by Tony Attwood There is a growing proposition in newspapers and elsewhere that Arsenal don’t really have any advantage over Manchester United because their two “games in hand” are rather difficult – Tottenham and Chelsea away. In fact that suggestion is that Manchester United have the advantage, although quite how that is the case is …
By Tony Attwood I have had the good fortune to go to Cup Finals Arsenal have won, and indeed to watch games in which Arsenal won the league, and of course each was a great joyous and memorable occasion. But really that game last night was up there with those matches for the intensity of …
By Bulldog Drummond Previously Checking the pundit’s accuracy: How Lawrenson gets Arsenal oh so wrong. Arsenal v Wolverhampton: who is injured and who is going to score the goals? Arsenal v Wolverhampton the history in videos, and the stats When the two clubs met recently they had each played 21 games which made life easier …
By Bulldog Drummond Prelude: The Arsenal History Society has published collections of historic videos for matches against many of our regular rivals. Below Here are the Wolverhampton Wanderers videos. Day by Day the videos – An Arsenal video for (almost) every day of the year in order. Day by Day the stories– a key moment in Arsenal and footballing …
By Sir Hardly Anyone As you will recall, I’m sure, we recently played Wolverhampton and so went through all the regular analyses that we do prior to each game, for that first round. So there is only a minimal about to say now. Indeed we seemingly don’t even have any injuries – the only person …
By Tony Attwood Just how easy is it to be a pundit? Mark Lawrenson has, for many years, earned to corn by punditing (or would that be punditting with the double t – I’m not too sure) on the BBC each week, predicting the scores. You can see one of his recent efforts here. What …
By Tony Attwood Much of the chatter about Arsenal has settled down a bit, perhaps with the media realising that in the light of the reality of league tables taken over time, the media has been looking rather stupid. But still, there is the relentless push to say that Arsenal must have a new …
By Tony Attwood Many of us have for many years been worried about CAS (the Court of Arbitration for Sport), the Supreme Court of all the sports, because of its bizarre history of rulings. There has been a feeling for a long time that CAS is remote, and of course, as the final arbiter, it …
By Sir Hardly Anyone There is a growing concern among our friends in the Toppled Bollard public house – favoured watering hole of the journalistic elite, that there is not enough antagonism and divisiveness in football at the moment. Indeed, ever anxious to stoke up more nastiness, aggression, and ultimately violence Football.London, the website of …
By Tony Attwood It is a story that has often been pushed around: Arsenal are in trouble because they have such a small squad. Give me Sport for example on 1 February this year led with the headline Arsenal’s squad depth is seriously concerning, continuing with the sarcastic note that “Perhaps the only saving …
by Tony Attwood Of late the Belgian league has been troubled by match-fixing allegations dating back to the 2013-2014 season. According to various news sources in Belgium, Roland Duchâtelet, former president of Standard Liege, as well as two players of the club, have filed a complaint against Anderlecht and RC Genk. Now Roland Duchâtelet is …
By Tony Attwood Arsenal’s next two games were supposed to be against Wolverhampton at home on Thursday and Chelsea away on Sunday but with Chelsea in the League Cup final that game has been re-arranged. So Wolverhampton is all we have to worry about this week! (Apologies, I hadn’t realised that when the article first …
By Tony Attwood There really is little left in the universe for the raging anti-Arsenal Mirror and their pals on Football.London, the Express, the Sunday People, the Star and over 100 local daily newspapers to write about. So instead they are making up tales about “Arsenal are running provisional checks on Spain midfielder Fabian Ruiz …
By Tony Attwood In the last article I noted the “last six matches” table which shows that taking just the last six league games into account for all the clubs in the Premier League we are second only to Liverpool, and (if I may stress this) ABOVE MANCHESTER CITY ON GOAL DIFFERENCE. Now I capitalise …
By Tony Attwood And so on one of the more bizarre days of recent years (for me if no one else) I watched Arsenal have their expected victory against a team playing in the way the pundits used to call “dogged” Arsenal did as expected and won. Even the media seemed to find it so …
by Bulldog Drummond. It is always interesting when this day comes around in the season to look and see where we were before – for this of course is the day when the opening matches of the campaign are reversed. As a result we played Brentford away in the first match of the season at …
By Bulldog Drummond Arsenal v Brentford: injuries, tackles, fouls, yellows Arsenal v Brentford… Against each other and the all important recent form… Do Arsenal really urgently need a striker as the media says? As for Brentford the BBC tell us, “The Bees could lose five consecutive away league matches for the first time in 11 …
By Bulldog Drummond Previously: Arsenal v Brentford… Against each other and the all important recent form… In the Guardian today we have the following commentary… “Aside from the quality that has been added since, Arsenal seem to have developed a grittiness that has served them well in recent weeks.” Grittiness indeed – that seems like …
By Bulldog Drummond Brentford are one of the small number of clubs that have beaten Arsenal, more than Arsenal have beaten them. We’ve won four, four have been drawn and they have won six – including of course the first match of this season. After a Woolwich Arsenal cup game in 1902 which was a …
By Tony Attwood The point about our recent series (links at the end of this article) on The Media Conspiracy is not specifically to show that the media is made up of a bunch of ill-formed or highly speculative writers, but rather to show that the approach the media has taken to football leads to …
This is the concluding part of the series on the media conspiracy against Arsenal. Previously… The media conspiracy against Arsenal. Part 1: How it unfolded. Conspiracy, laziness, or stupidity. Part 2 How the media missed the big Arsenal story Is there really a conspiracy against Arsenal? Part 3: Ownership, laziness and repetition The evidence of …
Previously in this series… The conspiracy against Arsenal. Part 1: How it unfolded. Conspiracy, laziness, or stupidity. Part 2 How the media missed the big Arsenal story Is there really a conspiracy against Arsenal? Part 3: Ownership, laziness and repetition By Tony Attwood In the last article in this series we looked at four key …
Top professional footballers have beyond doubt been given a staggering natural talent – a talent that can bring them in an income that is beyond the wildest dreams of most “mere mortals”. But, of course, they have to work hard on the training ground to keep up the level of fitness and talent that allows …
by Tony Attwood Preface: this little series was initially planned as a three-parter, but as I have gone on I’ve felt the need to cover more and more topics that support the thesis that there is something wrong with the media’s reporting of the Premier League. I suspect this will end up as a five …
By Tony Attwood This article follows on from The media conspiracy against Arsenal. Part 1: How it unfolded. In part one of this short series, I argued that the media (TV, radio, newspapers, bloggers) united to ignore key elements in what was happening at Arsenal last season, and in the early stages of this season …
