“Wow, this football is not for me.” That was allegedly said by Robert Pires, sat on the bench at the Stadium of Light, waiting to make his debut for Arsenal in August 2000. And yes, sometimes football at Sunderland is not for everyone, as Mikel Arteta’s side sort of found out in this fixture last season, conceding late on to draw 2-2. But Arsenal have advanced since then, Sunderland maybe less so.”
That came from The Athletic but I pause for a moment in terms of its veracity because Robert’s command of English, even well into his career, was not that good, and the notion of him being able to conjure up a colloquial phrase like “not for me” seems unlikely. But I get the point.
Anyway, what about the referee?
Now to divert for a moment, one of the things that makes me feel Untold is doing its job properly comes when soemthing that we have been discussing for years, but which rarely turns up on blogs or in newspapers, suddenly does become a topic of information.
So they ask, “What is Arsenal’s record with John Brooks?” and conclude that “Arsenal have generally enjoyed a strong record when Brooks has been in charge in that Arsenal have four wins, one draw and one defeat under him. They also note “His only defeat while refereeing Arsenal came in the 2024/25 Carabao Cup semi-final first leg against Newcastle.”
Now that is good stuff, although it does continue the focus that we have seen elsewhere in terms of referees being kinder to some clubs than others, and I am not sure that is alwasy the defning factor. Which is why I have instead chosen to look at the issue of the referees record in general in terms of his reponse to situations irrespective of the team playing.
This is of course quite a deviance from the commonplace referee approach which says “This ref is anti-Arsenal” or whatever. Rather it suggests that referees tend towards certain behaviour in matches which can swamp what the teams do in the match.
As for the team the Standard suggest
Raya;
White, Konsa, Gabriel, Calafiori;
Rice, Guimaraes;
Saka, Odegaard, Tzolis;
Havertz.
A difficult match after a tough midweek match in South Italy was on the cards and so it proved to be. But we are well occupied to fight for our lives when needed and we can grind out wins out of nothing. Raya… what a goalkeeper he is with an incredible stop on the penalty from Le Fee. And Bruno G. what a stunner. Worhty for 3 points in itself. The Saka penalty was the icing on the cake of a hard fought win. On to Tuesday…. please play our U21 or so…I really don’t want us to lose any fitness for the league cup.
When Raya saved that penalty , it gave me hope . It was never an easy game , but so glad that we came back with 3 valuable points . That Bruno has opened his account is a great plus.
WOO HOO , HOO !
Up the Gunners !
The other thing to consider is that whilst calling a record of W4 D1 L1 under Brooks is, “a strong record” is how that looks in the context of all games. In fact our last 100 games also shows W66 D22 L12.
So under Brooks we averaged 2.17 points per game and in our last 100 games we averaged 2.18 points per game and exactly the same win percentage in both. So we don’t enjoy “a strong record” under Brooks at all but a very average one. So they can’t even get that right!
Irrespective, as you previous analysis of Brooks’ home and away record shows, it not about whether he likes us or not but about what ground we are plaing on when he is put in charge.