Arsenal players who might move up into the first team

Our earlier review of players who had been on loan this past season gave us few names to conjure with for the coming year.  Our most likely “returnees” seem to be Damien Martinez and Joel Campbell – both of whom would need time to develop their game further.  Martinez is 21 (very young for a …

He signs when he wants, Arsène Wenger, he signs when he wants

By Walter Broeckx Get out the champagne, fill the pints, get out the soft drinks for those like me who don’t drink alcohol. Some 14 days after winning the FA cup it has been made official by Arsenal: Arsène Wenger has signed a new contract. We will have our longest serving and most successful manager …

Football 2013-14 – A Fantasy Analysis – Part 3 Forwards

Football 2013-14 – A Fantasy Analysis – Part 3 Forwards   by Andrew Crawshaw To save Tony from Apoplexy, I am not going to repeat the introduction, You can find it here in Part 1 Defence and here Part 2 Midfield. For clarity, I have included players who are listed on their Official Club Websites …

What the “How many years since” mantra actually means

By Tony Attwood A recent Red Action email to subscribers commented particularly on the massively improved atmosphere at Arsenal home games, during this past season. The email was extremely modest in its tone, saying that of course the improved atmosphere was more to do with team success than what they did, but Red Action does, …

Good old fashioned refereeing from Probert. Ref review of FA CUP FINAL

By Walter Broeckx After a hard days work and having to type every line again in the columns as it otherwise wouldn’t work the referee review is finally done. Referee of the FA cup Final was Lee Probert. We predicted what and how he would do it before the match. Did he lived up to …

Every Arsenal transfer story all on one page

By Sir Hardly Anyone One player issues a “come and get me plea”, another says he has always admired Wenger, but still Wenger hesitates, and the players go elsewhere. Sound familiar? Yep, its the story from the AAA make believe land of transfers.  But fortunately you don’t have to plough your way through them all, …

Five things for Pochettino to do before he is sacked in December 2015

By Tony Attwood Judging by what has happened across the years since 1996, we can make a fair prediction about what will happen to Mr Pochettino – the new Tottenham manager.  Primarily we can say that he will be sacked in December next year.  Such a sacking would make him an average Tottenham manager.  Anything …

Business as usual: reporters lying about Arsenal

There have been some technical issues with this article, so I am publishing it again.  Tony By Walter Broeckx A free society is a society in which one can speak out in a free way without having to fear to lose your head in all meanings. In a free society you have a free press …

The season’s impression: Wojciech Szczesny

By Walter Broeckx With the long hot (one can but hope) summer in front of us and with the long boring transfer rumour period upon us I thought this was the right moment to have a look back at the positions and players we have employed during the last season. My take on their performances. …

Football 2013-14 – A Fantasy Analysis – Part 2 Midfield

Football 2013-14 – A Fantasy Analysis – Part 2 Midfield by Andrew Crawshaw This is the second part of this analysis  – Part 1 Defence can be found here  There are many different ways of analysing the performance of players and teams within football.  My daily paper – The Telegraph … urgh argh eeeek [Sorry …

Gotcha: How a newspaper will change football news to suit the agenda

By Tony Attwood This is the story of Untold, and the way one of our stories was picked up by the Daily Telegraph, and then changed. On 26 May Untold ran its story Football, politics and religion: where’s the research? in which there appears the sub heading… 3.  What is the explanation of one club having more …

COUCH-POTATO MANAGERS

COUCH-POTATO MANAGERS by Don McMahon The onslaught of the media-inspired denigration of Wenger’s 11th FA Cup and his supposed 4th place ¨trophy¨ ambitions has prompted me to analyze the real differences between a professional football manager and the AAA couch-potato variety we often have the misfortune to see on UA. By the way a couch-potato, …

Football 2013-14 – A Fantasy analysis – Part 1 Defence

Football 2013-14 – A Fantasy analysis – Part 1 Defence   by Andrew Crawshaw There are many different ways of analysing the performance of players and teams within football.  My daily paper – The Telegraph (Tony, I know sorry) – like many others does a fantasy football league where most players in the premiership are …

Should we just give up on trying to finish fourth?

By Tony Attwood That subject line above seems to be the essence of an article I have just read on the internet.  One that itself has the headline: Should Arsenal prioritise winning domestic trophies with top-four hunt to become increasingly difficult? The essence of the argument seems to be that Man U will bounce back …

Football, politics and religion: where’s the research?

Religion is a question of faith, of course.  And politics is also a question of belief, in that it is rare to hear a politician saying “we tried this approach in these counties and that approach in some different counties and now we know which works best.” No, politicians like followers of a religion come …

Arsenal make, about to make, should make amazing, audacious, outrageous, ludicrous offer for…

By Tony Attwood I’ve really tried to make it clear that it is impossible to predict who is going to sign who until the last day or two before the signing is done – and even then we can’t always get it right. But still the web sites and blogs go on and on as …

We won the cup, but for some nothing has changed

By Tony Attwood Sadly, nothing has changed. Here’s an extract from a news item running on an Arsenal blog on 24 May… “That old familiar feeling is starting to creep over me, deja vu style, and I can just picture myself around halfway through August, with the Premier League season already started, thinking what the …

Has PSG decided to ignore FFP and bash on alone?

By Tony Attwood Chelsea are selling David Luiz to Paris St Germain for around £50 million. It is a deal set up to help Chelsea keep on the right side of FFP regulations, unless their manager goes on a spending spree to try to recover from this season without a trophy. But from PSG’s point …

What happens when a Premier League club sacks its manager?

By Tony Attwood Here’s an interesting question: what happens when a Premier League club replaces its manager? It is an interesting question because it is one that the AAA by-passes whenever it does its anti-Wengerian rhetoric.  It just says, “Wenger out!” and cites all the things that it says are wrong.  In essence the argument …

The 3 cup final heroes: Wenger knew

By Walter Broeckx Cup final heroes. When looking back at the cup final we have the heroes of course. And heroes are mostly the ones that scored the goals. Things are no different then this time around. Let us sing the praise of our goal scorers. Santi Cazorla. OOOOOOHHHHHHH Santi Cazorlaaaaa He reminds me a …

How to predict exactly who Arsenal are about to sign. (Honest it works).

By Tony Attwood Out of all these stories one of them will be true.  The trick is to find which one! We are going to sign Cesc.  We’ve got first option, Barce don’t want him, the fans who share his DNA (messy thing DNA, horrible twirling stuff that just sits there and controls what you …

Another Step Taken; it was closer than you think

Another Step Taken By Ian Jenkinson @Gooneriano Please note this article contains a wide table towards the end, which you may find doesn’t fit onto your screen and runs over to the right.  If this happens, when you get to this part click Ctrl and the minus (-) key at the same time, repeatedly, until …

Football is not just the game; it is about the feeling and the friendship

By Walter Broeckx Looking back at the cup final day there are a few moments that stand out and that stay more in my memory than others. Not just the football moments of course but the human stories. The strange things that happen on such a day and that make the whole day even more …

In football it is not just how much the club earns, it is also where it can expand.

By Tony Attwood Working out how much each club earned from various sources is a difficult task, because clubs only reveal what they have to reveal – and then they do it as late as they can, in most cases. But fortunately there are financial laws which require limited companies to make public declarations, and …