Arsenal v Stoke; 1 April 2018 – the officials, and when Stoke should have had six men sent off.

by Andrew Crawshaw Firstly some non-Arsenal referee news :- Bobby Madley this weekend becomes the 12th referee to be in charge of a Man United game.  Southampton have had 18 different referees so far, Brighton, Huddersfield and Stoke have each had 17. Andy Madley (Bobby’s older brother) has become the 20th referee to be given …

Bizarre news for injury prone Arsenal. What will Steward Robson say?

By Bulldog Drummond It seems almost years ago that we had the ceaseless, continuous wild ravings of those who took their lead from the frankly deranged Stewart Robson who ceaselessly claimed that all Arsenal injuries were caused by Arsene Wenger’s training methods. Yet there are still aspects of the media that will give him time and …

Arsenal and them. How its gone in the past

by Bulldog Drummond The run against Stoke has not always gone as well as we might have wished… for the last ten games (all in the league) have only yielded six wins, and a draw, when we might well have hoped for more. Date Match Res Score 02 Feb 2013 Arsenal v Stoke City W …

Arsenal vs The Stone Age; this Sunday.

By Bulldog Drummond I must admit that I have never once understood how people at Stoke City can boo Aaron Ramsey for “getting himself injured” as I have heard some of them put it.   It is something so incomprehensible to me that I can only continue to see those Stoke City supporters who engage …

Reputations are not related to reality, but once broken are hard to repair

By Tony Attwood Reputations, like football accounts can be funny things.  We’ve had endless arguments on this site about what has happened to the extra money Arsenal have made from having almost paid off the cost of the Emirates Stadium, and why that money hasn’t brought more than the the three FA Cups.   Those wins …

Arsenal is not the most expensive ground in the world. Nor even London

By Tony Attwood Are Arsenal’s tickets the most expensive in the Premier League? It is something that is often raised on this site, and I thought it might be time to do one of our regular reports on the issue. If you’ve been with us down this route before you will know that the season …

Car Thief Week ends for once with a degree of success as we prepare for departure from everywhere.

By Tony Attwood Car Thief Week – that regularly returning  week in which there are two international matches scheduled for lots of countries, and in which the country managers behave like car thieves who nick your car, run it into the ground and then return it with a demand that you pay for the repairs …

Marvin Plattenhardt: Don’t tell anyone but we think he’s Arsenal’s new left back.

By Sir Hardly Anyone There are all sorts ways of entering the rankings and then become someone who might just make it to the world cup.   You can score goals, you can give assists, you can play through balls that no one else in the stadium can see. You can win almost every tackle and every …

Why Arsenal moaners are, and remain so depressed, while the rest of us are happy.

By Dr Billy “the dog” McGraw, senior psychologist at the University College Hospital of the North Circular Road. Moaning almost never works.  It rarely makes life better. But people still do it, basically because moaning, moaning and moaning again acts psychologically as a way of embedding the notion that “it is not my fault”.   It …

Arsenal v Charlton – SSE Women’s FA Cup Quarter-final Match Report

By Andrew Crawshaw A dry afternoon at Borehamwood and fortunately temperatures significantly higher than the previous week when snow caused the match to be postponed. The Arsenal team was Anna Moorehouse Alex Scott, Leah Williamson, Louise Quinn, Katy McCabe Danielle Van de Donk, Kim Little, Jordan Nobbs Heather O’Reilly, Danielle Carter, Beth Mead Subs, Sari …

Why international football managers are just like car thieves

By Sir Hardly Anyone Interlull news in the UK rarely captures much of the “fun of the fair” type of excitement of normal times, largely because few people in England expect the country to do very much in the WC and Scotland are not there.  Nor Wales nor N Ireland.  Nor the Isle of Man, …

Amazing shock horror, it seems it is crisis time in football EVERYWHERE. That makes a change

By Billy “the Dog” McGraw.  Head of psychiatry at the University College Hospital of the North Circular Road. Of course not everyone is engaged in crisis talk.  The Daily Canon has the headline “Arsene Wenger denies trying to bribe midfielder,” but well, it’s the Canon. However these days they are being rivalled by West Ham’s …

Arsenal’s next manager puts his head over the parapet

————-  By Tony Attwood Bayern Munich thought they had their next coach lined up.  But now it seems they don’t.  Because although Jupp Heynckes will leave the club in the summer as has been clearly agreed, Thomas Tuchel (the man who was thought to be coming in to replace him) is definitely not going to …

How the fearless “Said & Done” in the Observer censors the news that just don’t fit

By Tony Attwood I am not at all sure how long the Said & Done column in the Sunday newspaper the Observer has been running – although our logs show I did a piece critical of the column back in 2009, so at least nine years. And in one sense it is quite jolly fun.  …

Xhaka sublime. But by anyone’s standards, Arsenal have had a poor season.

By Tony Attwood The first two words of that headline, “Xhaka sublime”, came from a blog, The Hard Tackle, which is not a source that I normally associate with such praise.   The piece was a review of a Swiss interlull game and read, “The creative powerhouse for Switzerland, Xhaka ran the show from midfield, opening …

Arsenal v Charlton, Sunday 25 March – Match preview

by Andrew Crawshaw Yes there is Arsenal football on Sunday – just not the men. Arsenal Women will play their postponed SSE FA Women’s Cup quarter final match against Charlton on Sunday afternoon at Meadow Park, Borehamwood with a 14:00 kickoff. The draw for the semi-finals was made last Monday and the winner of this …

Arsenal has got completely the wrong management team. This is who we should have at the club

By Dr Billy “the dog” McGraw, chief psychologist at the University hospital of the North Circular Road   It is self-evident that Arsenal have got completely the wrong group of people running the club.  As an example of out to tackle problems we should take a good hard look at our government in the UK …

The background revolution: young players are regaining control of their lives

by Tony Attwood Many Arsenal fans, including myself, have always had a pride in the number of players who come up through the ranks to play for the club. By this I don’t mean that they necessarily join as a nine year old, but rather that they come along not in terms of a big …

The fake news transfers: beware you are being conned two ways round

By Sir Hardly Anyone It is not just that 97% of these rumours are likely to turn out to be untrue, but that there is other news of importance out there.  The utterly wild and ludicrous claims by PGMO, provided without any of the evidence Walter and his team provided in the 160 game analysis, …

The ref is always correct: it is official – even when he runs less than his European counterparts

By Walter Broeckx The ref never makes mistakes, fouls, errors or whatever you want to call them. How do I know? Well because the media tell me so. You can find a in my eyes rather funny article (posted yesterday) about this if you follow this link It is an article from a person called …

Would Brendan Rodgers Be a Good Replacement for Arsene Wenger?

  By Robert Haynes Source: Liverpool FC via Facebook Every dog has his day and Arsene Wenger’s has been and gone. Three FA Cup final victories have boosted his stock as Arsenal manager but it is the right moment for the club to move on. Wenger failed to prepare his side for their Carabao Cup …

The cause of empty seats for some Emirates games is the media not the fans.

by Tony Attwood   The trick for most fake news creators is a) To be able to write something that requires no research and so costs no money and takes very little time. b) To be able to benefit personally or corporately from the fake news. c) To ensure that the fake news is not …

The 44 players tipped to be joining Arsenal this summer

 by Sir Hardly Anyone Yes the transfer window is not even open.  Indeed the season is a long way from being concluded.  And yet already we have 44 players tipped to be coming our way this summer.        It is amazing where these people get their information from – and amazing how wrong …

Why there are some “charitable events” involving football that I have doubts about.

By Tony Attwood I see that there is to be a match between Real Madrid Legends and Arsenal Legends.  It is apparently the ninth edition of the Corazón Classic Match, which is described as a charitable game played with the proceeds aimed at helping children in need. This is organised by the Real Madrid Foundation and will …