Arsenal: Charlie Nicholas perpetuating an ugly circle of life

Arsenal have a swarming cesspool of spouting heads saying bullsh*t about them on any given day, but Charlie Nicholas is taking the piss again, isn’t he?

Any time anything goes wrong at Arsenal – and by go wrong, I mean losing in Belarus in a transitional period – there is a value in saying bad things about the club. As in, these people that are paid to talk about the sport know that if they say incendiary things about the club, they will get more attention.

Like the guy who compared the Chelsea loss to Manchester City to the Arsenal one – as if they were similar at all, beyond the end result.

Now Charlie Nicholas, known for going a bit over the top at times with his analysis, has called Unai Emery’s signings “bog standard average.” Which, of course, is the easy thing to do after the loss, to point the finger at something that no one else has pointed at yet.

Regardless of the cherry-picking of attention that Nicholas is now engaged in, his take on Emery’s transfers is unbelievably wrong.

I’ll even give him Stephan Lichtsteiner, for argument’s sake. But Lichtsteiner was free. So bite me. He’s not a “bust.”

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You want to criticize Bernd Leno after acknowledging how terrible the defense is that he is playing behind? Was anyone else paying attention when Wojciech Szczesny faced the same predicament and is now the anchor of one of the top defenses in the world. But did Charlie Nicholas forget about that too? These talking heads seem to have short memories.

Moving on from Leno, who has made the most of a rickety ship, Nicholas has the audacity to call both Lucas Torreira and Matteo Guendouzi “okay.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

That’s it. As if, without Torreira and Guendouzi, this club wouldn’t have been any different. The only position that has been consistently good and/or better all season is the midfield, which is now a complete force that stands up to Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool (at home, anyway). And they are only in their first season together! Yet here is Charlie Nicholas to tell you that they’ve only been *shrug* okay.

And that’s not all! Sokratis. The Greek defender who, with the help of Laurent Koscielny, has made this defense look actually formidable prior to him getting hurt. So please, Charlie, tell me more about how Sokratis isn’t good enough, because in two years, I’ve never seen the defense look as good as it has looked with him and Koscielny in a back four set.

Denis Suarez is a question mark, but he hasn’t even played an hour yet. This is all so idiotic. People will keep spouting nonsense because it’s what they get paid to do, and they get paid because they rake in the attention made by these people spouting nonsense. Anyone want to break that circle of life? Anyone.