Paul Scholes; Now Talking Nonsense For A Living..

Hello again and after the manager decided to have his press conference yesterday there isn't really much news to write about. I have come across, however, more nonsense from yours truly, Paul Scholes yet again. He seems almost as obsessed about Arsenal as Mourinho. I have yet to hear any insightful analysis from Scholes. I may not particularly like Gary Neville and certainly not Jamie Carragher, but at least they can offer some form of analysis rather than just constantly give out and criticize (alright I admit, it's stretching it a bit with Carragher). There is a lot more to offering football analysis than this constant moral high ground crap the Scholes seems to be sprouting at every opportunity. 

As I said in the Monaco: immediate reaction post, just because someone was a great footballer, and he was, it doesn't necessarily qualify them as a great, or even partially good football analyst or writer. Just like, for example, it doesn't necessarily mean they would be good managers either.

Here's what he said in his piece in The Independant;

"In Monaco, Arsenal showed what they can do when the shackles were off and they had to attack."It was a brilliant performance against a very average team, even if they did not get the third goal they needed. Typical Arsenal, that when the pressure is off, they played their best football."

He may well have a point in terms of Arsenal performing when the pressure is off, but didn't they beat United at Old Trafford when the pressure was really on? As an Arsenal fan, which Paul Scholes certainly is not, I think that game was our most important so far this season, and I said as much. The United game, at Old Trafford, where we hadn't won in 8 and a half years previously carried so much weight in terms of how our season would progress; in the minds of many we were already out of Europe, we are not in the title picture, so the F.a. cup was our last chance of winning a trophy. Where was the article from Scholes saying that we stood up to the pressure then? Where was the article saying that united couldn't handle the pressure? There was no article saying that. In fact he wrote an article saying he was impressed by Arsenal's midfield. That was it. Nothing substantial on how poor united were.

Isn't the point in having a former player, one as great as Paul Scholes, to offer some form of insightful, intelligent analysis into what happened in the game, and not to just merely state what every other football writer has said, especially from those who haven't played top level football.  It's not as if this would come as a shock to anyone but yet again, he has taken another swipe at Mesut Ozil;

"It was another game from Özil, and another failure to make the big difference. It was not his worst performance, and he had a role in the first goal for Olivier Giroud, but how long must Arsenal wait for him to deliver the moment that wins them a tie like that against all the odds? He found space but his touch was not great. He tried hard but he slows Arsenal down at times. He was bought to make a difference on nights like that".

I just cannot understand how Paul Scholes fails to see the class of Mesut Ozil. What is it with this Irish and Brittish way of thinking that what you do on the pitch has to be something immeasurable and everyone must be able to qualify it into a nice little highlight reel, without actually looking 10 yards away from the ball in a match? Why is it that people cannot accept that off the ball movement is just as important as what a player does when they have the ball? Is Paul Scholes able to see that which is not obvious?

I am getting tired of defending Ozil and so are most people who have to also, if I can see the qualities of Ozil, if a lot of Arsenal fans can see his qualities, if his teammates can see his qualities, if his manager can, then why can't Paul Scholes? Remember he was one of Germany's best players in the World Cup and had a great game in the final too, is it just that he has a World Cup medal that Scholes can't handle?

Here's what he also said about the shirt swapping at half time, for the record;

"As for the shirt-swapping at half-time, as I said on ITV, I don’t like it. We never did it at Manchester United because there would have been an explosion from Sir Alex Ferguson when he saw you come back into the dressing room. But even if that had not been the case, I would never have done it. I was there to win a football match, not to start a memorabilia collection".

Why does he discuss the shirt swapping? How does that have anything to do with the match itself? Why doesn't he write about the details of the match and use his knowledge from his playing days as to how the game unfolded, rather than on the most pointless detail of the whole night? This is also another fine example of that moral superiority nonsense; the 'we would never have done it at Man United because of Sir Alex Ferguson', part. Does that supposedly make him better? Is that a dig at Arsene Wenger? Perhaps if he did explode on Mesut Ozil we wouldn't have lost the tie, is that the point he is making? Besides, what does swapping your shirt have to do with winning a football match? Players are there to win a game, he is right about that, but they aren't there to go to war. They can talk to each other when the whistle has gone, it's not as if they are stopping the game to do it. Anyway, it was the Monaco player who wanted Ozils shirt, maybe Scholes just never done it because he was never asked at half time? Who knows.

Remember Scholes gets paid to talk on television and write these articles, isn't it fair to say that he is living off past glories, like some people say about Wenger? I watch football analysis on television to be told something I didn't pick up on myself from the game, because I have never played at the top level and I don't have any writing qualifications, as I said in my very first blog post, but Paul Scholes just doesn't do that.

Anyhow, that's enough of this nonsense, I will be back later on today or tomorrow with a preview for the Newcastle game. Follow me on twitter @Cosmic__Kid.

EDIT: I wrote another guest piece for the All Arsenal News site, 'Why I think Arsenal are a better team this season', so have a look at that and let me know what you think.

Have a good day.

Subjectively, Cosmic Kid.