Exclusive: Piers Morgan on Life as the Most Hated Arsenal Fan on Twitter
If scientists could build the perfect creature to thrive in today’s bitterly divided political media ecosystem, they’d probably come up with something that looked like Piers Morgan.
Look no further than how a 30-second preview for his new show released Wednesday afternoon rocked the internet and upended how we see the relationship between Rupert Murdoch’s empire and Donald Trump — in one fell swoop.
The quick-witted provocateur has a preternatural ability to push buttons on polarizing subjects in a manner often more entertaining than informative, with the effect of driving one side of a controversy absolutely bonkers. But he can also be impossibly charming, with the added bonus that — at least in person — he rarely takes himself too seriously.
He is also fearless in the face of overwhelming disdain. He has no problem ditching the suck-uperry so prevalent in today’s media, as demonstrated by his ability to confront Trump on his baseless claims of election fraud. He is equally unafraid to speak his mind on Twitter.
Morgan is soon to embark on his latest media venture, a new television program called Uncensored on TalkTV in the UK, which will stream in the US on Fox Nation. Morgan’s mission, he tells me, is to “cancel, cancel culture.”
Knowing all this, I pitched an interview concept to his “people” that would focus entirely on a topic for which we both share a great deal of mutual affection, passion, and occasional frustration: Arsenal Football Club.
In some ways, this was a selfish pitch — I love the club. But fear not, reader, there’s an angle here: Morgan’s vocal criticism of Arsenal on Twitter has established him as an absolutely loathed pariah among the Arsenal cognoscenti.
Morgan and I chatted about his love of Arsenal, his relentless criticism of gaffer Mikel Arteta, and the ups and downs of being an Arsenal fan. The interview was conducted last Friday, before a third consecutive loss away at Southampton AND a stunning 4-2 win away at an impressive Chelsea side (currently dealing with the stench of Roman Abramovich’s blood money and the trophies it has afforded.)
We also got into the future of Arsenal, what he thinks of giving away world-class striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang for free, who he prefers as Arsenal’s next manager, and one possible solution for a striker moving forward. In short, this interview was conducted by, and created for, Arsenal supporters worldwide.
The following is condensed for time and length.
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Hall: Let’s start with one question. What do you think of Tottenham?
Morgan: Well, as you know, Colby, the preferred response from every Arsenal fan to that simple question is a four-letter word beginning with ‘S’ and ends in ‘T’.
Hall: So what do you think of that four-letter word that begins with ‘S’ and ends with ‘T’?
Morgan: Well, I have to be careful. My dad’s a massive Tottenham fan and has to be fair to say he was a kid, so I try and temper my natural antipathy towards Tottenham with the fact that my dad loves them. He went to every home game for about 15 years, and back then they used to go to Tottenham one week, and then they’d go to the Arsenal home game the following week. And that was the way it used to be. In those days, the Tottenham and Arsenal fans would all go to each other’s home game for alternate weeks. I mean, you couldn’t even imagine that now. It’s amazing. I mean, nowadays you would have to separate them with armed guards.
Hall: So you and I have a shared love of the Arsenal FC, and I follow Arsenal very closely and I can’t help but notice that on Twitter you seem to delight in being a vocal critic, so much so that like you kind of become a pariah among the Arsenal fan base. Why is that?
Morgan: Underneath it, they know I’m right. I mean, for eight years, I said Arsene [Wenger] was over the hill and he dragged us into mid-table mediocrity for eight years. I was told by this group I was completely wrong and he was going to come good and win everything again, as he had done so brilliantly in his early tenure with us. And actually, things got progressively worse until Wenger eventually left. And the remarkable thing happened when one of the greatest managers in the club’s history left and everyone was just so relieved it was finally over. And I thought that was very sad, but I felt that I was completely vindicated on that.
Hall: Who did you want to replace Wenger?
Morgan: I was campaigning vigorously at one stage for a European club to be our manager after we left the tournament. And the same bunch of Arsenal fans told me, Why did you want [Jurgen] Klopp? He’s just going to get relegated. But I knew he’d won the Bundesliga twice against Bayern Munich. So why wouldn’t you want to go to Liverpool? He wins everything and the fans get very quiet. The same debate now with Mikel Arteta. It’s like I realize the groupthink had all decided this is, you know, the greatest new manager in the history of world football. I’m looking at currently fifth place. We’ve just lost, think of, 10 league games. We lost to Cyrstal Palace and Brighton, two of the lesser teams in the league.
I will get the bunting out and start celebrating and host street parties if and when Arsenal becomes good. But I’m not seeing much evidence of this dramatic process that Arteta’s doing. I see, well, the opposite. All I see is the guy who gave away our best player Aubameyang to Barcelona, where Aubameyang is now breaking scoring records, Barcelona scoring in virtually every game and I see the guy leading online. [Alexandre] Lacazette hasn’t scored in open play since the middle of December 21, hours without scoring a goal.
Hall: Yes, the decision to give Auba away for free has clearly upset you judged by your Twitter comments…
Morgan: I mean, clearly, it was a terrible decision. But again, the Arsenal groupthink mob has decided this is brilliant, brilliant ball, etc. It was quite right to give away a 65 million pound player who’s now scoring goals for one of the biggest teams in the world. That made perfect sense, and it’s very logical that we would keep Lacazette leading our line, even though he can’t hit a barn door from five yards and so on. And we’re not going to come full despite your tweet to the contrary recently. We are not going to come in fourth place, and if you want to bet on that, I’ll take that. I’ll take your money. Tottenham looks, quite clearly, in my estimation, going to come in fourth because they’ve got a great world-class manager, and in Harry Kane, they have a world-class striker. We had one, then decided to give him away.
Hall: Well, let me just say that Aubameyang was on 250,000 pounds a week and Arsenal lost a ton of revenue by not having League Cup games or FA Cup games. Also, he isn’t the sort of hold-up player that Arteta wants to build his system around. And after he left, Arsenal was immediately in great form. They won something like nine of 10 games.
Morgan: We were playing a very a bunch of mediocre teams.
Hall: We won at Villa and won at Leicester City. These are matches that we would have lost under Unai Emery.
Morgan: Are you familiar with the British phrase “clutching at straws?”
Hall: Here we go…
Morgan: It’s a bit like with all the tribal debates over things like Brexit and Trump and the pandemic and so on is that even when facts change, and it’s quite clear that I’m right about Aubameyang and Lacazette and all of this, nobody on that other side of the argument wants to admit it.
Hall: You probably won’t recall this period, but in 2013, you and I met at the wedding.
Morgan: We met at Steve Krakauer’s wedding when he married Meghan McPartland (Morgan’s former publicist).
Hall: First of all, Steve Krakauer is the one that introduced you to Twitter, so he’s the one that should be blamed for all of this.
Morgan: The thing is I actually really enjoy robust debate with all fans, but I have a lot of them all day long. But I walk around London. I had these conversations four or five times a day, but you know, I simply point you to the Wenger debate and how, in the end, I was proven completely right about that. Well, I got a lot of people for him.
Hall: Well, in 2013, you were Wenger Out, and you were way ahead of that trend and you did prove to be right. But I will note in 2016 Arsenal finished second in the table and we were the only side to do the double against Leicester. Had other top sides beat Leicester that year, like any other, Arsenal would have, should have won the table. Anyway, you appear to love engaging in debates, but I know you as someone who does it with a smile and it doesn’t appear to bother you at all.
Morgan: The trouble with Twitter is … I often think I can have a very big show on the Internet if I just filmed myself on Twitter all day because of the amount of fun I have just winding people up because Twitter doesn’t really do nuance or sarcasm or any of those things. So people can completely lose their minds over the tiniest thing. And all I’m saying is that I always argue, I believe, from sincerely held opinions. So when I express myself above all, I genuinely believe, I’m also like most football fans.
I’m a hothead, irrational, emotional, and occasionally completely bonkers, and also can drive myself to tears in a way that no woman has ever done. And I can become an irrational, emotional wreck, and I make no apology for that. But nor do I pretend that that is not the case because I think I can watch a football match and go from Arsenal also playing a big game against Tottenham, and we’re losing two-nil. I can be screaming my fury and pounding the floor and smashing my head into brick walls. And if we then turn it around in the second half and win three-two, suddenly all the people whose blood I’ve been demanding and heads on scalps and so on, suddenly I want them to be given knighthood by the Queen. So, you know, it’s a fine line, isn’t it, between being, you know, a pundit as a football fan and being the completely neurotic lunatic? And I think sometimes I’m afraid I’ll stray into the latter.
Hall: It seems you suffer from the same human condition that all of us Arsenal supporters do. So let’s return to Arsenal’s future. Since you are so critical of the current state of things, what do you suggest?
Morgan: I would say we need a new manager. I prefer Patrick Vieira based on what he’s doing at Crystal Palace. And when they thumped the other night, I saw Vieira and the way he is and his attitude running through that scene. They were better than us. They were tough. The stronger, more physical they were, they were a Vieira team and I’m not an Arteta team. You know, [Arteta] was a good player, but he wasn’t world-class. Vieira was a world-class player and a world-class fighter, and he’s producing the team in his image. I would, personally, be ruthless and I would bring in Vieira, and I would then get him to try and turn us back into the kind of teams we had in the early 2000s and late, late 90s when we had a lot of very tall, powerful players and people would be intimidated just by standing in the tunnel.
Excuse me, but not many of our players now intimidate anybody. And you’ve got to be intimidating. You’re going to get in the tunnel and people get willing to walk. And I think, right, Vieira understands that he’s building a team in that model. So I’m stuck on the manager, I think all these things come down to the manager. I’m not sold on Arteta. I don’t know about the fans. I think he’s a rookie. He’s making rookie errors and I think we’ve oversold him. I know we can make ourselves great. The guy who spent 250 million pounds, the $350 million in two years, and we’re still fifth and unlikely to be in the top four.
Hall: Back to Aubameyahg? He was in horrible form for Arsenal. Now he’s motivated. He wasn’t playing well under our team.
Morgan: Why do you say he’s in horrible form? Also, let’s compare that for a moment in this season alone, he also scored something like 92 goals in 162 games for us, which gives him the second-best goal per game record, trailing Thierry Henry in the club’s history. So that’s one. Secondly, he scored seven goals in 15 games this season for Arsenal, which is still more than Lacazette scored. A lot is now played twice as many games. So the match to you? And I’m afraid it doesn’t look good.
Hall: But he also was on 250,000 pounds a week, and so there were some savings. But Auba even pushed back to you on Twitter and said, like, sometimes a departure can benefit both sides.
Morgan: Yes. He has also said that he’s “very grateful.” The more goals he scores for Barcelona and the few that Lacazette scores for us, the point that is proven every game that I understand well for fans of the authentic Kool-Aid and they want to believe that [Arteta’s] the Messiah and it’s all great. I simply say if we spend 250 million and we come fifth again, I don’t see that this is any great progress. Sorry.
Hall: Well, we have added great players in the past year. Aaron Ramsdale was a great signing. Ben White, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Martin Ødegaard … all starters (when fit, of course) and they were all good signings!
Morgan: They’re all good signings. But we need at least two world-class players. And the problem is that we are not in the Champions League. You can’t attract that kind of player. So you asked me, who would I get? There are lots of players I would love to have, but you have to qualify for the Champions League to get the best.
Hall: So if everyone agrees we need a striker, who do you sign? Who do you go after to lead Arsenal’s line next season?
Morgan: I would break the bank for Cristiano Ronaldo and do a two-year contract. I’m put in the middle of all those young players because I think all young players have a better attitude than the United young players who don’t seem to want to respect Ronaldo properly. I would give Ronaldo whatever he wants and say, “Come here,” and I think a top striker like him playing in a number 9 role would score a lot of goals. But more importantly, all our younger players would have the benefit of Ronaldo’s work ethic, his drive, and his hunger. And when people say, “Well, why would he go to Arsenal?,” so why wouldn’t he actually? I think he’s achieved everything he wants to achieve. I think actually someone like that would be an amazing signing. It reminds me of when we signed Dennis Bergkamp in the mid-90s. It changed the club. So I think, you know, we could get someone like Ronaldo. It’s not impossible. If people think he’s going to leave United and his options will be reasonably limited, I would think about the very best.
Hall: He’s 37 and maybe his best days are behind him?
Morgan: 18 goals in 33 games for United this season, and Lacazatte has scored 6 in 35 games.
Hall: Well, look, no one’s defending Lacazette, I think he’s a lovely locker room guy, and I would love to see him be a squad player moving forward, but he is not hungry around the goal.
Morgan: Well, I would have had more, but we wouldn’t get [Erling] Haaland and we won’t get [Kylian] Mbappe, if we want to be realistic. These guys won’t come if they’re not in the Champions League. But I would think Gabriel Martinelli and Cristiano Ronaldo would be a great forward line for us. I think playing Bukaya Saka and Emile Smith-Rowe and Kieran Tierney, Gabriel, and they’re all very good promising players. No question, but we need some world-class steel in there.
Hall: If somehow we could pull off a win at Tottenham, which seems unlikely because I think they have a much better side at this point, fourth place is not entirely out of the question. I’m not going to bet you because I agree with you. I think right now fifth is probably the most likely and best possible spot.
Morgan: Look I’ve followed Arsenal for 52 years since I was five years old. I fell in love with this when we won the double in 1971, and Charlie George scored the winning goal at Wembley from 25 yards. And he had this long hair and the whole thing was fantastic and I knew ultimately I would always support Arsenal. The great, consistent love of my life. But like all great loves of your life, they turn me into an emotional wreck. And I’m not. I’m not claiming to have any more rights or an opinion than any other Arsenal fan. I’ve paid the full season tickets a year, so I’ve shelled out about $10,000 a year to watch my team, and that entitles me to have as many opinions as I like. I don’t claim to be the only allowed an opinion. Nor do I claim my opinions any more valid than yours or any other awful thing. And I think we can all agree that even though we may disagree about managers or players who come and go, our love for the club should never be questioned.
Hall: That’s a lovely way to wrap up. I really appreciate you giving me the time Piers. And “Come on your Gunners!” Good luck with the show and let us know when there’s a decent play for us to feature on media.
Morgan: Thanks! I enjoyed it!
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Postscript: Wednesday evening saw a plucky Arsenal side — comprised of enough young players to compete in an Under 23 competition — defeat a world-class Chelsea side at Stamford Bridge. It was a shocking result that delighted Arsenal supporters as it resurrected hopes of a fourth-place finish which brings a place in next year’s Champion’s League (and the status and financial gain that comes with).
So I asked Piers on Twitter if the result changed his opinion about manager Mikel Arteta, to which he replied, “Not yet. But we played very well tonight, after three dismal losses to far worse teams.”
Piers Morgan’s new show Uncensored debuts on TalkTV in the UK on April 25th and streams on FOX Nation in the US.
Colby Hall has been a loyal Arsenal supporter since long before Fever Pitch was released. You can follow him on Twitter at @colbyhall
