Arsenal – Watford 1-2: a costly defeat in points and personel

By Walter Broeckx Again a lot of changes, in fact the same number (10) of changes compared to our last starting line up. The only player to keep his place is also the same: Mustafi. Welbeck was not on the bench and I think this might be a wise move from Wenger to not burn …

Arsenal v Watford: the team (and the silly stats about runs and stuff)

By Bulldog Drummond One of the interesting facts in the referee summary published earlier today is the comment that The teams with most decisions in their favour are United (31) Spurs (25), Watford (23) and Leicester (21).  While… Arsenal continue to be the team most affected by wrong decisions against with 31. Which means we are …

Referee Appointments and Results Matchweek 16 – The bullet points

by the Referee Team Just in case you find the full weekly referee review too long – here is a quick summary in bullet point form.  The full analysis will follow. Matchweek 16 included these games Tuesday 13 December 2016 Everton 2 – 1 Arsenal West Ham 1 – 0 Burnley Sunderland 0 – 1 …

Arsenal v Watfurd taktiks. And Premum Premiun seats at Totteringham too

by Tony Attwood Having heard that Tottenham have put up posters all over the London Underground selling their Premium Packages with the word “premium” spelled wrongly twice, I have some sympathy.  I can’t spell either – as of course you will have noticed if u lok ocasionaly @ wot i right. Mind you there are …

Sutton v Arsenal: will the tie be reversed to be played at the Ems?

By Tony Attwood It happened on 25 January 2003 and is still recorded in most history books as Farnborough 1-5 Arsenal.  But in fact the game took place at Highbury, switched there to help Farnborough get additional revenue. Arsenal donated all the income from programme sales for the day to Farnborough, and as the teams came …

Arsenal v Watford: will the Ox get the defensive midfield slot in place of Ramsey?

By Tony Attwood Watford and Arsenal are in two very different places.  Yes I know, one is in Hertfordshire and one in North London.  But apart from that, they are in two very different psychological places. In the FA Cup Walter Mazzarri made seven changes to the Watford side for the game against Millwall on Sunday …

Arsenal v Watford Tuesday 31 January 2017 – The Match Officials

by Andrew Crawshaw Firstly an apology for the inadequacy of my preview of Jon Moss.  In essence I got things right but failed to predict the scale of his ‘crimes’.  My predictions for his performance are in blue italic script, post match comments are in black Mr Moss is really not a terribly good referee …

Arsenal face new midfield injury chaos as transfer window gets ready to shatter.

By Sir Hardly Anyone, Prince of the Make Believe. Just when we thought it was safe to conclude that Alexis was ready to walk away from Arsenal having had a big fall out with Arsene Wenger over money, position on the pitch, minutes played, tactics and how big the banner about his dogs should be, …

REF REVIEW SWANSEA – ARSENAL

By the referee team SWANSEA CITY vs. ARSENAL COMPETITION: English Premier League MATCH NO. 21 DATE: 14th January 2017 VENUE: Liberty Stadium (Swansea, England) MATCH OFFICIALS: REFEREE: Mike Jones 1st LINESMAN: Richard West 2nd LINESMAN: Mark Scholes 4th OFFICIAL: Oliver Langford First Half Fouls, Advantages, Cards, and Penalties Time Foul by Foul For Description & …

Why being a thick-and-thin positive supporter who takes exercise is better than moaning.

by Tony Attwood At the first away match of the season a group of aaa’s attending the game organised a chant of “Wenger out” followed by the usual one about the need to spend some money. Of course chants are very short and don’t leave much room for reasoned debate on issues such as who …

FA Cup Southampton – Arsenal : 0-5, Welbeck with a brace, Theo with a hattrick… amazing performance

By Walter Broeckx A lot of changes indicating that Arsenal finds the PL more important than the FA cup at this moment in time. I’m not going over all the changes but only Mustafi held his place in the starting line up compared to the Burnley match.   The most important fact maybe was the …

Southampton v Arsenal: the Cup runs and the teams

by Bulldog Drummond In the Cup we have progressed from 16 of the 20 FA Cup fourth round ties contested under Mr Wenger, losing only to Leeds (1996/97), Leicester (1999/2000), Bolton (2005/06) and Stoke (2009/10).  Better still we have won the last five away FA Cup matches in a row – although we have never …

Southampton v Arsenal: top scorers and comparing the clubs’ style and approach

By Bulldog Drummond The Top Scorers Chart in relation to the Southampton v Arsenal match (or as the Telegraph had it yesterday, Arsenal v Southampton) is interesting.  Arsenal have three players in the top 27 while Southampton have one in Charlie Austin – who is out of the team until April.  Their next highest is …

Mr Wenger v The FA – the full 20 year history. And the world of the fake innuendo.

By Tony Attwood As you will probably have seen Arsène Wenger was given a four-match touchline ban by the Football Association following the Burnley game.  Arsenal have said they will not appeal and so the ban starts today. Mr Wenger can sit in the stand and communicate with Steve Bould by telephone, or should the line …

Southampton v Arsenal: Daily Telegraph joins Independent by moving into the Post-Truth world

By Bulldog Drummond According to the X Files (remember them?) the Truth is Out There. Now we have Jose Mourinho telling us that the result of the match against Hull wasn’t a win for Hull because the ref made a mistake, so their unbeaten run continues.  (Which means that Arsenal’s unbeaten run wasn’t 49 at …

Southampton v Arsenal: something must be wrong with the injury tables.

By Bulldog Drummond Now this is all very curious indeed.   According to the Independent, as we saw this week, Arsenal have more injuries than the rest of the league put together and are way out in front of everyone else, largely because of the introduction of the 56 week year and counting injuries of …

REF REVIEW BOURNEMOUTH – ARSENAL:

By the referee team BOURNEMOUTH vs. ARSENAL COMPETITION: English Premier League MATCH NO. 20 DATE: 3rd January 2017 VENUE: Vitality Stadium (Bournemouth, England) MATCH OFFICIALS: REFEREE: Michael Oliver 1st LINESMAN: Stuart Burt 2nd LINESMAN: Simon Bennett 4th OFFICIAL: Graham Scott First Half Fouls, Advantages, Cards, and Penalties Time Foul by Foul For Description & Decision …

REF REVIEW: Arsenal – Burnley: oh dear… oh dear… random decision making would have been more accurate

Note: There are clips included in the report for every wrong decision and every major decision in red bold text ARSENAL vs. BURNLEY COMPETITION: English Premier League MATCH NO. 22 DATE: 22th January 2016 VENUE: Emirates Stadium (London, England) MATCH OFFICIALS: REFEREE: Jon Moss 1st LINESMAN: Marc Perry 2nd LINESMAN: Andy Halliday 4th OFFICIAL: Anthony …

Arsenal U23s: an update plus preview and team prediction of Arsenal v Chelsea

by Andrew Crawshaw It has been some time since I did an update of the progress of our U23 team this season and with their game against Chelsea being shown live on Arsenal Player at 13:00 on Friday this seems like an appropriate moment to do so. The league is split into two groups with …

The Independent claims Arsenal suffer most injuries after using obviously faked data

By Tony Attwood Arsenal suffered more injuries than any other Premier League team last season – costing the club £15m in wasted wages, according to a report on the website of the Independent dated 24 January 2017. The report goes on to quote Talk Sport and “Dutch fitness coach Raymond Verheijen” and suggests “The numbers could raise …

Why the Tiny Totts are so called, and why Arsenal can’t win anything with youngsters.

By Tony Attwood We know all the stories.  Arsenal don’t spend money in the transfer window.  Arsene Wenger insists on using youngsters all the time.  Other clubs never do this, it is only Arsenal.  If we had a different manager who brought in proper players we’d be ok.  New managers always work.  So do transfers. …

The Premier League is under threat, more people take an interest, and a new man i/c PGMO. What now?

By Tony Attwood The big threat facing Premier League football today is not so much from the failure of referees to follow the rules of  the game, or from the activities of the ultra-secretive PGMO, but from the persistence of immature football journalism that fails to examine these topics properly. I thought on this today …

Shock news: We do better without Santi Cazorla than when he plays. But why???

. By Tony Attwood Data from OuLaLa and from Statto Saqnti Cazorla has not played since mid-October after injuring an Achilles in Arsenal’s 6-0 Champions League win over Ludogorets on 19 October. Immediately the news of just how serious the injury was, the press got very excited.  “Santi Cazorla injury will derail Arsenal’s season – unless …

Xhaka sending off proves Untold is right about anti-Arsenal bias

By Walter Broeckx As I sat in the stadium for this match I had to form my first opinion on the sending off based on the view from the upper corner above the Burnley fans. As the foul was made on Dufour, whom I know from Belgium, I thought he was overdoing his reaction. I …

Police abuse of Section 35 of the Anti-Social Behaviour Act successfully challenged.

Fans challenge new police powers… and win – and do a great service to all travelling fans. A father and son have successfully challenged the police over the use of new powers – setting an important legal precedent for fans and winning compensation in the process.   The Football Supporrters Federation covered the story, and …