Dear ESPN: Expected Goals do not account for refereeing errors

  By Sifarzone Expected Goals are all the rage today and it is certainly a great addition to the toolbox we use in analyzing and understanding football. It gives an understanding to the match beyond just the ultimate results, goals. It values long term-performance over short-term results, since long-term performance will eventually return as results. …

Who will Arsenal’s next manager be and what we can learn from Moyes?

By Tony Attwood The time will come when Arsenal need a new manager.  I don’t know when, but it will happen. Three options are available: a promotion from within, bringing in a famous managerial name from elsewhere, or finding a person who (like Mr Wenger when he joined) will be unknown to most supporters, unless …

How the evolving referee scandal in Germany is causing the English media problems

By Tony Attwood Oh this is so difficult for the British media.   With the commentary that the refereeing of the Manchester City game against Arsenal was not all that it might have been, they went as far as they dared without having their licences from the PL revoked.   Now they have scuttled away from …

How fake news was used to manipulate the Man C story to avoid considering the issues

By Tony Attwood A couple of changes were made to this article at 9am on 7 Nov after it was initially published  I recently wrote a little piece How fake news came to dominate the reporting of football in all English media which traced the history of fake news in the media back 100 years. I’ve …

Germany is facing its own refereeing scandal, by taking action, not hiding behind silence

by Tony Attwood The big problem in Premier League refereeing is silence.  The silence engineered by PGMO, and only just, after years of missed opportunities, occasionally broken by the normally obsequious national media in England. It is this silence that reveals why we are still struggling to show something is fundamentally wrong with refereeing in the …

Our one hope: the media is suddenly realising there is something wrong with refereeing

By Tony Attwood We first knew something was up when Alan Green, the BBC commentator, suddenly started laying off referees.  He’d never suggested there was anything wrong in terms of bias, but constantly reported that they were making mistakes.  Lots of mistakes.  Lots and lots of mistakes.  Lots and lots and… well you get the …

13 years on: the match that has never stopped. Referee influence on match results

For many years Walter Broeckx has headed a team of experts writing for Untold on refereeing.  In 2017 he took a long overdue sabbatical… until yesterday, events forced him to return to his subject… 13 Year On By Walter Broeckx In my match reports I promised myself at the start of the season that I …

The live robbery report – Man$hester $ity – Arsenal 3-1, As usuall robbed again…

By Walter Broeckx A few not so pleasant surprises at the start of the match with the absence of Per in particular one I didn’t want. So we got a starting line up with Cech, Bellerin, Koscielny, Monreal, Kolasinac, Coquelin, Xhaka, Ramsey, Özil, Iwobi, Alexis. Both teams attack in the opening minutes. City with a …

Manchester City v Arsenal. The league where Arsenal come bottom.

By Bulldog Drummond Arsenal injury news: Wenger confirms triple blow, trio to miss Man City clash That headline came from Ron Carne, an interesting variation for him, as his posts often have the word journalist in the headline, in the mistaken belief that if something is said by a journalist it is more likely to …

Manchester City v Arsenal Sunday 5 November – Media react to the Match Officials

by Andrew Crawshaw The mainstream media and blogettas have joined us this year in mentioning referees in advance of Premier League games. Our Officials are :- Referee – Michael Oliver  Age 32 from Northumberland and FIFA accredited Assistant Referee 1 – Simon Bennett  from Staffordshire and FIFA accredited Assistant Referee 2 – Stuart Burt  from …

Why Alexis won’t move to Man C after one Arsenal defeat in the last 9 between the clubs

by Bulldog Drummond While all the newspapers and their lapdogs in the bloggettas are predicting that Arsenal will sell Alexis in January, Arsène Wenger has said that he doesn’t think that will happen and that he anticipates Alexis Sánchez will stay at least til the summer. Of course the fake news outlets are all sticking …

Are Arsenal really utterly appalling against other “top clubs”?

By Tony Attwood Certainly if you read many of the web sites on offer at the moment the notion you will get is pretty clear.  Arsenal are pretty awful when it comes to playing other top teams in England. These top teams are generally defined as Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, and Tottenham Hotspur …

Santi Cazorla back in January, Mourinho admits the crime, Evra banned, Wenger on City.

by Tony Attwood Details of the various treatments undergone by Santi Cazorla have started to emerge, and the full extent of the horrific problems he has faced have been revealed – including the possibility of needing an amputation. But it seems all is over and he really is on the road to recovery.  He is …

Arsenal v Red Star: our kids need playing time but ex Man U players always offer amusement

By Tony Attwood From what I saw, (and as with the commentary about Swansea supporters, people in the ground can only report what they saw), the Red Star fans were what away fans should be.  Very positive, very noisy, no fighting among themselves, no flares.  They didn’t exceed their ticket allocation in the number of …

Arsenal II – Red Star Belgrade : 0-0

By Walter Broeckx Some early nerves with some of the younger players. Macey with a bad kick on a back pass but Holding rescues by making a great block to stop the forward going to the keeper. Elneny with important block on a cross a bit later as Red Star tries to counter the possession …

Arsenal v Red Star: the Jack conundrum, injuries, Europa records, teams.

By Bulldog Drummond So as we get to our final post before the game (given that it will soon be time to jump in the jalopy and gallop off down the M1, what about the jolly old injuries? Well that website that is having a go at challenging our regular reports on injuries, has now …

Arsenal v Red Star: Lemar, Mahrez, the atmosphere, and the teams first time we met.

By Bulldog Drummond Supposing someone could read your mind.  More than that, could read what you will be thinking in a few moments time.  Would that be spooky? If you think so it is it might well be a good idea to lay off the bloggettas for the moment because one of the pop ups …

Jose Mourinho in court on Friday, Lacazette leaving.

By Tony Attwood All the latest bits and pieces of the day include the rather exciting news that Jose Mourinho is due to be in court on Friday over the issue of tax fraud in Spain.   It relates fairly obviously to his time at Real Madrid.   The state claims that he owes them just …

Arsenal v Red Star: a record at the Emirates approaches.

By Bulldog Drummond As pointed out by a couple of correspondents very quickly the table below includes the Manchester City game played at Wembley.  Sorry that slipped through in the cut and paste job of listing the games.  I think that even without that game, there is still a record in the offing – but …

Chair of PSG accused of wholesale corruption – but it is not reported in the British media

By Tony Attwood Although it rarely makes the news in the British press these days in the United States and Switzerland the issue of the corruption of football on a global scale continues to make the headlines.  And much of the time the story is the same: dozens of people and dozens of companies have …