Arsenal have managed to halve muscle injuries sustained by Academy players

“The amount of muscle injuries sustained by young players in the Academy there has been cut in half over the last three years.” By Tony Attwood   The story concerns Des Ryan, Arsenal’s head of sports medicine and athletic development and the headline above the story reads, “Galway native Des Ryan has managed to halve …

The decline of Chelsea and the foresight of Wenger all explained in one player

By Tony Attwood Do take a look at the link to the Indy video at the end.  Try not to laugh.  At least not too much.  You don’t want your boss to know you’re watching football rather than working. In June 2014 Cesc Fabregas signed for Chelsea. At £27 million, he was cheaper than Alexis Sánchez, …

Norwich Arsenal, the facts and figures and some made up stuff too.

By Bulldog Drummond Continuing the most in-depth and at times slightly silly preview of the match, which has already included Norwich v Arsenal: Arsenal to field only nine players because of injury crisis Bumping into the Arsenal squad at London Luton Airport, and toffs, when coming out of Norwich Norwich v Arsenal 29 November 2015 …

Norwich v Arsenal: Arsenal to field only nine players because of injury crisis

 By Bulldog Drummond . Yes it certainly is tough days for Arsenal with everyone including have the managerial staff, most of the ball boys and girls and quite a few of those people who stand in the gangways so you can’t get to and from your seat easily, all injured. . I know this to …

Bumping into the Arsenal squad at London Luton Airport, and toffs when coming out of Norwich

By Tony Attwood Last night, me and the Arsenal team went to Luton Airport. Unfortunately we didn’t bump into each other but of course we might have done, and in these days of football journalism even a 1% chance is worthy of a headline claiming it happened. I was there to meet Mandy who was …

Norwich v Arsenal 29 November 2015 – The Match Officials

Norwich v Arsenal 29 November 2015 – The Match Officials by Andrew Crawshaw One new referee reviews to add in to the Table of Shame which now looks like this :- Wrong Important Decisions Favouring Arsenal Favouring Opponents 2nd Yellow Cards 0 14 Red Cards 0 7 Penalties 1 11 Goals 0 4 Total 1 …

When opinion is formed without evidence it can get screamingly side-splittingly funny

By Tony Attwood On Thursday 26 November the sports editor of the Guardian ordered his staff out of the pub and told them to write articles under the heading Premier League: the race for the title (and Europe) A thrillingly open Premier League season has left more than half the teams chasing big prizes. We …

A big stick to beat our dead horse with

……….Don McMahon “The big sticks they carry are in reality tiny twigs and the dead horse they try and beat is, in actual fact, a magnificent stallion that is beginning to kick their collective arses and will rise above them all come May.”   Arsenal are now in a crisis of sorts, having lost to …

Who would you chose to be in your team? Irrespective of the fact that they are not available

. MY  EXTREME   FANTASY  FOOTBALL TEAM . . From  The Brickfields Gunners  Blog . . Do you remember that  great old  football  ad from Nike where the devil ‘s team took on the stars of world football? No?   Here quickly watch it and get up to speed.  ‘After Chelsea’s poor start to the …

Northampton and Leeds in a mess; using taxpayers money, the role of the local MP; the hopelessness of the League.

by Tony Attwood Why is it that football clubs make such easy pickings for criminals?  We’ve often noted clubs from Portsmouth to Rangers and the way they have been destroyed from within and you might wonder if the Football League and Scottish League shouldn’t by now be alert to the tricks that crooks play within …

Which is the dirtiest team in the Premier League, who are the dirtiest players?

By Tony Attwood Following my occasional jaunts around statistics in terms of how well expensive players do when they are brought into a team, and how many players are injured, I thought it might be interesting to look at the team committing the most fouls in the Premier League. I’m interested in this because my …

The strange story of how “Wenger confirms Arsenal have found emergency replacement for Coquelin”

By Sir Hardly Anyone. This is a story from the Daily Football Blog, which is identical in style, design, format and attitude, to the Football Columnist blog which is identical in style, design, format and attitude to Gooners Den, which is … (ok you get the idea) The headline as they present the story is… …

I’m afraid it is an injury crisis now

Tim Charlesworth   In the last few weeks, I have been desperately trying to persuade myself that we are not in an injury crisis.  A genuine injury crisis is the sort of thing that destroys title challenges.  A few minor muscular injuries are not a disaster.  Over a season, you are bound to get a …

Arsenal v Zagreb, the world turned upside down.

By Tony Attwood Arsenal have a mega injury crisis.  We know that because it is in all the papers.   But the Daily Mail today publishes a piece bemoaning the fate of poor Joel Campbell who, Adam Shergold writes, “produced one of his best performances in the red shirt as the Gunners won handsomely by …

Arsenal play a team whose player failed a drug test. So what is Uefa’s reaction?

By Tony Attwood Arsène Wenger has revealed that the response of Uefa to his criticism of the way they handle doping has been to send 10 anti-doping officers to Arsenal’s training ground last Friday to carry out random checks on his players. And who would expect otherwise?  Target Zagreb?  Ask why Olympiacos F.C. are still …

Arsenal v Dinamo Zagreb; there are matters lurking beneath

This preview is respectfully dedicated to the memory of Adam Brogden by Joe Let’s start with a rather bizarre story about continuity. Or lack of it. You see, nobody knows for sure how old GNK (“GNK” stands for “Građanski nogometni klub” or “Bourgeois football club“) Dinamo Zagreb actually is. If you take the current official story …

A typical week in the life of an Arsenal scout

By Danny Karbassiyoon Danny Karbassiyoon is an ex-Arsenal player who went on to become Arsenal’s scout in North and Central America.   Danny’s autobiography, Danny Karbassiyoon – what’s it like? will be published by Untold Arsenal in the next couple of months. Before receiving a phone call from Arsenal’s Chief Scout with an offer to join …

There has to be some good news somewhere. Ah, here it is

By Tony Attwood Of course defeats get me down.  They always have, ever since I was a child supporting a very weak Arsenal team indeed. But I learned, as I moved out of childhood, that you can’t let these things get at you.   I can’t do anything about Arsenal’s performance; indeed I’m not sure …

Oh no, it’s Pulis away. Push-knock-kick-shove-foul-push-kick-shove.

By Bulldog Drummond. . So we go into this game with quite a record.   Top of the ratings according to WhoScored.com R Team Shots pg Discipline Possession% PassSuccess% Rating 1 Arsenal 16.1 682 55.7 83.8 7.15 2 Manchester City 17.6 772 57.0 84.6 7.07 3 Chelsea 14.8 734 54.1 83.2 7.06 4 Manchester United …

WBA v Arsenal 21 November 2015 – The Match Officials. Beware the assistant refs!

West Bromwich Albion v Arsenal Saturday 21 November 2015 – The Match Officials by Andrew Crawshaw   First here is the updated Table of Shame following the referee reviews of the Everton and Swansea games Referee Review: Arsenal – Everton : the dead sparrow review Lee Mason in charge for this one.  58% overall weighted …

The governance of Arsenal. How hard can it be?

by Tony Attwood Remember Portsmouth FC?  Won the FA Cup in 2008, and were runners up in 2010.   Went through a lot of owners with their own unique brand of governance.  Now playing in the fourth division, after a seemingly endless series of owners did the dirty on the club.  Oh and there was …

Football: a powerful force for good in the world

. ByDon McMahon Unless you have actually seen terrorism and the extremist mentality that fostered it, it is hard to comprehend. Having lived and worked in the Middle East and seen the everyday Muslim, versus the tiny minority of fanatics, it comes as no surprise that one of the terrorists’ aims was to generate and …

Is Governance the Problem at Arsenal?

By Vintage Gooner Who owns Arsenal and how is it governed? Although many fans would answer that Arsenal belongs to us, the truth is that we fans are just consumers of goods and services from the club we love. We are very important to the club but this gives us no element of ownership. Good …