Arsenal’s 3 most utterly useless players at Qarabag; they should all go now

By Tony Attwood OK, let’s set the context.  Arsenal have just won nine in a row.  If you don’t want to count the FL Trophy, eight in a row.  If you don’t want to count the League Cup or the Trophy, seven in a row.  If you don’t want… well, that’s getting ridiculous.  Seven in …

FK Qarabag vs AFC: the trivia no one else offers, so you don’t have to listen to BT Sprout

by Bulldog Drummond Here’s the quiz.  One point of utterly nil value for each right answer. 1: OK let’s start where we start, and ask the question no one asks… “Where is the game being played?” The Tofiq Bahramov Republican Stadium 2: What is the nickname of Qarabag? The horsemen.   So when four of them …

Arsenal in Baku. The put downs and the likely line up.

By Bulldog Drummond There are two types of vision of football at the moment.  One is to bash Manchester United in article after article, and the other is to say that Arsenal are flattering to deceive or to put it in techno speak “Arsenal’s underlying numbers suggest results are running ahead of performances.” In short …

Qarabag v Arsenal, and cabbages in the stand

By Bulldog Drummond One of the many annoying things about Arsenal having slipped out of the top four for the last two seasons is that when one looks for news about the club on the websites of the English newspapers one finds the articles dominated by pieces about last season’s top four.  The week’s European …

Tottenham complain about fixtures, but Arsenal have it worse. And Barce have no cash.

By Tony Attwood Just as the Mirror has told us that Arsenal are travelling without a backup keeper but with Ramsey, so other sources are telling us Ramsey has not travelled.  It really is all very confusing.  After all if we can’t trust our newspapers who can we trust?  (That’s irony.  The opposite of irony …

Qarabag v Arsenal: bizarre squad spotted by national newspaper. We can’t be that daft can we?

by Bulldog Drummond There is the strangest thing on the Sky site today (at least at the moment I write this) in which they have a page which they proclaim as covering the recent results of Arsenal and Qarabag. What it should be called however is a “selection of results from the two clubs with …

8 utterly extraordinary Arsenal stories circulating this morning

By Sir Hardly Anyone These stories have all “broken” this morning.  I thought you might enjoy seeing some old favourites. 1: Arsenal get more injuries than anyone else but now Tottenham are overtaking them Headline: ‘Nightmare’, ‘Turning into Arsenal’ – Some Tottenham fans react to reported season-ending injury. Source: This Is Futbol The tale:  Luke Amos …

Expected goals against like actual goals against do not tell anything like the whole story

By Tony Attwood I like statistics, and use them a lot.  But they have to be statistics that are realistically related to the real world.   Consider this for example from Statsbomb “Arsenal are conceding an eye popping 1.50 expected goals per match. The only five teams with worse defensive numbers than Emery’s team are Brighton, …

Arsenal training centre: the under 18s and 23, and the man who made it happen.

By Walter Broeckx This is the fourth and final part of our series on Arsenal’s training centre.  The earlier articles were: Untold Arsenal (and Arsenal Belgium) get the VIP treatment at London Colney Arsenal players exposed to temperatures of minus 160 degrees. London Colney Arsenal training centre: virtual reality and tales of past recoveries   …

Leicester 1 Arsenal 2: last night’s match at Holmes Park with Freddie Ljungberg

By Tony Attwood I don’t get to see that many under 23 games since every Arsenal first team home match involves a 175 mile round trip in the car, plus a train journey at the end, but when the game is not too far away and there’s someone else to go with then yes, I …

Arsenal under 23 v Leicester under 23. Another match to go and see.

By Tony Attwood Two of us went off to watch Arsenal at Coventry recently in the Checkatrade Trophy. Now its time to go and see the club in the under 23s league, known as Premier League 2 as tonight they are playing at Leicester. I occasionally use these games as a riposte to people who …

Arsenal training centre: virtual reality and tales of past recoveries

Recently Walter Broeckx, Untold’s regular correspondent and chair of Arsenal Belgium was invited by Arsenal to look around London Colney. The first parts of his reports appeared here Untold Arsenal (and Arsenal Belgium) get the VIP treatment at London Colney Arsenal players exposed to temperatures of minus 160 degrees. London Colney part 2. Now the …

How Arsenal’s win v Watford was re-written to fit with an alternative reality

By Marianna Trench, our in depth investigator What anyone reading a report of a match in a newspaper or on a blog has to realise is that football reports contain a lot of editing.  And the editing is not so much of the copy that is published, but of the reality that preceded it.     “Arsenal …

Bonkers drivel, start of World War III, and a load of complaints. What the papers say.

By Tony Attwood As you will know we have won seven League, Europa League and League Cup games in a row.  Or just in case you didn’t know here’s the list… Date Game Res Score Competition 25 Aug 2018 Arsenal v West Ham United W 3-1 Premier League 02 Sep 2018 Cardiff City v Arsenal …

Arsenal v Watfor. The teams and leapfrogging the high-flyers

By Bulldog Drummond There are some newspaper and blog headlines that are so bonkers it is hard to know if they are deliberately funny or just the result of a bot going haywire.  Take this for example Arsenal v Watford preview: Gunners can leapfrog high-flying opponents Now this whole notion of leapfrogging the high-flyers raises …

Arsenal v Watford: how Arsenal continue to win on pure luck

By Bulldog Drummoind Here’s a commentary from a newspaper reporter about Arsenal.   “Things are not quite clicking with the ball and for now they may have to be grateful for flourishes like Alexandre Lacazette’s super goal against Everton or Granit Xhaka’s free-kick at Newcastle. Watford will hope their run of good fortune does not last; …

Arsenal v Watford: a word from their boss, the results and the head to head

by Bulldog Drummond So let’s have a look at Watford’s flying start that got all the chattering bots chattering away with much excitement. Date Match Res Score Comp 11 Aug 2018 Watford v Brighton and Hove W 2-0 League 19 Aug 2018 Burnley v Watford W 1-3 League 26 Aug 2018 Watford v Crystal Palace …

After the Bees, the Hornets. Arsenal v Watford and that home and away thing

By Bulldog Drummond Watford, as you may recall if your long term memory is still functioning in this hyper-active full speed non-stop go-go-go world, started off with a real flourish this season, winning four league matches and a League Cup game all in a row.   As they roared towards the top of the league (“roared” …

Untold Arsenal (and Arsenal Belgium) get the VIP treatment at London Colney

By Walter Broeckx As the chairman of Arsenal Belgium supporters club I had the honour of visiting the Arsenal training ground at London Colney. Our liaison person at the club had organised this trip in order to give the official supporters clubs a bit of a bonus for all their hard work. I cannot thank …

Arsenal v Brentford: a tube strike, a pitch invasion, the moon, a hyperactive manager, the draw

By Tony Attwood Trying to get to Arsenal during a Piccadilly Line strike is fortunately not to hard for us since Blacksheep lives near one of the overground stations on the line into Finsbury Park.  But what we did spot which was interesting (if you are a long time Londoner and remember these things), was …

Arsenal v Brentford: the team, the news from Qatar, and the issue of moving seats

by Bulldog Drummond Sometimes the morning headlines are just so depressingly predictable, it seems impossible to know what to say.  Take this morning with the statement “Qatar migrant workers are still being exploited, says Amnesty report.  Charity says promised government reforms to ‘kafala’ system have not taken place.” You’d have to be blind and ignorant …

Arsenal v Brentford: who will play? All the fun of the league cup

By Bulldog Drummond Last season as you will recall we toddled through to the final of the league cup and then fell over at a time when we couldn’t win our away games.   Playing the billionaire champions at the home of Tottenham Nomads all proved a bit too much. Date Game Res Score 20 Sep …

Arsenal Women v West Ham – Post match review and a look forward

Arsenal Women v West Ham – Post match review and a look forward By Andrew Crawshaw Arsenal Women played West Ham with a 14:00 kickoff on Sunday at Borehamwood prior to the Men’s first team game at the Emirates with a 16:00 kickoff. That gave me a quandry – which of the two games would …

The seven phases of Arsenal, plus PSG and some funny financial doings

By Tony Attwood Here’s one to give you a laugh… “Arsenal sensationally in the running to re-sign Manchester United star Alexis Sanchez.” Oh these journalists! What wags they are!  Always there with their jolly japes.  Although I can’t believe that anyone programmed a bot to write that.  That looks like a spanner in the works. …

Arsenal v Brentford: the things you don’t need to know, like the fact they keep beating us.

By Bulldog Drummond Of course you don’t actually need to know anything about Brentford ahead of the Arsenal v Brentford game but since no one is writing much about the match I thought I’d jump in a bit early and add a few comments before the “all you need to know” articles start being plastered …