Matthew Syed Up Himself Again

[Dorset]

Okay, it is only another lame excuse of an article from an ex-ping pong player with limited knowledge of other sports, but Matthew Syed’s latest homage to Arsene Wenger and his team’s beautiful football not only beggars belief, it suspends it from a great height and pokes at it with haughty self indulgence. I don’t propose putting all his puffed up prose in front of you, because every Shed Ender knows by now what to expect from the guy, but in this particular piece of Times twaddle he has simply gone too far and here’s why…

Briefly, the reader is asked to take on board the premise that winning ugly is being superseded by ‘a renewed recognition that beauty is not an irrelevance’ and this is followed by a rambling quote from Wenger in which he calls on Brazil and Barcelona as witnesses in defence of the writer's claim. Syed insists that ‘they are sentiments that have reverberated particularly powerfully in recent days as we have witnessed a series of sporting performances whose beauty has been exceeded only by their devastating effectiveness.’ Fair enough then, I thought on reading the bang up to date nature of his evidence for this assertion, they’ll be no mention of the ugly 0-3 hammering we gave them earlier in the season, but surely Chelsea, along with the Samba and Barca boys, will get at least a word or two for the rather beautiful football played only a few days ago in the spectacular 7-2 defeat of Sunderland.

Sadly, this was not to be the case, as Syed had in mind, for his so called ’starting point’, Arsenal’s defeat of Bolton the very next day - how convenient. Cue eulogy on Cesc Fabregas who allegedly ‘orchestrated a symphony of movement that defeated and demoralised his opponents, and left neutrals drooling.’ before moving on to Barca’s defeat of Seville and a glowing tribute to ‘the trinity of Xavi Hernández, Andrés Iniesta and Lionel Messi’ for supposedly 'articulating with rare eloquence Wenger’s assertion that beauty is, at some fundamental level, synonymous with pragmatism.’ Glossing over the fact that this game actually took place before Syed’s Sunday starting point, readers could not help but notice how the plotter with ping pong prowess was building a strong argument in favour of beauty by using only the best ingredients, as long as the recipe didn’t involve any reference to their London rival’s ability to play at a similar level of attractiveness.

Apparently, according to the rambling thread of Syed’s argument, three days later Roger Federer got on a court in Australia and played with a degree of beauty that puts him in the Arsenal league of bestest beauties as well. And so good a performance was it that Matthew was forced to reveal [blushingly] that ‘even today, after almost a decade of familiarity, I get dewy-eyed watching Federer.’ Ahhhh! No doubt dabbing the tears away, Syed then feels the need to invoke a whole host of All Time Greats to appear in support of the Wengerian ideals and it is right here that he makes his biggest gaffe of the naffing lot. Indeed, the paragraph is so laughable I feel honour bound to give it in full…

‘Look deeply enough, then, and you will perceive that beauty is not antithetical to sporting greatness but, more often than not, central to it. Two sides of the same coin. It is not just Arsenal, Barcelona, Brazil, Federer and Ali, but also Tiger Woods, Sugar Ray Robinson, Ajax under Rinus Michels, Ronnie O’Sullivan, Bobby Fischer. Winners all. Artists all.’

Now I really don’t care how many times Matthew Syed tries to align Arsene Wenger and his team of ultimate losers with the likes of Barcelona, Brazil, Federer, even Ali, but when he starts talking about Bobby Fischer in the same breath as his precious manager and his team he is giving the game away as to his knowledge of the man, never mind his incessant drive to win, especially when compared with that of those gorgeous pass-tastic Emirates bottlers.

FACT, as Rafa would say:-

When Bobby Fischer played in the 1971Candidates matches he beat a string of Grandmasters - Mark Taimanov, Bent Larsen and Tigran Petrosian - the first two by an unprecedented 6-0 margin, and throughout the whole of his career he single-mindedly went for the jugular known as victory rather than wimping out under the excuse that sometimes it was just too unattractive to contemplate. Nobody takes the US Championship with an 11-0 score without putting the concept of winning above all else and Fischer would have laughed at the idea of him ever looking for the pretty finish as opposed to the swiftest kill, ugly or otherwise. So, don’t go searching for justification in sporting areas you know nothing about, Matthew, because it’s not big, it’s not clever and, even if you haven’t got any worthwhile examples of beauty meeting the winning beast halfway on a table tennis table, take my advice and stick with what you’re good at in future.

Edited January 20, 2010 by Dorset

[BLUENUT]

Okay, it is only another lame excuse of an article from an ex-ping pong player with limited knowledge of other sports, but Matthew Syed’s latest homage to Arsene Wenger and his team’s beautiful football not only beggars belief, it suspends it from a great height and pokes at it with haughty self indulgence. I don’t propose putting all his puffed up prose in front of you, because every Shed Ender knows by now what to expect from the guy, but in this particular piece of Times twaddle he has simply gone too far and here’s why…

Briefly, the reader is asked to take on board the premise that winning ugly is being superseded by ‘a renewed recognition that beauty is not an irrelevance’ and this is followed by a rambling quote from Wenger in which he calls on Brazil and Barcelona as witnesses in defence of the writer's claim. Syed insists that ‘they are sentiments that have reverberated particularly powerfully in recent days as we have witnessed a series of sporting performances whose beauty has been exceeded only by their devastating effectiveness.’ Fair enough then, I thought on reading the bang up to date nature of his evidence for this assertion, they’ll be no mention of the ugly 0-3 hammering we gave them earlier in the season, but surely Chelsea, along with the Samba and Barca boys, will get at least a word or two for the rather beautiful football played only a few days ago in the spectacular 7-2 defeat of Sunderland.

Sadly, this was not to be the case, as Syed had in mind, for his so called ’starting point’, Arsenal’s defeat of Bolton the very next day - how convenient. Cue eulogy on Cesc Fabregas who allegedly ‘orchestrated a symphony of movement that defeated and demoralised his opponents, and left neutrals drooling.’ before moving on to Barca’s defeat of Seville and a glowing tribute to ‘the trinity of Xavi Hernández, Andrés Iniesta and Lionel Messi’ for supposedly 'articulating with rare eloquence Wenger’s assertion that beauty is, at some fundamental level, synonymous with pragmatism.’ Glossing over the fact that this game actually took place before Syed’s Sunday starting point, readers could not help but notice how the plotter with ping pong prowess was building a strong argument in favour of beauty by using only the best ingredients, as long as the recipe didn’t involve any reference to their London rival’s ability to play at a similar level of attractiveness.

Apparently, according to the rambling thread of Syed’s argument, three days later Roger Federer got on a court in Australia and played with a degree of beauty that puts him in the Arsenal league of bestest beauties as well. And so good a performance was it that Matthew was forced to reveal [blushingly] that ‘even today, after almost a decade of familiarity, I get dewy-eyed watching Federer.’ Ahhhh! No doubt dabbing the tears away, Syed then feels the need to invoke a whole host of All Time Greats to appear in support of the Wengerian ideals and it is right here that he makes his biggest gaffe of the naffing lot. Indeed, the paragraph is so laughable I feel honour bound to give it in full…

‘Look deeply enough, then, and you will perceive that beauty is not antithetical to sporting greatness but, more often than not, central to it. Two sides of the same coin. It is not just Arsenal, Barcelona, Brazil, Federer and Ali, but also Tiger Woods, Sugar Ray Robinson, Ajax under Rinus Michels, Ronnie O’Sullivan, Bobby Fischer. Winners all. Artists all.’

Now I really don’t care how many times Matthew Syed tries to align Arsene Wenger and his team of ultimate losers with the likes of Barcelona, Brazil, Federer, even Ali, but when he starts talking about Bobby Fischer in the same breath as his precious manager and his team he is giving the game away as to his knowledge of the man, never mind his incessant drive to win, especially when compared with that of those gorgeous pass-tastic Emirates bottlers.

FACT, as Rafa would say:-

When Bobby Fischer played in the 1971Candidates matches he beat a string of Grandmasters - Mark Taimanov, Bent Larsen and Tigran Petrosian - the first two by an unprecedented 6-0 margin, and throughout the whole of his career he single-mindedly went for the jugular known as victory rather than wimping out under the excuse that sometimes it was just too unattractive to contemplate. Nobody takes the US Championship with an 11-0 score without putting the concept of winning above all else and Fischer would have laughed at the idea of him ever looking for the pretty finish as opposed to the swiftest kill, ugly or otherwise. So, don’t go searching for justification in sporting areas you know nothing about, Matthew, because it’s not big, it’s not clever and, even if you haven’t got any worthwhile examples of beauty meeting the winning beast halfway on a table tennis table, take my advice and stick with what you’re good at in future.

I've heard of 11 player passing a football gracefully, but 1 bloke moving a moving a chess piece?

Anyway, I wonder why he failed to mention the weekend's, (quoted from various newspapers and BBC's MOTD) ''performance of the season''

[Backbiter]

Anyway, I wonder why he failed to mention the weekend's, (quoted from various newspapers and BBC's MOTD) ''performance of the season''

I wondered that as well. I mean , this guy normally drools over everything to do with Chelsea, doesn't he? He epitomises the objective newspaper analyst.

I've just got to post his astonishing list of winners once again:

It is not just Arsenal, Barcelona, Brazil, Federer and Ali, but also Tiger Woods, Sugar Ray Robinson, Ajax under Rinus Michels, Ronnie O’Sullivan, Bobby Fischer. Winners all. Artists all.

Beating Bolton puts you in pretty elevated company these days. Arsenal will be in a league of their own if they can do the double over them

Dorset, that was a brilliant demolition job. Keep these epic posts coming!

[mad_mac]

Tiger would take an uglywin any day! Sre when he's on it is a thing of beauty, bt i've seen him win (US Open against Rocco Mediate a couple of seasons ago whilst limping and wincing the whole way round) by any means possible.

What tripe!

[TheWestwayWonder]

Syed talking about beauty.....what is wrong with this picture?

[The Brit]

That article makes me want to hurl

[Spiller86]

I hate articles like this, they make me so ridiculously mad. They make it sound like Arsenal are staging a ballet every time they go on the field.

Frankly I wouldn't mind if we played the ugliest long ball football in the world, it's goals in the back of the net that matter. And besides our football is pretty good on the eye as well, it's just we're capable of bloody defending as well if we need to. Perhaps he doesn't mention the 3-0 at the Emirates because it wasn't beautiful, it was ugly... for them. We gave them an absolute mauling all over the pitch, and we'll do it again when they come to the Bridge next month.

It's articles like this that make me even more mad those French ponces are on top of the league, even if we have a game in hand.

Edited January 20, 2010 by Spiller86

[c3blu]

Whats Arsenal doing on a list of winners anyway???

They hav'nt won anything since those 'ugly' days of keown and Veira when the were more than happy to mix it up, some would say kick lumps out of people basis the disciplinary record they had at the time.

Its that time of year again where certain journo's purr over Arsenal only to take it all back when they end up empty handed again at the end of the season.