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Neil Ashton

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Alexis Sanchez calls Arsenal his ‘home’ and vows to focus

A busy week at the tabloids, as writers think hard about how to fill in the blank pages over the international break. The Sun overlooks doodles of knobs and photos of Paul Gascoigne putting the bins out in favour of pressing f6 on the keyboard and going studs up on Alexis Sanchez. The Sun says Arsenal players wanted the club to flog Alexis Sanchez over the summer. Well, so says the paper, which talks of “fear” in the Arsenal squad that the “moody” Chilean’s return will “sap” the team’s moral.

The Sun’s story is supported by neither evidence nor quote. It exists in headline form only.

Undeterred by the fact that Sanchez has always given his all for Arsenal, Neil Ashton says he “pulled every trick in the book to get away”. That book presumably including a chapter on playing for the team, albeit in a palsied performance at Liverpool in which Arsenal, Sanchez and all, were thrashed 4-0.

Ashton says Sanchez “barely lifted a leg” as the Gunners went down. Well, the same could be said for pretty much every Arsenal player in what was an abject performance, and Sanchez’s first of the season.

Ashton ends his page filler saying Sanchez was “made to play against his will” at Anfield, which rather counters the idea that the Chilean is difficult to manage.

After so much blah-blah, the Sun then delivers the results of a poll in which readers were invited to consider whether or not Sanchez should play for Arsenal. Shock of shocks, most Arsenal fans who respond to polls think playing the club’s best player a good idea. Only 15% of all fans think Sanchez should be put in a wood-chipper and scattered to the winds.

In the Mirror, Sanchez is “fit for nothing”, not even as fertiliser. A former coach of Chile’s Under-20s side, says Sanchez is “fatter than normal”. Chile lost two World Cup qualifiers in the international break. And Sanchez wasn’t at his best. But fat? Bit bitchy of the coach, no, to resort to body shaming. Next they’ll be saying Sanchez’s legs are too hairy and he’s only wearing one bottle of gel in his hair.

As the tabloids wade in on Sanchez, one of the Premier League’s best players, we wonder what the player makes of it all. On Instagram he explains:

 

instagram alexis sanchez arsenal

 

He’s back ‘home” at Arsenal and trying to “focus”.

Such are the facts…

Posted: 7th, September 2017 | In: Arsenal, Back pages, Sports | Comment


Arsenal FC is declared dead and only the parasites remain

Arsenal are dead. So says the Sun, which links the club’s pulse to Alexis Sanchez’s whims, declaring that when the Chilean quits the club today – it is “inevitable he will, says the paper’s Neil Ashton – he’ll be leaving behind a corpse where there was once a club.

Sanchez would also be leaving the leeches, footballers whose presence at Arsenal is more parasitic than proud. Granti Xhaka, Shkodran Mustafi, Lucas Perez and Calum Chambers are rubbish on the “Arsenal scrapheap”.

 

the sun arsenal

 

But might it be that the Sun’s trash talk is a little late? It was last March 8 when the Sun’s Ashton told readers:

Arsenal Football Club, Rest In Peace. This institution, one of the most famous clubs in the world, is dead and buried. Here at the Emirates, the heart finally stopped beating.

Can you die twice? And can a thriving football club with millions in the bank die once? Because having watched Arsenal breathe its last in March, on June 1, the same Neil Ashton wrote:

Arsenal, no matter how many times they win the FA Cup, are only ever one defeat away from another meltdown among their fans..

 

To wit the obvious question: is Neil Ashton a Gooner?

Posted: 31st, August 2017 | In: Arsenal, Back pages, News, Sports, Tabloids | Comments (3)


Arsenal clickbait balls: Wenger gone and Ozil is buried in the Gunners’ (wooden) box

In recent days the Sun’s Neil Ashton has told Arsenal fans that Mesut Ozil is staying at the club (proof: the German Ashton said wasn’t worth “two bob” has renewed his box at the Emirates), Chelsea have been “beaten” Arsenal to £50m Virgil Van Van Dijk (proof: none) and Hector Bellerin will remain at Arsenal (proof: nothing to say that he won’t).

The question is: do these players all know Arsenal are dead? It’s not Arsenal fans burying the club – a group Ashton says “are only ever one defeat away from another meltdown” – it’s Ashton, who opined;

‘ARSENAL Football Club, Rest In Peace. This institution, one of the most famous clubs in the world, is dead and buried. Here at the Emirates, the heart finally stopped beating.’

“So it’s goodnight Arsenal. Goodbye Arsene,” said Ashton after Arsenal were thrashed by Bayern Munich.

Proof to the contrary: Arsenal live on. Arsene Wenger is manager.

It”s almost as if football writers just churn stuff out to fill a space.

Posted: 27th, July 2017 | In: Arsenal, Back pages, News, Sports | Comments (2)


Spurs Balls: Useless Adebayor And Weak Pochettino Make One Man Dream Of ‘Man’s Man’ Tim Sherwood

SPURS Balls: The Daily Mail’s Neil Ashton has been talking about Adebayor:

November 5, 2014:

At White Hart Lane on Sunday, Mauricio Pochettino has to make the biggest decision of his short career as head coach of Tottenham: Emmanuel Adebayor cannot play. The striker’s lack of commitment at Villa Park last Sunday, when he was dragged off after 58 minutes, was not just an affront to his team-mates, it was an insult to the sport itself. For Pochettino to make his mark at Spurs, to show the players that he really is the boss, Adebayor cannot be in that team to face Stoke City.

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Posted: 5th, November 2014 | In: Sports, Spurs | Comment (1)


Daily Mail Attacks Manchester City’s Joe Hart And Arsenal’s Jack Wilshere For Following Its Health Tips

England's Charlton brothers, Jack (l) and Bobby (r), relax at a pre-tournament function Date: 26/06/1966

England’s Charlton brothers, Jack (l) and Bobby (r), relax at a pre-tournament function
Date: 26/06/1966

 

HOW football journalism works, with the Daily Mail’s Neil Ashton. Before the World Cup, on May 20, 2014, England were at the Grove Hotel for the Lions and Roses dinner. The charity event hosted by the England Footballers Foundation “raised £362,000 in a night for charity… and even Premier League stars were surprised at that amount of money!”

One bidder paid £10,000 for a round of golf with Manchester City’s Joe Hart and Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney. Ashton notes:

In an era when it is so easy to casually criticise the players, this event, in football parlance, could be described as ‘a leveller’. Every member of that squad, from captain Steven Gerrard and vice-captain Frank Lampard to Southampton trio Adam Lallana, Rickie Lambert and Luke Shaw, understood their roles and responsibilities.

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Posted: 16th, July 2014 | In: Arsenal, Key Posts, Manchester City, manchester united, Sports | Comment


Non-dom Daily Mail laments unpatriotic Manchester City and says Manchester United are as bad as England

Manchester City supporters celebrate their team's 4-1 win against Manchester United following their English Premier League soccer match at the Etihad Stadium, Manchester, England, Sunday, Sept. 22, 2013. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
NEIL Ashton writes in the Mail of Manchester City’s victory over Manchester United.

In years to come, the 166th Manchester derby could go down as the day English football died.

Why?

It’s by no means unique in this country, but City began this fixture without a single English outfield player. This was football at the highest level of the Barclays Premier League and the champions of England – with a core of six English players in the starting line-up – were picked off at will by overseas imports.

Good for City. Not so good for the England team.

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Posted: 23rd, September 2013 | In: Sports | Comments (7)