Arsenal v Fulham: the team, and the Premier League 2 table

By Bulldog Drummond Arsenal.com seem a little reluctant to run the PL2 league table following the under 21s draw with Brighton yesterday, so I thought I would slot it into this final piece before today’s first team outing. And it is is rather encouraging given that here, as with the first team, we are top …

Arsenal v Fulham: what the statistics tell us ahead of the game

  WHAT DOES THE SEASON SO FAR TELL US ABOUT THE TOP CLUBS? ARSENAL V FULHAM: WHAT WILL REFEREE GILLETT DO TO ARSENAL IN THE NEXT GAME? By Bulldog Drummond We’re always looking for new approaches when presenting matches so here is another way of looking forward to a match, courtesy of some statistics we …

The Europa League draw: everything you don’t need to know. And then some.

Arsenal’s new tactics explored in detail and what it means for the season ahead by Tony Attwood   The draw for the group stage of the Europa League has been made, with Arsenal and Manchester United representing the UK. Here’s the full draw for the groups… . Group A: Arsenal, PSV Eindhoven, Bodø/Glimt, Zurich Group B: Dynamo …

How Uefa and PSG have taken control, and fooled all of football

  by Tony Attwood and the Untold team According to Fifa, “In August 2021 the United States Department of Justice gave $201 million to the FIFA Foundation as compensation for the losses suffered by FIFA, Concacaf and CONMEBOL (the South American confederation) as victims of decades of football corruption schemes.” The funds are going into …

Do supporters have any responsiblity at all – or is it all nothing to do with them?

Anniversary video index: an Arsenal video for (almost) each day of the year Arsenal Day by Day: the stories Arsenal in August: All the anniversaries day by day  100 Years: 100 Years in the First Division By Tony Attwood West Ham United, which you might recall, is a team based in East London who were given their stadium for …

What does the season so far tell us about the top clubs?

By Tony Attwood Last season, as I am sure you will recall, the media made a huge fuss about Arsenal’s opening three games.  Less fuss is being made about Arsenal’s good start to this season, with a number of comments instead noting that it has been an easy start.  Last season it wasn’t particularly noted  …

Who will Arsenal sign in the last days and which 4 players have gone missing?

Why is the media so certain Arsenal will fail in 2022/23? By Sir Hardly Anyone I thought I would pass a few minutes glancing at the press to see who Arsenal are about to sign, and I found something rather curious, so I thought I had best share it with you.   For it seems four …

Arsenal v Fulham: how the visitors have been doing

Anniversary video index: an Arsenal video for (almost) each day of the year Arsenal Day by Day: the stories Arsenal in August: All the anniversaries day by day  100 Years: 100 Years in the First Division By Bulldog Drummond Why is the media so certain Arsenal will fail in 2022/23? Arsenal as we well know, have brought in five …

Arsenal v Fulham: what will referee Gillett do to Arsenal in the next game?

Arsenal’s new tactics explored in detail and what it means for the season ahead When a club wins the first 3 games of the season, does it win the league? By Tony Attwood The first point to be reiterated is that the website that was our source of data of much of our data in …

What are the chances of making it 4 wins in a row on saturday?

By Tony Attwood Arsenal developing… Arsenal’s new tactics explored in detail and what it means for the season ahead Arsenal flying, and everyone else makes the headlines! Media completely misses Arsenal’s astounding tactical change Why is the media so certain Arsenal will fail in 2022/23? How the media created the myth of the gap between …

Daily Mail suggests Arsenal possibly breaching FFP rules, but they are wrong

Referees suggest that Tottenham are twice as good at tackling as Man City! by Tony Attwood “Arsenal breaching FFP rules” is being covered in a lot of the media today with headlines such as “Arsenal placed on UEFA’s FFP watchlist as 10 clubs set to be sanctioned next month” and “Arsenal among clubs on UEFA’s …

Referees suggest that Tottenham are twice as good at tackling as Man City!

Background: 2021 – Which PL clubs foul the most and which are fouled the most? By Tony Attwood Across the last ten years, seven clubs have been in the Premier League every season.  The regular big six and Everton.  Two clubs stand out for having kept tackles down: Arsenal and Liverpool.   Two are known for …

When a club wins the first 3 games of the season, does it win the league?

Anniversary video index: an Arsenal video for (almost) each day of the year Arsenal Day by Day: the stories Arsenal in August: All the anniversaries day by day  100 Years: 100 Years in the First Division By Tony Attwood So now we know; after three games Arsenal are out on their own: three games, three wins, two points ahead …

The most ludicrous commentary ever written about Arsenal

By Tony Attwood Recently the Mirror published a piece in which they said that, “Admittedly, it is still very early in the season, and Arsenal know after last year not to judge things at this stage of the campaign”. And yet this is a newspaper that habitually makes judgements very early in the season.   For …

Bournemouth v Arsenal; Arsenal v Everyone

Anniversary video index: an Arsenal video for (almost) each day of the year Arsenal Day by Day: the stories Arsenal in August: All the anniversaries day by day  100 Years: 100 Years in the First Division “The jury is still out on Mikel Arteta at Arsenal, he’s done a decent job, but not a great job, says Danny Mills.”  So pronounced the Sun on …

AFC Bournemouth v Arsenal: the final thoughts and the teams

By Tony Attwood Confirmed team:  Ramsdale, White, Saliba, Gabriel, Zinchenko, Odegaard, Partey, Xhaka, Saka, Jesus, Martinelli Subs: Turner, Tierney, Tomiyasu, Holding, Elneny, Lokonga, Vieira, Smith Rowe, Nketiah But beware the kick off is shown on the Evening Standard Website as 5.30pm GMT, Sky Sports.  That is quite wrong.  It is 5.30pm BST.  The UK is NOT …

Bournemouth v Arsenal: Arsenal in the first 3 competitive games each season

Anniversary video index: an Arsenal video for (almost) each day of the year Arsenal Day by Day: the stories Arsenal in August: All the anniversaries day by day  100 Years: 100 Years in the First Division By Bulldog Drummond Referee Craig Pawson: his bias does Arsenal no favours against Bournemouth Clubs are being encouraged to tackle more and more …

Referee Craig Pawson: his bias does Arsenal no favours against Bournemouth

Suddenly a key set of referee statistics does not appear. Why is that??? Bournemouth v Arsenal: a visit to the smallest ground in the league By Bulldog Drummond Just a week or so ago we looked at the issue of referees and the question of home and away bias.  You can read the whole article …

Club are being encouraged to tackle more and more by referees’ approach

By Tony Attwood So we have finally got some of our data back – although not on all sites, and not everyone is sorted out yet.   For example type “fouls” into the search box of Whoscored.com and at the moment of writing (1155 BST, Friday) one sees this… Results for ‘fouls’ from over 500 tournaments, 10,000 …

Suddenly a key set of referee statistics does not appear. Why is that???

Anniversary video index: an Arsenal video for (almost) each day of the year Arsenal Day by Day: the stories Arsenal in August: All the anniversaries day by day  100 Years: 100 Years in the First Division The data vanishes By Tony Attwood This is the moment where we would normally start putting in the fouls per game per club …

Bournemouth v Arsenal: a visit to the smallest ground in the league

Winning the opening two league games is not that common for Arsenal Anniversary video index: an Arsenal video for (almost) each day of the year Arsenal Day by Day: the stories Arsenal in August: All the anniversaries day by day  100 Years: 100 Years in the First Division By Sir Hardly Anyone On 9 February this year Bournemouth played …

Do Arsenal need to get better or different or both?

Last season the table after 3 games was headline news. But it won’t be this season by Sir Hardly Anyone Well obviously yes, and as we pointed out before they have indeed been getting better.  The only problem is that the story keeps going around that they have been getting worse. The three most successful …

Last season the table after 3 games was headline news. But probably not this season

By Tony Attwood Last season after three games the media predicted Arsenal’s total decline.  In fact we ended up fifth.  Which suggests that predictions made from a selected number of matches can be interesting, but need to be dealt with cautiously.   Winning the opening two league games is not that common for Arsenal as we …

117 players tipped as coming to Arsenal before the window closes

by Sir Hardly Anyone We are still lagging behind in the number of players tipped to be coming to Arsenal last summer, which reached 134 players.  If you are interested you can see what happened to them in our article from last summer. Meanwhile here are the 117 players coming to Arsenal this summer – …

Why Arsenal recruited a new defence first, then a new attack

Anniversary video index: an Arsenal video for (almost) each day of the year Arsenal Day by Day: the stories Arsenal in August: All the anniversaries day by day  100 Years: 100 Years in the First Division By Tony Attwood The more clubs tackle, the more they get away with it. The stats. Journalists may, by and large, choose to …