What exactly should Arsenal do now in order to climb the table?

By Tony Attwood I have no doubt that patterns are the key to understanding football.  Indeed if you have been looking at our series on tackles, fouls and yellow cards, you’ll appreciate exactly how this can work.  It is not just a case of how the team is playing, but also how the referees are …

Fouls, tackles and yellow cards. These figures are getting seriously weird

By Tony Attwood As I mentioned last week, measuring the number of tackles, fouls and yellow cards each club gets and then searching for the relationship between them, is  something that only Untold does.  Quite why no one else mines this rich vein of data I don’t know, but we do it, and the results …

What now for Arsenal? The 8 strategies Arsenal could use to get out of this mess.

By Tony Attwood “One goal – a penalty – in their previous four Premier League matches paints a depressing picture.” That is one of the miserable headlines from the media today.  So what can Arsenal do to put things right.  Here are some solutions: 1: Play Joe Willock That comes from the Guardian who point …

Arsenal v Villa: the projected team from around the media

by Bulldog Drummond The Shortfuse obliges us with a team prediction… Leno Holding Gabriel Tierney Bellerin Partey Elneny Saka Willian Lacazette Aubameyang and goes beyond that by also giving us a beach consisting of Nicolas Pepe, Granit Xhaka, Eddie Nketiah, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Shkodran Mustafi, Dani Ceballos and Alex Runarsson Now this is exactly the same …

Arsenal v Aston Villa: how Villa’s “missing” games changes the outlook

By Bulldog Drummond According to most pundits Aston Villa started the season like a bullet from a gun with a fair amount of primer and gunpowder helping it along its way… Date Game Res Score Competition 21 Sep 2020 Aston Villa v Sheffield United W 1-0 Premier League 28 Sep 2020 Fulham v Aston Villa …

Extraordinary injury news from Arsenal and what Pépé and Eddie must do

By Bulldog Drummond I don’t normally present the injury news for every team, but this is so extraordinary I’ve includef the full injury table rather than just the few clubs above Arsenal in terms of players injured.  Here we go…  Figures as always from Physioroom.com Wolverhampton Wanderers: 2 Manchester City: 3 West Bromwich Albion: 3 …

The desperate need to sort out Arsenal’s away form

By Tony Attwood Our next match is again going to be on Pay TV with Sky at £14.95.  The protests continue, money is being sent to local foodbanks, and the dreadful Sky and the BT Sprout continue with their doomed venture although this might be the last weekend of it. But whereas with football there …

Despite media denials, away advantage now outweighs home advantage

By Tony Attwood Back in August as this season was about to get under way, the Guardian published the article “Home advantage prevails despite absence of fans.” You might think that pretty well does it for the approach that Untold has been taking which is that a) The home benefit has vanished b) The reason …

Why Wenger and Ferguson could only happen in the Premier League

By Tony Attwood That was a fine roll out by our second XI I thought, and there are several players there who are obviously making their way solidly towards the first XI.  Joe Willock stands out for me but is certainly not the only one. And while I am not a fan of the Europa …

Arsenal v Molde – who will play?

By Bulldog Drummond “Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has confirmed that David Luiz will return to the squad against Molde in the Europa League on Thursday night according to Sky.”   So says Sports Mole but they don’t give us a team sheet prediction.  However they do say “Arteta is expected to name a much stronger lineup to …

Arsenal v Molde; Ole, referees and football in Norway.

By Bulldog Drummond The first thing to report is the rather helpful note that appears on the Wiki sites about today’s opponents, telling us that they are not to be confused with Mold FC – a club that coincidentally was formed at the same time as Arsenal.  Mold is a Welsh team, and we are …

Arsenal v Molde and the implication of the new referee research

By Bulldog Drummond As yesterday’s research paper showed, and of course all the other research papers that we have come across which have built up to this point, referees from different countries have responded in different ways to crowdless grounds.  All are favouring the away teams more, but by how much differs from one country …

The top six Arsenal stories doing the rounds today

By Sir Hardly Anyone Here we are again.  And before we commence with the commencement let us recall what was said yesterday.  For on that day around this time the top five stories were 1: Elneny is an undroppable. 2.  What Pochettino said about Arsenal and Tottenham 3.  The magic of Nikolaj Duus Moller – …

Home advantage has vanished: referee competence blown wide open

By Tony Attwood As you will know if you are a regular reader, Untold Arsenal conducts its own research into the way football is refereed, such as our famous 160 games series in which the first 160 games of a season were reviewed and the results presented complete with video evidence.  The analysis, which is …

Fouls, tackles yellow: how one club is getting away with murder

By Tony Attwood Measuring the number of tackles, fouls and yellow cards each club gets is something that only Untold does.  Quite why no one else mines this rich vein of data I don’t know, but we do it, and the results continue to be extraordinary, and bizarre. It was an idea that emerged last …

The top six Arsenal stories doing the rounds today

By Sir Hardly Anyone. 1: Elneny is an undroppable. The Sunday Express tell us that “Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has found three new undroppables in addition to Aubameyang.” These three, as you will probably have guessed are Thomas Partey and Gabriel Magalhaes, and Mohammed Elneny. A slight tap on the back for Untold since we …

Keane goes on the attack against Arsenal over one word!

By Tony Attwood In the UK, as indeed in America and some West European countries, we tend to hold our opinions in very high regard.  We take our opinion or view as an ultimate reality.  I see it this way, I think my view is right, and so I am right! Extend this one step, …

The incredible hidden change Mikel Arteta has brought about at Arsenal

by Tony Attwood OK I won’t keep you waiting, in case you don’t want to read my article.  The change is we are tackling far less and thus getting a much lower number of yellow cards. Arsenal last season were hampered by one very significant factor that bloggers, journalists and broadcasters simply would not touch …

What do Arsenal have to do to get a good press? Play Partey and Elneny

by Tony Attwood Whichever way you look at it, Arsenal are currently outdoing Manchester United.  We are unbeaten in the last five Premier League games against them, winning three, drawing two.  Is that not worth a mention? Apparently not, because the Guardian in its report of yesterday’s match still needed to paint a negative.  “It …

Manchester United v Arsenal the team news, confirmed and otherwise…

by Bulldog Drummond The Manchester Evening News gives us a headline of confirmed news, but no team, so it is back to our usual haunts in the search for insightful insights and other what-not. The Independent suggests, for the side they delightfully now signify as “ARS” Leno; Bellerin, Mustafi, Gabriel, Tierney; Thomas, Ceballos, Xhaka; Willian, …

Manchester United v Arsenal: injuries and the home / away conundrum

By Bulldog Drummond The injury league table continues to be frustrating for Arsenal.  Here is the top of the table in terms of number of players currently out. Crystal Palace: 9 Everton: 7 Liverpool: 7 Brighton and Hove Albion: 6 Fulham: 6 Leicester City: 6 Arsenal: 5 Burnley: 5 Leeds United: 5 Manchester United: 5 …

Man U v Arsenal: tackles, fouls, yellow cards. Who’s helping who?

by Bulldog Drummond Tackles are not the only way of committing fouls or getting yellow cards, but they are the most common so is a good place to start as we try to get a feel of which each team in this afternoon’s game is likely to get up to. Likewise committing fouls are not …

PSG & BeIN boss escapes imprisonment, FA and media sigh a deep sigh of relief

By Tony Attwood BeIN Media and PSG boss Nasser Al-Khelaïfi was acquitted on Friday in Switzerland in a television rights case,   The one time Fifa deputy director Jérôme Valcke was found guilty but escaped imprisonment but was fined and now has a criminal record. This case was the first that has come to court in …

Arsenal: specialists in failure? Our results against Man U are not quite what some make out

By Tony Attwood It’s the Guardian, and its the weekend, so it’s time to run an article knocking Arsenal.  Why they feel the need to go on and on and on and on doing this week after week after week, I don’t really know.  You might have thought they’d have had enough of it by …

It’s judgement day (part 1). The result of the first case involving Fifa is due shortly

By Tony Attwood The British media, alone in most of Europe, have studiously ignored the dramatic series of court cases that have been engulfing world football – probably because they are having difficulty reconciling what we have discovered with all that they have said before in supporting Fifa, and English bids to host the world …