Untold Arsenal: Supporting the club, the manager and the team
"I believe the target of anything in life should be to do it so well that it becomes an art." A Wenger
Yep all the so-called experts got it wrong, but our little hope that Martinelli would start was fulfilled. He is the line up. As you may have noted, we do a round up before each match to see if these pundits actually know anything at all, and this time we found a much higher number …
Read More “Everyone got the Arsenal line up wrong!!! Martinelli starts!!!”
By Bulldog Drummond We know for sure that Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang won’t be brought back for today’s League Cup quarter-final against Manchester City. He’s still got the calf injury, apparently and the club won’t know how long he’ll be out until after the next scan. “He will have another scan in the next few days and …
Read More “Arsenal v Manchester City: the team and some of those past results…”
By Bulldog Drummond Way back in Arsenal’s first season in the top division, in this current 101 year run, the Christmas fixture list read Date Game Res Score Competition 20 Dec 1919 Arsenal v Sheffield Wednesday W 3-1 League Division One 25 Dec 1919 Derby County v Arsenal L 2-1 League Division One 26 Dec …
Read More “Arsenal v Manchester City; Saka and Martinelli together?”
by Tony Attwood In its report on Leicester’s win at Tottenham, the Guardian mentions Leicester penalty five times. On the BBC Radio 4 report this morning the penalty was mentioned four times. But neither news source mentioned the real oddity of the Leicester penalty. That is that this was Leicester’s ninth penalty of the season. …
Read More “Leicester heading for all time record number of penalties, and the away win figures”
*excluding Pat Rice who only managed four games. By Tony Attwood When a manager leaves a club, normally all his team leave at the same time. This certainly happened with Mr Wenger and Mr Emery. Which meant that Mr Arteta needed to recruit his own staff, rather than have a team ready to move with …
Read More “Arteta is Arsenal’s fourth most successful manager of all time*”
By Sir Hardly Anyone, head of psychology at the University College Hospital of the North Circular Road. There is an article in the Athletic which contains this paragraph concerning Arsenal… “Newer staff talk of the need for a fundamental change in the culture and mentality at London Colney — that if Arsenal continue to exist …
Read More “The rise of Arsenal’s authoritarianism, the decline of Arsenal on the pitch”
By Tony Attwood When the Kroenkes took over Arsenal there was a universal outcry of dismay because it was widely thought that the said Kroenkes were people who never spent money on the clubs they bought. These stories were replicated in the English media without any evidence, so we’ve no idea if they were true …
Read More “Arsenal always do worse when they spend more on transfers: the facts”
By Bulldog Drummond As if this game were not tough enough… There’s a very interesting note from the BBC’s website concerning Everton that says they did not face a single shot on target in the second half of their wins against Chelsea and Leicester City. That is interesting given the tackle figures that we saw …
Read More “Everton v Arsenal: the team and the tactical analysis”
By Bulldog Drummond Arsenal injuries are declining as we are down to four now – and Martinelli might actually be fit enough to come in for a brief spell at the end. There was talk of him playing in the under 23 game last night but he didn’t, although Physioroom have him down as just …
Read More “Everton v Arsenal – injuries, suspensions, tackles, yellows”
by Bulldog Drummond Everton and Arsenal changed managers on the most recent occasion within days of each other. Thus far Carlo Ancelloti has overseen these results across all competitions… Ancelloti’s first 16 games this season: Won 10 Drawn 2 Lost 4 Win rate 62.5% As for Arteta’s first 22 games this season (the Trophy games …
On the Arsenal web page https://www.arsenal.com/fixture/academy/2020-Dec-18/leicester-u23#!match-news there appeared on the afternoon of Friday 18 December information concerning the Arsenal under 23 game against Leicester City under 23 along with the notice Audio available on Arsenal.com However this was totally untrue. There was no audio. Which may not mean much to fans who are not interested …
Read More “Arsenal make a complete cock-up; I’m sorry I believed they would get it right”
By Bulldog Drummond Just in case you have missed it, we are playing tonight – details of the game and how to follow it below. But first… There is news that we are about to sign Omar Rekik from Hertha Berlin – although he has never played for them, and is expected to be loaned …
Read More “Martinelli sure to start, and news of a signing.”
By Tony Attwood Even by the daily excesses of the London newspaper industry the current non-stop attack on Arsenal and everything it does that is currently raging in the Daily Mail, is a bit over the top. And as we have a look at what they are doing it is worth remembering that all this …
Read More “Attack, attack, attack. How one newspaper launched 10 attacks on Arsenal in just 2 days”
By Tony Attwood Read a newspaper, read the blogs, watch TV, listen to the radio, and as long as you are in England and it’s football news you want, you’ll get the same news. True there might be the occasional feature concerning something slightly out of the ordinary – an interview with an ex-player perhaps, …
Read More “Reality is elsewhere. Why certain stories are never covered by football journalists”
By Tony Attwood And so the doom that was hinted at in 95,000 ““their worst start to a top-flight season since 1974” articles didn’t happen. And the funniest thing was that the no one quite knew what Arsenal’s worst run in the top division or indeed their worst start actually was. Now, with a spot …
Read More “Arsenal had a model that worked, but then threw it all away”
By Bulldog Drummond There is a story kicking around that 13 points from 12 matches is the worst start to represents their worst start to a top-flight season since 1974. Now I read that and thought that was a rather weird statement because since 1919 all we have had is top-flight seasons, and it would …
Read More “One journalist writes a misleading headline; 50,000 copy. Arsenal v Southampton”
By Bulldog Drummond Arsenal as we all know, won their section of the Europa League group stage, winning every game against weaker opposition. Southampton on the other hand had no such games to play. They have of course played in the League Cup, (going out in the first match) and the Football League Trophy (one …
by Bulldog Drummond In more normal times this would be a home win banker, but now… what with Southampton being near the top and Arsenal near the bottom, and with away wins being more common than home wins this seems less and less likely. A look at the statistics chart shows us what sort of …
Read More “Arsenal v Southampton: the comparisons and the injuries…”
Below is the new table of tackles, fouls, yellow and penalties. They show once again that while Arsenal commits on average 6.5 fouls in order to get a yellow card, Chelsea, Southampton, Liverpool and Tottenham are allowed to commit many more fouls before each yellow card is issued. We haven’t included red cards on the …
Read More “The strange Premier League figures continue to look really odd”
By Tony Attwood There was a headline in the Guardian this morning saying, “Mikel Arteta says Xhaka red card ‘worse’ than Pépé’s as Arsenal crisis deepens”. It struck me as interesting, in that Arsene Wenger was constantly laughed at and derided in the media for saying that he didn’t see a particular incident, and using …
Read More “Arsenal are almost the cleanest team in the league, so why are people get excited?”
By Tony Attwood Normally in issues relating to group situations, it is impossible to be definitive as to why things go wrong. But not with football it seems, for here it appears that the obvious has to be said. This is perhaps because taking in the information available and drawing conclusions has never been the …
Read More “So why exactly has it all gone so wrong for Arsenal?”
0By Sir Hardly Anyone Journalists are well known for liking the occasional tipple, their favourite haunt being The Toppled Bollard in London dockside. Or put it another way journalists are famous for being heavy drinkers, and football journalists the heaviest of them all. But the content gatherers are supposed to make some effort to get …
Read More “Too much in the Bollard leads to Sun scribbler’s journalistic errors…”
By Bulldog Drummond Looking at the various stats being thrown around the most commonly mentioned is that Arsenal have lost each of their last three League home games and the last time it was four consecutive home league defeats was in 1959, when Burnley also turned up on the list. In fact the run started …
Read More “Arsenal’s team v Burnley, and our last worst run – and what happened next”
By Bulldog Drummond Burnley’s record in their last 10 games is indeed poor: one win three draws, six defeats. If Arsenal fail to win this game we most certainly are in difficulty. Date Game Res Score Competition 26 Sep 2020 Burnley v Southampton L 0-1 Premier League 30 Sep 2020 Burnley v Manchester City L …
Read More “Burnley visit Arsenal this evening. Will our run against them continue?”
By Bulldog Drummond It’s become quite clear what Arsenal need to do, and it doesn’t have anything to do with mucking about with agents and money laundering (see How the media provides a cover for money laundering in football.) It has to do with tactics. At the time of writing this here’s the foot of …
Read More “And so we play Burnley on Sunday at 7.15pm. Tactics, statistics and injuries”
