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
By Tony Attwood When football authorities order the media to delete the video, we really have problems One of my main complaints about the English media’s coverage of football is that it is not only anglophile, but also highly selective, ignoring the notion that there is a different focus elsewhere both on what issues are …
Read More “In football the view from Europe is quite different from the view from England”
By Tony Attwood Does the media really have an effect on Arsenal results The headline this morning on the Liverpool.com website reads Liverpool still have three trophies to parade as serious Real Madrid question is for another day Which may come as a little bit of a surprise. We know that for the fifth time …
Read More “When football authorities order the media to delete the video, we really have problems”
Does the media really have an effect on Arsenal results Marquinhos to Arsenal. Is it really true that Arsenal could face a transfer ban? By Sir Hardly Anyone. One of the things we have shown many times over the years is that there is often no direct link between the amount of money spent by …
Read More “What impact did big spending have on results this past season?”
By Tony Attwood My own view, based on two strands of clear evidence and then extrapolating the likely effect it that yes, the media does have an effect on Arsenal’s results. I’ll try and explain how. First, we know that different referees have different levels of bias toward the home teams and against away teams. …
Read More “Does the media really have an effect on Arsenal results”
By Tony Attwood 81 players arriving, 27 leaving: the media’s wild take on Arsenal’s transfers this summer Out of contract players: are Arsenal just being sloppy in retaining players? UK government increases its active involvement in football, but is that good? In one sense the tale of Arsenal facing a transfer ban is of course …
Read More “Marquinhos to Arsenal. Is it really true that Arsenal could face a transfer ban?”
Out of contract players: are Arsenal just being sloppy in retaining players? By Sir Hardly Anyone The case of Adam Hlozek shows us exactly how the media work these days. Before the last couple of days, there has been no mention anywhere of the forward wanting to come to Arsenal, or of Arsenal being interested …
By Sir Hardly Anyone UK government increases its active involvement in football, but is that good? Saka and the world cup: a worrying scenario In the media, there is always a lot of debate about how Arsenal regularly lets players’ contracts run down, and how stupid this is. (And it is interesting that it is …
Read More “Out of contract players: are Arsenal just being sloppy in retaining players?”
By Tony Attwood According to an article in the Guardian, the UK government did indeed encourage Premier League to approve Newcastle even though the Prime Minister has said repeatedly that the government had no role in the affair at any point. Presumably, this was done to increase investment in the UK and to smooth the …
Read More “UK government increases its active involvement in football, but is that good?”
A ten point penalty for each club whose fans invade the pitch? Arsenal Women 2021/22 Review Part 4: Player of the Season and where do we go from here In the Premier League 2021/2, 50% of refs showed signs of persistent bias By Sir Hardly Anyone A report in the Telegraph newspaper tells us that …
By Sir Hardly Anyone https://youtu.be/WN3KkC5E2nY For many years employers (including of course football clubs) have been responsible for ensuring the health and safety of players at work (ie for football that means in training and in playing in matches). Health and safety is widely accepted as meaning being free from threats of abuse as well …
Read More “A ten point penalty for each club whose fans invade the pitch?”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Mike Dean, Jonathan Moss and Martin Atkinson all retire after the last round of games in the Premier League this season. But are they biased referees, or the ones who can ignore the crowd and referee the game without crowd interference? That has become the prime question but not a new …
Read More “In the Premier League 2021/2, 50% of refs showed signs of persistent bias”
By Tony Attwood Of course most of the time – indeed we might say almost all of the time – most football fans in England don’t spare a moment to think about how the rest of the world sees us. We are told by our own media that the Premier League is the best in …
Read More “What does Europe think of the Premier League? Less and less it seems”
By Sir Hardly Anyone and a slide rule Arsenal Women 2021-22 Season Review: Part 2 WSL Match by Match highs and lows The ten things we really learned from the 2021/2 season When people talk about teams making progress they tend to talk in generalisations without giving any statistics to justify what are often preposterous …
Read More “So did Arsenal make progress this season? And what of the rest.”
The worry for those who attend games is what will happen in the summer 1: We have by far the best song in football, ever. The choreography was perfect – which is not something you often hear in relation to Arsenal. But it was. At the final moment just before kickoff when we thought the …
Read More “The ten things we really learned from the 2021/2 season”
By Tony Attwood As a final look at the Arsenal v Everton game today, we take a quick look back at the past through historic videos. On the Arsenal History Society website we have collected together videos of Arsenal games, sorted by the teams played against as well as by date. Below are the details …
Read More “Arsenal v Everton: looking back at the videos from earlier years…”
Today we celebrate the short life of one of Arsenal’s greatest ever goalscorers. By Bulldog Drummond So here we are with the last team preview of the season… The referee is Andre Marriner. And that is not good news for Arsenal for while the vast majority of the referees have reverted since the pandemic to …
Read More “Arsenal v Everton: the big worries about the referee, and the team”
By Bulldog Drummond Arsenal have beaten Everton 98 times in the 1st Division and Premier League – a record for one club against the same opponent. Everton have the most seasons in the top level of English football in part because they joined the football league when it was just a northern and west midlands …
Read More “Arsenal v Everton: A game with a grand tradition, plus a tradition of accuracy lost”
By Bulldog Drummond Without those opening 3 defeats, Arsenal would be fine. AFC v Everton preview Rob Holding has served his suspension and so will be available for the final game of the season. Kieran Tierney has undergone surgery and so is obviously out as is Thomas Partey. Takehiro Tomiyasu suffered from a muscular strain …
Read More “Arsenal injuries and suspensions, Evertonian violence, lunatic predictions”
By Tony Attwood The question, as we approach the final game, is this: are Arsenal making progress? And the answer is yes. Not at first, but now, yes. We have obviously done better this season than in the last two seasons under Mike Arteta, and are on a level once again with 2019 – Unai …
Read More “Without those opening 3 defeats, Arsenal would be fine. AFC v Everton preview”
By Tony Attwood If clubs cannot control their fans, their stadiums should be closed proclaims the Telegraph The rise of disorder at football: why is it happening and what can be done? asks the Guardian commenting on a “shocking rise in disorder” Football arrests ‘highest in years’ & disorder on the rise – police announces …
Read More “The worry for those who attend games is what will happen in the summer”
The Transfers Arsenal Need To Make In Summer 2022 By Jonathan Strange It’s looking like a bitter end to the season for Arsenal but many fans seem to be forgetting just how promising this emotional rollercoaster of a year has been. Sure, it’s not looking like we’re going to finish in fourth place, but it …
Read More “The Transfers Arsenal Need To Make In Summer 2022”
What Arsenal really need now is a new image maker The two faced approach of football regulators to corruption By Tony Attwood There is an article on the Telegraph website today about pitch invasions, which has the headline, “If clubs cannot control their fans, their stadiums should be closed.” And I suspect anyone who …
Read More “The incredible lengths the media will go to, to avoid blaming the FA for anything”
By Tony Attwood The two faced approach of football regulators to corruption It’s the same old problems at Arsenal. But what are the same old problems? PR and advertising have for many a long year been dirty words in England with the notion that both trades aim to turn things into what they are not …
Read More “What Arsenal really need now is a new image maker”
To cover up its acceptance of Russia, Fifa expands its powerbase still further. by Tony Attwood As we have often noted, it is a prime mantra of Fifa that football authorities should not be subject to the demands of national governments but should in fact be utterly independent except that they are answerable to the …
Read More “The two faced approach of football regulators to corruption”
By Tony Attwood The benefits of the Europa League, plus Chelsea sale on the edge of collapse There is an article in the Telegraph that has the headline “New-look Arsenal have been undone by the same old problems during late-season stumble” which I have read with some interest, as I was hoping the piece would …
Read More “It’s the same old problems at Arsenal. But what are the same old problems?”
