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Ex-Gunner Watch

Is it wrong to still love Giroud

  • Yes he’s no longer a gooner

  • No he will always be a top man


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Jury

A-M's drunk uncle


@Jury

He remembers us...
tenor.gif
 

Jury

A-M's drunk uncle
Some of that stuff in there... you can’t do that unless you’ve got big talent. Moving with his head up and having the vision and execution of some of those crazy slide rule passed. Probably supplied the best 3 assists we’ve seen in years.
 

Riou

In The Winchester, Waiting For This To Blow Over

Country: Northern Ireland

Player:Gabriel
"Even for the older lads, listening to him is inspiring"

...Theo is a good player, but he's one of the least inspiring people I have seen :lol:
 

CaseUteinberger

Established Member

Country: Sweden
In case you haven’t read it already, Ian Wright has a documentary coming up about the abuse he suffered from his stepdad and mother while growing up. I read the article and it breaks your heart. Good to read that he has found some peace.

 

Jack_The_Lad

Active Member
In case you haven’t read it already, Ian Wright has a documentary coming up about the abuse he suffered from his stepdad and mother while growing up. I read the article and it breaks your heart. Good to read that he has found some peace.

could anyone with a sub/trial post the article please? thanks in advance
 

CaseUteinberger

Established Member

Country: Sweden
Here is the copied text:

Generations of fans associate the Match of the Day theme tune with weekends on the sofa enjoying the football highlights.


For one of its pundits, however, the music has deeply disturbing associations. Ian Wright, the former England and Arsenal striker, has revealed that the BBC show’s soundtrack awakens memories of the “Guantanamo Bay-style” abuse he suffered at the hands of his violent stepfather.


Wright opens up about his traumatic childhood and his struggle to cope with its legacy in Home Truths, a BBC documentary about domestic violence.


Returning to his old family home in south London, Wright shows how his stepfather would force him to stand with his nose to the wall when Match of the Day began, aware it was the boy’s favourite programme. If he turned round, he would be verbally abused.


Wright, 57, breaks down as he recalls how he would sleep facing the same wall to escape the sound of his stepfather beating his mother; the entire family slept in the same room.


His older brother Morris would cover his young sibling’s ears to shield him from the noise of the punches.


“The wall was horrible. It was bloody freezing cold, and at the time I was very asthmatic. The bed was up against the wall, so I was lying right next to it, and my ears were being covered,” Wright told Radio Times.
Ian Wright: Match of the Day theme reminds me of stepfather’s abuse

Generations of fans associate the Match of the Day theme tune with weekends on the sofa enjoying the football highlights.


For one of its pundits, however, the music has deeply disturbing associations. Ian Wright, the former England and Arsenal striker, has revealed that the BBC show’s soundtrack awakens memories of the “Guantanamo Bay-style” abuse he suffered at the hands of his violent stepfather.


Wright opens up about his traumatic childhood and his struggle to cope with its legacy in Home Truths, a BBC documentary about domestic violence.


Returning to his old family home in south London, Wright shows how his stepfather would force him to stand with his nose to the wall when Match of the Day began, aware it was the boy’s favourite programme. If he turned round, he would be verbally abused.


Wright, 57, breaks down as he recalls how he would sleep facing the same wall to escape the sound of his stepfather beating his mother; the entire family slept in the same room.


His older brother Morris would cover his young sibling’s ears to shield him from the noise of the punches.


“The wall was horrible. It was bloody freezing cold, and at the time I was very asthmatic. The bed was up against the wall, so I was lying right next to it, and my ears were being covered,” Wright told Radio Times.


“It was a horrible, claustrophobic thing. I don’t like thinking about it.” Wright went on to score more than 200 top-flight goals and secure 33 England caps. Since retirement he has built a successful career on the BBC and ITV. However, he remains scarred by the abuse he suffered as a child, even when appearing on Match of the Day.


“Every time I’m on and the music starts, I get a feeling, because that was pure cruelty,” Wright told the magazine. “He did it just because he could. In one way it’s empowering — look at how Match of the Day first came into my life, and what I’m doing now.”


Wright said his colleagues Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer were both aware of the memories the show evokes. “Match of the Day can’t mean as much to any of those other guys as it does to me,” he said. “They can say they love it, but it doesn’t resonate as it resonates with me.”


He began therapy at 32 to deal with his traumatic past. “My mum often had black eyes,” he said. “I’ve spent many, many years just being angry, because when you’re a child and you’re being abused, you don’t know why it’s happening.”


Describing his stepfather, Wright said: “He’d rough you up. Shout at you, intimidate you, swear at you. He was really strong, big and overpowering.”


His mother, Nesta, now in her 90s, could also be abusive, telling him she wished she had had him terminated.


“When I found out what ‘termination’ meant, it was a bit of a shock,” Wright said. “It was a terrible experience for me for years, dealing with that; knowing that the person you love the most and want love from most has those feelings. Whether she meant what she said or not, nobody should ever have to hear that.”


Despite their cruelty, Wright has helped to support them both and has recently made peace with his mother.


He hopes they both watch the documentary, which will be broadcast on Thursday, May 6 on BBC One.
 

Macho

In search of Pure Profit 💸
Dusted 🔻

Country: England

Not too long after Henrikh Mkhitaryan moved to Roma, one of the local radio stations put out a request. Listeners were asked to come up with a song in honour of their new signing. They had to call in and perform it live. The winner became a cult hit, catchy in its absurd and uncut Roman-ness with lyrics like “here comes the Armenian who goes like a train” and “there it is already, a chant that can be heard from Rome to Yerevan, listen to the Curva sing, for Mkhitaryaaaaaaan”.

The 32-year-old has always been a fan of Italian music. Veteran crooner Al Bano performed at his wedding but this was something else. “I’m in love with this city,” he tells The Athletic and playfully jokes that the food prepared by the club’s chef Luka Jurowich sealed the deal when it came to deciding where to go next after Arsenal. “The first day I came here before I signed the contract, they made me this pasta and because of the pasta I fell in love,” Mkhitaryan laughs.

You can see it in the way he plays. A total footballer in the Ajax mould, he has been back to his best this season, combining for 18 goals and assists in all competitions with the pick of the bunch being this screamer against Parma.

“I’ve been performing well,” he says modestly. “Why? It’s down to the way we play. I’m very comfortable with this system. We’re playing very attacking football with a lot of space up front. It was the same (at my old clubs) Shakhtar Donetsk and Borussia Dortmund.”

Mkhitaryan comes up against another of his former teams, Manchester United, in the Europa League semi-finals on Thursday night. Naturally, he’s aware some of the attention will fall on him and not just because he’s one of the principal threats in Roma’s team, as the player who, according to StatsBomb data, makes the most through balls and open play assists per 90 minutes for the Lupi.

Looking back on 2016, Mkhitaryan does not regret his decision to move to Old Trafford. “I never regret my decisions,” he says.” After all, a switch to a club of United’s size was on his trajectory. Mkhitaryan had just made the Bundesliga team of the season and led Germany in assists. He came out as the players’ player of the year in a survey carried out by Kicker and had really kicked on after his emergence as the technical leader in that silky Shakhtar team with Fernandinho, Willian, Darijo Srna, Alex Teixeira and Luiz Adriano.

“I met Jurgen Klopp who had a different philosophy to Mircea Lucescu,” Mkhitaryan recalls. “Klopp was more friendly with the players. He was more like a psychologist and tried to give you confidence even if you played badly or made mistakes. At that time, I had sad behaviour. When I was playing bad I was closing myself (off), I was not talking to anyone.

“I felt guilty that we lost a game or played badly because of my mistake. I was putting pressure on myself but Klopp made me understand that football is about 11 players, it’s the team that wins or loses. It’s not about one player. You can make mistakes, no one is safe from mistakes. That’s part of life, so he helped me take the pressure off myself a lot and to always think positive.”

It was under the turtlenecked Bond-villain lookalike, Thomas Tuchel, that Mkhi piqued United’s curiosity with 23 goals in his final season at Signal Iduna Park. “Tuchel was quite different,” Mkhitaryan reflects. “He was friendly as well, very demanding. He was more of a tactics man.” And famous for off-the-wall training drills, which include cutting the corners off the pitch so the final third resembles a triangle. The exercise was designed to encourage his players to attack vertically. “Tuchel knew exactly what he wanted,” Mkhitaryan says. “He knew exactly where a player has to be during the game, where he has to move, what he has to do.”

It meant United were getting a player who had been schooled in the fast and fluid, high-intensity pressing style pioneered by coaches at the cutting edge of football trends. Mkhitaryan went from that to Jose Mourinho, whose approach was more safety-first, with a record that justified the methodology. “At that time, he was one of the most successful coaches in the world,” Mkhitaryan says, “I think he was the coach with the most trophies. So that was a different experience. It was very hard but I learned a lot as well. I learned how to defend, how to help the team. It was not only about scoring goals and making assists. It was more about the team winning so it doesn’t matter who scored, we had to win together. It didn’t matter who made the assist we must always be happy that we won the game.”

Joyless, it wasn’t, at least in Mkhitaryan’s recollection. That’s a popular misconception he wishes to debunk. “What I want to say is that I had a hard time but after the first two or three months there, I had a very good time,” he says. “I won three trophies with the club, which was amazing. You know, some players have been playing in Manchester for ages but they haven’t won anything.”

Mkhitaryan scored United’s clincher in the final of the 2017 Europa League against Ajax and left his mark on every knockout round apart from the semis. But the six goals he struck in that competition are not what he measures the fondness of his memories by in Manchester. “First of all, it’s not only about football,” Mkhitaryan explains, “it’s about the relationships you have with people. It’s not like you come, play and then go away. You make friends.” And he still has lots of them at United.

Mkhitaryan remains in touch with several United employees and players. “Paul Pogba, David de Gea, Juan Mata, Marcus Rashford, Eric Bailly. We send each other messages, I wouldn’t say every day or every month but we do when there’s an opportunity. There’s always a reason to congratulate each other,” he says.

After all, Mkhitaryan’s doing well, United are doing well and another of his old team-mates, Romelu Lukaku, is doing well too. “A lot of people criticised Romelu when he was in Manchester,” Mkhitaryan points out, “but I won’t agree. He was doing very well and not only in Manchester. He showed that at West Bromwich and Everton and now at Inter. I think the only thing is who you get as a coach, especially for a striker because you have to score goals and now he’s feeling comfortable with (Antonio) Conte at Inter. He’s doing great (35 goals and assists in all competitions) and he proved everyone wrong that has a different opinion. I’m very happy for him because he deserves it.”

The flak some United players get still bewilders Mkhitaryan particularly when it’s not constructive.

“It doesn’t matter if you are Marcus Rashford, Paul Pogba or someone else,” he says, “they will see something in you, small details to criticise. When Paul was playing everyone was criticising him for his hairstyle. I don’t think that has something to do with football, that’s his personal life. If he plays bad, criticise him for his bad performance, not his hairstyle. That’s not good. It has nothing to do with football.

“And you know, some people that don’t know him, some people who haven’t trained with him or played with him they don’t see these kinds of things. You have to be in the team, you have to see the way he trains, the way he thinks, the way he suffers and then say if he played good or he played bad.”

Pogba-Mkhitaryan-scaled.jpg


Mkhitaryan celebrates with Pogba during one of his trophy wins at United (Photo: Visionhaus#GP/Corbis via Getty Images)
Facing off with United is no different, as far as Mkhitaryan is concerned, to meeting Shakhtar in the round of 16 when Roma impressed with a 5-1 aggregate win. “I was very happy because at least I got to see my old team-mates and people working in the club,” he adds.

The tournament does have the feel of a trip down memory lane for Mkhitaryan. In the event Roma make a European final for the first time since 1991, the team awaiting them could be Arsenal or Unai Emery’s Villarreal. But he’s careful not to get ahead of himself even if he enjoyed his first six months at the Emirates where he was traded in exchange for Alexis Sanchez and got to hook up again with his old Dortmund mate, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

From Mkhitaryan’s point of view, it was a just shame his spell under Arsène Wenger was so short. “With Wenger, it was freedom, the freedom to move, to play with the ball. He always wanted to play with the ball. He never wanted to defend because he was always saying if we score more goals than the opponent we’re going to win the game. It was a pleasing time. Unfortunately, after six months he was sacked.

“Then there was Emery, so a different approach to football, a different philosophy. It was quite hard for me because I wasn’t playing a lot of the time. Most of the time I was sitting on the bench and I never like sitting on the bench because throughout my career I always wanted to play and win something. Emery saw football differently and was relying on other players.”

Now in Rome, Mkhitaryan has found a manager who has a few stylistic principles in common with his coaches in Dortmund. “Paulo Fonseca’s a bit similar to Tuchel in that he’s trying to put players in the right position and giving them the freedom to enjoy their football,” he says.

Mkhitaryan, a keen chess player who should probably be cast in the next series of the Queen’s Gambit, certainly gives the impression of liking the strategic side of the game. “I had the best coaches in my career,” he says, “and I learned a lot not only about playing football but about life. Even during the meetings we had, when we were analysing our games or the opponents there is always something different. Even now when I’m 32 years old, I want to learn because, you know, I want to know many, many things about football and about life.”

From a tactical perspective, “I’m the Joker (in the pack)” is how he sees his role in this Roma side, transforming from false nine to winger to No 10, running in behind then coming short, slipping in wing-backs like Leonardo Spinazzola or putting the team’s top scorer in Serie A, box-to-box midfielder Jordan Veretout (10 goals), through on goal.

“We play in a different way against different teams, especially when we have the ball,” he says, “Sometimes (the 10s in Roma’s 3-4-2-1) have to be inside and sometimes we have to be wide. It depends on the game and the situation. It’s not about (the position) where you start the game, it’s about the space so we’re trying to use that space to create chances for us and our team-mates.

“The most important thing is the connection between the players because if you have the connection you can do different things. If you don’t have it, it’s going to be a bit hard. I won’t tell you exactly how we’re playing every time,” he says with a wink and a mischievous smile.

That’s for United and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer to figure out.

The tie is all or nothing for Roma, who are seventh in Serie A and 11 points outside the Champions League places. “We’re the only club in Italy left in Europe,” Mkhitaryan says.

The return of the Thursday-Sunday routine and recent injuries to himself, Veretout and Spinazzola have coincided with Roma’s recent ups and downs in the league. “It’s made our weekly routine harder because we’re playing three games a week and our opponents are only playing once. But we’re not complaining. We know there are only three games left (in the Europa League) so we have to fight and get the best out of ourselves. If we win the trophy we can qualify for the Champions League automatically.”

Helping another club, his third, reach a Europa League final would help him keep up with the Kardashians as the most famous Armenians currently active in popular culture. “It’s not that I’m obsessed with them,” he laughs. “I’m always reading the news. It’s good to see what they are doing for Armenia.”

Mkhitaryan was not in the Arsenal squad for the 2019 final against Chelsea. He could not travel amid doubts around whether his safety could be guaranteed in Baku because of the tensions, historic and contemporary, between Azerbaijan and his country. Thursday’s game presents an opportunity to get to another one. A proud Armenian and Unicef ambassador, who welcomed Joe Biden’s decision to become the first US president to recognise the Armenian genocide under the Ottoman Empire last week, Mkhitaryan says: “It’s a big responsibility if you are Armenian.”

Henrikh’s legacy is twofold. His father Hamlet was a successful footballer who passed away at 33 after being diagnosed with cancer. “He was my drive,” Mkhitaryan says, “that was (behind my decision) to become a footballer and to continue the way he didn’t finish (in the game).”

The other is to be what Armenians couldn’t see. “I always had a dream to play in Europe, I always wanted to achieve this dream,” he says. “I thank God I could do it and still have the opportunity to play in Europe. You’ve played in Germany, in the Premier League and now in Italy. You show your fellow Armenians that nothing is impossible. I would like to see other Armenians playing in the Bundesliga, in the Premier League, in the Italian league.

“It would make me proud that some of my friends and compatriots reached this level as well. I don’t want to be the only one to play in the best clubs or the best leagues in the world.”

Not too much about us, but Miki speaks about his time at Man U and Arsenal.
 

Riou

In The Winchester, Waiting For This To Blow Over

Country: Northern Ireland

Player:Gabriel


...imagine a season where Arsenal's strikers are a 27 year old Thierry Henry and a 21 year old Robin Van Persie...for all the crap we have had the last few seasons, this club at one point really spoiled it's fans with the quality it had.
 

vantoure

Well-Known Member


...imagine a season where Arsenal's strikers are a 27 year old Thierry Henry and a 21 year old Robin Van Persie...for all the crap we have had the last few seasons, this club at one point really spoiled it's fans with the quality it had.
Van Persie, an idiot - he broke my heart. Damn!

My rise to fame on AM and my escape from the lobby was a thread to compare Van Persie and Rooney :lol: Can't find it anywhere now.

Was my favorite player, along with Kolo.
 
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