By Tony Attwood There is a lovely article in the Guardian in relation to American football which begins, “Sports forecasts aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.” Well yes, I think many of us will go with that. And when it comes to, “The problem with predictions in this space is that they are comically flawed,” …
by Bulldog Drummond The weather forecast for Östersund this Thursday evening is currently showing -5 degrees centigrade but taking into account wind speeds and humidity this is going to feel like -12°C. Or put another way about 10.5°F. Or put another way bloody cold. Östersund’s last match before the winter freeze was on 7 December when they …
By Sir Hardly Anyone. So here we have it: the Laugh of the Week… Arsenal suffer massive injury blow as top four hopes take battering Yes that’s the horror headline from the bloggetta IB Times which appeared on many of the news accumultor sites. Click on it, and in HUGE bold letters it really looks …
By Tony Attwood I am sure there will be many who will agree with a headline in the Daily Telegraph that reads “Arsenal are still exhibiting all their old failings with expensive new personnel” and another in the same paper today, “Harry Kane goal confirms power shift in North London”. Or in the Independent “Derby …
By Bulldog Drummond In case you have not seen it there is a wonderful comment following Andrew’s review of the referee, in which the reader goes on quite a little rant complaining that the piece was a waste of time, and that for our analysis to make any sense it should have contained a review …
By Bulldog Drummond. Tucked away in an article in the Guardian today about how wonderful life is becoming for Tottenham, is the fact that upon completion of their stadium Tottenham “will have banks debts of £400m to repay over a five-year period and they have pledged to find the rest of the required £850m themselves.” …
By Bulldog Drummond This game at Wembley is one that is going to require nerves to be held. A look at Arsenal’s away record in the league shows why for Arsenal’s away form is at the heart of this season’s slip back into sixth place. Pos Team P W D L F A GD Pts …
by Sir Hardly Anyone Our Rutland resident with a rundown on reality Since our last flip around the players coming to Arsenal this summer (according to the media who know a thing or two, or well, a thing anyway) the list of new arrivals has slowed down this week, although we still have four new …
Text and graphic from Oulala Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has found the back of the net four times in four appearances against Tottenham, averaging a goal every 88 minutes. An impressive record in itself, however when measured against a number of Arsenal’s best scorers in the Premier League era, stats from daily fantasy football game Oulala.com show Aubameyang is …
by Tony Attwood Before Arsene Wenger arrived in England, but when he had been announced as Arsenal’s new manager, Tony Adams made the comment that many were thinking and others had said before him. Speaking of Wenger he said, “He’s French. What does he know about English football?” Well Adams learned quite quickly. And it …
By Tony Attwood Does it matter where your club owner lives? You may recall (if you are an avid reader of my meanderings) that I have dealt with the residency of Arsenal’s minority owner Alisher Usmanov and his move to Switzerland as part of his work with the International Fencing Federation. Mr Usmanov’s company USM Holdings …
By Sir Hardly Anyone Yes I know, the market doesn’t open for months and months but the journalistas and their bloggetta chums down the pub are busy making up stories as if anyone still believed them. Plus we have tales of the next Arsenal manager, the departures (including one forced because of money …
By Tony Attwood There is a headline in the Telegraph which reads, “Exclusive: Premier League under pressure for independent inquiry into referee Jon Moss’s handling of penalty award.” Leaving aside the inaccurate use of the Saxon genitive to turn “Moss’ handling” into the completely ungrammatical “Moss’s handling” the issue which relates to the match between …
by Tony Attwood Arsenal could have done so much better this season, but thankfully there is still some of the season left so they might well have time to sort this out and make things right. Here are just five of the failures of Arsenal thus far… They have 1: Continued to hold press conferences …
By Tony Attwood Paul Heckingbottom signed a new rolling contract with Barnsley last Friday. Leeds United sacked their manager Thomas Christiansen last Sunday. Paul Heckingbottom’s new contract had a release clause in it. Leeds offered him a job, he accepted it and so on Tuesday Heckingbottom has gone to Leeds, four days after signing a new …
By Sir Hardly Anyone For the last two years we’ve done a review through the summer of the wild and wacky transfer gibberish that passes for news in many of our national newspapers and on the bloggettas. Each of the last two summers have had just over 100 players rumoured to join Arsenal, and of …
By Sir Hardly Anyone. Apparently there was an anti-Wenger protest at the Arsenal on Saturday evening… but very people turned up because of the rain. At least that is what one of the bloggettas says, with pictures of a few guys hanging around Arsenal tube station. Which is a bit odd because I used the …
By Tony Attwood It was rather sad in a way to hear Alan Greene on Radio 5 doing the Liverpool Tottenham match and being utterly restrained in what he said about the refereeing in the game. Even if he thought all the decisions near the end of the match were completely right, in the good …
by Andrew Crawshaw and Tony Attwood (all mistakes are Tony’s fault – two earlier problems have now been fixed). We now have a list of all the players aged over 21 (by the League’s definition of qualifying dates). As you’ll know of course, only 25 such players can be listed – but all registered players …
By Tony Attwood Here’s a little stat that amused me yesterday evening. As the media had told us a thousand times over this, was the 500th Premier League match as a manager of a famous large man with a dubious character. He’d been involved in 2006 in allegations of corruption against him and his son. …
By Bulldog Drummond It is difficult to get a firm fix on how bad the illness affecting Aubameyang and Wilshere is, or was, which makes the thoughts of predicting the team for the match this evening even more difficult. Everyone being fit I would go with Cech Bellerin Koscielny Mustafi Monreal Ramsey Wilshere Ozil Aubameyang …
By Bulldog Drummond According to Physioroom, Aubameyang is ill, and will have a late fitness test. Jack Wilshere is also ill and likewise will have a late fitness test, and Danny Welbeck is out with a muscular injury. Everton are reported to have four injuries: McCarthy – broken leg Baines – muscle strain Stekelenburg – …
by Bulldog Drummond Of course it was too good to last, all this anti-everyone else and laying off the Arsenal, and within a few hours of our piece about a change in the way the newspapers see Arsenal we were back to the snarling norm with “Mesut Özil, Yaya Sanogo and Arsène Wenger’s ticking doomsday …
By Josif Ahead of our first chance to see Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Emiliano Francois Aubameyang for the first time at a home game, we take a look at our two new players, and bid them welcome. Henrikh Mkhitaryan is only 29 but it is safe to say he is the greatest Armenian player of all times. …
By Dr Billy “the dog” McGraw Something odd is going on. The mainstream upmarket media appear, for the moment at least, to have gone soft on Arsenal and are picking on everyone else. The bloggettas however, oft written by robots as they are, are staying with their long term objective of knocking. Such is their …
