One newspaper breaks ranks to support Untold’s research into referee bias

Posted on by Tony Attwood

By Tony Attwood

It has only taken them six years, but I suppose better late than never.

Untold Arsenal has been regularly publishing referee reviews for a long old time, showing over and over again there are clear cases of either gross incompetence of systematic bias by Premier League referees.   We’ve even had a season where working with referees from across the country we published reviews not just of Arsenal games but of games played between other Premier League clubs.

On top of that we have been (I think) the only people systematically to question the activities of PGMO, the company that employs referees and operates the refereeing system and devised a theoretical model as to how match fixing, rather than being stopped by PGMO’s activities is actually enhanced by it.

We even tried to do a survey of the activities of referee organisations in the rest of Europe, but only one replied.  The fact that they replied immediately, and then there was dead silence suggested (along with one or two other snippets we have picked up) that there was a quick notice sent out warning associations not to deal with us.

We’ve looked time and again at what has happened in terms of match fixing in other countries, particularly Italy, and we’ve got to the stage now where we run pre-match previews of the ref (not only another first for Untold, but still unique in football, to the best of my knowledge).

And in all that time the only interest we have garnered from the media was a BBC interview with Walter and “Dogface”.  No one else would touch our work, although there has long been evidence that they have been reading.  Mr Wenger has several times referred to us as along the lines of “the people that reviews referee decisions”, and we know that Arsenal execs do take an interest in our work.

But the media?  No, dead silence.

Until today.

The breaking of ranks has come from the Sun, a Murdoch newspaper which until this month had a paywall behind which its online paper sheltered.   While I don’t agree with the view that one should never even read newspapers because it only encourages them to print more untruths, (I think one should read and expose their strange tales, which can influence how many people perceive the world) I do draw the line at paying for the Sun, so I’ve never quoted them until now.  And now, as they have emerged from behind their veil, they have surprised us with a story about referees.

Their story is headlined

Arsenal should be TOP of Premier League if refs got it right

And it starts, “BAD decisions are said to even themselves out over a season — but is that actually the case?” and then claims that “SunSport is keeping tabs on refereeing blunders and how they affect the Premier League.”

What they have done is picked just a handful of the mistakes that we see in each match, and highlighted them, and then created a league table based on what the results should have been.

Which is ok, except that it highlights such a small number of the errors that referees make in each game it tends to reinforce the notion that by and large referees get things right – which as our figures show, they don’t.   However they do suggest that “it doesn’t all even out in the end”.

The paper highlights ten matches (a suspiciously round number) that they claim got the wrong result – although two of them actually just change the score not the result.  Here is the list of ten, with details (I use the word lightly) from the Arsenal games.  Interestingly there is no mention of the Chelsea Arsenal game in which the sending off that even PGMO and its cronies admitted was a lunacy had a huge impact.

LEICESTER 1 C PALACE 0 (Oct 24)

MAN UTD 0 MAN CITY 0 (Oct 25)

Swansea 0 Arsenal 3 (Oct 31)

Swans denied a penalty for a Per Mertesacker handball and Laurent Koscielny fouled Lukasz Fabianski for his goal. More like 2-1 Arsenal.

WBA 2 LEICESTER 3 (Oct 31)

STOKE 1 CHELSEA 0 (Nov 7)

CHELSEA 1 NORWICH 0 (Nov 21)   Here they noted a change of the scoreline not the result.

SOUTHAMPTON 0 STOKE 1 (Nov 21)

SWANSEA 2 B’MOUTH 2 (Nov 21)

WBA 2 Arsenal 1 (Nov 21)

Albion’s leveller came from a free-kick when Mikel Arteta clearly won the ball fairly.

A VILLA 2 WATFORD 3 (Nov 28)

And then they publish what they call is “The real table”

 

P W D L F A Pts
1 (+3) Arsenal 14 9 3 2 24 12 30
2 (+1) Man Utd 14 9 3 2 21 10 30
3 (-2) Man City 14 9 1 4 30 12 28
4 (+1) Tottenham 14 6 7 1 22 10 25
5 (+3) West Ham 14 6 5 3 25 19 23
6 (+1) C Palace 14 7 2 5 21 15 23
7 (-5) Leicester 14 6 5 3 27 24 23
8 (+2) Southampton 14 5 5 4 22 18 19
9 (+3) Stoke 14 4 6 5 13 16 18
10 (-1) Everton 14 4 6 4 25 19 18
11 (—) Watford 14 4 5 5 14 18 17
12 (+1) West Brom 14 4 5 5 12 16 17
13 (-7) Liverpool 14 5 5 6 17 17 16
14 (—) Chelsea 14 4 4 6 20 26 16
15 (+3) Bournemouth 14 4 3 7 18 28 15
16 (-1) Swansea 14 3 4 7 14 18 14
17 (-1) Norwich 14 3 5 5 20 26 14
18 (-1) Sunderland 14 3 3 8 15 26 12
19 (+1) Aston Villa 14 3 2 9 14 27 11
20 (-1) Newcastle 14 2 5 7 15 30 11

So it is fairly small beer, but it is the first break in ranks, and with luck might open the door for the Guardian, Telegraph or Independent to come in and do some real work (they could of course licence our figures – we could do with the cash).

Anyway, looking further at the Sun’s now “free to read” website we find this which really does suggest that they are Untold readers.

ARSENAL’S injury woes have been blamed for the club failing to win a single Premier League game in November – but new data has revealed that Arsene Wenger has had it easy compared to Manchester City and Manchester United this season.

Arsenal players have picked up 24 injuries since August, which slightly exceeds the league average of 20.45.  But City have had to cope with an eye-watering 35 injuries since their opening day win against West Brom….

Well you know the rest.

Anniversaries

2 December 1907: The Professional Footballers’ Association set up.  The first football union was set up in 1898 but ran into difficulties.  The PFA was then set up to replace it and became the longest surviving sports person’s union in the world.

2 December 2003: Fabregas became the youngest Arsenal player ever to score in the League Cup as Arsenal beat Wolverhampton 5-1.  First and last appearance for Michal Papadopulos.

Arsenal in the 70s, part 8 – the lessons learned and the lessons ignored 1967-73

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47 Replies to “One newspaper breaks ranks to support Untold’s research into referee bias”

  1. Blimey… wow and blimey…

    This really is a first one as far as I can remember…

  2. To go in to their list they have missed the Liverpool match in which a good goal from Ramsey was wiped out by the assistant. That would have been an extra 2 points in the table. Along with the Chelsea/Dean shambolic performance could have been another 1 and even 3 points more on the table.

  4. Don’t get over-excited. As far as the Sun is concerned, it’s all about circulation.
    And the need to replace Page 3 with something newsworthy. 😉

  5. Don’t forget Tony that the Sun has to edit things down dramatically because it uses fewer words in a whole edition that Untold uses in a single article.

  6. Debatable Decisions also came up with similar findings ( we would have been top ) some time back, but their evidence was only from hi-lites TV shows like MOTD.
    It would require a combined effort by all the clubs using their own TV feeds to monitor every single match and then collate the evidence to produce a really worthy independent and fact based outcome

  7. Arsenal should be top of the league if not for referee’s obvious mistakes thus far.

    Having said that, I seriously doubt Walter’s ref reviews inspired the main stream media to look into the subject of ” it all evens itself out in the end”.

    The reason his work will most likely remain ignored is the obvious bias that emanates from his interpretation of events Arsenal are involved in.

    I gave examples before so no need to go over the old grounds again but here’s the latest from the Norwich game.

    According to Walter, Cazorla was hit on the knee by the Norwich player, which suggests some sort of malice , or at least recklessness on part of the Norwich player.

    Nothing could be further from the truth though.
    Cazorla was in the process of swinging his left leg to trap the ball headed to him by Monreal, when Gary O’Neill went airborne and won the ball cleanly with his right foot, while his left leg and Cazorla’s left leg( which was already in the swinging motion) came into contact.

    Both players went down in pain.

    No foul, no kick, just the coming together of two players .
    Very much in the same vein Coquelin came out the seconds best from his coming together with an opponent a week ago.

    But the” coming together” term Walter only uses when it’s an Arsenal player initiating contact ,apparently ( Ospina on Oscar ) 🙂

    It may seem like a small distinction between calling something a collision or a coming together, as oppose to getting hit or even getting a kick on the knee( according to Arsene Wenger), but it shows clearly whether one might have an agenda or not.

    There are many posters on here who don’t watch Arsenal games and rely on Walter’s reports for accurate information as to what happened in a game. That’s why it’s paramount that his game reports should be as accurate and unbiased as possible.

    In my own opinion they haven’t been and his work will remain largely ignored outside of this forum.

  8. Wow, never thought I could ever see such a headline in the mainstream media. I might actually go and buy a copy of the sun, something I haven’t done in the last 15 years 🙂

  9. Tom
    Did you forget, or you chose to conveniently omit, the fact that the ref awarded Norwich a free kick even though it was 50-50 as you say it was. Why should Norwich have profitted from that? Anyway, I replayed the incident over and over and the Norwich player, even though he looked like he was genuinely going for the ball, had his boot raised much higher to be deemed dangerous. That’s why his boot made contact with Santi’s knee, it was that high. Lay off Walter please. I think you think he’s very biased because his reports are nowhere near the open bias you read in the English media. So it must feel like Walter is very biased, in your view.

  10. Al
    The referee’s performance in the Norwich game was appalling for sure, which culminated in his ignoring of the Sanchez incident , but that wasn’t the point of my post.

    I have the atmost respect for Walter, as I have for Tony or Arsene Wenger for that matter, but the great thing about not having an agenda is that you are free to call things as you see them unfold , without worrying about hurting someone’s feelings or ruffling a few feathers.

    You should try it sometimes 🙂

  11. I wrote an article a while back in which I suggested that although referees may not deliberately favour one team from another, environemental influences take place. With virtually every referee coming from the North of England and the majority the North West, I cannot see how we can ever have the impartiality we seek. I know that Keith Hackett, former cheif at PGMOL, has raised concerns over teh years on this very issue and the fact that only referees from Northern Countes are offered to the Premier League for promotion by the FA.

    Let me be clear before someone tries to claim I am some extremist fanatic.

    I am not saying that I beleive referees cheat, I really do not want to ever say that. They are professionals in their given sport after all. However, I do beleive they are influenced by regionality/geography – this could be the way local media portrays the news, friends and family supporting local clubs or the regional distrust that developed over years towards the South etc. Much of this is going to be subliminal but it exists, of that I am 100% certain.

    The fact that PGMOL will often allocate a referee to officiate a match between their ‘home town’ club and another team, I find crazy. Talk about asking for trouble. Anthony Taylor lives a couple of miles from Old Trafford but was given our game against man Utd at the Emirates. Please explain to me how there can ever be a case for that. Talk about asking for trouble.

    Lets move onto the Cheshire referee Mike Dean, the self confessed Liverpool supporter. As we have been fighting Liverpool for a Champions League place, often the 4th one, I fail to see how he can referee our games impartially. Once again, let me be clear I am not suggesting he will deliberately cheat. However, those 50/50 decisions may go a way they would not if a different team to Arsenal was involved. I certainly would not want him refereing our last game of the season if we needed to beat, say Crystal palace to take 4th place from Liverpool.

    The Chelsea game is one of those where its fairly obvious to everybody that the referees decision affected the result of the game. The game was tied at nil nil when Costa should have been sent off. Now I cannot say for certain that we would have won the game 11 v 10 but I can say that we would not have lost it. In fact, the referee decided to make it 11 v 10 in Chelsea favour.

    The FA admitted Mike Dean had got it wrong, by banning Costa and rescinding Gabriels red card, so its not up for debate.

    I agree with Keith Hackett. The FA needs to sort out the problem of geogrpahic bias in choosing referees. If it is a training issue and referees in the South aren’t as good as the North(I dont believe this by the way), sort it. Whatever teh reason, unless they address this imbalance, I can’t totally trust the results and that’s sad.

  12. Ok Tom.

    Proudkev
    Yes, definitely looks like environmental influences at play. If you look at the table you can see Liverpool were the biggest beneficiaries of this,gaining a massive 7 points. And that’s not even including our match with the wrongly disallowed Ramsey goal.

  13. WOW Tom, that is amazing…. you can read the review even before the review is done!!!!

    What you did read was however the supporters version of the match report. Yes a match report in which I am openly biased in favour of Arsenal. As every supporter would be.
    When the ref review we look at it from a different angle: the referee’s angle.

  14. Walter
    I’m afraid you can’t separate one from the other if you want to be taken seriously by the broader audiences.

    Much the same as you can’t make statements About Suarez masterminding his Barca move way back from his Dutch league days, by serial biting people in all competitions.

    Crazy talk is crazy talk, and it doesn’t matter what subject it is you are talking about. It costs you credibility.

    Btw, If you can’t write an unbiased match report, then perhaps you shouldn’t be writing one at all.

  15. Tom.

    It is impossible to be impartial no matter how hard you try to be so. This is especially true in football, where it is so tribal.

    This is my entire point in a nutshell regarding the geographic problem with our match officials.

    Some people refuse to acknowledge opposing views to their own, with the dissenters labelled as unworthy of an opinion, by ridicule and abuse. (Dont get me started on global warming/climate change or whatever nutty Prince Charles and the other loons are calling it now – because I may actually end up shooting myself – with a gun that fires recycled, self sustaining plant extracts)

  16. Proudkev
    I rather enjoyed your article on the” geographic problem” with the PL referees. It was quite eye opening for someone like myself who’s not very familiar with the Northern v Southern mentality of the English game.

    My point in regards to Walter’s match report is that if it has a “report” in it , then it should be factual and devoid of opinions or bias.

    Otherwise just call it ” my take on the game”.

  17. Tom,
    I’m writing for an Arsenal supporters blog. If I can’t be biased here when doing a match report, then when can I? It is as if you ask me to stop supporting Arsenal?

    In my mother language there is an expression that goes something like this: if you cannot say the truth in a funny way, it isn’t the truth. So not being taken seriously is not that bad for me.

    And it wouldn’t be the first time that I change my opinion in the ref reviews compared to the match report. The latter is written in the heath of the moment, the first with sometimes other and better angles available.

    And did I ever mention the season when referees who supported other clubs did the reviews and found a larger bias against Arsenal than when Arsenal supporting referees did the reviews? OH, I think I did 😉

  19. Heard the news?

    Gary Neville is going to manage Valencia in Spain.

    Stan Collymore says that decision is a direct result of the ‘excellent analysis’ he provides on Sky. Really? You mean he’s going to go into the Valencia changing room and tell his players to kick great lumps out of players like Messi, Ronaldo, Bale and Neymar. Should be fun.

    Another Fantasy Football Manager who is likely to find that having a degree in ‘hindsight’ means nothing.

  20. Tom – If you believe Usama and Walter’s referee reviews are defective then please challenge any incidents which you think they have wrongly interpreted. Many of us do, albeit not systematically. I am sure they would genuinely appreciate a detailed debate on their interpretation on individual refereeing decisions – why not?

    Regarding North/South issues, I have posted before but will repeat again. I specifically asked a recently-retired PL ref this question last year. He said that the Northern refereeing style is “game management” – i.e. allow some rough and tumble without letting the game get out of control. The Southern style is more technical (so probably closer to continental Europe) – if a shirt pull requires a yellow card (which it does) then give a yellow card. No discretion. Now, because the refereeing hierarchy is all Northern and share’s that bias, then they are likely to promote other Northern referees who referee in a similar way to how they used to do it (principally Riley and Webb). That is the polite interpretation.

    I do believe this is profoundly wrong – and directly contributes to a higher incidence of injuries AND English clubs (and the National team) struggling in international competition as they are not familiar with the prevailing refereeing style. So the – predominantly Northern – English referees are out of step with the rest of Europe.

    Scudamore would probably argue that this makes for a more exciting spectacle as the game flows more (as opposed to the more frequent interruptions for free kicks that I would suggest is the case in European Leagues – although I haven’t checked the numbers). But at what cost?

  21. Some people seem not to be able to even think that things in football could be manipulated. The PL has now become a “live” show on TV, and we all know about “live” shows.

    Fact is, the TV people need to ensure that their money paid for the filming of matches is well spend in their own eyes. It starts with re-arranging matches, withholding in game replays and could probably end with more direct manipulation using refs and/or players. The increase in the coming season may reflect that they get even more control, we’ll have to wait and see.

    It took me ages too to realise that, if manipulation happens at the so called highest level of politics, elections, police and education i should find it silly of myself to think that football (or any other sport) is exempt from it.

    As long as it generates big money, it can safely be assumed that it is most likely a target for manipulation.

    Any one individual(organisation) with the money and the right connections can get a ref or player(of course the network will provide the names of those players and refs who can be approached safely) to manipulate the game. This practice is so entrenched in society that it now appears a normal occurrence to many.

    The type and depth of manipulation will reflect the results expected by the manipulator.

    Anyway, good that Untold’s continuing reports have now started the ball rolling, and soon, we may have a full scale investigation out in the open. 🙂

  22. proudkev, Fingers crossed that some idiot owner wants Carragher as a coach and we can lose his drivel off the TV!
    Although it’s likely Gary and Jamie will just be replaced by 2 other idiots.

  23. Andy.

    Nicely put. Jamie Carragher probably has more sense than to leave the comfort of the TV studio to demonstrate his hindsight management.No chnae he’ld be off to Spain, nobody would understand him!

    I suspect Carragher will be the co commentator but that will be a nightmare, his voice and his negativity are draining. What with the drivel and verbal diarhoea spouted by Martin ‘I am a coach’ Tyler, this could be a recipe for disaster. More Northern dominantion of our Football.

  24. Pete, I have long considered that the difference of our refereeing is one of style. When I played ( some time ago ) in London based football referees were always clamping down on shirt tugging and seemed a lot more aware of off the ball incidents than when we played against teams in more Northern climes. It is what we used to call the m62 mafia that promote the “tough up north ” southern softie mantra . I remember reading that to get a better understanding referees were encouraged to train with teams . Maybe the closer proximity of the Northern clubs allowed Pulis , Allardyce , Ferguson , Bruce and others to influence their thinking.

  25. Gary Neville didn’t get that job due to his ‘expert punditry’ as the media is reporting. Valencia were bought in 2014 by Peter Lim, a Singaporean billionaire who also has a stake in Salford which is co-owned by ex utd players who include Gary. They’re business partners. Phil Neville is already with Valencia as part of the backroom staff, even before Garys appointment. Isn’t it obvious then what’s going on here? If Gary got there through his expertise how did Phil get there?

    I hope I’m not treading on dangerous ground here but this guy Lim was mentioned briefly as having links to the other far east fixer, Joe Sim, in the channel 4 dispatches programme called How to buy a football club a few years ago. Brian Robson, Manchester utds ambassador in the far east, was the guy caught on camera saying football is not a sport anymore but a business and he could help the undercover reporters buy any club with his contacts. His contacts were none other than Joe Sim, who claimed to be bosom buddies with Alex Ferguson. Lim offered to buy Liverpool for £310m cash in 2010 but his offer was rejected.
    I’d say there’s more going on here than we’re being told. Dodgy people.

  26. Neville managing abroad is fascinating. The extent to which he knows Utd benefitted from shoddy refereeing surely determines how accurate a picture he has of how football works. He claims that on game 50th they played hard and fair and we didn’t like it.

    Try game 50 tactics at the crunch without a Riley and it’ll go about as well as it did for Valencia last weekend, when the team played as though there was already a strong Nevillonian influence : constant fouls, two sent off, no shot on target.

  27. Al
    I remember that Dispatches program, especially the part where Joe Sim said he often phoned Ferguson and asked him which teams to bet on the following weekend!

  30. I find it hard to believe you haven’t got an agenda, Tom. I’m not sure what it is, or at least I can’t remember, but I feel there is one.

  31. That is just about the worst newspaper to cite anything from really.. They will write anything to sell. I would love to take a look at the basis for their numbers- pretty sure they are not going to be anything concrete. Untold ManCity must be fuming at the Sun’s anti-Mancity agenda! 😉

  34. The news is mostly non-existant, just stories (fabrications, lies) about injuries, who were are selling and who we are buying for the most part. Why read it?

    But, apparently there have now been 7000 goals scored in the Champions League. By my reckoning, Arsenal scored 290 of them.

  35. Finally the so called ‘expert pundit’ managing a club, let see how all those expert opinions translate on the field. Barca and Real Madrid beware because the ‘expert’ is coming to show you how to play football.

  36. ‘ One of the hardest things in this world is to admit that you are wrong. And nothing is more helpful in resolving a situation than its frank admission .’
    Benjamin Disreali.

  37. Media influence –

    A child’s wish
    =============

    A Primary School teacher asks her pupils to write an essay “what wish do you want from God?” At the end of the day, the teacher collects all the essays given by her pupils.
    She takes them to her house, sits and marking them. While marking the essays, the teacher sees a strange essay written by one of her pupils.
    That essay made her very emotional. Her husband comes and sits beside her and saw her crying. The husband asked her wife “What happened?”

    She answered “Read this. It is one of my pupil’s essay.”

    “Oh God, Make me into a Television.
    I want to live like the TV in my house.

    In my house, the TV is very valuable. All of my family members
    sit around it. They are very interested in it.
    When the TV is talking, my parents listen to it happily and calmly.
    They don’t shout at the TV. They don’t quarrel with the TV.
    They don’t slap at the TV. So I want to become a TV.

    The TV is the center of attraction in my house.
    I want to receive the same special care that the TV receives from
    my parents. Even when it is not working, the TV has a lot of value.

    When my dad and mom come home, immediately they sit in front of the TV, switch on it and spend hours.
    The TV is stealing the time of my dad and my mom.
    If I become a TV, they will spend their time with me.

    While watching the TV, my parents laugh a lot and they smile many times. But I want my parents should laugh and smile with me.
    So please make me into a TV.

    And last but not least, If I become a TV, surely I can make my parents happy and entertain them. Lord I don’t ask you anything. I just want to live like a TV. Please make me into a TV.”

    The husband completed reading the essay.
    He said “My God, poor kid. He feels loneliness. He did not receive
    enough love and care from his parents. His parents are horrible”.

    The eyes of the primary School teacher filled with tears.
    She looked at her husband and said “Our son wrote this essay”.

  38. Another school assignment –

    The teacher gave her fifth grade class an assignment: Have your parents tell you a story with a moral at the end.

    The next day the kids came back and one by one began to tell their stories.

    ” Johnny, do you have a story to share? ”

    ” Yes ma’am. My daddy told a story about my Aunt Carol. She was a pilot
    in Desert Storm and her plane got hit. She had to bail out over enemy
    territory and all she had was a small flask of whiskey, a pistol and a
    survival knife. She drank the whiskey on the way down so it wouldn’t
    break and then her parachute landed right in the middle of twenty enemy
    troops.

    She shot fifteen of them with the gun until she ran out of bullets, killed four more with the knife, till the blade broke, and then she killed the last Iraqi with her bare hands. ”

    “Good Heavens” said the horrified teacher. “What kind of moral did your daddy tell you from this horrible story? ”

    ” Stay the fuck away from Aunt Carol when she’s drinking.”

  40. Brickfields – problem is I’m right even when I’m wrong! I know I’m right so I must be addmitting I’m wrong.

  41. @ Menace December 3, 2015 at 5:21 am – Then absolution be thine ! Rejoice !

    “ Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”
    ― Marilyn Monroe

  42. I would love to read a satirical account of Gary Nevile’s first meeting with the board , players and coaching staff , as well as his first training session and Spanish media interview .
    I would love to do one , but my knowledge of Spainish jokes, culture and customs are very limited. Anyone ?

    In the meantime , here’s a tale that brought tears to my eyes .

    The love story of kamlesh and kavita.
    kamlesh and kavita were both patients in a mental hospital..

    One day while they were walking past the hospital swimming pool , kamlesh suddenly jumped into the deep end. He sank to the bottom of the pool and stayed there.

    kavita promptly jumped in to save him. She swam to the bottom and pulled him out.

    When the Head Nurse Director became aware of kavita heroic act she immediately ordered her to be discharged from the hospital, as she now considered her to be mentally stable.

    When she went to tell kavita the news she said, ” Kavita, I have good news and bad news. The good news is you’re being discharged, since you were able to rationally respond to a crisis by jumping in and saving the life of the person you love.

    I have concluded that your act displays sound mindedness. The bad news is, kamlesh hung himself in the bathroom with his bathrobe belt right after you saved him. I am so sorry, but he’s dead.”

    Kavita replied ,
    ..
    ..

    ” He didn’t hang himself, I put him there to dry..How soon can I go home? “

  43. Look that the turn around & improvement at Liverpool. With players he inherited. Just wait until Klopp is able to bring in his own players.
    Meanwhile at Arsenal we could be out of the Champions League from group stages for the 1st time in more than 15 years……and with better players than few years back.

  46. Jai
    Can’t beat a pub side?
    Haven’t we beaten Bayern M, Man U recently, and are we not 2 points from top spot in the league?
    Don’t talk such nonsense.

  47. As I have written elsewhere, the biggest victim of Alexis Sanchez is probably Alex Oxlade Chamberlain. He is a similar type of player to Alexis and Arsenal’s system can only really absorb one dribbler with a high risk / reward style in possession. In the same team as Alexis, Chamberlain is asked to trade in some of his best attributes in deference to the Chilean’s superior end product. But whilst Alexis is away, Chamberlain can play, in every sense of the word. He can be liberated by Sanchez’s absence and play more freely to his strengths.

    For Ramsey and Chamberlain, the next few months present a big opportunity. Assuming he returns in a timely fashion, Jack Wilshere too. Either one of the right hand side or the centre of midfield will probably need someone with his qualities. Mathieu Flamini as well, he is in the last few months of his contract after all….If Danny Welbeck and Tomas Rosicky can return in the New Year, their freshness may prove useful to reinvigorate the squad. Özil and Giroud came back into the team bright eyed and bushy tailed in the second half of the 2014-15 campaign to great effect. In fact, maybe the likes of Wilshere, Welbeck and Rosicky will be like new sign……#Stop me if you think that you’ve, heard this one before…..#

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