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 Although no one has done an analysis on the subject there is quite possibly a link between covid 19 and watching football. Obviously people get covid 19 by being in close proximity with other people who get covid 19 and by no being vaccinated against the virus. But there is a lot …
Read More “Why football supporters might be more susceptible to covid 19”
By Tony Attwood “Revealed: expected goals being used in football’s war against match-fixing” That is a headline in the Guardian over an article by Sean Ingle, the newspaper’s chief sports writer. As far as it goes, it is ok, in that it admits that all is not right with football, but sadly it doesn’t seem …
Read More “After 12 years of pressure, the media suddenly awakens to the idea of match fixing”
By Tony Attwood In the article “What Arsenal need now” I wrote that “Defeats happen, we all know that. Defeats are not the problem. The problem is letting the occasional defeat become a series of defeats (occasionally interspersed with draws). “If you want the secret to how the Wenger teams consistently ended up in the …
Read More “Returning to goal scoring, but are Arsenal yet on top 4 or even top 6 form?”
by Bulldog Drummond The BBC confirms that we will be without Thomas Partey, who has a strained hamstring and Kieran Tierney who has a leg injury. Bernd Leno and David Luiz are of course available. That site also reminds us of the earlier meeting at Elland Road when Nicolas Pepe was sent off in a …
By Bulldog Drummond As we have noted many times, the problem this season is not at all to do with defence – we have one of the best defences in the league. Our problem is entirely in attack. The league table of Premier League clubs arranged by goals scored (created at 5.30pm last night so …
Read More “Arsenal v Leeds: the Arsenal problem with goal scoring.”
By Bulldog Drummond As we saw in the last article Arsenal are caught in a perfect referees’ trap for Leeds match. Our one hope is that as with the Leicester’s expansions of the tackling and penalty-gaining rules, now the negative way Arsenal are being treated is exposed the referees know they have been rumbled, and …
Read More “Arsenal v Leeds: the home/away split, and the gaslighting influence”
By Bulldog Drummond In our post on 12 February we showed that Arsenal, are undertaking a tiny number of tackles compared with Leeds United… 278 by Arsenal; 424 by Leeds so far this season. And Leeds, remember have played one game fewer than Arsenal. But why on earth would Arsenal tackle so much less than …
Read More “Arsenal caught in a perfect referees’ trap for Leeds match. But will the ref change?”
By Tony Attwood It looks a little as if the publicity we have given to our regular chart which compares tackles, fouls, yellow cards and penalties might be having an impact. This table (a new edition is at the end of this article) is unique – no one else has ever looked at such things …
Read More “New fouls and yellow card data suggest refs are reacting to club ploys.”
By Tony Attwood We’ve been discussing from time to time how Arsenal let young players slip through their fingers and go elsewhere. The implication in the media is that it is always Arsenal’s fault, and no other club makes the same cockups as Arsenal. And indeed it is interesting that one player we held on …
Read More “It’s not just Arsenal who buy players that flop, but it’s always Arsenal’s fault”
By Tony Attwood Arsenal buy the wrong players, pay over the odds when we do make a signing, and let brilliant youngsters slip through their hands and can’t keep our youth players who are always being poached. Right? Well that is certainly the story put about by the media, and encouraged by bloggers. Hundreds of …
Read More “Folarin Balogun: Is Arsenal’s transfer team the absolute worst in the country?”
By Tony Attwood Defeats happen, we all know that. Defeats are not the problem. The problem is letting the occasional defeat become a series of defeats (occasionally interspersed with draws). If you want the secret to how the Wenger teams consistently ended up in the top four in the Premier League, this is it. In …
Read More “What Arsenal need now is so simple that surely everyone can see it.”
By Tony Attwood Although the media didn’t note it at the time, because they never note anything that is not sanctioned by PGMO, the introduction of VAR gave us one of the more amusing moments from PGMO’s history. It was Sky Sports, one of the most solid upholders of PGMO’s god-like status, who in a …
Read More “Revealed: PL referees are not 98% accurate but actually just 75% accurate”
by Tony Attwood If you want to encourage people to attack a specific group there is one simple way to do it. You make the group secret and select, while you make it clear that group has power. At once people become resentful and angry. They feel excluded, and start blaming the secret group for …
Read More “Abuse of players and referees is in part at least, PGMO’s own fault.”
By Tony Attwood Of course when I wrote my little series on refereeing (links at the end of this piece) about the way in which discussion of referees and their activities is non-existent I had no idea that Mike Dean was about the get death threats. Obviously I am as appalled as anyone about …
Read More “If PGMO don’t act now, someone is going to get seriously hurt.”
By Tony Attwood On this site we have often pondered the relationship between transfer expenditure and trophies won, and regularly reached the conclusion that the two are not as directly linked as some fans and most journalists and bloggers like to think. Indeed in the seasons before the virus came along football transfers (most of …
Read More “How much does Arsenal need to spend to win more trophies?”
By Tony Attwood Previously in this series: Are the referees and the media really out to get Arsenal, or am I just imagining it? How discussions about refereeing are deliberately stifled by the media Referees: the odd statistics that are simply never revealed or discussed How we have been utterly misled about football: part 4 …
Read More “Hiding the problem of refereeing is destroying the credibility of the Premier League”
By Tony Attwood This is part four of the series on Arsenal, referees and the media. The earlier parts are: Are the referees and the media really out to get Arsenal, or am I just imagining it? How discussions about refereeing are deliberately stifled by the media Referees: the odd statistics that are simply never …
Read More “How we have been utterly misled about football: part 4”
By Tony Attwood This is part three of the series on Arsenal, referees and the media. The earlier parts are: Are the referees and the media really out to get Arsenal, or am I just imagining it? How discussions about refereeing are deliberately stifled by the media And interestingly as I came to post this …
Read More “Referees: the odd statistics that are simply never revealed or discussed”
By Tony Attwood This article continues from Are the referees and the media really out to get Arsenal, or am I just imagining it? I concluded that earlier piece by making the point that news is invariably selected by news outlets to fit an existing agenda. Which raises the question, is there a conscious …
Read More “How discussions about refereeing are deliberately stifled by the media”
By Tony Attwood This is part one of our series on gaslighting 2: How discussions about refereeing are deliberately stifled by the media 3: Referees: the odd statistics that are simply never revealed or discussed 4: How we have been utterly misled about football: part 4 5: Hiding the problem of refereeing is destroying the …
Read More “Are the referees and the media really out to get Arsenal, or am I just imagining it?”
By Tony Attwood When Mr Wenger left Arsenal in May 2018, we were sixth, with a points per game for that season of 1.66. When Mr Emery left Arsenal he points per game had sunk to 1.38 and we were 8th. Today the points per game for this season is 1.34 and we are 10th, …
Read More “Changing managers, buying players: what works? An Arsenal/Chelsea comparison”
By Bulldog Drummond In the old days the journalists would always write, “the games are coming thick and fast for Arsenal”, and they would write that every time we had a mid-week game as well as a weekend match. Strangely back in the 1920s when clubs used to play on Christmas Day, Boxing Day, a …
By Bulldog Drummond Our review of the referee performances this year with Arsenal and Aston Villa, and our review of the home and away performances of the club, and the review of recent games, all suggest the two sides are evenly matched. We’ve also noted that the most common result in the Premier League this …
Read More “Aston Villa v Arsenal: what we need is another run of successive victories”
By Bulldog Drummond Back in the days of Arsene Wenger the media used to give attention to injury totals in order to “prove” that he was the cause of Arsenal’s high level of injuries. This was of course completely untrue, and we discovered several sets of data that were completely faked in order to “prove” …
Read More “Aston Villa v Arsenal: “We’re trying to manage Tierney”; Arsenal 5% advantage”
By Bulldog Drummond For a few weeks at the start of the season Arsenal and Aston Villa were high flying clubs, but that quickly slipped away. Villa have now played a uniquely low level of home games but when it comes to comparing Villa’s home form with Arsenal’s away form, the parallels are obvious, …
Read More “Aston Villa v Arsenal: statistics point to a balanced game.”
