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ASCB - The Best? Of course they are And so, finally, we headed off to Arsenal vs Chelsea, our big day spoiled by Chelsea pretending they could win a trophy without Abramovich by cancelling our match to play in the FA cup. There was never a chance a bunch of Pensioners could win without the magic Roman. And so April 23rd, 2024 was our big day instead, new plane tickets and maybe new hotels for people, but we are ASCB, we don’t give in for anything. Our own programme Some 33 of us were given the chance for a VIP experience to greet the players and even a lucky two got to turn up on the pitch for an interview to blaze a trail for Arsenal Bulgaria. Everyone now knows who we are and what we represent. And we never forget that as we showed and which I will talk about later. The biggest surprise for me though was after we were given our armbands to allow us into the media centre. We got our own programme welcoming us to the Arsenal with our own name on it. That, and the armband will be passed down the generations. We love you Arsenal, we do! One for display We were there, we saw the players, we saw the staff, and we saw Super Mik Arteta and sang and cheered as they all filed past, some stopping for a low five with Gunnersaurus. Was I the only one worried as he entered the glass doors to the inner sanctum? Luckily the giant remembered to duck his head. A Gunnersaurus without a head would not be the same. Of course he mingled and low fived many of us including some young, excited kids from Romania. We show our class Mertesacker and Edu were prominent figures who came in by themselves prompting great excitement . But we were asked to wait for Chelsea as we also greeted the Pensioners as they struggled to make it off their bus. We were asked not to boo them but we have too much class for that anyway so we cheered for the Arsenal again. Honestly they didn’t look very happy filing past. Maybe they knew what was awaiting them? Without their talisman Cole Palmer maybe they felt that they had no chance. They were right. A nice shot from Alex sets me up For me, a trip to the Arsenal is not complete without a visit to my old friend, Alexander Sztranyovszky from Hungary who is Mr Arsenal. He turns up for every game and is a permanent fixture at Peggy’s refreshment stand at the side of the Arsenal Supporters club near the old Highbury. And Alex never fails to disappoint with his own refreshments always on hand, some nice strong shots to warm our hearts. Declan, you are my darling The real excitement came when I took my seat in the Clock End. We were all together, bundled into a top spot just high enough to see everything yet not too high that you need binoculars. It meant there was a big booming section of Bulgarians (and me) ready to give their all for the Arsenal. It was a magical time for me, being part of such a large group. Often I am by myself, this time we all celebrated together. We probably shouldn't have forced Chelsea to play on a sloping pitch And it didn’t take long for us to celebrate. Chelsea looked poor from the off, or was it that we were so good? Trossard was causing mayhem down the left hand side and we had a few chances straightaway but then Declan Rice boomed forward, flicked the ball over to Trossard who tucked it into the corner of the net. We were delirious and only 4 minutes had passed! The pattern continued but somehow we didn’t score. Havertz had a few chances but didn’t put any away. Maybe he didn’t want to score against his old club? We dominated our section of the Clock End as much as Arsenal dominated Chelsea Who was this new striker? Wright or White? I was hoping Chelsea wouldn’t transform in the second half but it was whoop de whoo many times as all sorts of improbabilities happened. We had a new striker called Ian Wright Wright White who whacked in two goals and Kai Havertz, freed of having to score against the away Chelsea fans at our end, suddenly became super striker, firing in two great goals to make it five and it could have been ten. Chelsea were hopeless. They were afraid all game to keep the ball and kept giving it back to us. Fifteen minutes of fame for ASCB The only time I watched Arsenal live slam in more goals, to my memory, was when Alan Ball brought Portsmouth up from the old second division back when I was living in London in the late ‘80’s. We were 5-0 up up half time and Alan Smith kept banging in the goals. We got only one in the second half to make it 6-0. Portsmouth fans left en masse at halftime and the Chelsea fans did the same as the goals flew in second half. We were delirious. Go home you bums And did I say the Bulgarian Arsenal fans had too much class to boo the Chelsea players? It didn’t stop them screaming “Your team are shit” (they sang slightly different words, but this is a family blog) at the departing away fans. No need, people, they know their team are shit. The strange thing is, they could still get 6th place as Manchester United and Newcastle are also shit this year. It is a weird season, for sure. They looked to me to be already on the beach, though. Still, that is Arsenal’s best win ever against Chelsea and yes, we owed it to them for humiliations in the past. Waiting patiently for the team to arrive 4 games to go and if we get the win against a white and black team on Sunday, then we have to believe we can do it. Ì had an English guy sitting beside me on the train back insisting we will win 2-0 against the Spuds and go on to win it. Man City and Liverpool will be shitting themselves. And that leads me into the table of doom. Update to the Table of Doom Table of Doom Fixtures Current Max Arsenal Spurs (a) 77 89 Liverpool Spurs (h) 74 86 Man City Spurs (a) 73 91 Ah, Jurgen Klopp, I am still waiting for you to apologise for your teams unsporting behaviour against Forest. Everton gave you a tanking and you are now on the cusp of leaving the Table of Doom. Another draw, even, and your maximum is 84. Our goal difference will not be bettered now, I feel, so if it matters at the end, we will win. If we draw against the Spuds we can still get 87 but will it be enough? I say yes. City have a lot of matches to cram in and they are not that simple, the Premier League rarely is. If we win 4 they have to win 6. We are putting them under pressure. We can’t ask any more from our boys. Be proud. Gunnersaurus with Tszetomir Tsekov Commiserations to poor old Sheffield United. The door is just about to close on Chris Wilder. He was talking about preparing them for next season but will he really get the chance? It is surely such a difficult job managing a team trying to make it in the Premier League. He seems a good manager and a very decent human being but I suspect they will want a change. I would be happy if he gets his chance and one day bring them back to stay.

The best always win? Ah, cheating. Winning is all that matters. The ideal of sport that is whoever is better at the skill would win does not apply to football. And yet it is hard to say which sports that applies to, nowadays. Golf, darts and snooker spring to mind. What else? Let’s take athletics. At least you have to be over the line by yourself to win. It is clear who has won. But drugs are a serious problem in so many sports where at least the winner is clear. Cristiano Ronaldo - always cheating Soccer is no longer a sport where the winner is clear nor probably has it ever been. There have been many apologies since VAR has appeared where teams have lost or drawn matches they should have won. And prior to VAR a referee could cost you the game. But you never get it back. Last season Arsenal had a few VAR decisions go against them, Man Utd, Brighton and Brentford spring to mind. We were a short few points off Man City and getting the correct decisions could have won us the league. What is cheating? That is the starting point of this discussion. Football is not about sportspeople playing better than the other team but rather those who use every trick in the book and are writing new ones up to gain an advantage that wins the match. What are those advantages? I probably can’t list them all, but let’s give it a go, in the order they come into my head: Calling for everything Surrounding the ref Verbals – abusing players to try and put them off their game Diving and tricking refs by screaming Going down with little contact A new one, since the introduction of almost universal handball, is hammering the ball into a crowded box in the hope that it hits an arm when there is no sight of goal. Is the use of excess money cheating? Most of these things did not happen in English football when I started watching. Dirty Leeds in the Sixties, with a truly top squad of players, started a lot of gamesmanship and fouls. The most notorious being Jack Charlton standing on top of the keeper at corners. But all the other things mentioned above were starting to appear. Of course, football was never clean Now, it has to be said that football was never really clean. There have been many instances of the dark arts since soccer appeared in its present form around 150 years ago. The problem is, if it is not clean, is it truly a sport? I say no. The definition of a sport has to be that the best at the discipline wins. And only golf, darts and snooker comes to mind where that applies. This is the sign that football is clean In this modern era, you would have to be a genius to figure out the blurry lines between what is acceptable and what is not. Money? The big teams spend egregious amounts to gain advantage so that they have at least two top players for every position. They have also campaigned strongly to allow more and more subs giving them another big advantage over poorer clubs. In the old days you had one sub which was normally only used late in the game, if at all. And yet I rarely remember teams being down to ten because of injury. But subs were originally supposed to be only for injury, not for tactics. I say 5 subs are cheating as the advantage is to the big clubs. Will anything be done? Yes, when you see a member of the porcine species use its wings to fly past your window. Just give me one million of that and I will delete this piece, Sheik Money allows you to buy players that other teams want just to stop them having them. Chelsea and Man City are possibly the worst at this but all big teams are guilty. Is it cheating? I can’t see any reason to say it is not. Analysing ways to cheat What about analysts? Is that cheating? There are teams of guys with laptops spread around the grounds relaying information to the bench and the manager is stood on the pitch bellowing instructions. Why are they allowed do that? We would laugh if at an athletics event if there was 20 managers screaming at the runners. In the past, the manager sat on the bench and I see no reason for anyone on the bench to be allowed give instructions. It should be the best sportsmen win. They should be talented enough to use their own ability, brain and reason to be able to play. A guy is free on the edge of the box at the corner? Get out and cover him, how do you need to be told to do that? Educating young people to cheat is good, is it? Will we see the days of hidden earpieces on the captains or all players? Is it already happening? I suspect the technology is already there so it could well be. Is it cheating? I say yes. I covered drugs already here and you will see that my belief is that drugs are endemic in football. We do, most of us, see drugs as clearly cheating but the world of pharmacy is very clever. They are like Hydra, you cut off one head and 2 more grow in its place. A putrid sport ready to collapse? The problem is, that if one big team cheats, then they all will, to try to stop them having an advantage. We have gone so far down this rabbithole that we can’t see any possibility of anything getting better, we keep accepting the new ways to cheat and the new charlatans, the Chelseas, the Man Citys, the PSG’s, etc., will continue to use their money to whitewash the cheating and the old big clubs will scramble to catch up on their cheating and surpass them if they can. And so here we are. A rotten sport without much semblance of fairness. Where anything at all, no matter how outrageous, is acceptable. Cristiano Ronaldo is perhaps the biggest single example, always diving, harassing the ref, waving for cards and so on, yet he was still one of the most popular players of his time and not castigated and banned for being a lowly cheat. In golf, also a huge money sport, he would have been cast into the darkness long ago. Tiger Woods would have been with a tiny amount of cheating. For all golfers, being a true sport is what matters, especially Tiger Woods You must call foul on yourself and a sport has to be about the better person or team winning. Soccer has left that ideal far behind. Is it the right road that it has taken or will there be a sudden, dramatic, realization that cheating and sport are incompatible? The most dramatic event of my lifetime, the collapse of the Soviet Union, was inconceivable to me until it happened. But people then realized how rotten it was and didn’t want to go back. Could it happen in football? I will say a definite maybe.

The Table of Doom is Over Arsenal Current 81 Max 90 Brighton(h) Man City Max 94 Brighton (a) Gone: Man Utd Max 75 Newcastle Max 77 Brighton Max 70 Man City (h) Arsenal(a) – kept because they play key matches. Liverpool Max 71 Tottenham Max 66 And so my Table of Doom is over. The countdown of those teams that could catch us for a Champions League slot are all gone, having bit the dust early. Will we get 90 points? Maybe. I am hopeful. We are certainly better than our 3 final opponents but that may not translate into wins. Brighton have become an up and down team of late being beaten comfortably by Forest and Everton, both of which may be having their last days at the top table. We have to hope they are up against City and down against us. They are a good side on their day. Will Jurgen Klopp stay as Liverpool manager? Anyway I will discontinue this slot until next season as you all know who we will play, who City will play, and all the permutations. The only surprise will be if we win the championship without winning all our last 3 matches, I think we can all agree on that. City will now have another mind-bending game against Real and that might take its toll. We can only hope. Look what losing to them did to Liverpool in the final last year. They were rubbish for most of the season. We have hope. So bye bye Table of Doom. Who will be the top four next season? Today, I am going to take a strange tack and look at next season and who will be up against us. I am going to say from the bat that I expect us and City to be top four leaving only 2 places to play for. We assume Liverpool, Man Utd, Chelsea and the Spuds are contenders even though 3 of those may not play Champions league next season. That could be an advantage for them as they may not be in Europe at all like Chelsea or in one of the minor European trophies. They can play fringe players in these. They all have big income streams from many years at the top, bigger than the rest of the league and so have a natural advantage. Can we now expect Newcastle as well? I am not so sure. Champions league will play its toll assuming they get there. They, despite having some super players and a great manager combined with big pockets, might do a bit of a Leicester and go down a bit next time. They didn’t have Europe this year. They need to buy top players because some of these guys, like Dan Burns and our own Joe Willock, are not quite of the calibre they need as first choice if they are to battle on 2 big fronts. Sponsorship and merchandising income is still a lot smaller than the established sides although they do have an attendance capacity of almost 53,000. Their money plus their overall structure means they have a good chance of getting into the big boys club. Into the Big Boys Club So who else can we look at based on this season? Brighton for sure. They still have an outside chance of Champions league but that will surely stretch them. They may go back a bit and they may lose top players but they seem adept at producing young players and buying in superb ones. However a top attendance of less than 32,000 and without the ability to attract the sponsorship deals and marketing of merchandise of the more attractive clubs, combined with a rich, but not as rich as the top clubs, owner, means it will be really hard for them to truly compete at the highest level. Unai Emery could chase a Champions league slot next season Aston Villa, under Unai Emery, have been the real surprise packet of the season. Sprinting up the table with league winning form when under Steven Gerrard they were in relegation trouble, it has been astonishing how Emery has transformed them. They have a ground capacity of almost 43,000 and incredibly rich owners. They would have pretty good merchandise sales and sponsorship, although not like the big boys. They could jump up and take a slot very easily. Even this season, with a maximum of 63 points, they could be in Europe. Unai Emery seems to be at his best with an emerging side and I believe they will be a threat. Who else is there? Brentford's new stadium still only holds 17,250 Brentford? I think Champions league is beyond them. They have a good team with a potentially great manager but low revenue from merchandise, sponsorship and attendances. 17,250 is not going to get you Champions league. Their owner is only worth 20M pounds and that is a pittance by today’s standards. Lose Thomas Frank to a big team and they could suffer from 3rd season malaise and even get relegated. If they keep him and their best players they could still do well. But I am putting them out of contention for Champions league. Matthew Benham - probably the poorest Premier league owner Fulham? They could well surprise again. Marco Silva has done wonders with them and they have a multi-billionaire owner. Shahid Khan is surely a serious contender with big plans otherwise why Fulham? Lower income streams and attendance at 22,238 is far less than the big boys, though it will be brought up to 29,600 for next season. I feel they would need a long-term project and a much bigger ground to get up there but that should be his plan. No Champions league for them next season, I predict. But I feel they will make strides and 5th or 6th may not be beyond them. Fulham's new stadium will only get them to 29,600 The Dark horses and the Shambles For me the 2 dark horses may be Wolves, and Notts Forest (if they stay up). Both sides have had some terrific performances this year. Wolves 3-0 vs Liverpool being one standout. Forest drew with City and beat Liverpool and Brighton. Both sides big disadvantage is that their grounds are around 30,00 capacity. The astonishing Chelsea collapse The other factor is the shambles of Man Utd (at times), Liverpool, Spurs and incredibly, Chelsea. Can they turn themselves around? I think it is possible Jurgen Klopp may resign if he does badly in his last 3 games. Even if not, he may decide to go for a new challenge. I am not sure what will happen to them if he does go. They are a big side to manage and they will need a big manager and there are not many out there. The Spuds will be in the hunt for one as will Chelsea. All 4 may well not make Champions league next season but I do feel that Ten Hag is a good manager. As long as he gets Champions league this season he is safe unless the potential new owners think differently. They are my strongest tip of the four above. Chelsea and Spurs seem to have a lot to sort out to really challenge. So who am I going to predict? Arsenal number one, Man City number two, Man Utd number three and yes, Aston Villa in fourth. Unai Emery has a great record in pushing Real Madrid and Barcelona from the much lower base of Sevilla, Valencia and Villareal. He likes being with the underdogs. And hey, you read it here first. You can also bash me over the head for getting it badly wrong. Don’t bash me too hard, though.