would look at when they started to 'follow' them. If people just looked at the tweets they would in all probability think just like I did and send tweets if they were having trouble with their services. So its no wonder that they had to do "what people ask us" as those who didn't read the Bio section will look at the tweets and say "Well, looks like we can just ask them about that problem we're having over here". What I found even more puzzling was that they had  a separate account called @VodafoneUkdeals that was meant for deals and online exclusives which now has this headline.

After my tweet to them, I kept visiting the @VodafoneUK page once in a while to see if there was a change but for a few days it didn't happen. Recently, I happened to check back (I was trying my luck on their #mademesmile campaign; that's another story if you're interested) and I did see something different this time. 

Vodafone probably realized that they had made a mistake. The 'Bio' now is a lot more generic and does not spell out anything specific that they aim to do on Twitter. So it was either just oversight that caused the mistake or there was a flawed social media strategy, wherein they were not exactly clear what they wanted to use Twitter for. I think it's the latter, as they still don't seem to be entirely sure if they should use it for multiple activities or just customer service. This is true for a lot of brands who are just "there" on social media websites but are still very unclear of what they aim to achieve out of that presence.

I don't want to claim here that I prompted the change on their Twitter page, but when asked they didn't acknowledge the fact I was pointing to and then changed it in course of time.  What does that say? Well, I'll let you make up your mind on that one. 

An Online CV With a Difference

In my last post I talked about people's inclination to grab others' attention through Facebook status updates and also at the end talked about how employers nowadays were looking at job applicants' social pages to form a first impression (Germany do have restrictions now). You can argue endlessly with regard to the merits of using online behaviour to judge an applicant before even meeting the person but since it is already prevalent that is a pointless argument . Ever since my interest in Web 2.0, social media, SEO and related areas grew a few months ago I have been discovering and learning new things and also experimenting with tools that I might not have otherwise noticed. 

Going back to the point about getting people's attention, for a job seeker, its of course employers whose attention is desired. I happened to come across a couple of websites/tools that I think might be extremely beneficial from a job-seeker-point-of-view. I've just started experimenting a bit with one of them called Flavors.me. It is just a platform where you can create an entire page which you can then use to do the talking - for you  and about you. The demo video on the website is great and captures pretty much everything that can be done using Flavors.

Picture Courtesy Themecraft 

The great thing about this tool is that the entire page is just about you. On online searches too, there is a good chance of this page being found, and from here you can direct anyone to all you other social, professional networking pages, blogs etc. As my professional interests are in the internet space, my CV would be incomplete if I didn't include links to my presence on these social pages. For starters a platform like Flavors will save some space and allow me to say a bit more about myself in the other sections of the CV!

An account upgrade at US $20 will give you access to real time stats, more layouts and fonts, the option of including a contact form and a listing on the Flavors directory. An option to also buy a domain is in the pipeline. These options could be extremely useful for freelance professionals and small/home businesses who/which may not have the time or technical know-how to set up their own website.

The second website is called About.me which seems to be a similar kind of platform. It has not been fully launched as yet. It will be interesting to see how different it will be from Flavors and what extra features it might have. I've reserved my URL, so hopefully I'll be getting confirmation that I can start using it very soon. 

If you're still reading I assume you are yet to try these so give it a shot and let me know what you think. Before I conclude this post, if you haven't already heard of a 2010 Business Management graduate named Kyle Clark you might want to take a look at how he got himself the job he wanted.

Update: (Dec 13, 2010)
I just read an article (courtesy @beastoftraal) related to people who have used innovative job search techniques. Whether good or bad, they surely are different.What are your opinions?

And by the way I've also just added the Disqus widget below which allows you to comment using Twitter, Yahoo etc. so there's a few options for you! :)

The Facebook Status Update Syndrome

Facebook status update syndrome is a disease that has affected and is currently affecting a lot of people. Being a Business Management graduate I am aware of the fact that the phrase - 'a lot' means nothing. Do I mean 70% of Facebook users or one in every five users? I’ve not taken a survey or done too much market research to prove the point either. I'm sorry I don't have any stats so let me just say 'a lot'.  If you think differently please feel free to do so (although I think that might be  a sign that you’re one of the ‘diseased’!! Ha Ha Ha!!!)

Lipstick on a Pig

For those of you who aren't familiar with this phrase, 'lipstick on a pig' is a "rhetorical expression, used to convey the message that making superficial or cosmetic changes is a futile attempt to disguise the true nature of a product" (courtesy Wikipedia). The comparison I want to make is to the recent Commonwealth Games which in the end turned out to be a success although it was anything but a reflection of the state of Indian sport (cricket is of course excluded). I have reservations using adjectives such as resounding, amazing or similar synonyms before the word success. I have my reasons.

Rockmelt – Top, Left & Right

After Flock and the India-specific Epic, Rockmelt, is the latest 'social' browser which was recently launched in a limited beta version. I signed up early and was lucky enough to get to try it. There are already loads of reviews out there on the Chromium based Rockmelt. So I’m not going to dig out too many details but just give you an overview of what I liked about using it. Besides, you'll probably have more fun trying the new features rather than having me force them down your throat.